Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots Expansion Pack Review

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(More customer reviews)Like many who have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Thrones and Patriots, I played a social-life crippling amount of Rise of Nations when it debuted in early 2003.That's why when my co-junkie CIO barged into my office yesterday with this expansion pack I was both elated and petrified at the potential darkening of my social life that might occur if this follow-on was half as interesting as press has made it out to be.
I went home, and savagely thrust the CD into my eager drive, loading....anticipatory sweat began to bead on my backhair....loading...
Fast forward 20 minutes, and if you asked me "how is it", I wouldn't answer you.That would be my answer.Now, sitting here in my office, I'm jones'ing to run home and play again...the crackling of US Marine Machine Gun fire, screaming Persian Elephants....
So much has changed, yet thankfully, for RON lovers, the gameplay is still comfortably familiar.There are however some notable differences in this game.
First off, there are 6 new nations, 20 new unit types, and 4 new maps.But so far, the biggest difference is the ability to choose a government type...
At the Classical Age you establish a Senate and choose a government.Your choices are: Despotism, Socialism, Capitalism, Monarchy, Republic, and Democracy.Your Governmentgives your nation military and non-military bonuses, and each government type allows you to create a Patriot.The Patriot is a special unit that acts as your leader.They are produced from the Senate and give certain bonuses to units and buildings within a proximate radius of their location.What's interesting is that each of the six governments produce a Patriot unique to their type.
So in choosing government type (which give you global bonuses), you also need to balance that governments value against the unique set of Patriot bonuses.As if there weren't enough choices in Rise of Nations to begin with.But really, as I expressed in my review of RON, that's what I love so much about this game.I know of no "one way to win".Much like chess, there are counters to every efficacious strategy and tactic, "rushing", "turtleing (holing up defensively)", "age leaping"...every game must be played dynamically against your partners strategy.A "thinking mans RTS".
Needless to say, I'm thrilled.I haven't been this excited to game since I was learning Rise of Nations a little over a year ago.If you love RTS's like Civilization, you'll should pick up this habit.If you're already addicted to RON, well, your next fix is on the shelf...
I hope this was helpful.
Enjoy.

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Product Description:
Expansion Pack; requires Rise Of NationsAlso includes four new single-player campaigns -The rise of Alexander the Great, the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, the conquest of the New World, and the Cold War

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Rise Of Nations: Thrones Review

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(More customer reviews)I hate the phrase "Total Package" but it is apt in this expanded "Rise of Nations" dual-disc package.

The original game was good - and very frustrating. The computer will neither lay down and let you roll over it, nor simply overwhelm you. It will, however, put up a heckuva good fight.

Even with overwhelming force, attrition plays such a large part of the damage your invading units receive that by the time the opponent is beat, you'll not have much left to mount an effective attack.

In short, this is a strategy game that really makes you think ahead.

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Product Description:
You've conquered the world in Rise of Nations, now do it again playing all new historical campaigns with a fully interactive diplomacy and trading system and featuring over 130 new scenarios. Follow in the footsteps of two of the world's greatest generals, Alexander the Great and Napoleon. See how well you do in the politically charged climate of the New World and the Cold War. Combining the epic scope of traditional turn-based strategy games with the fast-paced action of RTS games, Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots enables players to explore 6,000 years of history as they amass powerful armies, build prosperous economies and perform acts of diplomacy. Six new nations, four unique single-player campaigns, more than 20 original units, new wonders and new government types.

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Rise of Nations Review

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(More customer reviews)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...

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Product Description:
Rise of Nations is a historical real time strategy game from Big Huge Games' Brian Reynolds, designer of PC game classics such as Civilization 2 and Alpha Centauri.
Dominate 6,000 years of history from the Ancient Age to the Information Age. Which forces will you deploy to lead your nation to global prominence? Trade, espionage, diplomacy...war? Whichever path you choose, you'll experience the pulse pounding thrill and speed of real-time gaming combined with the epic scope and depth of turn-based strategy games - brought together for the first time ever in Rise of Nations.

