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My faith in the RTS genre is restored.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: June 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

After holding out for a week, I finally bought this game after watching a gushing X-play review of the game on TechTV (If you missed the show, they have a review on-line). In any case, their review pretty much mirrored exactly how I feel about the game. Rise of Nations takes almost everything that's annoyed you about real-time strategy games and fixes it.

The gameplay is fast, furious, and downright addictive. The unconventional single player campaign has *GASP!* replayability! (It plays like Risk!) Not to mention the game is absolutely beautiful! The buildings alone are works of art and the unit animations are the best and most fun that I've seen in an RTS!

So after several disappointing RTS releases in the past year, Big Huge Games has finally restored my faith in the RTS genre. Thank you!

A must have for those who loved Age of Empires

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: November 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm a big fan of the Age series (Age of Empires to Age of Mythology), I fell in love with the game when it first came out and got the new "expansion packs" as soon as they hit the shevles, so when I heard about this new game Rise of Nations, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

I decided to learn by playing the tutorial game and picked it up almost instantly. Much of the game play is like the earlier Age of Empires games, even some of the hotkeys are the same, which is a bonus if you want to get directly into the games. If you've never played an RTS game before, it may take some time to get into this game with all its different prerequisites for advancement. It may take awhile to figure out that you need to research this before you can build or upgrade that, and that you can't do it until you have so much wood, food, oil etc.. There is a lot to learn for the newbie, but once you get the hang of it, I'm pretty sure you'll love the game.

One major difference between this game and the Age series is that you cannot build just anywhere on the map, which could be good or bad depending on what you value. I think it prevents rushing too early since you cannot build close to your enemy as quickly as you could in the Age series and this preserves some of the strategy in the game, which seems to be lacking in most of the zone battles for AOE. Another thing is that workers in this game require less attention than they did in the earlier Age series, which means worrying less about the economy and more thinking about how to conquer the world.

Graphics aren't that bad either; comparable to the Age series. The nuclear explosions are quite cool, as are the stealth bombers and the aircraft carriers etc... Sound effects aren't too bad either.

All in all, I'd recommend this game to anyone who has played a strategy game before, or to someone who values games that require more brainpower than the usual shoot-em up types.

To each his own

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 25 / 35
Date: June 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This may turn out to be a good game for online game players. So far, in single player mode, other games of this type seem to be more fun, more visual, more realistic.

I have only been through it a few time so I may be missing something. The first try ended at just over one hour of game time.

As mentioned by others, the pace of advancement does not give much chance for combat between unique civilization Unit types. One gets to the Gunpowder Age so fast that everything turns into Tanks, Gunners, and APC's. I would have liked the opportunity to see how Slingers did against Archers, for example. Also, comparing the different civilization Mounted Units could have been educational. This optional for tactical play may occur in online games if that mode slows down Age advancement.

The options for strategies seem limited. Basically, it is a race for Age advancement. The first few Ages are spent building the economy. After that it is ramp up the military and fight. On the battle field it is a numbers and unit type contest with few tactical opportunities. Using something like the Terra Cotta Wonder it is fairly easy to cheaply disrupt the opponent's economy and quickly out-advance him.

The graphics are OK, but nothing special. Even with zoom mode the characters lack visual appeal compared with other games.

The mechanics of the game are familiar but more complex. For me, I was so busy Researching this, Upgrading that, Building whatever, and Age Advancing that there wasn't time to enjoy any Age-specific uniqueness.

That is pretty much it. If you like modern military battles then this could turn out to be a fun game for you. Don't expect any major Medieval conflicts or many opportunities for either strategic or tactical play in any age.

Just my opinion...I could be wrong.

The best historical RTS game yet!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 17
Date: May 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The developers of Rise of Nations have really done it- they finally added something to a tired field of gaming, the venerable RTS games. By integrating some of the best features from Civilization and Alpha Centauri, and keeping the best aspects of the RTS genre, Big Huge Games has a bonified franchise on their hands. I will likely never play Age of Empires, Empire Earth or any other RTS of this ilk again.

