The installation is a simple, one disc install (even though the expansion pack is included). Just insert the CD, and run the installer.

Rise of Nations Gold can best be described as a combination of Warcraft and Civilization. You command your citizens to harvest lumber, run farms, mine mountains, drill oil wells, etc. These resources resources are used to build your cities (and supporting buildings), and create a massive army to overtake your opponents. Furthermore, you must build universities to research new Military, Civic, Commerce, and Science technologies. As you continue to progress, you will advance through the ages from the Ancient age all the way up to the Information age.

Obviously this game relies heavily on strategy. Every player in the game is assigned a nation, each with its specific strengths and special benefits. So the nations that your opponents are given will often define what kind of strategy they will employ. You will then have to alter your strategy to wisely use your strengths, and make sure to not play into your enemies' hands. One tip that I will give you (for games against the computer) is to judiciously use the pause key. While paused, you can assign units to move, fight, build, or queue up units/research in a building. Plus, you can think about your next move or technological advancement. The computer can do multiple things at once, so why shouldn't you be able to? Playing any computer level above easy will almost require you to use the pause key.

Speaking of computer opponents, there are three different methods to play against them: Quick Battle, Campaign, and Skill Tests. In quick battle games, you set a wide variety of options such as map type/size, number of opponents, winning conditions, age advancement restrictions, and much more. All of these options (plus the built in randomness) makes it impossible to play the same game twice. This is a great way to practice for the campaign or multiplayer games, or just a good 1-2 hour time waster.

The campaign games set you up as a military leader, trying to take over the New World, follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great or Napoleon, fight as one of the superpowers in the Cold War, or try to conquer the Entire World. The campaigns play out like the board game Risk®, where you start out with one territory, and move your army to other territories, trying to take over a small part of the world. When you move your army, you get put into a mission based game, which you are required to win to expand your territory. After each turn you take trying to advance, your enemies will attack you to try and steal the territory back. The game will continue until there is only one nation left standing. As you advance, you may gain extra resources, armies, and bonus cards to help you in your quest. This type of game will require a heavy time commitment, but it can easily be split up across multiple days, without losing track of what your overall plan was.

A much more unique game type is the skills test. These are eight short missions in which you try o get your name atop the leader board. Such missions include reaching a certain age as fast as possible, killing as many enemy units with your preset army, defending a wonder as long as possible, defeating an army without losing more than half of your units, and more. These mini games are fun to play, and can help you refine your abilities for the longer games.

Besides the single player mode, you can also play quick battles against your buddies with multiplayer. Rise of Nations seems to be built from the ground up with multiplayer in mind, so playing with others is basically the same as playing alone. Playing with real humans will involve even more strategy than against the computer, especially if you join up as allies. The best part of the multiplayer is that unlike turn based games, it doesn't take many hours to complete a single game. You can play a couple games in a single night, rotating who gets to team up with who. This would really be a perfect game for a non first person shooter based LAN party.

All the types of games share the aforementioned gameplay. But there is much more to it than I briefly mentioned earlier. For instance, there are various rare resources on the maps which will help you gather normal resources faster, build units at a quicker rate, create a larger army, and other very helpful bonuses. Also available are ruins, which are a one time only resource booster. Early in the game, you should be hunting these down, as they can really help jump start your civilization.

Also available are wonders of the world. The wonders give you a wide variety of advantages from higher commerce limits, to extra cities, to protection against certain attacks. But be aware that only one nation at a time can own a wonder. If you start building one, and an opponent builds it faster, your resources are wasted and you don't get the wonder's special bonuses. Owning certain wonders (or missing out on them) can make or break your nation, so build wisely.

Something that's not as important to this game as many these days is the graphics and audio quality. Luckily, both of these aspects are respectable. The graphics are detailed, but not so detailed that only the fastest computers can display them. Unit movements are realistic, there are little smoke puffs after firing guns, birds fly around the sky, and fish swim in the water. As for the audio, it's nicely done in that the background music doesn't get in a the way, and there are audio cues to go along with the visual cues when certain events happen. Overall, I would rate the graphics and sounds of this game as above average.

Now on to a couple points which I think could be slightly improved upon. First, the shortcuts keys have been difficult for me to learn. They just don't seem to mesh well with their activities, which puts me at a disadvantage against others who can use the keyboard effectively. Second, the manual is very skimpy. Most strategy games have very good manuals, and sometimes supplementary material to help you along the way. Third, the resources are infinite. Trees never fall over, mines never empty out, and oil fields never dry up. This completely removes the old strategy of building up a good defense, and waiting until your enemy's resources deplete. Finally, my biggest pet peeve with all real time strategies, you cannot select all your military units, and group them together into a giant army. In fact, you can only group about 40 units at once. I want to control huge armies with a single click, not command only small subsets at a time.

Lastly, I'll add a couple words on what the integrated expansion pack brings to the game. Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots adds the following: six nations, different government types, three wonders of the world, four extra campaigns, and many balance changes to the existing game. Personally, I don't think the game would have been nearly as good without these additions, so having them nicely integrated makes for a much better playing experience.

I didn't encounter any problems with playing this game.

This is one of the most unique real time strategy games I have ever played. It combines the normal resource gathering and army building, with heavy research and a progression through history. Even with the small shortcomings listed above, this game is one of the best I have played in a long time.

Pros	Cons
Blend of normal real time strategy with the research component of turn based strategy games Infinite possibilities when playing quick battles Campaign missions combine many "short" battles into one big adventure Information popups do not get in the way of the game play Games only take a couple hours (normally) Very balanced resource gathering, technology advancing, and military aspects Computer AI is very good at higher levels The challenges game type is unique to any real time strategy game I have ever played Includes the expansion pack which adds units, wonders, missions, nations, and more.	Unlimited resources takes out a great defensive strategy Can group only about 40 units at once (into armies and navies) Small manual for a game of this type
10/10 stars