Rise of Nations (Gold Edition) (PC Games, 2004)

My grandkids have had this game for a while. They left the original diskin a computer that was returned to Dell, so I replaced it for them. There are 5 of them ages 17 down to 7. Each one plays on their level. This game is educational, they learn history through the ages, strategy and role playing. No graphic violence, its like playing with toy soldiers.

This is a great game with plenty of ways to keep you busy for hours upon hours. I won't bore you with too many techinical details (these can be found at the game's official website), but I'll say that it was money well spent.

The game offers a pretty tough challenge through a few lengthy single-player campaign maps, where you assume the role of a historical leader and follow their footsteps (or take different paths than they did), including a campaign to take over the entire world.

Advance through the ages while maintaining a healthy balance of economy and military. Take units from sling-wielding rock throwers to anti-tank rifles, attack helicopters, even nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Tons of fun, doesn't require a monster machine to play, inexpensive, good graphics and functionality. Great choice for somebody into Real Time Strategy looking for another one to try out.

I can't give it an excellent - not because it isn't a great game but because I don't consider many things perfect. But awesome nonetheless, especially for the price!

Great value, although it was first released a couple years ago it is still one of the best strategy games out there! Runs smoothly on new computers and is a great buy!

I purchased this game for my husband for Christmans and he loves it. I hardly see him because he is playing it all the time.

always loved these games excellent.The game brings you up through the ages.collecting resources and governing your people.try not to get killed thou.....

My game got scratched before. So I needed to Buy a new one. It ran really smoothly and is a great game. It is the European version but that is o.k.

Perfect! Everything was good. Good, old classic game. A great buy for anybody into old strategic games. Graphics are a little low, but it's an old game, so no biggie.

i love the product, fast shipping, thanks a lot bud! i will definitely check out your other inventory when i need to buy something else! thanks again, it was great doing business with you

I love this game..

Its fun..

Its early in the morning right now so I'm tired here at work..

And its all this game's fault..

I love this game..

It was obviously used though... scratched a little. I am still able to use it but I would have liked to know that one of the disks was scratched before buying the CDs. I would buy from this seller again despite the scratches.

Age of Empires it my favorite game and I thought this would be much like it. It wasn't. Understand, it was good but not nearly as good as A of E. I found it a little repetitious and to tell you the truth I put it down after one or two days of trying to beat it. If you like these sort of games, definitely play this game first and then get the compleat set of four Age of Empires games. But don't play A of E first and then play Rise of Natoins because you will be disserpointed.
All in all, you will have some fun playing Rise of Nations because it is a good game and well worth the money.

My Son Says this game Is Awsome! He loves Playing this Game I play it all the time. From Aaron Thanks for your great Game .

This game has had me sitting in front of the computer for hours at a time. This game really is good and I really enjoy playing it

The game is real time strategy game which attempts to follow historical developments in various civilizations (interestingly enough, not the U.S.). The game plays a lot like Orc vs. Humans but it is much more involved and has many intricate issues to coordinate. The game is challenging is real time and it difficult to coordinate all your units and city building. In some ways the game might be smoother as turn based game. Still an enjoyable experience with interesting and good graphics.

The reason I bought Rise of Nations (RON) originally, was because it had received many good ratings from many diferent reviewers. I purchased it and was highly impressed by it's graphics, gameplay, replayability and concept. I personally believe that a good game needs all of these to be sucessful and I'm glad it did. Unfortunately for me, I got the game late...these days, in the lobby, there are maybe 30 people at maximum, with maybe 20 players active of varying skill levels.

I also personally believe that a good game needs to be alluring and simple to play but harder to master. Using another game as an example, Master of Orion 2 was great for me: it was easy to learn the basics and hard to master, where as Master of Orion 3 just seemed confusing and overwhelming at first (and hence remains in my cd case never to be played).

I met some nice people in the lobby and I liked RON so much, that I decided to get the upgrade. I could have bought the Thrones and Patriots expansion pack but I decided to get Gold (for the same price pretty much). You can still play either version with it.

Pros:

I found the graphics were improved in the expansion pack, in particular with more unique units per nation (the boats for example were slightly changed). The introduction of several new races gives many choices to choose from. :D Of course, for anyone who mastered the races in the original (or Vanilla) RON this of course changes the dynamics of the game in what I think is a positive way. The lobby has 50-70 players (more on the weekends) so there are plenty of people to play with. Most are quite skilled though so prepare to get beaten a few times until you improve your gameplay (better to lose to a good game than to win a boring one right?). It is actually somewhat simple to do tasks such as building a farm: you just select a civilian and click build and plop the farm where you want (provided you have the wood necessary). The resources are fairly simple to grasp and it's important to have an increasing steady supply of them to win.

The gameplay is very challenging and dynamic: you can set many modes to play. For example, you can win by military strength (just pound your opponent to death) or say by capturing his capital and holding it for a select period of time, or even do a peaceful tech race. You can play with allies on your team (a game can have a max of 8 players: too bad they couldn't have 16 or something :D ). If you give it a chance and just play to have fun, I'm sure you'll enjoy it and get good at it. :) That is, if you like the starcraft/warcraft type of game (mind you this is different in several ways)

Cons:

There are some very rude, ignorant and annoying people in the lobby sometimes (although I suppose that happens in any game). People in the lobby are very 1D in that they prefer to either play secret random land maps (I like fighting on water too ;) ) or starting from scratch and making tech expensive. The game is old but yeah, diversity is what keeps a game interesting, no? There have been several adjustments to each race through a patch as they have been *unbalanced* to put it mildly, so if you come from Vanilla RON like I did, then it'll take a good chunk of time to re adjust. I personally don't like the patriot option as it makes attacks too quick and takes away from simple raiding and attrition.

All in all, you'll get your money's worth. :) Be sure to have a properly working router! Enjoy!

Love this game. I've played a few role-playing type games and this one is so addicting.

If you get stuck or can't move on you can always go to a totally new section of conquests and play there. I tend to play and get stuck and get frustrated and want to play another scenario so this works out for me. I find that when I go back to old ones later, I do better too! I've been playing this game now for a few months and am still addicted!

Very fun game. I bought because i owned RON1 and i loved playing it.. but i lost it .. so i decided to buy the 2 pack because it seemed like a goood deal.... and it was .. its a very fun game. More nations then the Age Of Empires game i had and more features