Bryan Reynolds has the Sid Meier pedigree stemming from his involvement in Civilization II and Alpha Centauri. He understands the simple rule of computer gaming: its a game, not a history lesson! He set a new height for RTS, far surpassing the phenomenal Age of.. series and completely crushing Empire Earth at its own game.

Despite 18 nations being included, there is room for more (where's America?) as well as some minor refinement in game play (more options for soldiers like guard and stand ground; better targetting by your own troops). The AI is the best I've played (I'm getting beat at moderate difficulty). Buy it, and prepare to lose alot of sleep because of it!

Make this game your own.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: June 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Its hard to pinpoint exactly what makes this game so much fun to play. Like other RTS games, you build, explore, and conquer. Thanks to a few major new features and hundreds of subtle touches, this is always a gratifying experience. The concepts of national borders, attrition to enemies in your borders, and assimilating captured cities are a brilliant touch that add layers upon layers of strategy. Even the econonomic system in Rise of Nations is a game in itself.

Also cool is the level of control and customization you have. You can disable info displays; set multiple game, research and resource gathering speeds; disable rushing until a certain Age, the list goes on. Also a relief: there is NO tedious micro-management. Idle citizens will get to work on whatever construction or resource you need, resources don't deplete, all major research is done at one building, waypoints can even be set on units. Everything has been streamlined to let you focus on the fun stuff.

The combat here is really intense. Fighting with knights and catapults is cool, but your pulse will really start pounding once you start cranking out the planes, battleships, rocket launchers and tanks. The explosions, smoke and all around devestation are high quality. And the nuclear launch is incredible, something you have to see for yourself.

There were a couple of complaints about the single player campaign crashing, but that was fixed in a patch days ago. Its impressive that with hundreds of units on the screen, Rise of Nations can still be played on a system with minimal hard acceleration. For those who want better graphics, anti-aliasing really makes it beatiful.

There's just to much cool stuff here to touch on it all. The Conquer the World single player campaign; special multiplayer game rules like Assasin; a scenario editor along with easily modded XML rules documents (there's some cool mods out already); fast, informative tutorials; special speed and agility mini-scenarios; as well as refreshing sound and music.

You can truly make Rise of Nations your own. Its been a LONG time since I've had this much with a game. The only reason I haven't uninstalled AoE is nostalgia. BUY this game. It will treat you well.

They keep on risin'

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 20
Date: October 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Rise of nations is, hands down, my favorite RTS of the times. From the second I plugged myself into this emerssive piece of softwhere brilliance I was hooked. When you first start the game, there is a tutorial that you can actually play through, wich is great because you can learn the game and have a blast doing it. Also, the campaign is wonderfull because instead of a story, it presents you with a world strategy map, and your job is to conquer the world. You have "armies" wich are little game peices, and if you place them on an enemy country, youll engage in a skirmish. Sometimes you will have to defend on the other hand, wich is also always fun. If you take an enemies capitol, thats great for you because you get ALL their territory after that.

Of course, like any other RTS, the real fun is in the multiplayer and skirmishes, not in the campaign, but the sinlge player game remains a fun, and engaging way to learn the ropes of this one.

Another exciting feature of this game is the brilliant system of making battles look huge. It keeps the same population limit as AoE BUT if you build a unit, you get more than one of them, but on the pop counter, it counts as one unit. Allowing for some sweet looking HUGE battles for you to enjoy watching and participating in.

Gameplay for the most part, is pretty much like Age of Empires, however you advance farther in time, and many of the problems found in AoE have been fixed in rise of nations. Pretty much, if you enjoyed AoE, you will LOVE this game, but I suggest everyone else gives it a try as well, I throughly enjoy it, and I have trouble with alot of rts games.

