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Civilization meets Age of Empires

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 160 / 168
Date: June 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I knew it would take a great game to pull me away from Age of Mythology which I've been playing like an addict for over 6 months now. This is the game I was waiting for. As a veteran Player of both the Civilization series (and the far superior Alpha Centauri) and Age Of Empire series, the similarities to both series was immediately obvious. It shoudln't come as any surprise since this game was built under the Microsoft banner (makers of the AOE series) but developed by former Civilization creators. The end result is a game so close to perfection you are forced to wonder why no one had though of it earlier.

While the gameplay is real time, most of the interface concepts and strategy has been adopted from turn based strategy. Basically combat plays like AOE, but city management plays like CIV. It's the best of both worlds really. The depth of research, complex alliances combined with shrewd AI make this one of the deepest real-time strategy games ever made. Probably the deepest. The use of nukes, aircraft, and huge armies result in huge bloody battles that every real-time player looks for.

One of the best concepts taken from the turn based games is the way cities are the key to conquest. Cities can be raided and completely taken over by hostile armies. Cities determine the size and shape of national borders. Operating outside of national borders causes your troops to suffer attrition damage if improperly equipped. Therefore, real-time players used to "rushing' will find they must adopt a whole new strategy. Armies might be the key to conquest, but it's developement that will govern their success.

There are two basic modes to the single player game: quick battle and the campaign. Players of the campaign will notice similarities to another hybrid type series: Total War. There is a huge world map where armies can be moved around like game pieces. After making your moves, the game goes into real time mode with objectives based on the decisions and moves you made previously. Unlike Total War where the real time is strictly combat, the real time portion of the game also forces you to build resources and raise armies if necessary. Exceptional victories are rewarded with game cards that can be played prior to going real time, another added bonus that gives depth to the game.

While their are few real ground-breaking concepts in this game, by taking the best concepts of some of the greatest strategy games ever made is a bold leap forward. Also, after playing Age of Mythology and Warcraft 3 with their beautiful 3D engines, the 2d graphics are a step back, but it's easily forgiven. I've been playing this game for awhile now, and it seems like I learn somethign new every time I play. Liek the best strategy games, there are a lot of layers and a lot of different paths to victory. Any strategy game fan should pick this one up regardless of their preferences.

If you play casually, don't pick up this habit!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 112 / 115
Date: January 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As you probably have read, this game is a "thinking mans RTS". I play w/ a group of co-workers who bragged constantly about how cool this game was, but I was put off by the "bigness" of it. The instruction booklet is massive, and ironically, my biggest complaint about the game is that it's not nearly big enough to even give you a good working understanding of the game!

Now, if you aren't afraid of an extraordinarily complex game, this is, in my opinion, the best RTS out there today. Over 10 different nationalities progress and fight thier way through different ages (starting w/ the Ancient Age, and progressing to the Information Age). Each age allows newer and better production, warwaging units, and capabilities. It's hilarious watching inferior players defending their cities w/ catapults while a highly skilled player rolls over them w/ tanks -- or Archers being gunned down by an opposing player who's discoved Gunpowder. Yum, gaming goodness!!!

Many new concepts have been introduced in this game. My favorite is "National Borders". At a point in the game, each territory has borders that eminate from their civilizations center of power. What a blast it is to see the colored borders creep out and eventually meet other territories (doing damage to enemy buildings and units it envelops).

Difficult to learn, yes, but the payoff is (in my opinion) very well worth the investment.

Hope my input is helpful.

Enjoy...

Pretty good.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 61 / 63
Date: June 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've been disappointed by most M$ games past year, and after reading some of the negative reviews, was cautious to buy this game. Luckily Micro$oft put out a trial version, which I ve been playing.

This game best compares to "Empire Earth". It's almost identical, but in my opinion much better.

1.) A lot of people here complained about how fast you get through the Ages. This is exact opposite of complaints about "EE" - the game is painfully slow.

2.) AI interface is much better then Empire Earth.

3.) Airplanes are managable - (In EE they just do their own thing and are useless in the game)

4.) Game flow is very smooth, you get a feeling of your nation's gradual development.

5.) "Missile Shield" research prevents players from simply annihilating each other with nukes.

6.) I won't say anything about graphics, until I get a better video card. Mine's pretty old by today's standards.

