A real-time strategy(RTS) game where you wage war over land, sea and air from the ancient age to current day information age. Lead one of 24 nations to conquer the world.
Release Date
Pros
There are five Conquer The World(CTW) campaigns and they are very good. The Conquer The World mode adds an extra element of turn-based strategy to the game. The turn-based section can heavily influence how easy it is to play the real-time battle.
Your units’ AI are very good. Citizens can be set to automatically gather resources nearby or help with building things nearby.
The nuclear missile super weapon is REALLY a SUPER WEAPON. But the game has a limit of how many nuclear missiles can be fired before ARMAGEDDON!
There is a very good tutorial that teaches basic real-time strategy concepts as well as things specific to Rise Of Nations. Very beginner player friendly.
The game is moddable. Check out Rise of Nations Heaven to get mods and maps.
For some Conquer The World campaign battles, the battle map is actually generated based on the main CTW campaign map. So when you attack from one area to another, the battle map generated looks like the zoomed in area of the CTW campaign map. This is very innovative as you can create your own CTW campaign and all the battle maps will be generated for you when you play your campaign.
Cons
There are no cons for Rise Of Nations. It is simply a great game.
Other Points
There are 24 nations to play in the Gold Edition. But each side is very similar except for a few unique units and a few beneficial perks. Some of these perks are, faster gather rate of a certain resource, or build certain units faster or cheaper units.
The graphics are OK considering how old the game is. It would have been nice if it was full 3D like in The Moon Project.
Biases
Reviewed version 03.02.12.0800 of the game.
I really liked Dune 2, Command And Conquer, C&C Tiberian Sun and The Moon Project.
I also liked Warcraft 1 and 2, Dark Reign and Total Annihilation.
I have completed the Entire World, Napoleon and Alexander campaigns. In fact I have completed Entire World campaign many times, I just keep coming back for more!
I have not played any multiplayer games.
DRM
A product key must be entered when installing the game.
The disc must be in the drive to play the game.
Patches
To get patches you must use the game’s autopatcher. There is no place where you can just download the file to keep for later use.
Minimum Requirements (as stated on box)
- Windows: XP/2000/ME/98 – 128 MB RAM
- processor: 500 MHz
- hard drive: 1.6 GB
- video card: 16 MB/3D
- other: audio board with speakers/headphones
- online/multiplayer requirements: 5.6kbps or better for internet play
Computer Played On
- Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz
- 2Gb RAM
- ATI Radeon X1600 256Mb RAM
- Win XP Pro
- Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.
Handy Tips
When adding custom CTW maps, you might need to delete the %appdata%\Microsoft Games\Rise of Nations\conquest\temp folder to pick up the correct map graphic when starting the new CTW game.
Recommended Mods
- Times of War Unofficial Expansion v2.2 – Increases the number of territories for CTW: Entire World. Also has quite a lot of other changes.
