It's a testament to Age Of Empires! long term appeal that most people at ZONE still play it more than a year after it was released -though if you saw how often we get slaughtered on Wireplay, you'd be forgiven for thinking we'd never actually played it before.Even though the Al, especially the route-finding, occasionally causes the blood to boil, AOFis largely accepted as one of the best RTS games around, sharing critical acclaim at the top end of the genre with the likes of Command & Conquer: Red Alert and Populous III.

We were originally promised a sequel round about now, but that's been put back until much later next year. So, by way of a stopgap, we have what is essentially a mission disc, promising new missions, units and a few graphical and gameplay tweaks. There are four new civilisations to get to grips with (you can now take control of Carthage, Palmyra, Macedonia or Rome), new units, including an armoured elephant, camel rider, Tire galley, slinger and scyther chariot, and there's heaps of new Roman architecture to gawp at.As well as the usual single and multiplayer options, there are four totally new campaigns made up of dozens of scenarios, including the Rise of Rome campaign from which the mission pack derives its name. Four new researchable technologies (Logistics,Martyrdom, Medicine and Tower Shield) give you something to aim for and even bigger maps and four new map types (mountainous highland, large island, the Mediterranean and a peninsula) make for even more diversity.

Birth of Rome is the first scenario of the Rise of Rome campaign in Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome. Start gathering stone to build the towers, and food, wood and gold to train more units. There are six Roman enemies in the scenario, but the player won't have to defeat any of them to win. There are twelve flags the player must build towers next to. Luckily, Romans can build towers at half the.

Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome is a real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios and released by Microsoft on October 31, 1998. It is an official expansion pack of the Age of Empires, the first Age of Empires game to be released. Rise of Rome is an add-on expansion for the original Age of Empires game. It focuses entirely on the legendary Roman Empire. Challenge veterans and novices alike to wage war on an epic scale with four additional civilizations, several unique units, new technologies, and new campaigns, including the showcase campaign that focuses on the Rise of. Age of Empires Expansion: The Rise of Rome. Build an empire to wage war in ancient Roman times. Age of Empires Expansion: The Rise of Rome.

Better Sound

The soundtrack is even better than before, and the little gameplay tweaks, which allow you to queue the production of units and double-click on a unit to command all of that type, make things a little easier on the mouse hand. The rather erratic route finding will still occasionally have you screaming with frustration but, as with just about every other RTS game, you just have to live with it and babysit units to make sure they go where they're told.

The fact that you can now alter the population limit using the game settings, coupled with new 'gigantic' maps, makes for some very impressive battles involving hundreds of units. Overall, there's more than enough to justify fans of the original game buying The Rise Of Rome- especially at the generous 'cash back' price of 14.99. Now - bring on Age Of Empires II.

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1. Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome

Description of Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome

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Filler

While many Age of Empires and real-time strategy fans wait eagerly for the sequel due out sometime next year, Ensemble Studios', in the meantime, have graced us with a good quality expansion pack which adds that extra touch of variety to the original title. There's really not a whole lot to 'review' in Rise of Rome, as the new features list is the perfect summation as to what you get for your money. They are as follows:

• Four new civilizations: Cathaginian, Macedonian, Palmyran, and (of course) Roman.- Five new units: Armored Elephant, Camel Rider, Fire Galley, Scythe Chariot and Slinger.- Four new technologies (or 'researchable upgrades'): Logistics, Martyrdom, Medicine and Tower Shield.- Four new campaigns- Four new map types: Continental, Mediterranean, Hill Country and Narrows.- New Roman tileset- A number of miscellaneous interface upgrades and added options including:
  • queued unit building
  • double-clicking selects all units of that type on screen
  • new 'Gigantic' map size for skirmishes
  • can choose 'random civilization' in skirmish games
  • can jump instantly to the portion of screen relevant to the last sound cue (eg. an attack warning)
  • allied Town Centers are visible when you begin allied multiplayer gamers (still no option to 'share vision' without having to research it though - boo!)
  • customizable population limit in multi games.

Units and Techs

After installing the expansion, your original AOE is automatically patched to the latest version available, 1.0b. Hopefully, many AOE owners will have already upgraded to at least 1.0a in the past, as that patch drastically altered many AI and path-finding issues which would have severely marred your enjoyment of the game had you played it through with version 1.0. If you haven't patched AOE in the past, then this expansion will really breathe new life into the game!

The 'bulk' of the expansion pack is undoubtedly the extra units and upgrades available. While five additional units could be considered a somewhat stingy amount, the new unit types do actually force a change in your strategic thinking. Ensemble were obviously addressing criticisms with multiplay in the original game where the cavalry units tended to be the most powerful and were often favored over the other alternatives (specifically infantry). The new camel rider evens the balance somewhat as it sports a high damage advantage over cavalry but none on infantry (which, along with their fast speed, was the cavalry's ace card). So this new unit implements a distinct paper-rock-scissors formula which was previously missing.

The other low-level unit is the slinger. Judging by his statistics, he has been brought into the fray to defend against early missile attacks from archers or guard towers - he scores both extra damage against range units plus extra armor against missile attacks. Again, another unit brought in to balance out the 'rushers'. Remaining new units are all only available in the Iron Age, so they're basically the extras to make the high-tech battles more interesting and diverse.

Two of the new researchable technologies also appear to be trying to encourage more use of infantry. Logistics offers the benefit of making all units from the Barracks count as only half towards your population limit, while the Tower Shield increases infantry armor against missile attacks. The other two technologies are priest upgrades - the priest being another unit usually overlooked in multi games for favor of the brute force approach at defeating your enemy. Martyrdom lets you sacrifice one priest's life with the result of an instant conversion, while amusingly, Medicine increases your priests' healing rate - so hey, you can make sure they're at their most peak condition to top themselves.