7.)Addition of Knowledge as a resource is very cool, puts a new spin on the whole thing.

8.)It adresses issues of all other RTS games, such as queueing upgrades.

In general, I have more fun playing "Rise of Nations" demo, then full version of Age of Mythology.

Don't take my word for it, download the demo and try it out. It will also show you if the game will run on your PC.

A MUST-HAVE RTS!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 81 / 92
Date: June 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game blows Empire Earth, Civilization III, and Age of Empires out of the water. It is just plain fun FUN FUN! I would recommend this game to any people that liked the games mentioned above. This is why i gave it 5 stars:
Single-player: awesome. you start off with one city, and then you keep adding (the maximum is 8 i think). You can invade enemy territoty and try to conquer them. And believe me, you can't just march in there with a huge amount of soldiers and expect to decimate them. Oh no. They have the homefield advantage. Their reinforcements keep coming & coming & coming. One time, I was fighting for a city on my border and the French's border. I fought for that city for almost half of the game. I would get it, then they would. This went on & on, just like real life. This game is very realistic and extremely fun. They also have a conquer the world campigne, but i don't find it amussing.
Another good quality is that the people move very fast, which is a major advancement. This helps a lot when you are under attack and have no troops there. The troops get there quickly, and problem solved.
This game is one of the best RTS games i have ever played.
BUY THIS GAME!!

We love it!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 49 / 56
Date: June 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

As avid AoE and Civ3 players, we couldn't wait to get Rise of Nations. Take a third Civ3, a third Age of Empires, and third Risk and you have Rise of Nations. It moves very fast in contrast to Civ3 games that can take a week. I still play Civ3 when I want to play a laid back game, but RoN will keep you hopping. Sometimes it seems you need two sets of eyes and hands, as you manage your cities and fight in real time. The graphics are the best in details that I've ever seen. The game advised I needed to update my drivers upon installation, which I did. The help information is very good. In fact this is the first RPG I've had where I don't feel like I need to run out and buy a strategy guide in order to play it. Of course, I'm still on the easy level.
Plan to stay up late, as it's hard to stop once you start.

It's a good thing I like this game..............

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 36 / 39
Date: June 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game raises the bar for RTS games. It is not a revolutionary improvement, but certainly a major step forward in the evolution of this genre. While similar to Empire Earth on the surface, gameplay is more sophisticated. Each nation has its own unique units and building architecture, there is a simple but real diplomacy engine, there are national borders, generals, spies, more realistic warfare, economic considerations and consequences for nuking your opponent! Best of all, it corrects one of the things that REALLY bugs me about Empire Earth. Unlike EE, Rise of Nations allows you to pit countries of YOUR choice against each other in single player mode, so you don't have Americans versus British in World War II! Graphics are nice, and the zoom modes are useful in all three modes depending on the situation, and are not there just for "gee whiz" reasons. The technology tree is sensible and easy to understand. I also like the "conquer the world" mode, where you have a turn based strategic game played on a map of the world, where individual battles are settled in real time mode with varying missions depending on what territory you are attacking/defending. Though not as sophisticated as the "Total War" strategic mode, it still works. Rise of Nations is just very well thought out overall with a lot of neat little innnovations that make for a fun game.
Now for the downside. Something was lacking in the testing of this game before it hit the shelves. Worst problem is in conquer the world mode. When you go from strategic view to an individual battle, the game crashes depending if you are in 16 bit or 32 bit color mode. This was a big problem and there was a lot of chatter about it on the bulletin boards. Patch 1.02 fixed the problem. There is also a workaround if you don't have the patch. Depending on the kind of system you have, change your display settings in Windows control panel to 32 bit true color. If that doesn't work, try 16 bit high color.
If your system tends towards the low end of the specification range for Rise of Nations as does mine( 700 MHZ PIII processor, 32MB Nvidia TNT2 video card) be prepared for a low frame rate, even with reduced graphics levels running with a "clean boot". It does not make the game completely unplayable, but it is annoying. I can't see how this game is playable at the minimum spec published on the box.
One last quibble.....why no United States? Yes I know, the US is an offshoot of Great Britain and a conglomeration of many cultures and doesn't have roots in prehistory like other countries, but how about a compromise and include the US but have it not be available any earlier than the age of enlightenment? Probably a future for RON II.........

