In going back to the concept of tactics again for a moment, if you have a mouse wheel you can move it in order to select different army formations including refusing flanks and envelop. There is no word yet on what key and/or mouse click combination will be required if your mouse does not have this rolling feature, but certainly you won't be left out of exercising this ability as cunning as it is convenient.
One final point of minutia: units animate in correspondence to the situation that they are in, e.g. in combat ground troops can literally go flying in the air if attacked by Siege weapons.
IT'S A BIRD – NO, IT'S A PLANE… DROPPING BOMBS!
A civilization's entrance into the Industrial Age in Rise of Nations is an exciting time – as if it hadn't seen its fair share of excitement in getting to that point already. Militarily speaking, your army now has access to tanks and howitzers, and your air force comes into its own with the ability to construct fighters and bombers. And yes, they are fully upgradeable to boot.
There are a couple of ways in which to launch air strikes in the game. The standard way is to select the airbase you wish to dispatch planes from, and right-click on what you want to attack. If you select a building, airbase personnel will raise your bombers to the skies for a bombing raid. Such an attack can be devastating to an enemy, especially those that are a) unprepared, b) ill-matched or both. Remember that you must indeed declare an opposing civilization your enemy before you execute any armed campaign against them. Conversely, fighters will scramble off the runways if you target one or more units. These planes also serve as your air defense, a la Civilization and Call To Power.
“I was the one in Civilization II who said no, no thank you, we're not going to have phalanxes beating tanks”, Reynolds says.
While playing RoN, you will notice that not all of your units are at full strength when they are first created or if they are on the move. This becomes especially prevalent during the Industrial Age and beyond. The units in question constitute heavy equipment and have a brief delay before they can engage the enemy; as such, during this time they are most vulnerable – the more so the less their defensive point count. Reynolds elaborates:
"Certain units, like [those that have] a machine gun... have to pick that up if they want to put it on their shoulders for movement, so it takes a little time. You can see [the unit] set it up if [you] leave it there [and] they'll say "OK", let's set this up, put the tripod in and then we're ready to fire".
Rise Up: Reynolds On RoN 
