LADYDRAGON.COM - AGE OF EMPIRES: RISE OF ROME

Since Command and Conquer was released lo these many years ago, there has been tons of real time strategy games hitting the stores. Some of them are good, most of them are bad and virtually all of them follow the exact same recipe: build a military base, harvest resources, build units and attack. Virtually all of them follow this formula with a notable exception and that is Age of Empires from Microsoft. In AoE, two things have been added. A historical perspective and a little thing called the technology tree. When you start one of the scenarios in this game, you're given a tribe of villagers whose future you must guide. You decide if villagers should forage for food, chop down wood or mine for stone and gold. You also decide if they should construct buildings. Adding houses allows your population to grow; building a barracks lets you begin training warriors for defense and/or conquest. Whether you stress resource gathering or construction depends on the particular challenges your tribe faces in its bid for survival. In turn, what challenges they face depend on who they are and when the scenario you're playing takes place. Your tribe may be representative of one of a number of great ancient civilizations including Assyrians, Sumerians and Greeks. Each of the the civilizations was invaded by some foreign power or invaded someone else at one time or another. At the beginning of a scenario, a brief instruction is given to you which explains what you should expect to see. If it looks like those pesky Minoans are going to pay you a visit, you may want to beef up your defenses by building some catapults. In order to build a catapult, not only do you have to chop down enough trees to have the physical resources to make the damn thing, but you have to learn how to construct one as well. This learning process takes you through a number of different stages. My home town.	Six ships against one. I wonder who'll win. In the case of the catapult, you would need to learn archery and then siege technology. A further complication is that certain technologies can only be acquired during certain time periods. Again, with the catapult, your civilization must reach the Iron Age before this weapon can be acquired. When deciding how to keep your villagers busy, you have to strike a balance between devoting resources to the things you need right now, and devoting resources to researching technology that will advance your tribe. And herein lies the tension that makes this game so much fun to play. Do I send my people on an invasion across the Mediterranean in the rickety boats that I can make right now? Or do I spend some time learning how to build better ships and risk being invaded myself while I do so? In some cases, you may choose to research something just because its really cool and you want to play with it. I personally enjoy researching every possible technology like coinage, irrigation, and astrology, because I find the more options open to a tribe, the stronger they are. The expansion pack for Age of Empires is called the Rise of Rome and it merely adds Palmyrians, Carthaginians, Macedonians and Romans to the civilizations you'll play as or against. It also adds new researchable technologies and units like the Camel Riders and adjusts the gameplay in certain areas. Its not a major overhaul, but it is a definite improvement over the original. Graphics are not flashy or awe-inspiring but everything looks like its supposed to. The music and audio cues and effects are quite good. If you enjoyed the original game, you should definitely check out this expansion pack. If you like real time strategy but are tired of all the cookie cutter games on the market at the moment, AoE: Rise of Rome is right up your alley.	Companies Developer Ensemble Studios Publisher Microsoft Category Real-Time Strategy Notes Originality: 84% Gameplay: 86% Interest: 90% Graphic: 82% Control: 90% Sound: 81% TOTAL: 86% Requirements Operation System Windows 95-98 Processor 90 MHz Pentium Memory 16 RAM Hard Drive 130 MB CD ROM 4x Sound Card Windows - Compatible Video Card 1MB SVGA Input Device Mouse Multiplayer 1-8 Players Rated by ESRB "T" Teen Stefan Lister DEMO


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