Rise of Nations

aka: RON
Moby ID: 9227
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Description official descriptions

Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy game which covers a long period of time, from the early stone age up to the modern-day technology.

The game offers many unique features that you can not find in other RTS games, such as: National Borders, Rare Resources, "Conquer the World" risk-like campaign, Citizens can occupy themselves, 18 Historical Nations (with unique powers/units), Multiple victory conditions, and many more. Also, a multi-player mode is included and offers a ranking system.

Spellings

  • 国家的崛起 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 王國的興起 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

147 People (127 developers, 20 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 54 ratings with 4 reviews)

More like Empire earth meets Civilization.....

The Good
The idea that you have actual cities rather than a collection of buildings is very neat. Being able to capture and plunder his caravans and cities, really adds realism in this admittedly best RTS to come out since Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings, (except for Age of Mythology;) The use of borders and attrition damage give you more of a feeling of ruling a real empire. Add to this some real nice graphics and buildings, and it's truely a delight to look at. It also has a slew of civilizations, just like Age of Kings.

The Bad
Unfortunately, it hasn't learned from the mistakes of other recent RTS games cough Empire Earth cough.. like in EE, the planes circle overhead in large sweeping arcs like big buzzards. It's not as bad as other ones though, as the planes are faster and refuel quicker. Nuclear weapons also make the game less fun. You can just nuke the other guy's capital, killing most of his economy, and essentially greatly setting back his civilization. The maps are also pretty small, so you probably won't be able to get more than 5 cities. Also, this shares one other trait with other not-as-good-as-age of empires-games. It spans a far too long time period. AOE is probably about 300-400 years. Empire Earth and Rise of Nations and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World span 1000 years or more. This means in RON, you will find that you've advanced to the Modern age, and now need oil to build anything wort building, although you have great food and wood economies. it just makes your economy a pain.

The Bottom Line
Although better than other recent poor RTS, it falls short of being better than Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings

Windows · by James Kirk (150) · 2004

The next-generation RTS

The Good
As many did, I waited for this game for months looking for the new AOE style game, AOM and EE didn’t make it for me but this one is great and has the potential to...

I like:

1) How were implemented the rare resources and the nation borders from the Civilization series.

2) The mix between RTS and TBS.

3) The diversity on civilizations and their bonuses.

4) The fact that multiplayer works great not as many games ship these days.

5) The fact that scores isn’t fully related to military therefore the last player can have the strongest army and win the game.

6) The fact that you can (recommended) add generals and supply wagons to your army.

7) The risk-like campaign is great.

The Bad
A few points but let’s go...

1) As a strategy lover I feel that techs are researched to fast and after 30 mins of game you are at the latest ages... I don’t ask for slow developments like you have in a TBS but I dislike the fast ones.

2) The fact that first player to reach nuclear power have a big advantage at that point.

3) The fact that if your capital is taken by enemy and you can't recover it on 5 mins you are out and the total of your cities are now part of your enemy nation.

The Bottom Line
If you like RTS is a must-have, if you like TBS and never tried RTS because the differences this one can be a great start.

If you like Multiplayer games this one is for you and if you prefer single player the risk-like campaign will provide you hours of fun...

Windows · by Cabeza2000 (689) · 2003

The first "RTS" game to actually reward strategy rather than tactics, and the first to really capture the grand feel of a Civ-style game

The Good
This combined the visual appeal and "niftyness" value of the better RTS games with the large-scale feeling of a Civilization-style game. Unlike far too many in the genre, you don't have to out-click a computer to play single-player, and the game design makes actual strategic decision-making - longer-term planning and choices - crucial to play. It's also missing most of the worst annoyances of the genre, like stupid units that don't react when under attack and a race to create an uber-unit rush. It even manages to capture the scope and feeling of a great strategic game like Civilization, where your cities really feel like cities and not just bases - heck, it even has Wonders of the World. The single-player "Conquer the World" campaign is also really great, a more-than-decent real strategy game that uses the RTS module for tactical battles.

The Bad
Although the variety of nations support various play styles and give several good choices for most player styles, eventually you do reach the point where games start feeling pretty much the same and there's nothing more to play. Also, sadly, in the CTW campaign the real-world starting locations don't mix very well with the list of nations chosen; the worst case of this is probably the Maya, who have a very nice power in the RTS game but start in a basically hopeless location in the campaign.

The Bottom Line
Although the seminal title in the genre, Dune, was an original idea and I played it as such, most of these games vary from boring to unplayable for me. RoN is only one of two that I've played since Dune that I actually liked, and it's the only one I've ever got enthused about. It also accomplishes something I thought impossible - it actually renders much of the flavor of a Civ game into the RTS genre.

Windows · by weregamer (155) · 2003

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Rise of Nations appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2003 – Best PC Strategy Game of the Year
  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2004 - #5 Game of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2003 – #7 PC Game of the Year
    • 2003 – PC RTS Game of the Year
    • 2011 – #19 Top PC Game of the 2000s
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2005 - #36 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list

Online servers

The game's online servers which were hosted on GameSpy were shut down on 5 December 2012.

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  • MobyGames ID: 9227
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Frederic Hutow.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Cabeza2000, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added May 21, 2003. Last modified March 4, 2024.