Rating: 
Summary: An improvement on the RTS engine
Review: I really didn't know what I was going into buying "Rise of Nations." I was already a fan of "Empire Earth" and had heard RoN was so-so. Then I met an individual who told me it was definately worth my while, so the minute I had spending money I went to my local Best Buy and got me a copy. Not only was I impressed, but RoN soon replaced EE as my game crack!Like EE, you play a game against computer opponents on a variety of maps and victory conditions (conquest, wonders, etc). You also get to update your culture through the different time periods - although unlike EE, RoN does not have a high-tech future with fighting robots. You get things like "advanced battleship" and ICBM missiles in the last tech tree, but that's about it. Also, like EE, you can choose what culture level you start and end at. The added bonus is that the different updates and micro-managing of your civilization techs reminds me of the Age-of-Empires or even Age-of-Mythology games. The different ways you can customize the head-on games alone leaves for much added replay values. There are two things that I like about this game that ranks it above other RTS of its kind: the political system and the national borders. Most RTS games have the political system of a Middle East conflict - me at war with you. RoN, unless you set it so the alliances/wars are fixed, allows a much more reliable and flexible political mod in the vein of the Civilization games, and you can declare war, form alliances, and make peace as best you see fit. Also, the construction of cities and forts will influence your national border...basically, the area of land your nation controls. What does this mean? Well if you research such things as "Patriotism" your enemies will get attrition when they invade, their units getting damage the longer they stay. Don't worry, you can help supply vehicles to keep your troops supplied and therefore attrition free. This not only prevents those annoying endless rushes RTS AI's seem so keen on, but it adds to the realism of the game. Watch as your enemy carries out an invasion that ends on par with Napoleon's retreat from Moscow! There is a "campaign" game in here, called the "Conquer the World" scenario. Imagine Risk with combat being portrayed as RoN missions, units and buildings all. The only thing I didn't like was the positioning of the different civilizations. Some seem trapped inside other cultures, and you might find yourself forced to go to war sooner than you want. If you fear no one you probably won't care, but if you want to secure your borders before attacking then you will probably find this aggravating. If you like RTS games give RoN a try. If you play strategy games like "Hearts of Iron" or any thing along those lines, then introduce yourself to RTS games like this. It's not revolutionary, but it's fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Best strategy game I've played, EVER!
Review: I love this game, it has the perfect blend of "civilization III" and "age of empires". Age of empires was too easy, and civilization III was too much a strategy game for me. But this game hit the spot. I just got it and i can't stop playing.
I also like it more than Age of Empires because it goes all the way into modern times, and you can get machine guns and commandoes.
Overall this is the best strategy/war (not to be confused with first person shooter) game i have ever played.
Rating:
Summary: Great RTS game that lets you do what ALL gamers desire...
Review: Yes, Rise of Nations is an AMAZING RTS endeavor that allows you to accomplish what every single gamer has desired at some point in his/her life...CONQUER THE WORLD!
Take Age of Empires, add to it some cutting-edge graphics, (a combination of 2D and 3D that look so GOOD that they threaten such games as Warcraft 3), add to it some unique units and hundreds of more diplomatic options, and what do ya have?
VOILA! welcome to the RoN.
There is NOTHING bad that can be said about the game itself, from graphics, to sound, to playability...this game makes itself known as a top competitor in all those places.
However, if there is one thing that COULD be missed...especially by fans of AoE...are the Walls! yes, the one thing that made AoE so popular was the option of constructing massive walls, iron gates (that could be raised) and all.
Although Walls would make this game perfect in every aspect, it does not take away from the AMAZING RTS it already is.
The game to end all games, RoN does more than just redefine an already overpopulated RTS genre.
Rating:
Summary: A good RTS but not great
Review: After reading these reviews I was a little let down. This game is not extaordinarily complex nor does it really break new ground. It is essentially another blizzard game like warcraft or starcraft. Mine a large range of resources and upgrade your structures to create the best army you can. The coolest part of this game is by upgrading your civilization into a more recent time, all your structures and armies get improved. Wooden farms become industrial metal units. Guys on horses become tanks. There is quite a wide range of possible units to create your army with. You can make nukes, aircraft carriers, knights, barbarians, all kinds of cool stuff. The worst part of this game is that it went way overboard with the upgrades and resources. You literally spend the first 20 minutes of every game frantically upgrading every one of your structures while trying to mine all different kinds fo resources. Even worse, you need to build multiple cities to maximize the amount of upgrades and mining potential. Youll be upgrading your structures throughout the entire game. Ive had games last and hour and still havent even been able to upgrade everything. I would enjoy this game much more if there was only one resource to mine and one structure to select for upgrades. Once your city is decently upgraded however, the battles are pretty nice. They lag more than I would like but its great seeing a city nuked, or sending planes over a base, or invading a town with barbarians. If your a fan of RTS' you should check it out, but its not as fun as Yuris Revenge, Starcraft or Warcraft3.
Rating:
Summary: This game is awesome!!!
