Now, another example on the archery line of units. Start with a basic bowed individual, move onto an upgraded Archer, learn the crossbow, and then the archibus or musket. From here lies the rifleman, to modern infantry and then into the assault infantry equivalent in the Information Age. Naturally, stables and horses do eventually make way for automobile plants and tanks, where the top-of-the-line unit sits proudly in M1-style fashion.
BY LAND, BY SEA, BY AIR: AIR/NAVY UPGRADES
As for air support, your arsenal can include fighter and bomber planes, as well as helicopters. The earliest fighter and bomber units are an Industrial Age by-plane and Zeplin respectively. The former can move into attack formation and fire missiles. Or, you may opt instead or in addition to this assemble missile silos to do this dirty work. On the open seas front, light ships, heavy ships, aircraft carriers, battleships – they are all available through upgrades through time.
THE ROLE OF `CIVILIAN` UNITS
There are two main kinds of civilian units that star in Rise of Nations. First, citizens: they do all of the economic, i.e. physical, work whilst scholars are charged with research gathering by which to further your civilization's knowledge base. An additional key unit in this vein is the caravan, which as has been the case in precursors to RoN, institute trade routes between cities to obtain gold – that's right, this resource is not for mining anymore (and we'll return to this in more depth later). Not only that, but they are also responsible for constructing the roads that connect its destinations together. If you are a Civer who has not taken advantage of trade routes before, or perhaps are simply not a fan because they have not conformed to your style of play, you now have an added incentive to make them apart of your forces.
Civilian unit involvement does not end here. Merchants go out and scour for special resources, e.g. wine. In turn they setup shop around it and in turn your civilization gains additional ongoing revenue. The ever famous/infamous spy unit do the dirty work for their country, and invisible to most enemy units. Investing in scouts, which can spot these dastardly devils, are a wise defensive mechanism especially in close quarters. Their line does not end here: later on, they become explorers, then rangers and finally elite Delta-force units that plant demolition charges in buildings, and can get also informers into buildings to gather information so you can now better figure out what your arch nemesis is having with his afternoon tea and other more worthwhile data. They also carry special operations capabilities and can paradrop behind adversarial lines. Farewell, my dear Paratrooper…
Last but not least is your General unit. This guy is one-of-a-kind: he is specifically trained to lead your forces into battle and with that training comes some nifty abilities above and beyond your average warrior. They can confer with your army, rally in combat, inspire a forced march to make them march like they have never marched before for a period of time. True, they can be flushed out with special “spotter” units, but then again nobody's perfect. This person is the next best thing. If that wasn't enough for you still, chalk up being able to lay an ambush where everyone under his command hides and therefore cannot be easily found to his list of employable qualities. Clearly, this highly motivated character has a resume impressive even if spread over several lifetimes. To top it off, this guy can entrench his company to better hold a position from an offensive onslaught.
Rise Up: Reynolds On RoN 
