9-Jun-2004 What with the recent skirmish to Afghanistan and the unfinished messing around in Iraq, empire building is all the rage at the moment. What better time then, to release the first expansion pack to last year's excellent empire builder Rise Of Nations, appropriately titled Thrones And Patriots.
The 'More! More! More!' aspect of the add-on is taken care of by the inclusion of six new nations, 20 new units, two new strategic wonders, four new single-player campaigns and a new game concept: government. Most of the new units belong to the new nations, like the American Marines and the Persian's impressive line of war elephants. But let's be honest - chucking these into an already huge game doesn't really change the experience.
We Run T'ings Governments are managed through the new senate building. Here, you research political systems, with each regime style subtly affecting the mechanics of your economy and fighting units. The flipside to the Senate's new options is that RoN was already in danger of becoming a frenzied upgrade-fest in the larger missions. Juggling a campaign in enemy territory and keeping up with the Joneses on the technology and infrastructure front is now even more of a head shag. Unless, of course, you use the pause function - but pausing in a real-time strategy game is for pussies, right?
What you're really paying for in Thrones And Patriots are the four new single-player campaigns. The original game's solitary campaign started at the dawn of civilisation and ended about now. The main problem was that just as you'd get stuck into the units and technologies of one era, things would arbitrarily advance to the next. This time around, the campaigns are each rooted firmly in a particular epoch.
The Alexander campaign never leaves Ancient times, for example, as you lead the Macedonians in their quest to control the Eastern Mediterranean. The Cold War campaign - the largest - starts in the modern age, ends in the information age and spans an expanded world map. This beauty even has a new set of rules and dynamics involving nuclear weapons and espionage missions.
What makes the campaigns such a joy are the masses of scenarios they contain - some 130 in all. Practically every individual territory now has its own associated mission, giving each game a unique flavour. Unifying Greece as Alexander, for example, has you more concerned with intimidating your foes into submission than slaughtering them. Wresting Burgundy back from the Royalists as Napoleon is more about protecting your cities from revolting peasants and raiding monarchists. And invading Afghanistan as the Soviets is all about using your helicopters to track down the guerrilla training camps before the time limit expires. These missions are what prevents RoN from becoming just another build-and-conquer RTS, and the fact that there are truckloads of them in Patriots means RoN is now better than ever. Go buy, nation builders, and show Dubya how it's done.
PC Zone Staff
// Overview
Verdict
A truly imperial expansion pack
Uppers
Four superb single-player campaigns... ...Full of unique scenarios Improved strategic map New nations, units and governments
Downers
New research options make things even more frenetic
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Four superb single-player campaigns...