Review: Opinions on these games vary, but that is what reviewing is all about. I think one reason for this is the type of game an individual prefers. In an RTS, there is typically a couple of different basic strategies:
1) The Rush
Players are aggressive in the early game and attack enemies as soon as possible.
2) Defensive (or Turtling)
Players concentrate on building a large economy, strong cities, and huge armies before engaging in battle.
I personally am more of a fan of the latter strategy, but Rise of Nations seems to have been designed more for the rush player in mind. The fact that you can't build walls is one example of that. Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed RoN, but felt that the game could have been more satisfying for the defensive-minded players without sacrificing the game's flow.
One particular good feature are the dynamic boundaries. For those who have not yet played RoN, this means that everyone has territories with distinctive borders which can be expanded as you develop near them. You also have advantages when fighting inside your own borders. You can eventually push your borders against the enemy's borders and even collapse theirs against them.
Now, the two things I consider the worst features of the game:
1) Automatic morphing of land units into sea transports.
The fact that you don't need to bulid any shipping ports and transport ships to get land units over the oceans is a major boo-boo. When you instruct a land unit to move to a location divided by water, the unit will automatically turn into a boat, float across the sea, and revert to its original unit. This pretty much kills the sea-based warfare in my opinion. True, the units, when crossing, can't defend themselves and they're weak to attacks, but in a large game with many players, it is often way too easy to have them slip across the ocean undetected.
2) Nuclear Weapons
This feature just sucks. When you've worked so long building up a great army and people start launching nukes, you can bet the game is over. As if it weren't bad enough that they are so destructive, the game designers must have felt they needed to incorporate their own political agenda into the game with the "Armageddon" rule. Too much nuking will suddenly end the entire game an nobody wins. This makes it a complete waste of time.
One final complaint is that it is far too easy for some players to advance far beyond others in age so you end up with soldiers with muskets battling helicopters and battleships. The strange part about this is that many times the weaker force will triumph. There needs to be a method to better balance the transition of ages. I would suggest that perhaps with the first player crossing into a new age that everyone else goes too, but the players who are doing better are rewarded some type of bonus on a sliding scale, as a reward. Perhaps extra resources or units.
Other than those last few gripes, I would have scored Rise of Nations a five.
Rating:
Summary: Worth getting
Review: RON is a fun game that I played for over 2 months (not everyday of course). If you like Command & Conquer or Lords of the Realm, you should like this game. They have similar fighting scenarios and I like these type of games. I prefer C&C, as far as defending your territory, over this game.
Positives:
1. Very addictive and challenging enough to keep you playing for awhile. Very challenging if you play the harder difficulty, especially defending your territory.
2. It's fun seeing the changes and enhancements through the ages.
3. It has a really great learning tool...I never even needed the instruction booklet, which is rare with complicated games like these (great for kids).
Negatives:
1. I wish the game forced you to stay in an age longer, thus seeing all the maximum achievements of that age. They should create a larger variety of soldiers/weapons within that age and require longer playing times to move on to a new age. The better you accomplish the required goals, the faster you'll move on to the next age. The current method requires you to move faster to the next age, otherwise you'll be way behind and be left as a dead carcass by the enemy.
2. Lack of walls to protect your territory better.
3. The 'Risk' map is a good concept but you should be able to attack anywhere as long as you own that country, they force you to have an army in the attacking country. If you ally within anyone, they can take over most of the world and you still win, so if you want to take over the world on your own, don't ally with anyone.
4. Citizen total is too low (200) and unrealistic.
Overall....it is worth getting and a fun game.
Rating:
Summary: A good progression from Age of Kings II
Review: My two eldest (9 & 7) were addicted to Age of Kings so I got them this for a birthday. Age of Kings has not been used since. The key advantages of this game over AOK are:
a) Much less micro-management. The kids often played AOK in deathmatch to avoid all the 'citizen work'. In RON the citizens will 'find something to do' provided you have mines / farms / forests for them. And these things DON'T RUN OUT so the constant 'find a mine' problem has gone. This makes the citizen side far more manageable, especially for the younger one.
b) National boundaries. Such an obvious concept but it greatly enhances game play. You now 'own' territory and need to expand the territory you own.
c) Research bands. The research restrictions in AOK are primitive, in RON there are many more things to research and a much more intricate way of doing it, yet many of them are in the library which makes it easy to find. Also there is now the concept of knowledge so you can increase your rate of research.
d) National differentiation. Whilst the nations were distinct in AOK the differences were fairly minimal. In RON the differences between the nations are huge, this expands the 'come back and try again' capability significantly
e) The tutorial is superb, took my 7 year old from scratch to 'very good' without daddy having to spend hours (actually this may be a bad thing :) )
f) The campaign. Ok, think the RISK board game, but with a real battle instead of a dice roll. A marvellous blend of stategy and tactics. Again enhances the 'come back again' factor
g) Graphics. I thought AOK was good, this is almost like watching a movie. The only downside is you need a 16MB graphics card, so one of our PCs can't join in the fun.
h) More realistic, you cannot 'explode' a single city as much, there are ways of 'enhancing' productivity
i) Greater span of time. Goes from classical to modern age, as my children have learnt a lot of history from RTS games the broader span has broadened their education!
