Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome

Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome
Expansion
Base game	Age of Empires
General information
Developers	Ensemble Studios
Publishers	Microsoft Games
Genre	Real-time strategy
Platform	Windows
Original release date
Windows	October 31, 1998
Compilations
Age of Empires Collectors Edition

Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome or ROR is an expansion pack for Age of Empires. It is based on the rise of the Roman Empire, and adds four new playable civilizations to the main game. Together with the original content, the game was released in a Gold Edition, and later was remastered into a Definitive Edition.

Overview

Age of Empires The Rise of Rome Official Trailer (1998, Ensemble Microsoft)

The Rise of Rome includes a few changes, including the new Roman architectural design shared by all four new civilizations.

Four new research technologies have been added, most providing very good bonuses and making a large change in the gameplay strategy. There are also additional new features and new units for the game.

Some other changes include larger maps and new ways to play such as adding unit queuing, using the period key to cycle through idle villagers, balancing damage done by Catapults, and increasing the population limit.

New features

The Rise of Rome features a new Roman architectural design, shared by all four new civilizations (the Romans, Palmyrans, Macedonians and Carthaginians). Four new researchable technologies have been added. Additional new features include five new units, the ability to double click a single unit and select others of the same unit-type, and unit-build queuing.

Gameplay changes include adding larger maps and tweaking the interface.

Civilizations

• Carthaginians - bonuses in nautical and war elephant units
• Macedonia - bonuses in siege units and missile resistance
• Palmyrans - bonuses in economy and trade
• Romans - bonuses in infantry and construction

Technologies

• Logistics - reduces the population count by half for all units created at the barracks
• Martyrdom - sacrifice priests to instantly convert units
• Medicine - increase priest healing rate
• Tower Shield - decrease damage received from missiles

Units

• Armored Elephant - an upgrade of the War Elephant with trample damage effect.
• Camel Rider - a new unit which is effective against cavalry.
• Scythe Chariot - an upgrade of the Chariot which damages adjacent units.
• Fire Galley - a new ship unit which applies fire to enemy units.
• Slinger - a new infantry unit which is effective against archers.

Campaigns

Main article: Campaign

Four new single-player campaigns are added focusing on the history of the city of Rome.

• Rise of Rome (Romans)
• Ave Caesar (Romans)
• Pax Romana (Romans)
• Enemies of Rome (Carthaginians, Macedonians, Romans, Palmyrans)

The demo version also includes the First Punic War (Carthaginians) campaign, which was later included in the Definitive Edition.

Reception

Although the expansion was criticized due to the minimal number of new features introduced, was well accepted on the whole. The most praised features were The Rise of Rome's unit queue feature, and the improved all around gameplay and balance. Review website GameWorldNetwork gave the game a score of 93%, and commented that it seemed to be a whole new game.

To celebrate its release, several tournaments were held at Age of Empires Heaven, inviting players from around the world to test their skills in this new game.

Multiplayer

MSN Gaming Zone and IGZones no longer support the original multiplayer services, but the game can still be played via online gaming programs like GameRanger, Voobly, Garena, CGA and QQ BattleZone.

External links

• Official Microsoft website for Rise of Rome
• Official Ensemble Studios website for Rise of Rome
• Age of Empires IGZones
• Collection of reviews of Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome
• Age of Empires Heaven
• Title at Moby Games
• Title at Gamefaqs