An excellent combination

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 26
Date: May 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First of all, let me explain my gaming interest/background. I believe that Civ II is the greatest strategy game ever developed, bar none. I put more playtime into that game than I wish to admit. Once I began playing the real-time games, namely the Starcraft, Age of Empires, and Warcraft series, they provided a good time but always left something to be desired. I felt they were too one-dimensional, completely focused on resource allocation. Some strategy was involved, but that lay completely in the battle sequences.

Rise of Nations has set a new bar. It has brilliantly combined the aspects of the Civilization series with those of the real-time game. If you are familiar with Civ, you will see many similarities, in that you wean ore from mountains, lumber from forests, and so on. The difference is that you have to allocate citizens to build structures (mines, farms, etc.) to obtain these resources rather than get them passively. The research tree is a little more linear but still supremely superior to other real-time games. The Wonder of the World and national border concepts are preserved from Civ, also.

An interesting tweak to the game is rare resources, which are scattered throughout the maps, which give your nation special bonuses. You also have generals, which can give bonuses to their surrounding troops a la the hero from Warcraft.

The real-time playability is outstanding, garnering the feel of Age of Kings.

Overall, this game is outstanding. It is an improvement over both genres of games, a great feat.

Read This then buy this Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 20
Date: February 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've had this game for a long time now (In computer software terms) and I wasn't going to write a review considering there are so many other great reviews out there but I just don't see this game getting the play it deserves.

Rise of Nations is hands down the most complex, engrossing, tactical, mentally challenging RTS I have ever played. I've been playing RTS's since their inception and have been a big fan of games like Warcraft 3, Starcraft, C&C, Cossacks, among countless others so I'd like to think I write with some knowledge about the genre.

Graphically RoN is solid but not out of this world like we saw with the release of Blizzard's Warcraft 3. Not to say the graphics aren't great but there was certianly no graphical revolution occuring do to the release of this game. Units are detailed pretty well with average particle effects. However the missle and nuke explosions are great. Maps look pretty solid and building design is above average.

I really like the soundtrack, kind of a low barely audible classical style of music that you can hardly hear when getting into intense parts of the game. Which is perfect, I dislike games that the music overpowers the experience like Cossacks. I'd prefer when engaging enemys to hear my cannons howl and arrows zing. I never even concern myself with turning off the music which I enevitably do with most other RTS games due to the monotonous nature of the music. The sound effects rip especcially with a good sound setup, so crank it up!

As all RTS players know it's all about gameplay, and RoN is a Superstar. You should peruse other reviews for more indepth detail about specifics because there is no way to fit all the unique features in one review. I'll point out a few that have won me over.

1) National Borders - This game is about building a nation not just a couple outposts to produce military units. You need to constantly build new cities and other structures to expand your area of influence. As you do it has a direct effect on how much the oppent can gather resources as well as creating more area for you to defend. National borders indirectly increase wealth as well as resource gather rates for your own nation.

2) Attrition Damage - Enemy units in your territory are subject to attrition damage if they are without certian units in their grouping. That means left unattacked an enemy would eventually be killed if he stood within your borders for a certian amount of time. This lends to the tactical natures of the battle as Supply Wagons which stop attrition damage become major focal points of flanking manuvers.

3) Three Styles of play - The balance of the game is amazing, no longer is the RTS about amassing resources, build the most units, destroy everything in your way. RoN is about tactics and counter moves during battle. All units have a counter unit that is most effective when fighting it and it is extremely well done. Building 100 tanks won't mean victory if 30 of the counter units are handging around to defend. This leads me to the styles of play, Boom, Rush and Defensive. All have there benefits but the most common complaint in most RTS games are rushers. RoN has balanced it so you can effectively hold off rushes if defensively focused on it as well as created the starting point of the game a much more difficult situation to rush without hurting research. If someone rushes and fails which happens pretty regularly they subject themselves to massive fall back in research. The player who doesn't rush successfully destroys resources that could have been put to better use.

4) Conquer the World Campaign - Single player campaign has no cut scenes and is not story driven. It's basically a dumbed down version of Risk where you make stratical moves on a map then play out the battles in reat-time. The options are many and its incredibly well executed.

That's about it although I could write forever about the fantastic stuff implemented in this game. A few down notes : Your rig needs to be solid, I run a P4 1.9 620 RAM and an ATI Radeon 8500 LE. It runs great(I running 1024res with effects maxed out) but I needed new drivers for my vid card. Anything lower than a 1.2 could be looking at performance hiccups, you'll have to turn down the graphics features a bit. I've heard a lot about crash issues and the like but the patches that are out have cleaned up almost all the problems (I never had a crash issue).

Multiplayer is tight as well as single player so don't think you need to be an online gamer to enjoy this one. RoN is the Cadillac of RTS Games. Don't miss out.

Oh My Cannons

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: June 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well after recovering from a Photosensitive seisure (after being utterly engrossed by this game) I had to share my rapture with everyone at Amazon...

This game is super-cali-fragilistic-expee-alidoscious - to use an archaic term. Simply the best, cream of the crop, strategy game I've played to this very day. I have an extensive library of sims and strategy games (10 years worth) and I will be putting many of them on eBay very soon, thanks to this game...

Rise of Nations (RON) combines the best of turn-based strategy and real-time tactics into a delightable package. There are a few quirks in gameplay that any experienced gamer will notice - but EVERY game has some quirks: games are made by people who all have quirks, don't forget. These quirks are easily forgotten by the mesmerizing gameplay and frenzied battles that ensue as you seek to dominate civilization. I highly recommend getting the expansion pack with the original game - it's well worth the package price here on Amazon.

As for hardware: make sure you've got a solid, well-oiled PC. Update all of your drivers, OS, and related software (directx, etc) before running this game. A good AGP video card is almost required for playing out more extensive battles and expansive empires; and decent sound is a nice treat but not necessary. 512mb of memory is, in my opinion, required to run this game properly. I can't stand stuttering or hesitation in real-time battles so it may just be me - but be prepared. Your computer should comfortably exceed the requirements listed on the box...

If you've enjoyed turn-based games (various world war games, Age of Wonders, Disciples, etc...) and also love real-time games (Age of Empires series) then this game scores a blistering bullseye on your meter: you won't be able to comprehend how much gameplay is contained in this title until you fire it up yourself... I don't think I have enough years left to my life to finish all of it... maybe...

Great RTS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 31
Date: May 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

As a beta tester, ive been able to play many versions of this game. The latest version is much better then the beta versions as far as system reqs go. I believe this game will parallel empire earth... very fun yet no publicity. Anyhow, gameplay is very fun but there is a LOT of micromanagement compared to other RTS games, its managable but once you have multiple cities (aroudn 4) it gets to be difficult when new technologies allow for refineries and granerys and such. The battles are very fun, not much detail into the battles... there is also no really great leap in graphics to speak of either... the unit limits are also a bit annoying as they are somewhat small (not compared to warcraft 3 though). The non-combative qualities of this game as a previous review spoke of are somewhat unique but dont have much of an effect on the game. There are wonders which can give you major boosts into the game, units have the ability to emphasize their attacks (razing buildings or economic raiding) which is very cool. The diplomacy is also the same as every other game... basically its another word for making teams but theres a small twist as you can be an "ally" or just be "at peace" with them as each costs a diff. amount of "wealth" (a type of resource). Also, you can declare war for a price which is very cool. Also, the previous review said theres a consequence for nuclear strikes, well in the beta's (so im not sure htis is how its gona end) there is a countdown to "armaggedon"... i think if 12 nuclear missiles are launched (not sure of #), the game will just end with no winner.

One last thing is the game concentrates on territories. You can control portions of hte map (70% in one type) in order to win instead of destroying all enemies. One thing they seemed to emphasize unfortunately is the ability to win without neccessarily destroying the enemy which most likely just wont happen in real multiplayer games.

The singleplayer is actually unique though come to think of it. It is basically RISK... but you get to fight teh battles. Its very fun as you can declare war on nations, take over continents, fun stuff.

Anyhow, this is a great all around game, can quickly rush someone or play it out in the long run. Lots of units and quiet a bit of micromanagement and considerations. This would be a great game to buy , though the guy before me (most likely a microsoft employee or something) seems to have never seen an RTS before.... very well rounded game people, good idea to buy. This game deserves a 5 star as its very well rounded, fun, and i see very few flaws in the game, if not, none at all. Theres nothing unbelievably new that will revolutionize the industry... this is just a great game holding true to the RTS genre and is very fun.

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