Rise of Nations

I like learning about history; I was a history major in college and I pursued an additional interdisciplinary program in Medieval and Renaissance studies. I have also been known to enjoy documentaries on a wide variety of subjects. I also enjoy video games, so when I found out about Rise of Nations, I was very excited. I am no stranger to real-time strategy (RTS) games and the hype for the game seemed to suggest that RoN would take the genre to the next level in gaming. However, this claim has been made before, and for every truly great RTS like Age of Empires, there are several mediocre ones.

The basic concept in RoN is to build your civilization from scratch. The player assumes responsibility for one of 18 different civilizations ranging from the European (British, French, Germans, Greeks, Romans, Russians, and Spanish) to the Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, and Turks) to the Meso-American (Aztecs, Maya and Inca) to the African (Bantu, Egyptians and Nubians). Each civilization has unique military units and special bonuses. This allows a player to choose a civilization that caters to his/her gaming style since the bonuses vary greatly and generally give that civilization a huge advantage in one field. For example, the Inca have the Power of Gold which means that their citizens will harvest wealth in addition to metal from mines. Also, their wealth commerce cap is raised 50%. If the player is more of an expansionist, using the Bantu allows players to build more cities with higher populations for a lower price. It is certainly a lot of fun to experience what the different civilizations have to offer before settling on a favorite.

Once you have selected your civilization, the game begins. It is up to you to lead your civilization from primitive times to the high-tech world of tomorrow. You must use citizens to gather resources like wood, metal and food. However, the game makes things a little interesting by limiting the number of citizens you can use to gather a resource. There can only be five farms (which generate food) per city. It doesn't matter whether your city is a tiny hamlet or a metropolis- you only get five farms. Fortunately, if you are near an ocean, you can also use fishing boats to collect fish (for food). As for wood and metal, the number of citizens that can be used to collect that resource varies based on the size of the forest or mountain. Since expansion is mandatory, when scoping out new city sites, it would behoove you to select places with large forests and or mountains. Eventually, you will also have to collect oil in order to build some of the mechanized vehicles.

Fans of RTS games might have noticed that gold was not mentioned as a resource that citizens collect. I found the wealth gathering in RoN to be rather ingenious: instead of mining gold, you must build caravans at the marketplace which have trade routes between two cities. Each time a caravan reaches a city, you receive wealth. The number of caravans you can use depends on the number of possible trade routes. Additional wealth can be gathered by researching taxation at the temples.

In addition to regular resources, you also have the option to collect special resources such as cotton, citrus and many others. You can gain control of these by using a merchant to set up shop Much like the unique civilization ability, these special resources also give your civilization a unique bonus that will give you an advantage as long as you control the resource. For example, if you have control of citrus, your ships will heal at sea automatically. No scurvy for your sailors! Best of all is that more than one civilization can take advantage of these resources and you can even take advantage of the resources in enemy territory.

While the wealth gathering and special resources are intriguing aspects that I have not really encountered in a RTS, I am most fascinated by the system of borders that comes into play in RoN. Each civilization has national borders and you cannot build outside of your national borders without suffering from attrition damage. You can expand your national borders by building a city at the edge of your side of the border. Also, placing a temple in each city will expand your borders even further. In addition to national borders, you are also given city limits (i.e. a building must be placed in the city limits in order to benefit your city).

Research and knowledge play a big role in RoN. You must conduct research at the library in four different categories: military, civic, commerce and science. It costs resources to research so sometimes you have to choose carefully. The more you know, the more you can build. You must also gather knowledge by building universities. What's nice about the research system is that most of the major technologies can be researched at the Library, so you don't need to research at a variety of different buildings to advance to the next age. Also, the Tab key will bring you automatically to the next building that has an upgrade that you can research, which is very convenient.

Establishing a strong military is almost as important as research. Even if you favor defense over offense, you need soldiers to keep the other players from taking over your cities. Unlike Age of Empires, in which enemies raze your cities, you can actually take over cities or have your cities taken from you. When this happens, all non-military buildings become the property of the conquering army. The loser has a short time to reclaim their city before it is assimilated and national borders are adjusted accordingly. The result of this is that taking a city feels much more realistic than in previous RTS games, and eliminates the wasted time used to destroy all the non-military buildings in order to defeat your enemy.

Speaking of military, you can attack your enemies with either infantry (foot soldiers and archers), cavalry (horses and later mechanized vehicles), artillery (catapults, cannons, howitzers) and even airplanes. Certain units are stronger or weaker against other units so it is important to have a balanced army. Also, the more you research, the more you can upgrade your army and make it stronger and more effective.

