Note:This will be my last game “review” before i’ll take a break from posting, which is when i’ll have to sadly end my daily posts, but oh well, christmas is christmas.
Rise of Nations is a Real-Time Strategy game where you rule one of the countries that you select, with some powerful ones being locked behind a exp requirement, just to prevent beginners from starting with the strongest countries in-game, there are many features in-game, such as Buildings, Military and it’s troop training system, generals, an Advanced Research System, Formables and lastly…Nukes, yes, you can craft nukes in-game, just be aware that it’s a ridicously hard process and requires you to be a pretty good strategist already.
Let’s talk about these mechanics, shall we?
Several Different Currencies and Resources in-game:
-Each Currency will be sub-categorized, due to them serving various roles in-game, and some are straight-forward to understand, while some are complicated to use, be aware that this game’s pretty hard at the beggining.
Money:Probably one of the most important currencies in-game, allowing you to develop your Nation, make a powerful army, trade resources etc. There are many resources of Money, such as:
-Taxation:You are capable of changing the tax you have in the Nation Menu, but high taxes may cause you to start losing stability, another important resource that i’ll talk about soon
-Resources:If you are desperate for money (which is unlikely, unless you are in a deficit or a debt, which i’ll mention those mechanics later), you can ask other players, or AI countries to sell your resources you earned from various sources, but it’s best to convert resources to products beforehand.
-Factory Production:The Best Early-game method to earning fat stacks of cash, that is because of a pretty powerful early-game strategy:Gold and Copper farms, and what does that make? Computer Parts, of Course! which can be manufactured in Factories, trade these with a player or AI Country to get fat stacks of cash, the more the merrier.
-War Reparations:Since i am not that good at the game, i am not sure myself if War Reparations are viable.You can ask a defeated country for War Reparations in the Peace Treaty, you can steal up to 25% of a Nation’s Income temporaily, This allows you to recover quicker after a war, if you somehow win one, that is.
-Seizing Treasury:Basically War Reparations, but you instantly steal a certain amount of the defeated country’s treasury, which can cripple your opponent temporaily, and allows you to instantly recover some money lost from the war, also acts as a good way to get money.
There are alot more ways to earn money in this game, but let’s move on to another Resource:
Stability:Probably the second most important Resource in the Game, which grants various positive benefits when it’s high, and causes negative benefits when low, High Stability speeds up the development of your country and prevents captured countries from declaring independence, it is recommended to keep your Stability high as to not cause problems with your Nation, or even cause it to break apart.
Unrest:An important negative resource that may be caused from long wars, rebel funding, and many other negative events.If unrest reaches a high value, you cannot build or make units in that specific city, Scorching (will talk about it later) a City causes it’s unrest to raise to 100% instantly, gradually decreasing to 0% when Scorching is about to expire.
Manpower:An Important resource used to recruit Infantry units used for war, the more population you have, the more manpower you gain per tick (i forgot how long a tick is in-game lol.), you can further speed up or increase the Manpower gain and Cap by having more population, buying recruitment centers etc.
Political Power:Another Resource that can be spent on changing your ideology, conscription laws, and more.Ideologies allow you to specialize in an certain aspect of your country, and require you to use alot of political power to switch between them.
War Exhaustion:A Negative resource that increases while in War, which will increase dramatically the more wars you are in and the longer it goes, so it’s best not to be in a War situation for too long, as it can cause your country to fall apart due to stability loss.
Okay, i think that’s enough about the basics of Resources, let’s talk about the Main Mechanics:
Building:Building allows you to make various buildings, such as Roads, Factories, and more.Cities can be developed to make them stronger, and allow your Nation to become slightly stronger with each development, just be aware that mass-development is very expensive at high levels.
Military:Military is the main way to becoming a powerful Nation, with various units, such as Infantry, Tanks, Planes, Naval Units, Etc. This allows you to make alot of various strategies due to the diverse amounts of unit types.
Unit Training:You can train your units, Increasing their upkeep, but makes them more experiences, making them stronger.However…they cannot be maxed with training and require them to defeat armies in battle to reach veterancy.
Generals:Generals can be recruited, which give various bonuses to Units, which can also be upgraded via Unit Training, however…sometimes, Generals can die due to certain events (yes, there are events in-game, but i won’t talk about them just so you can have a good experience with how chaotic the game gets.), which requires you to get another general, again…
Since this is already getting a little bit too long, and i assume barely anybody would want to read dictionary-long entries, i’ll start with some honorable mentions:
-Scorching:Scorching is a mechanic that allows you to destroy a city/capital of a captured city, increasing it’s unrest to 100% that gradually decreases to 0%.If a captured Country’s capital is scorched, then the Country you captured will gradually fall, this sounds like a toxic kid move…but if you want your enemy truly gone, either out of frustration…or just because they are too powerful to be left alive…scorching is the last option.
Formables:You though this game dosen’t have a meta? Here is the meta.Formables are Upgrades to Countries, which are very hard and tedious to get, but allows you to become much stronger after capturing the required countries, with a free 10% boost to stability, as long as you keep your formable alive.
Completing various formables rewards badges, titles and skins.
Puppeteering:Basically allows you to forcefully control a player’s country, while the victim is unable to do most Nation-based features, unless some other person frees it via Liberation war.Puppetting a country grants various benefits and features, such as:
-Forcing the current ideology you have into the victim country.
-You gain 20% of your puppet’s income as yours.
-The Puppet will join any wars you join in.
etc.
Nukes:Legalize Nuclear Bombs.Nukes are a extremely powerful, end-game weapon that can cripple countries hit by it, but are extremely expensive to make, requiring Uranium, a hard to find and scarce source, and many other resources to craft a nuke, which also requires you to enrich it for it to be able to be used for Nukes.
Nukes can be activated and shot toward a country, which will cause a massive explosion that will scorch the hit cities for a very long time, kills half of a city’s population (which cripples manpower), resets city tier to I, insta-kills all units that were in contact with the explosion, along with many other devastations, Nukes allow you to cripple a country, making it weaker and easier to invade.
To Start your Nuking bussiness, you first have to research the entire Nuclear Technology tree to be able to research, enrich uranium, and then craft nukes.
Woah, that was quite long, but i’ll suppose that’s all i’ll explain, the rest of the features will be left as a mystery for you to discover 
, here is the game link:
