Rise of Nations is a real-time historical strategy game, similar to titles like Civilization VI. Developer Big Huge Games released the title in 2003, and an expansion called Thrones and Patriots launched the following year. The game was exclusive to PC and Mac at launch. However, Microsoft re-released it as Rise of Nations: Extended Edition in 2014. The game revolves around expanding and protecting your territory, focusing on strategy since minor mistakes can snowball into catastrophic obstacles later on.
Rise of Nations Premise
The base game boasts 18 distinct civilizations based on real-world historical nations. Later, the Thrones and Patriots expansion expanded that number to 24. Each of these factions, including ancient cultures like the Maya and the Aztecs, are playable during any age. You can take these bygone cultures into the present day and develop their technology to modern levels they never saw in real life. Each nation has unique advantages and disadvantages. Each one also features different unique units that you can deploy to gain the upper hand in your confrontations with other nations.
Unlike comparable games like the Civilization series, Rise of Nations is not a turn-based game. Instead, it fuses concepts from the turn-based style with real-time strategy elements popularized by games like StarCraft. The result is a distinctive strategy experience that is still enjoyed by players to this day, thanks to the game’s availability on Steam.
Rise of Nations Characters
Rise of Nations focuses on multiplayer strategies and doesn’t have a structured narrative. Therefore, it does not have traditional characters. However, since the titular nations have so much influence on the playstyles and strategies of the players who select them, there’s an argument that these civilizations have more character than anything else in the game. Here are the nations available to you in the base Rise of Nations experience.
- The Aztecs: This aggressively military faction focuses on generating a large army early, then attacking other nations swiftly.
- The Bantu: This African nation is capable of swiftly constructing more cities than most other nations have access to, allowing them to secure more territory early on.
- The British: Using the Power of Empire, this nation is well suited to pursuing an economic victory through aggressive taxation of its territory.
- The Chinese: This nation uses the Power of Culture to build large cities early, setting itself up for a strong economic advantage.
- The Egyptians: Much like in history, Egypt relies on the bounty of the Nile, creating faster production of new units and farms for more wealth.
- The French: This nation enjoys a military advantage to its increased rate of resource acquisition.
- The Germans: This nation has strong advantages in industrialization. It can use advanced technology to quickly gain access to tactical advantages in the air and sea.
- The Greeks: This legendary ancient nation benefits from swifter access to libraries and universities to quickly increase its knowledge.
- The Inca: The Inca have tremendous access to wealth due to their access to gold resources, situating them for an economic victory.
- The Japanese: Japan benefits from an aggressive strategy due to its power of honor, modeled on the real-life nation’s legendary Samurai class.
- The Koreans: Korea’s power of tradition lets it gain religious benefits from temples much faster than other nations. Its citizens are also swift and efficient at repairing damaged buildings.
- The Maya: This nation excels at building structures, as evidenced by the real-life nation’s legacy of monumental structures which are still marveled at today.
- The Mongols: True to form, this infamous nation excels at producing cavalry units and overwhelming opponents with mounted forces.
- The Nubians: This nation benefits from a massive trade empire to keep its resources well stocked and secure an economic victory.
- The Romans: While Rome enjoys benefits to the development of its military forces, it’s also one of the most flexible nations in the game, and can capitalize on considerable economic advantages as well.
- The Russians: This nation excels at defense, wearing out invading forces with its vast swathes of territory and aggressive attrition damage.
- The Spanish: Spain is focused on discovery and naval warfare, much like its real-world counterpart.
- The Turks: This nation is aggressively militaristic and benefits from powerful siege weaponry.
Rise of Nations Titles in the Series
Unlike comparable titles like Civilization and StarCraft, Rise of Nations has not had much growth as a franchise. The Civilization series has had a long and prolific history of games and spinoffs, and Civilization 7 is on the way. By contrast, Rise of Nations has only had one sequel and an expansion pack. Here’s the extent of the Rise of Nations franchise so far.
- Rise of Nations (2003)
- Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots (2004)
- Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (2006)
- Rise of Nations: Extended Edition (2014)
Rise of Nations Cheat Codes
Despite its strong multiplayer focus, Rise of Nations features a robust list of cheat codes. Understandably enough, these codes will not work when you’re playing online, as they would upset the balance of the game. Even offline, a message will appear when you input certain cheat codes to announce you as a cheater to your opponents. With these limitations in mind, here is a list of cheat codes you can use to gain advantages in Rise of Nations. To use these codes, you must type “cheat keys on” into the chat menu.
- +1000 to each basic resource: Alt+F5
- Instantly finish selected building or unit: Alt+F9
- Kill object or all selected: cheat die (name)
- Place machine gun units around every human capital: cheat safe
- Set all players to human and unlock full map: cheat sandbox
- Set the state of the game’s AI: cheat ai (on, off, or debug)
- Set difficulty: cheat diff (0-5)
- Display achievements: cheat achieve
- Force an alliance with a nation: cheat ally (name)
- Force peace with a nation: cheat peace (name)
- Force war with a nation: cheat war (name)
- Force an encounter with a nation: cheat meet (name)
- Turn encounters off with a nation: cheat unmeet (name)
- Turn off computer control: cheat human (name)
- Turn on computer control: cheat computer (name)
- Switch the nation you are controlling: cheat be (name)
- Defeat a nation: cheat defeat (name)
- Achieve victory for a nation: cheat victory (name)
- Show or change technology: cheat tech (name) (tech or all) (on or off)
- Show or change resource: cheat resource (name) (type or all) (+ or – number)
- Show or change the age of a nation: cheat age (number) (name)
- Show or change the military level of a nation: cheat military (number) (name)
- Show or change the civic level of a nation: cheat civic (number) (name)
- Show or change the commerce level of a nation: cheat commerce (number) (name)
- Show or change the science level of a nation: cheat science (number) (name)
- Show or change all Library tech levels for a nation: cheat library (number) (name)
- Toggle full map: cheat reveal (on or off)
- Toggle bounding box mode: cheat bbox (0 or 1)
- Show combat ranges: cheat ranges (0 or 1)
- Adjust damage to object or all selected: cheat damage (name or no entry) (+ or – number)
- Insert unit or building at pointer location: cheat insert (number) (type) (who=RED) (x, y)
- Finish selected building or next in queue: cheat finish
- Drop a Wild Bird at pointer location: cheat bird
- Drop a Nuke at pointer location: cheat nuke
- Pack the currently selected unit, if possible: cheat pack
- Deploy the currently selected unit, if possible: cheat deploy
- Change game explore configuration: cheat explore (normal, explored, all)
- Toggle game pause: cheat pause (0 or 1)
Rise of Nations Cheat Codes FAQ
Who owns the rights to Rise of Nations? Microsoft currently holds the rights to Rise of Nations. 38 Studios acquired developer Big Huge Games in 2009, and that company sold the rights to Microsoft when it closed in 2012. Microsoft’s acquisition allowed it to release the Extended Edition of the game on PC and Xbox in 2014, but there is no talk of a new Rise of Nations game in development from the company at this time.
What game is Rise of Nations Roblox based on? While the popular Roblox game shares a name with Rise of Nations, the gameplay mechanics featured in this title differ significantly from the original strategy game. No stated inspiration was given for the Roblox game, but it has been speculated that the Hearts of Iron franchise influenced its development.
Can you conquer the world in Rise of Nations? In Rise of Nations, “Conquer the World” refers to the game’s single-player campaign. It features a turn-based strategy element similar to the popular board game Risk. The game then uses its standard real-time mechanics to play out the outcome of conflicts that arise in this tactical mode.