Downsides:
i) WAY too addictive
ii) Needs 16MB graphic cards
iii) Really needs more than 256MB of main memory (it DOES run, but having upgrated to 512MB it now runs reasonable)
Bottom Line: Should you buy this?
a) If you like AOK then YES.
b) If you have bright children 7+ and would like a computer game to tax their brains. Yes, I would probably recommend it rather than AOK because of the tutorial and the lack of micro-management
c) I like CIV and other SIM type simulations. Hmmm ... probably not, whilst there IS a mode for non-combative play the result is a little like buying a big-mac and taking out the meat ...
Rating:
Summary: a Video Game with out the Repetitive Boring Work Involved
Review: The best part about this game is that the programmers took out a lot of the repetitive work you will usually find in this type of game. For instance... the workers will automatically gather supplies or build buildings, your troops will line up efficiently with a click of a button, and research is done very quickly. This allows you to get right into the action.
An earlier reviewer complained that it is hard to defend your city. In most games like this you can always set up enough trenches, look out towers, walls, etc; that you do not have to worry about the defense of your territory. Not worrying about defense is unrealistic.
This game is turn based with real time battles. The turn-based part of this game looks like a game board from Risk. When you attack or get attacked then the game turns into real time where you fight the battles.
Graphics look good when you are zoomed all the way in, but I rarely find myself zooming all the way in to admire the graphics. You need to be zoomed all the way out to watch the progress of your territory and armies. So the beautiful graphics are just a waste of computer power and result in slower load times.
I rated this game 4 stars because of the superb programming. I did not rate it 5 stars because the turn-based part of this game is not that deep so everyone's strategy will be pretty much the same. Playing with the same strategy over and over again will result in this game getting old with a couple months of playing.
One last thought; if you're a fan of Sid Meier's Civilization this game's turn-based play will disappoint you.
Rating:
Summary: Good But with some Problems
Review: This is probably the best computer game I've played! The coolest part of the game is probably how you start out with swords, and how you will end with rocket launchers and nuclear missles. You can play either a quick game (an ordenary game) or conquer the world. In couquer the world you pick a nation you want to be then you go to a map of the world (looks almost the same as a risk map does) and then you can go take territories from indians, or go take on another nation (I would'nt take on another nation at the begining of the game). By now you probably want to go by the game now, but before you do you should know that you will probably have buy a video card. I had to do that, but now I know that it payed off to buy the video card instead of not playing the game at all. This is a must buy game, so make sure you go and get it.
Rating:
Summary: Bye, Bye Age of Empires Hello Rise of Nations
Review: Start in the ancient age and advance seven ages to the information age.
Collecting resources, building buildings, creating an army. Marching through different maps going to conquer other nations. Starting with swingers going to assult riffle men.
This game is really fun if you like war and building your own army and going and exterminating other nations.
Play online with players around the world and chat with them while your killing them. Play with up to 8 players. Have teams or free for all (everybody killing everybody).
You also have stealth bombers, nukes, jet fighters, and these other futuristic vehicles. You also have wonders. My favorite wonder is the terricotta army (I don't know how to spell it). This wonder creates 1 unit every 40 seconds (I think). You also can build it when your in the third age and its pretty cheap.
You have over 220 different unit types, with over 500 artistically district variations based on gender, race and time period.(said on the insid ecover)
Fight on land, at sea, or in the air with everything from slingers, musketeers, tanks and nuclear missiles as a part of you army.(said on the inside cover)
Draw upon strengths and skills of 18 highly diverse nations and their unique units:
*Aztecs
*Bantu
*British
*Chinese
*Egyptians
*French
*Germans
*Greeks
*Inca
*Japanese
*Koreans
*Maya
*Mongols
*Nubians
*Romans
*Russians
*Spanish
*Turks
THE ENTIRE SPAN OF HUMAN HISTORY IS IN YOUR HANDS.
Master 6,000 years of history, from the Ancient Age to the Information Age. What forces will you wield to lead your nation to global Prominence? Trade, espionage, diplomacy....war? Whichever path you chose, you'll discover the pulse-pounding thrill and speed of real-time gaming combined with the epic scope and depth of turn-based strategy games - brought together
for the first time ever in Rise of Nations
(on back of box)
Multiple Victory Conditions:
Succeed through military and quasi-military strategies including espionage, diplomacy, technology races and territory expansion.(on back of box)
Informative Tutorials:
Learn to play with 6 tutorials for beginning to experienced strategy gamers.(on back of box)
Conquer the World Campaign:
Play on a real map of the world and take over one territory at a time. Victory in each territory gives you tribute, special resources or bonus powers.(on back of box)
Streamlined, Fast-paced Multiplayer:
Challenge other players on the internet or LAN.
Up to 8 players including matchmaking.(on back of box)
I think this game is really fun if you like war and creating an army. I would highly recommend this game. Have Fun!
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