This is realtime intensely tactical Civ, a 4X game at lightspeed with some of Civ's scope and strategy, comparable economic and military sophistication, and all of Starcraft's pace and capacity for surprise. It manages to seamlessly combine them without crowding, perhaps its most impressive accomplishment. A lot of it is truly outstanding, most of the rest can hold its own against anything out there, and overall there is very little not to love about this game. Its designer also designed Civilization II, a pretty hard act to follow. Rise of Nations, especially the expanded version, succeeds.
The short form:
Excellent: enemy AI; scope and depth and pace and variety; music and audio cues; civilian micromanagement assists; overall gameplay and satisfaction.
Very Good: assists for your military; tactical opportunities; the conquer-the-world campaigns (Total War-style, albeit more Risk-like in the non-realtime part); the tutorials and skill tests; visuals; balance.
Good: hotkeys; camera and group control; formation selection and usage.
Untried: the extensive scripting and map-making and modding support, multiplayer (I'm scared, the people still playing it online have largely been playing it for years though they seem friendly enough on the ron.heavengames.com forum -- I'm also scared of getting too sucked in, I can't afford to devote the kind of time to learning this that a kid could).
This is for my money the definitive version of historical RTS, eclipsing Age of Empires II. It adds more 4X depth and detail, bringing both aspects to life. Mere potential, latent greatness, is developed, honed and refined. It has its flaws, but they're quibbles. If you like both genres and haven't played this, your life is not complete. Some will go for the Total War series, with their very impressive battle graphics and full-scale 4X, but TW's 4X is turn-based, its realtime only for single battles. Not the same thing.
Lengthier details, still with much glossed over (the less meaty ones all in the first paragraph here):
A solo game takes about an hour -- even the largest setups rarely take two. Audible feedback and music are excellent, I actually look forward to hearing the music and the audio clues are helpful, desired, and never intrusive. The animations, terrain and models are certainly good enough to help the game's impression of quality. The hotkeys are sufficient and mostly very well chosen, though this is one of the rare aspects that can irritate: it requires some trickery to snap the camera to your selected unit or building (give it a control group and snap to that; the method the game recommends is finicky when available at all); and there's no way to select only cities with idle production capacity, or to quickly see how much is idle at a particular city. The ten seconds it takes to scan a large-ish city's farms, mines and lumber camps is the only time I've found where the interface is a real impediment. The automation for your civilians is truly excellent; civilians find work in their city that needs doing, and they do it all on their own. You can easily control what kinds of tasks or the exact sequence they'll choose.
The AI will get you to the point of competence without frustrating you. By the time you reach the "tough" setting, the third of five, if an AI isn't distracted by other potential enemies you'll need to be very competent at using the tools at your disposal. Here's one of the really gratifying things about the game: at that setting, the AI has no advantage. You're playing on a level field, against well-crafted build sequences with a military that requires at least some sophistication to beat. You need to assess your strengths, choose your general strategy, site your second city and build any defense you think you'll need very, very fast at this level. Unlike the more popular RTS's, the AI rarely feels cookie-cutter.
One of the game's limits: its (quite good) assistance with military micromanagement starts to run out of steam when you have multiple armies. They are, thankfully, rarely useful. It's also possible that it's a skill I just haven't developed yet.
One real goof: when auto-assaulting in the line formation, unfortunately the default, it sends supply units charging into the thick of things, where they die very fast. Manage the supply units separately in that specific case.
The strategic aspects are easily accessible, the learning curve is beautifully paced, you always have something specific you want to get better at, when you hit "tough" you start needing to use more and more of the tools available: ambush, entrenchment, formations, spies and counterspies and generals and scouts. Good tactical matchups are no longer ego-boosters, they're needed. Practiced expansion plans and choke points and elevation and fortresses, getting selective with economy and research, rare resources, Wonders... You need this against an unboosted AI. I can't often beat it at that level yet but I've come a long way, there's a lot left, and I'm having a very, very good time with what I've learned to do so far. That's been true all along.
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$29.99
Get it May 22 - 28
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Windows XP / 98 / 2000 / 95 / NT / Me
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Reviews with images
good game, bad creator
The game is great! its very fun, but the version i got was not by Microsoft, but instead an exact copy by ubisoft, with faulty multi player. The multiplayer doesnt work for this version, in thrones and patriots also included in gold. I would recommend buying both versions separate, the original, and thrones and patriots (if youre feeling you would like the expansion.) For thrones and patriots, on amazon get the version by microsoft, not valuesoft. and for original rise of nations also by microsoft. I dont know why for this product it says its buy microsoft even though its a ubisof version
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Top reviews from other countries
Gartholameau
Lots of fun on old Windows XP computer
Reviewed in Canada on December 23, 2016Platform For Display: PCVerified Purchase
Navdeep
Wrong product but its ok i will keep it
Reviewed in India on May 27, 2017Platform For Display: PCVerified Purchase