Quick games are a lot of fun and offer an endless amount of variety. You can customize just about everything from the number of players to the type of map to the type of game. You will not get bored quickly but if you do, there is even more waiting for you. The centerpiece of the game is a rather unconventional campaign that is surprisingly addictive. This campaign is not story based; rather, it is modeled after the popular board game Risk. Some people might have a problem with a non-story based campaign but I see the Risk-like mode as a "Choose Your Own Adventure." It is up to the player to make the story instead of being directed what to do next. The game begins after you choose a civilization. You are assigned a "home" territory and must choose a territory to attack. At first, you will find yourself conquering minor barbarian tribes, but eventually, you must declare war on other civilizations. The game starts out in the earlier eras and progresses through all subsequent eras to the modern era. There are also different types of battles in which you will engage the enemy. This allows for some variety but things do get repetitive with constant conquering. If you are successful in your endeavors, you will receive bonus card that will aid you in your quest for world domination. I must admit that I've put about ten hours into the campaign and I've only conquered Europe, and parts of the Mideast and Africa. I haven't lost a battle yet but the game allots two hours per battle, so this game is not meant to be rushed through. The length of time it takes to do anything doesn't bother me so much but I do have one minor annoyance. When an enemy attacks you- and they will eventually attack you if you attack them- you must choose to either withstand the enemy attack for a certain amount of time or take over the enemy's city before time expires. If you choose to take over the enemy's city, you do not get to keep the city. I guess you can only take over cities when you are on the offense; but this becomes rather annoying.

If the quick game and campaign are not enough for you, there is also a mode that set challenges for you to see how good of a player you are. These are fun and tough and I have found myself returning to this mode to beat my best score.

Are you still not satisfied? Visit the scenario editor and create your own scenarios where you can edit anything from city placement to terrain to the amount of resources and more. The official website has a free kit that helps with scenario design so you can create your own scenarios without ever leaving the comfort of your home.

Graphically, this game is amazing. My computer is on the low end of the suggested requirements and therefore, I have to set the graphics to low. Despite this, I am amazed to see how beautiful things look. To begin with, the designers have taken great pains to reflect the authentic architecture of the different buildings. Therefore, buildings (and even people) look different. You also have the option to zoom in and out and you can get a very close look at things. Animation is equally as impressive; while I am against nuclear proliferation, there is nothing more fun to watch than a nuclear warhead detonating complete with mushroom cloud. While I tend to get wrapped up in my game, I do enjoy slowing down just to look for the little details.

The basic control scheme is very similar to other RTS games like Age of Empires but RoN takes the basics and makes them better. For example, in order to select a group of soldiers, you must draw a box around them with the mouse. In other RTS games, I can't count how many times I have accidentally selected workers who happened to be wandering by. Fortunately, in RoN, workers are automatically not included in the selection. Another very nice touch occurs when you assign your group a hotkey number. The computer automatically gives your group a name. For example, your group of foot soldiers might become the "1st Infantry." You certainly don't need this feature, but its presence is a very nice touch. Generally, the use of hotkeys helps make micromanagement into an art form.

My one complaint regarding the interface involves idle workers. The game automatically has idle workers assign themselves to a job within seconds. I find this to be rather problematic. I like that idle workers assign themselves but they move very quickly, so much so that I often found myself babysitting them to keep them from working on something before I had a chance to give them orders. Luckily, this option can be disabled.

Sound is equally impressive. Background music varies by civilization and adds a lot to the ambience without taking away from gameplay. Sound effects are equally as nice: guns fire, workers chop and chisel away and much more. As with music, effects are never overpowering; they tend to be there if you listen for them but can easily be tuned out.

This game is appropriate for older children. While each child is unique, I would say that children under 12 might have trouble mastering all the micromanagement. If you are concerned about violence, you might want to take into account that killing enemy soldiers is often an inevitable part of the game but you will be happy to know that there is no blood whatsoever. Also, you can opt to only play games in which economic superiority is the only way to win. You can learn a lot about history in this game and as I mentioned before, this game can keep a player occupied for hours.

Overall, Rise of Nations is top-notch. It certainly isn't perfect, but it comes close. I do have my complaints, but they are mostly minor. This game is definitely a must-have for the RTS fan and/or history buffs. You may have noticed that I made several comparisons between Rise of Nations and Age of Empires. Until now, Age of Empires has really been the RTS game to which other RTS games were measured. The time has come for Age of Empires to move over and let Rise of Nations take over as proverbial king of the mountain. Pick this one up today; you won't be disappointed.