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Development of civilizations made fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 59 / 60
Date: February 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In many ways, Rise of the Nations is more like an upgraded version of the Age of Empires series. In the Gold edition, you will also get the expansion game that came after the original so that is a good deal. This is a fun game to play. The format isn't anything new or special. Its your typical gathering the resources, building up your armies, developing your tech level and go out and conquered your foes. It been done many time before. But what make this game go up to the next level is that there are a lot of options to be play. Different nations, different tactics, different priorities to developed and nice graphics that actually helped the player. Its also fun as you conquered from Risk-like board, going from nation to nation as your initial commands of hoplites changed into Tiger tanks and usages of nuclear weapons and development of national shield system.

Overall, a pretty fun game, interesting and above all, entertaining to boot. By the way, I owned a Pentium III 800 and its plays well on my system.

Decent

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: December 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is along the lines of Age of Empires. Go out and get resources, build up your city and army, then go stomp on the enemy. The gold edition combines the original game with the Thrones and Patriots expansion. While I enjoyed the game, I did find certain strategies that always worked against the computer controlled enemy. While it is fun for a while to beat up on the enemy, it became a little tedious after a while. Still, I think this game is worthy of purchase.

my new favorite RTS

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: December 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In the past, I've played a lot of games like Starcraft and Command and Conquer: Generals, so when I had some extra Christmas money, I decided to look for a good RTS game. Before I bought Rise of Nations, I downloaded trials of Civ IV, Empire Earth (I and II), Rise of Nations, and Age of Empires III. In this game, there are twice as many ages as in Age of Empires, so you get to play the progression from slingshots to rocket launchers. There are also 14 different nations. Each nation has it's own strengths and a few unique troop types, but the technology tree is basically the same so that you don't have to learn a whole new tree if you want to try out other nations.

I haven't done much with the campaigns, so I can't say anything about them. I've basically done skirmishes and played multiplayer. When playing this mode, there are a lot of options to customize the game. You can go with the defaults or you can choose different sets of victory criteria, 5 skill levels for the AI, AI personality (aggressive, defensive, etc) or even limit the game to a range of ages rather than play all the way through. One of the only shortcomings is that I wish there were more maps. I haven't looked into whether there is a way to install or download more.

When playing, there is a lot going on, but the interface keeps things from looking cluttered and confusing. I figured out how to play just based on my experience with other RTS games and am just now going back and looking up some of the hotkeys to speed up my game. There are a lot of upgrades to keep up with between age upgrades, troop upgrades, and resource upgrades, but pressing tab automatically scrolls you through all currently available upgrades, so you don't have to spend half your time remembering where your library/granary/lumber mill is.

I know this game is a little bit older, but I think it is better than any of the others I demoed. The only exception may be Civ IV, which I bypassed once I realized it was turn-based. If you're a fan of turn-based games, you might like it better, they just aren't my cup of tea. If you're looking for a good history themed RTS, Rise of Nations is one of the better ones out there.

If you have an older system or a laptop, this is a good buy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have a laptop, so most of the games coming out nowadays are too hardcore for me to run. This, however, works fine and is a pretty good game. It does chew through quite a bit of memory when there's a lot of units on the map though, which causes it to slow down a good deal.

Fun.... For A Bit

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 15 / 22
Date: March 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have to agree with most of the reviews in that this game is truly a masterpiece of real-time-strategy (RTS). I have played many of these types of games and I found that this game offers all of the features that I always thought would make the ultimate game in this genre. You start in the ancient age and work your way all the way up to modern times. That fact alone is amazing. It is very satisfying to watch your units upgrade through the ages, from cavalry to stealth bombers, from wooden war ships to aircraft carriers. Very cool!

What gets me is the replay value of the game. I started off with the Conquer the World Campaign, which places you on a large risk type map and allows you to move armies around and invade countries with the ultimate goal of capturing the entire world. I picked the Germans and thus started with my capital in Berlin, Germany. The first few missions were fun. I captured some territory from the locals by forming raiding parties and sweeping through and destroying everything. No building and gathering resources in these missions. I was still having fun when I declared war on Greece and began to fight my first real battles. The default objective is that if you are invading a territory held by another country you have 90 minutes to capture the enemy capital. If you are being invaded you need to hold out for 90 minutes. Sounds fun. The only problem is every battle is set up the same way. How long to the expect me to keep fighting 90 minute battles that are complete replays of the last one. You start with one city and some troops and citizens, you build up your economy, and eventually you have the resources and army to defeat your enemy. That's it! Over and over! I did it about 10 times before I had enough.

I must admit that I didn't try any of the other campaigns (I think there are 5 total such as Alexander The Great and The Cold War). I just couldn't force myself to put this game in, start gathering resources, and do the exact same thing I had done the time before. I'm sure I missed something by not playing these other campaigns, but I just couldn't force myself to play this over Call of Duty. And I am of the opinion that you should never have to force yourself to play a game to begin with.

While there is some satisfaction in building up a large army and destroying your enemy it quickly gets overshadowed by the repetition of the game. If you are thinking of buying this game in the hopes of conquering the world and are not the type of person who enjoys completing the same monotonous task over and over then I would look elsewhere. While I can see why so many people enjoy this game, I wanted to present some reasons for why you may not.