PROS:
Emmersive gameplay
Tons of options, allowing for countless strategies
Cool campaign mode
TONS of upgrades
Lots of armies

CONS:
all countries are pretty much the same
Almost feels like TOO Many resources
Outdated graphics

This game is stupendous

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: May 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First of all I have to tell you that the demo is available for this game. You can get it from the official site.
Ok, this game is incredible. The graphics are so much better than any other RTS I have ever played. The other reviewer who states that there has not been much detail put into the game and that the units are kind of small doesn't really know what he's talking about (which surprised me because he's a Beta tester). He must have forgotten about the zoom function. You can zoom in on your units to enjoy the full effect of the details and the battles. These aren't ordinary battles either, they include hundreds of units. Though the default population limit is set to 200 you must know that for each standard military unit you create you get 3 soldiers. That means that if you have an army that takes up 40 places in your population you really have a 120 of them. It is really great.
Once you get to the modern ages things get even better. You have full access to high tech fighters and bombers, submarines and battleships, machine guns and bazookas, and powerful tanks. And don't forget the nukes! And these nukes can be upgraded to ICBMS!

Finally, a RTS game for the slow clickers out there....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: September 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you are a frustrated RTS gamer who is sick and tired of playing the uber-clickers out there who love to send an unstoppable army into your home base 40 seconds into the game, then this is the game for you. RoN is a game that actually makes it OK to focus on building a balanced civilization through the use of attrition damage and borders. Granted, folks have figured out how to rush in this game, but it is much more tricky, and much more risky.

The game is certainly complex, but after getting through 6 or so games it starts to become much easier. There is a dizzying amount of unique civilizations to choose from. Each one has it's own unique units and unique civ powers. This adds to replay value of the game as you'll want to try out many civs to get a taste of their unique units and abilities.

A ton has already been said about this game, so I'll cut this short. Bottom line - it's a defining RTS game. One other reviewer got it right when he said that it's a cross between Civilization and Age of Empires. That my friend is good company to be with!

A Thinking Person's RTS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: December 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is game is made for someone who loves both the quick pacing of an RTS and the deeper thought of a turn-based strategy game. I have played Starcraft and Empire Earth, and while it's great fun to play a quick game of "make an army and send them into battle," it does get to be repetitive. That's not true with Rise of Nations.

Why is this? With most RTS games there is a specific build order. You memorize the build order, build an army and send them into battle. Only when you make contact with the enemy does the game start taking on a life of its own. With Rise of Nations a standard build order will get you at most 1 or 2 minutes into the game, long before your army makes contact with your opponent. This means you have to start thinking earlier than with any other RTS I've ever played.

For those from the turn-based games like Civilization or Alpha Centauri, this will seem much more like an RTS and less like what they're used to. It's fast paced and there's a lot of clicking unless you're playing the computer, where the pause button can be used to make the game virtually turn-based. For someone used to Starcraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires or Empire Earth, though, this game will be less of a click fest (except for battles, where good micro can still make or break you). Do a good job of setting up your economy and it'll mostly run itself. Workers will find their own jobs to do, and if you set up your city well you can queue up 10 or more of them and forget about micromanaging. They'll begin harvesting food, timber, and metal, and can even construct buildings on their own. Instead of being hassled with economic micromanagement, you can spend more time out-thinking your opponent.

To sum it up, if you're a fan of both turn-based strategy and real-time strategy games, this game is a great blend of the two. If you're a real-time strategy fan who's tired of doing the same thing for the first 5 minutes of every game or who would rather spend more time thinking rather than clicking the mouse, this game is for you. Finally, if you enjoy playing against the computer, the pause feature in this game can make it enjoyable even for a die-hard turn-based fan who hates clicking the mouse.

Wow

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: May 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This truly is the best real-time strategy out there. It combines two different aspects of battle games, both ancient eras (such as age of empires) and WW2 era to present as well. The graphics are simple yet still a very high quality (unlike empire earth where you have full 3D, but not good quality), and the game play can be adjusted in almost any way seen fit. There are about 20 different nations, each with 4 or 5 unique troops/ships/planes plus specific advantages to the regular rules of the game (such as extra farms to increase food income, or larger population limit) Although there are no specific campaigns in this game, like there are in the Age of Empires series, there is a conquer the world style mode of play which is very similar to the classic board game Risk in which you play multiple, regular games, to fight for regions of the world. In addition to the conquer the world you have the usual regular game, where you can customize everything from what age you start and can go to, to what kind of map to play on (chosing from arund 20). If you are looking for a game to purchase in the near future, and enjoy real-time combat/empire building types of games, Rise of Nations is definitely a good candidate.

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