Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots Preview

Last year, Big Huge Games released a breakthrough RTS title called Rise of Nations. This game added unique traits that help revitalize the genre. The thing that made it so distinctive was that this game mixed Real Time and Turn based strategy games into one. While it seems like that mixture would never work, Big Huge Games proved everyone wrong. Read on to find out what new things are added in this latest expansion pack that will make Rise of Nations better than ever!

Just like all expansion packs, this game will include a slew of new nations. The new ones are: Iroquois, Lakota, Dutch, American, Persian, and Indian. Each of these nations has their own specialty units and different bonuses that make them irresistible to play with. Here is a quick rundown of each of the nations.

Iroquois allow players to get access to governments earlier, gather wood faster, and each time you build a barracks you will get a scout unit. One of the biggest advantages to using this race is that the military units will be invisible to the enemies (if they are in their own territory) until they are attacked. Lakota receives food bonuses; free upgrades to their Calvary units and their borders are hidden to all other nations.

Just like in real life the Dutch are seafaring people, so their bonuses come in handy because they get free boats after building a dock, free commence development, and all of their caravans are protected by armed units. What makes using the Americans so great is that they will be able to build a wonder instantly and all the military upgrades are cheaper.

One of the toughest units is the Persians, since they get two capitals, and compound that with the fact that they get elephant units. These are one of the most formidable units that you will face in the game, and make them a blast to play with. Last but not least are the Indians (from India). Just like the Persians they get the powerful elephant units that cause much devastation to their enemies. One of the biggest benefits is that all the building costs stay the same all throughout time, so it saves precious resources to create more military units.

There are four brand new single player campaigns that span through the stream of time. This time players will be able to take part in: The Cold War, Conquest of the New Work, Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great, and Napoleon’s quest to dominate Europe. These campaigns not only bring in a more story element to the game, but they will last a long time, and give the game more replay value. The reason for this is that players will have the ability to play as many different factions in each campaign, so you can play a campaign many different times before you get the entire story.

One of the biggest introductions is the ability for each nation to choose between different forms of governments, and they are either military or economic based. Just like in real life, players are not confined to just one government through out the ages, they can change it at will. As you progress and change you will be able to carry out the abilities and bonuses from each once. As soon as players choose a new government they will be given a unit called a patriot unit, which has special powers. These powers will depend on which form of government you have chosen. The abilities might be a more offensive or defensive nature. This is a great addition and makes the game feel more realistic in every sense.

Being an expansion pack, the game is built off the graphics engine that the previous game had, with minor improvements. It is a good thing that the previous game was gorgeous and this expansion pack shows that the graphics have stood the test of time over this past year! Even though this beta is not fully optimized yet, it still runs smooth as silk on my computer system with no slow down at all, which bodes really well when the game is finally released.

From what I can tell from this beta version, this expansion pack is going to blow your socks off. With new additions, gameplay improvements, and many other things, you will not take this game out of your CD drive for a long time!