Is this like Empire Earth?

[Mod S]

Is this like Empire Earth or age of empires, if so how long does it take to go from ancient to last era and would you recommend this?

[The Fabulous Gravy Train]

If you look at the wikipedia entry it sounds exactly like Empire Earth, I'm interested in an answer from someone as well.

[EL JEFE]

from ancient to last era if you are just booming with no oponent i can say i did it in 20m... with an oponent it would take an more like 50m or more, although it was very rare in 1v1 to go all the way

[BarbarianGunner]

Some of the guys who worked on AoE worked on Rise of Nations and EE, so both have AoE influence. I would say this is a must have if you like AoE and EE.

[Koranis]

Rise of Nations has higher production value and a terrific soundtrack (not that EE had a bad one but RoN has some really memorable pieces - just watch the trailer, that one is one of the musics that you can hear during a battle). Plus the expansion included in this extended version has some really great open ended campaigns like Cold War or Alexander. It also has some interesting "frontline mechanics" - basically you control territory which shifts back and forth as you gain or loose ground. You don't fight for bases or resources: you fight for territory because it gives you control over everything else. Plus every era plays completely different.

I also liked the attention to details: if you play as modern Russia you will have Russian Hind helicopters or Mig fighters at your disposal, while americans will have Apache helis or F18 hornets. An european country like France or Spain will have Eurofighters. It would have been easy make a single fighter or helicopter model for each faction but as I said RoN is full of this kind of little touches which make a difference between a good game and a great one.

I stopped playing Empire Earth the day I tried Rise of Nations. But however you feel about it there no doubt about one thing: RoN is a great game and if you liked Empire Earth, you'll this one.

[enko]

Its like old school AoE. RoN felt more AoE to me than subsequent AoE games did. More creative and far more strategic. You have to play to your civilizations strength.

Ages and dynamics are very well done, and nation perks make each civilization similar to how fighting games like street fighter are doing it. Essentially you get the same dynamic, farms, peasants, barracks etc... but few things are very unique - Russians have attrition so you lose health on their land - they dominate passively, Turks have insane cannon strengh that turned losing battles for me against far superior forces, French had cavalry that destoryed everything (it got nerfed), Azteks are amazing early rushers with their health drain. Chinese get free peasants. And so on...

Its a really well designed game, and nothing else really came close since.

[Dennis[DK]]

RoN is like a combination of Empire Earth and Civilization. There are some differents (both good and bad) between EE and RoN:
- The gap between the first and last era is much shorter in RoN, because everything go much faster - building, research, resource gathering and so on. In RoN, you can easily reach the last era within 1-1½ hours, while in EE, this will take at least 4 hours. And a game is at all completed much faster in RoN, than in EE - again, because of the faster training, resource gathering and such. EE offers more depth in a game, because of this.
- The territory issue
- Siege and aircraft units in RoN are ridiculously underpowered against units. You can bomb a single infantry squad (with 3 units) with a Bomber for several minutes, before they die. In EE, a single Bomber can take out an entire squad of infantry...
- Rare resources, that gives an extra ability (like stronger defense buildings, faster research and such)
- World map single player campaign, and 4 other campaigns (Alexander the Great, New World, Napoleon and Cold War)
- One of the biggest difference between EE and RoE, much be the different civilizations. EE just have one, "plain" civilization, you could customize with 100 point, and add things like more HP for units, more attack power and such. In RoE, every civs have some unique traits, unique units (often between 3-4), and there are whole 8 different sets of skins (USA, America, Europe, Mediterranean, Middle East, India, Asia and Korea).

[Jeszkar]

This is kinda like a real time CIV game. However it's not as complex as those games. The main game have only the conquer the world mod, which can become repetative over time, but the expansion pack has 4 interesting campaigns.

[Benjin]

Another point which no one has mentioned yet, which also majorly differs from Empire Earth, is that Rise of Nations has no future era, unfortunately. I really wish it had one.

[Chester]

I cba to write alot, to which I apologise, but i'll put it this way...

If you like age of empires II, and you like Empire Earth, you will adore Rise of Nations.

[rom]

I would say that it's a mix of Civilization (same guys that worked on the firsts CIvs build this game), and real time strategy.
It's well worth buy it ^^

[Kyte]

It plays very much like AoE, or Civ(but realtime, not turnbased). I loved setting up blitzkriegs. The waterborne invasions were great, provided you cleared the ocean of enemy subs first. Nothing like having 4 u-boats pop up in the middle of your fleet!

[GhostyGG]

when i was a kid I actually played this game so much that it crashed my friend's computer and broke the game forever. I've been DYING to see a steam release of this.

[Dennis[DK]]

I forgot to mention, that another difference between EE1 and RoN, is that in RoN, units will never obsolete. You will always be able to upgrade them into something new. While in EE1, practically every units will either obsolete at the time, and/or first be available later in the game. In EE1, the only units that is available from the first to the last era, is citizens, canine scouts, priests and prophets. However, in EE1, some ships will be able/active in most eras (like Frigates and Battleships).