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Chock full of bugs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 15
Date: May 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I absolutely loved the original "Rise of Nations". Fantastic RTS game. Also extremely stable; this will be important in a moment. I "upgraded" to this expansion after about 6 months of Rise of Nations. It immediately transformed my gaming experience from one of delight in a deep, complex, and endlessly replayable RTS game into one of unbridled frustration. The expansion causes the game to crash constantly and without warning (although I often get an amazingly helpful "Exception!" window afterwards). It crashes during loading. It crashes during saving. It crashes at the start of the game. It crashes 3 hours into a game. It crashes when 100 units are fighting. It crashes when a single peasant is walking. It will even, in something I've never seen before, crash in the middle of crashing. It is without doubt the least stable game or expansion I have ever played, and I've played Temple of Elemental Evil. I regret the day I bought this expansion because it has so colored my view of the game that I don't even like playing the original anymore because I half expect it to die with every move. The nominal benefits of the expansion (4 new nations, a few new campaigns, and tweaks to some old nations) are SLIGHTLY outweighed by the fact that you have no chance in hell of playing or finishing any of them. Avoid this expansion at all costs.

Crashes without fail

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have the same issue as Yossarian. The Exception window appears after I attack a city in one of the first tutorials. I get the same thing if I try the other campaigns, just not quite as quickly. Unfortunately, I can only get it exchanged for the same item (if opened) and the Microsoft web support is useless on it.

A Hopeless Game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 36
Date: July 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I liked this game but I feel it is too biased and not historically accurate.
First of all, too much attention and bonus features is given to the Americans.
Also, the producers made the Persian nation too much powerful. Persia did not have any elephants. It was the Indians. and only Indians should have the elephants lineage. Also, the architecture style of persians and Indians is the same. Oh my goodness! It makes a lot of difference. There was no similarity in the architecture style of Indians and Persians.
They made the iroquois and the Indians very less powerful while the Persians and Americans the superpower.
And I believe, if I am correct, there was no "ancient age" for americans and no ages after Enlightnment for the native american nations.
In the new world campaign, the british capital is in eastern Canada. It was not the british. It was the french capital at canada. Do you find "Los Angeles" in canada while playing against Iroquios? It is ridiculus. And Seattle in Virginia?
I did find this in this campaign.
This game is also racist and biased.-- calling Lakota the "backward people" and iroquois the "barbarians" and Indians "the fragile people". I believe, Indians were one of the oldest civilizations on earth and had its unique architecture and army. They had the chariot which is not in the game.

All this facts are correct. I looked these up in books and encyclopedias.
So in my opinion, you should nto waste your money to buy this expansion pack.

Lots of bugs!, No one online to play!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 15
Date: November 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I do love this game, it could have been great! There are a lot of bugs, and for a #1 best selling game you would think there are a ton of people online to play, but no at 9pm on a Friday night there are about 50 players online and half of them are just talking smack to each other. It is a shame that there is not more company support for this game. IT is a lot of fun to play once you get past the bugs and wait sometimes 25 min to get a game going. This is not like Battle net at all! IT just seams the game is lost.

on sale

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: May 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Got Rise of Nations on sale for $20, wouldn't pay more than that...
tip: turn game speed down; took 40 minutes game time to conquer world.
Not worth playing second time round, have un-installed.

What happened?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 19
Date: July 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The first game was good but - the expansion pack allows you to play as only 6 more nations at the price of $30 - its not worth to buying an over priced expansion pack, and there are barely and new builings...and the persians got messed up cause THEY DO NOT USE WAR ELEPHANTS!!! It was India who used them. And both there buildings look the same persian buildings look more like the turks!!!

A great expansion for under $10!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 12
Date: October 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

About all the expansion gives you, though, is more balanced gameplay. Not much new in graphics, playability, etc. Same stuff, different disc.

Not a Necessary Expansion

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: May 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you have 30 dollars to kill, then youll still enjoy it. I'm not saying that the expansion is a bad game, I just think that for all the things you get in the amazing basic Rise of Nations, the expansion pack isnt really necessary. It comes with 4 or 5 new nations, 2 of which are native americans, but with only a few new buildings, I think that youll be happy with just the original. Its still a great game nonetheless.

Great package, yet it would be nice if it had more

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: May 31, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am a big fan of Rise of the Nations! I think it combines the best things of Civilization series and the Starcraft series... making me addicted to this darn game.
The expansion pack is great! It comes with great features that make the game more interesting:
1) More units, not puny ones, these new units really get the job done!
2) New civilizations... now you can represent even more countries. Even the Lakotas are there (who in the hell are the lakotas), never heard of them before in any other strategy game.
3) Additional campaings. Sometimes after playing a while, you get bored because you do the same campaings over and over again. With the new scenarios, be prepared to spend some time on the refreshed game.
4) Architecture perks, some new wonders of the world are added. There are only three of them.
By now, you might think that I am crazy for this expansion pack, I am. But I do also realize that there are setbacks. I think that for about 30 dollars, Microsoft could have done a better job. With the thousand programmers that Microsoft company has. Adding 20 units, 3 wonders, some new campaigns seems puny to me and the worst part is that it costs the same as the game itself (even when it involved less time and effort to make the expansion pack). So that is why I give this game a 4 star. Good, but not perfect. Maybe if the expansion pack costs $10 bucks, that would be perfect.

Lots of new features, not quite enough to satisfy.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: July 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The hit of the first Rise of Nations was hard to overcome, but this expansion makes the game even better. The goverments that come into play just add to what type of nation you want to become: Military or Economic. But you will have to choose wiseley in order to win in harder modes of the game.

Overall: Brings new aspects to the game, but lack of choosing grows dull, you can only choose three. * * * * out of 5

The new nations brought into the game are the best features by far, unfournatley, only 6 are new:
Americans (very good, ability to entrench is excellent)
Iriquios (decent, just another nation)
Lakota (decent, just another nation)
Persians (very good, top 5 nations)
Indians (almost exactly like the Persians, very goood)
Dutch (unique units are somewhat inifective, decent)

Overall: Wish there were 1 or 2 more nations to have more playing time in future. * * * * out of five

The wonders are, again, seem to be to few: only 3 more, and at that one of them is just a city, and the other a huge castle. Of course they have huge benefits but I can think of a few "wonders" off the top of my head.

Overall: Highly dissapointed in the quantity of wonders: * * * out of five

The campaigns were defintely needed for this game, just because everything else seems limited (but good). The "New World" campaign is my favorite since you can be about 10 different nations, with different goals in mind. The Napolean and Alexander are roughly the same thing except of for different ages. The Cold War is my second favorite since you have to do many things in order to keep other countries conent with yours.

Overall: Adds to the gameplay but in Alexander and Naploean the senarios are repetitive in late game: * * * * out of five

Dont get me wrong, I love this game and recommend it for anyone, but just way a week or so for the price to go down.

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