In Rise of Nations, you'll create new cities, improve city infrastructures and expand national borders. Conquer foes through military might using everything from sling-shots to cannons to stealth bombers to nuclear weapons; corner the market on key commodities and consolidate power under your rule; wheel and deal across time with history's eminent cultures.

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Rise of Nations Gold Review

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(More customer reviews)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.

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Product Description:
Rise of Nations: Gold Edition gives you the greatest strategic game experience as you you lead your armies on land or sea. This version gives you both the award-winning original title and the critically acclaimed expansion pack, Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots.

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Age of Empires III: Complete Collection Review

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(More customer reviews)This collection of the basic game and expansions is a good value for Real Time Strategy (RTS) game players.The War Chiefs expansion is ok, campaign short, and not a lot of depth.The Asian Dynasties Expansion is a lot of fun, three campaigns (Japan, India, China), with each nation having their own wonders giving them unique special abilities.The different nations are neat, but not having a United States colonial civilization to choose from in skirmish mode is disappointing, especially after playing the campaign game in War Chiefs.The campaigns are easier to complete and have less depth than Age of Empires II (AoE2).AoE3 campaigns were overall fun, but require much less strategy to win; build one small army to defend your base and when the large army is ready to go, overwhelm the computer.

The graphics have improved, but did experienced significant lag and even game freezing at times due to ship combat on the duo-core Thinkpad, even with all graphic options reduced to minimal levels.Other than naval combat, the game played well.Not sure why the lag occurred.

There are some improvements to the game play where a single large farm can be built and no need to worry about cueing or constantly checking if there is enough wood to re-task the workers to harvest food.The use of a home city for the campaign game is really neat with special cards to provide resources, upgrades, or units.Each nation has unique units and cards.The strategy of the cards is very important, does the player want to have early age villagers to gather resources faster or hold on for the late age military units for the end game battles?This adds depth to the game.

The basic resources are still wood, gold, food, with experience for home city improvement (cards).Experience is gained from killing enemy units, destroying structures, building units, and having a trading post.

The negative about the game is the combat options.The player no longer has the option for unit formations or commands such as defend ground or hold ground.Units will rush off when attacked and baited by the enemy.Worse yet, units will stay in large massed formations when attacking artillery units, to be blown apart.The player can not select skirmish mode or defend unit mode.Your healer will rush off and attack an enemy building or unit.

Another negative is artillery units being too strong to destroy and the targeting of units.Example would be attacking a group of enemy artillery units that are in marching order.Your cavalry can attack the artillery, but somehow, even the big siege gun, will be able to unlimber and fire, killing multiple units even though they are engaged in hand to hand combat against swordsmen and cavalry.Artillery does not cause splash or collateral damage to friendly units too.So if the enemy has their infantry attacking yours in hand to hand combat, their artillery will be able to fire through them and only kill your units, not theirs.This is a frustrating factor.

As we know in history, artillery units, when attacked in hand to hand combat, can not fire, also siege cannons, take a long time to reload and can not if the crews are attacked in hand to hand combat.But in AoE3, the game has super artillery being able to unlimber and fire multiple times, killing your units before being finally subdued while under attack the entire time.The siege cannons take a lot of damage to destroy too.This is a very frustrating experience that detracts from the game.

Given lack of combat formation / options and the lag time experienced in naval combat, AoE2 and Age of Mythology are still the preferred games.The massive battles with large armies between multiple players were a lot fun in AoE2 as each side slugged it out, but for some reason, lacking the same level of intensity and excitement in AoE3.

Unfortunately, Ensemble Studios was closed by Microsoft, which is not a good sign for us computer gamers.If Microsoft closes their only computer game developer, it becomes very clear that their focus is to make money from console games.The loss of Ensemble Studios means that we computer strategy game players will have fewer quality games to purchase and play in the future.

Thank you Ensemble Studios, your games have been fun to play and AoE3 was another enjoyable experience.

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Age of Empires III will offer gamers the next level of realism, with advanced battle physics and unparalleled visual detail.

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