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'Rise of Nations: Sybex Official Strategies and Secrets' Review (Page 2)
By Locutus | Apolyton CS Staff
The second section of the guide explains the mechanisms of the game. Chapter 3, 'Rags to Riches: The Game Economy', deals with the game's economy. After explaining the concept of the city, the guide discusses the details of each of the major resources in RoN one by one (food, timber, wealth, metal and oil -- knowledge has a chapter of its own): for each it explains what uses it has, how it can be gathered (especially useful for wealth, for which it's easy to loose track of all available options) and its overall significance in the game. After that, the guide lists all the rare resources with some brief comments on their importance, followed by some general comments on maintaining a healthy economy. Finally, some specific comments are given on the economies of each of the game's 18 nations. Note that this chapter, with the exception of the list of rare resources, can also be found online on the official website (under the headers Prosperity, Resources and Economies).
 Chapter 4 deals with knowledge and research and is aptly titled 'Why Research is Power'. It explains the pre-game choices that affect research speed/cost, how resource substitution works and how you can gather knowledge. It continues by listing the Ages (specifically the Age Advances) and the costs, benefits and opportunities that come with them. It also treats the other branches of mainstream research and all their costs and benefits: Military, Civic, Commerce and Science. It continues with a section of tables about specialized (non-Library) research, organized by building. The chapter concludes with some strategic notes on how to use research in your game.
Chapter 5, 'The Wonders of Wonder', explains why Wonders are so good and lists all of them, providing comments on their costs, advantages and overall importance in the game. Chapter 6 is simply titled 'The Army' and discusses your land forces. It explains what all the different unit types are, what role they play in the game and how and in which composition you should use them. It also explains what the role of the military is in each Age and concludes by discussing the unique units and ideal military strategy for each nation. Chapter 7 is entitled 'The Navy and the Airforce' and picks up where Chapter 6 left off by treating the role of the naval and aerial elements of the military. It discusses the role of both navy and airforce, what types of units are available to each of them and how and in which composition to use them. Note that in this case, Missiles are considered part of the airforce as well.
The chapters mentioned here mostly explain what game mechanisms exist and how they work. They basically elaborate on the manual (and the in-game help and tutorials) and will help beginning and mediocre players to gain a better understanding of the game. However, all chapters (particularly the last two) also contain strategies and tactics for making best use of these mechanisms, which makes them interesting for the more advanced players as well (especially considering they also contain a lot of undocumented information).
The third part of the strategy guide is the most important part: all the features of the game have been explained, so now we can move on to discussing how they come together and interact. This section provides useful insights for new and experienced players alike. Chapter 8, 'Building the Perfect Empire', walks you through a full game of RoN. It starts by discussing the impact of your starting situation (e.g. Nomad or Large City), then discusses the essentials for building (in case of Nomad mode) and developing your Capital. It then discusses founding new cities and building up the economic foundations of your empire. It treats what initial advances to research and the importance of exploration. Then it discusses an important RoN strategy: the Age Jump. This strategy entails progressing through several Ages as quickly as possible, without taking time to research and upgrade everything in between. It discusses the jump from Ancient to Medieval Age in great detail but explains that it works for (certain) other Ages as well. This walkthrough also includes pointers on when and whom to attack, and concludes by discussing timing. Chapter 9, entitled 'The Art of War', gives detailed advice on waging war. It starts by explaining how to run a war economy and how to use reconnaissance to pick the right time and place to fight. Next, it discusses a lot of tactical and strategical issues that are important to achieve victory: everything from army composition and healing units to the importance of decisiveness and flexibility. The importance of grouping and using hotkeys, flanking and ambushes, generals, reserves and Special Operations all get their share of attention. The chapter concludes by discussing a few classic RTS military strategies: Rush, Boom, Border Push and Hammer-and-Needle.
'Conquer the World' (CtW) is both the title and the topic of Chapter 10. It basically explains how the game works and how to play it. However, unfortunately it seems that Big Huge Games (BHG) made major changes to this campaign until very late in the development process, as quite some information in this chapter is dead wrong. Some examples: according to the strategy guide, there are 4 rounds per Age in CtW, for a total of 29 rounds (it's actually 3 and 22). Also, the guide claims that armies that have been used in overrun attacks can be reused in the same turn, which is not true. It mentions that you can increase the defensive strength of a territory with at most 1 per turn, while in reality there doesn't seem to be a limit. Finally, the guide says that bonus cards can only be acquired the first time a territory is captured, but in my experience you get them every time you conquer an area. All these errors are annoying to experienced players and can lead to some awkward surprises for new ones, and partially negate the usefulness of this chapter. However, a lot of other info is still correct and most of the strategies in this chapter are fairly generic and still apply, at least to an extent. So this chapter is not a complete loss, but could have been more useful had it been more accurate.
 Chapter 11 ('Advanced Tactics') is written by BHG producer Paul Stephanouk and basically discusses the same topics as the rest of the guide again in a nutshell. It starts out with a treatise on Booming vs Rushing. It continues with research and the game's economy and resources, followed by a section that discusses specific strategies for each of the game's 18 nations. After that, the key issues related to combat (army, navy, airforce and missiles) are treated and the chapter concludes with some general tips for the more advanced players. Much of the stuff in this chapter has also been discussed in the ten previous chapters, but the fact that this chapter is written by a different author with a very different playing style provides a lot of new insights and adds a lot of value. Some of the advice in this chapter directly contradicts what was said in earlier chapters, which just shows how the same things can be accomplished in very different ways in RoN. Including this chapter was in my opinion a brilliant move.
The final regular chapter of the guide is Chapter 12: 'Mastering Multiplayer'. It explains how the game changes when it's played in a multiplayer (MP) environment. A more military-oriented game style is required, with a different game start and more focus on reconnaissance. The role of the Age Jump, the focus of military activities and special moves like diversion attacks, naval harassment and Special Operations are all discussed.
The final section of the guide is the section with the Appendices. They are basically tables of all the buildings and (regular and unique) units in the game with all their relevant stats, as well as some more pointers on how to use each of them for maximum benefit. A brief section on where to find these stats in the text files, and a section explaining the formula for unit upgrades are also included. A very useful section for those who would like to know in advance which building will give the most plunder, or exactly how much of a benefit a Japanese Samurai has over a regular Elite Pikeman.
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