The new civilizations, again, are just adding some girth to the game - each new race, as with the original eight, have their own unique pattern of units available from the tech tree, and two or three 'special attributes' (eg. Transports go 30% faster or Siege units cost 50% less). They're also a great way for the writers of the documentation to load up Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia and fill the manual with a few pages of 'interesting' information about these ancient civilizations.

Aside from the first training campaign in the original game which got me used to the game's mechanics and gameplay, I wasn't too compelled to complete the single-player game. The storylines seemed rather dull and there are no cutscenes to speak of, but I suppose they might appeal in a sort of semi-educational way to some folks. The expansion adds four more of these campaigns with no particularly new features, just more pre-designed maps with specific objectives. I found the difficulty somewhat harder than the original campaigns but that's to be expected.

Multiplay

As with Age of Empires, the Rise of Rome offers some extremely well-supported multiplayer options both for LAN and Internet. Finding opponents shouldn't ever be a problem - besides the other multiplayer services that support the game, Microsoft's own free MSN Gaming Zone (which usually has 15,000+ players online at once) has never had under 1,000 people playing AOE and even with Rise of Rome being so new, there's still some 250+ gamers ready to clash metal with usually.

Once the expansion is installed, you're still given the option to either play the original game or the add-on, so if your friend doesn't own Rise of Rome, that doesn't mean you can't compete with him (you just can't use any of the upgrades that the expansion offers in your games with them). The also admirable '1 CD per 3 players' rule still applies (unbelievably, many games are still being released requiring every player to own a copy when playing multiplayer), and you can actually play Rise of Rome with the AOE CD in the CD-ROM and vice-versa.

The interface upgrades are certainly going to be cheered amongst multiplayer gamers as they relieve some (but definitely not all) of the micro-management duties that previously had to be endured. While the new features are not revolutionary, queued building is a great help and brings Age of Empires up a notch or two on the 'competitive respectability' scale. Another must-have that was noticeably absent from the original was the ability to select all units of one type in an instant - especially handy when assigning groups - so it's good to see that included too.

Conclusion

So on the whole, we have an expansion pack that really is exactly what it claims to be - a way to expand the original release. New units, new upgrades, new graphics (the Roman tileset), new interface features and more. There's not an absurd amount of extras (a la TA: Core Contingency), but certainly enough to warrant the developers asking a small reward for the obvious effort they put into it. The price is right, being in the $20 (or £20 UKP) region, and according to Microsoft, the UK version ships with a £10 mail-in rebate in the box which makes the pack even better value.

This gets a hearty recommendation to all those AOE fans looking to resurrect their interest in this now year-old title, just don't expect any major changes (that's what sequels are for, I guess).

Review By GamesDomain

Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome is an addon for Age of Empires, you will need the original game to play.

Captures and Snapshots

Screenshots from MobyGames.com

Comments and reviews

Kevin2021-06-010 point

I still have the 'Gold Edition' disc. If you do too, install the game and then go to https://upatch-hd.weebly.com/. Works flawlessly on my picky Windows 10 laptop at an awesome resolution. Music is there, into videos aren't, no CD required in drive to play.

Defender2018-10-03-1 point

Thank you so much! AoE RoR without a disc !!! You're doing fine!!!

pnuii2018-09-130 point

I love this game, this is my chilhood

Minimeee2018-07-170 point

Is it possible to play the game on my iPhone somehow?

shazaib2018-06-150 point

Good game

Laxmi2018-05-26-2 points

How to install/extract the ISO files so that I can play the game?

Roman2018-05-070 point

The game works fine (win10, 64 bit), thank you guys!

Roman2018-05-061 point

The game works fine (win10, 64 bit), thank you guys!

yus2018-04-25-1 point

hey how to extract this game?

Gjammer2018-04-050 point

This one and Caesar III are my favorite strategy games. Pharaoh deserves honorable mention.

silent killer2018-03-23-4 points

it is not working to windows 7 32 bit

Cuban antigamer!2018-03-05-1 point

Yes, I'm not fond of games, but 'Age of Empires' is an exception, it's the only game I've been playing since Windows 98!

ADSTER2018-01-20-1 point

I KNOW THIS GAME FROM LONG AGO .
ITS A NICE GAME

Avatar Aang2018-01-191 point

I love this strategic game.
I'm playing this since my childhood.

this guy chris2017-12-11-10 points

hey it just has some white files how do I run it

YamaT02017-11-302 points

epic real-time strategy game

Victor2017-11-270 point

It is one of the oldest strategic game. I love this game❤

SamGod2017-10-11-1 point

Never mind made a small mistake,figured it out.Thanks Anyway!!

SamGod2017-10-11-5 points

Any tips on how to run it on Windows 10 it keeps showing an error when i try to install the expansion!!

wency2017-10-08-11 points

how to install

wency james Huertas2017-10-08-6 points

how to extract this games

Lazy2017-09-27-1 point

Please remove my comment about corrupt image file.
The image file will NOT run with windows 10 integrated .iso file handler.
use Daemontoolslite instead.

parthy2017-09-241 point

Heyy ! file extension is .img ... How can i open and install this game ?

Nighthawk2017-09-021 point

Great game.
Great speed of downloading.
Great job you did fellows.
Thank you.

badshah2017-08-281 point

best game
i like this very much

SABYASACHI2017-08-211 point

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE GAMES

yash2017-08-020 point

Age Of Empires Rise Of Rome Free Download

i love this game

Age Of Empires Rise Of Rome Cnet

Ahoy2017-07-032 points

Walalo!

nitin2017-06-222 points

it a very nice game

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Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome is available for a small price on the following websites, and is no longer abandonware. GOG.com provides the best release and does not include DRM, please buy from them! You can read our online store guide.

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