Age of Empires: Rise of Rome

Rating: 3/5

Age of Empires was a runaway success story for Microsoft. It merged Civilization-style R & D and empire building with the kind of fast-placed game play you get with the best RTS games and added superb graphics and animation to the mix. The original game included twelve tribes which you could command, from Assyrians to the Yamato. The most famous ancient empire - Rome - was conspicuous by its absence, however - it was clearly only a matter of time before Rise of Rome arrived.

To use Rise of Rome you will need to Age of Empires as well, so most purchasers will probably know the game, but some may want to buy both, so a quick recap is called for.

A of E limits itself to the classical "ages of man" - Stone, tool, bronze and iron - and Rise of Rome doesn't mess with that (players will have to wait for A of E II, due in early 1999, to progress to the Middle Ages). One of A of E's selling points was that its units were extremely well drawn and animated. The state of the art has advanced since the original game was launched, but though graphically the expansion set doesn't change anything, it still holds up well against the competition.

The original A of E was designed to be simple - perhaps overly simple. If you love setting up elaborate lines of communication this isn't the game for you. You don't have to move your food, gold, stone or wood from where it is stored to where it is used, it just magically appears where it is needed by the workmen - there are priests in the game who perform limited magic, so perhaps that explains it. The combat system is also pretty rudimentary - even with the expansion set you can't set your archer units to automatically try to keep away from infantry, and you can't ask units to patrol or escort others.

Alas, the expansion doesn't improve the AI much, either. Your units can still find themselves "boxed in" by buildings, still end up walking into dead ends instead of to their destinations, workers who have run out of forest to cut down or buildings to build will just stand around instead of looking for something else useful to do and priests will stand idly by while injured soldiers walk past instead of healing them. Again, many improvements are promised in the next version of the game.

The expansion set does introduce some useful innovations in game play, but none of them are earth-shattering. At long last you can queue up build orders, for example, and when you hear the sounds of battle (or other events) you can go straight to them automatically by hitting the "home" key (much easier than scrolling around the map looking for units under attack).

For those who want to build up giant empires, there is a new "Gigantic" map size, though you will need a more powerful processor to play those games.

There are new civilizations, new campaigns, new technologies and new units, but not many of them and none of them move the game along much. The biggest disappointment is the Roman civilization itself. The Romans bring nothing much new to the game. Like the other tribes they have unique attributes - in their case most buildings cost 15% less, towers cost half, and their swordsmen are better - but they don't introduce new tactics or new units (to be fair, Age of Empires already included all the Roman's units). As for the other three new civilizations, they also offer different combinations of advantages, but it's hard to identify with (say) the Palmyran empire.

Fans of the well-nigh indestructible War Elephant will enjoy deploying the Armoured Elephant, specialist anti-cavalry units (camel riders) and anti-ship units (fire galleys) are introduced, scythe chariots are just a better form of chariot and slingers are specialist early siege troops.

Two of the four new technologies are fairly uninteresting - medicine improves the speed at which priests heal your soldiers (obviously), the tower shield (the one innovation from Rome, though any civilization can research it) protects infantry better against missiles.

Martyrdom is an odd new technology - by sacrificing one of your priests, you can convert any enemy unit to your own side. The initially unexciting technology of logistics makes Barracks units (swordsmen and the like) count as half a unit towards your population limit. The original A of E game only allowed you 50 units at a time. Later patches to the game (and this expansion set) allow you to set a higher limit if your processor is fast enough but logistics will still allow you to build up a larger army than your enemy once you have both reached your maximum size.

There are four new campaigns totalling 19 additional scenarios, but there isn't much real variety. You are either trying to beat your foes in all-out war or you have a simple specific objective - move across the map or rescue captured units for example. Playing against the computer's artificial intelligence isn't much of a challenge (unless the computer is compensated with plenty of extra units.

The best reason to buy this upgrade is for multi-player games. Because of Age of Empires' popularity, it is usually possible to find some opponents, and real people tend to be a lot craftier than computer players. Chances are, a lot of potential online opponents (who tend to be the most dedicated gamers anyway) will upgrade their games to Rise of Rome anyway, and will want to play against others who have all the latest units. The expansion pack should also encourage people who have had Age of Empires on their shelf for a while to start playing again.

Overall, it is hard to get too excited about Rise of Rome, but Microsoft is charging a very reasonable £14.99 (£24.99 minus £10 cash back from Microsoft) for the upgrade, so I would say it would be value for money if you liked the original.