In Love With This Game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 16
Date: March 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My boyfriend bought this game over the weekend, and I ended up buying it the next day (2 days ago). I love it! I've played it so much that I've been having dreams about it for 2 nights. I know, I'm a nerd. I used to play Command and Conquer:Red Alert a lot when I was younger, so I was very excited that this game has come along! It's so much fun to strategize and feel that rush of adrenaline and to conquer the world (virtually). HIGHLY recommend this game! It's GREAT!

My view

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

When RON came out, it was definitely the best game of its kind: the graphics and game engine were far superior to anything that had been made before. However, there are now several better games on the market.

Summary:

Great fun to master, but once you're good - it's very tedious.

Also, there are a few critical flaws in the AI, making the game seem rather stupid at times.

Overall, it's great for a short-lived, thrill of a gaming experience, but once you've conquered the world, you've conquered it - there's nothing else to do, unless you want to conquer it again...

good real-time-strategy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Rise of Nations provides a good game experience in the style of Age of Empires. You can choose to play a smaller-scale quick game of 60-90 minutes or a larger scale game. Either way you can enjoy developing your realm and moving up thru the ages from ancient to modern. The buildings and people and of course the military units keep changing thru all the ages. I enjoyed reaching the first level of gunpowder units and attacking the opposition before he advanced. Some aspects of a turn-based strategy game are available also, as you can pause the action, examine everything and issue orders if the action is too fast. The Gold version has interesting campaign scenarios also. I've played thru the Alexander and Napoleon campaigns so far. I'm only reviewing it for the single-player action, I'm not much for going online gaming. I think it's a very good game that deserves being better known.
On my PC - a mid-range desktop with an Athlon 64 3500 and an $80 video card - it performs just fine.

Rise of Nations: A Little Bit Too Much

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 14
Date: December 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Rise of Nations seems like a good game at face value. However, what you will soon find is that it is dreadfully hard to get a real time strategy game that can excell in all areas of civilization. Those that try, like Rise of Nations, end up packing in too much stuff that eventually makes it very repetitive and can be more work than fun. Turn based games like the Civilization Series handle this better, as the player has all the time in the world to manage their civilization. In Rise of Nations, if you go to the bathroom without pausing, you could return finding your civilization in runes. The computer players are very undiplomatic and will declare war with little cause. RON (Rise of Nations) has a very bad diplomatic system, and a poor technological one aswell. The game is also full of limits. You have to research technology before you can build a certain number of cities. That just isn't really historically accurate, and it can be very limiting for the player. Rise of Nations is between a military game and an economic-diplomacy game to the point where it does neither one well. Military conflicts are very predictable and the affects of strategic attacks are often too nominal. I would suggest going in a different direction than RON. For a more military route, try Empire Earth I (Not EEII, as it is a Rise of Nations clone) or something in the Total War series. For a diplo-economic game, try the Civilization series or a citybuilder game like the SimCity series or Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile. If you don't mind weaker graphic you could try one of the old historical citybuilder games, such as Acropolis, Caesar III, or Pharoah. Try one of these other games, but I'd keep away from Rise of Nations. If this review doesn't deter you, keep in mind that it is coming up on three years old now. If thsi game still appeals to you after all I've said, go for a newer game that plays like Rise of Nations, such as Empire Earth II.

Rise of Nations Gold: Best RTS Game?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Let me start off by saying this game is great, it has its flaws like any other, but overall it is better than most anything out there. Its got the thrill of a war game, with the fun of a strategic civilization bulding game, with some nice graphics to go along with it.

GRAPHICS:
-The graphics in RON Gold are about what you would expect for a game of this genre. The attention to detail, however, is highly unique. Each civilization type has its own appropriate building designs. Each troop type has its own distinct look, and the same troop types of different nations vary in looks. Overall, I give the graphics a 9/10.

SOUND:
-I have to say, I find the sound for this game amazing. The range of gunfire, swordfights, jets, nukes, missiles, even the sound of hammers as civilians construct buildings is overwhelmingly great. The sounds are also in sync with the game, on certain other rts games, the sound is a bit off, but not here! Along with the actual gameplay sounds, there is music, and built in phrases that you can access by typing in a number in the chat window. Each number corresponds to a different phrase. Ex. 100=They keep on rising!...28=Of course you realize, this means war!. Overall I give the sound on this game a 10/10.

GAMEPLAY:
-Rise of Nations Gold has by far the best game play of its genre. Very smooth gameplay, thrilling battles, and most importantly it is fun! As far as your troops go, they each have their own individual lives, so if your army clashes with your opponents army, the battle could come down to one troop. Overall I give the Gameply a 10/10.

REPLAYABILITY:
-The many game types of Rise of Nations will keep you busy for awhile. There is Conquer the World, in which you choose a nation and battle to control the entire earth. There is Quick Battle in which you control a nation on one single map and develop your nation into an economical powerhouse, or a military superpower, or both! Even within the different game types there are many many many different options of game types, such as within quick battle, you can choose to play deathmatch, raid, economic race, barbarians at the gate, etc. However, once you do everything in the game, it will become a bit tedious. But it will take months upon months before you do everything. Overall I give Replayability a 6/10.

MONEY VALUE:
-This game is highly worth the money. It is infact in my opinion a huge bargain. I HIGHLY recommend you buy this game as soon as you can. You will not be disappointed. I rate money value 10/10.

OVERALL:
- Overall, this is the best game in its genre, nothing can top it. It has won game of the year honors from many different organizations and magazines. As they have all rated it before, I give this game an overall rating of 10/10.

--Thanks for Reading my Review. Happy Gaming!

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