rise of nations, to me is one of the great realtime strategy games of our times, it came in a time when graphics meant everything, and wielding nothing more than a 2d world this game was awarded realtime strategy game of the year by pc gamer, the authority on gameing. it has so much and is raped in a timless gaphics engine that should last years despite its aparent age the gameplay is so overwhelmingly good that i can see myslef playing this one far into the future, the best part is the muliplayer, and great skirmish mode, but the single player champaign is robust to and deserves mentioning. i really loved this game, this game took the empire earth format and tweaked it to perfection the massive, battle taht this game offered are easily comparible to that of rome total war, there are many key thing such as flanking and making good use of your longranged units. but rome had a moral effect that was implemented in a less than reasonable fasion, basically limiting how tactical you can be because your guys can become really scared and run away instead of fighting. this is potentially great feature that was magnificently executed in warhammer dawn of war. but here in rome the morale combined with the goofy unit AI and lack of foramtion controls really leave the experience lacking. i'm probably being judgemental because i haven't played the ful game yet but the grasp i had on the raeltime portion of the demo left a sweet and sour taste in my mouth. at moment the battles can be crazy, but then the AI will lose it , and when you are winning, i repeat winning as in you totaly crushed their army killed their general, you elephant will run of the map and take alot of your infantry with them? very frustrateing, another frustrateing thing is you'll tell your cavalry to charge and they'll trot up to the enemy, and i'm left asking myself, didn't i click the run button on the interface, oh yeah i did, but they didn't feel like running so they turned it off. what's with that. that happens like every time i play some cavalry units decide to walk and nothing i can do will change their mind. but the over all look and feel of the game is so intense that having these little quirks happen puts the bad taste in my mouth. rise had no such problems with its demo, or ful game it was perfect in my mind. all the way down to the nuclear explosions and that cool filter that activates. i'll probably buy total war, but i'm really awaiting battle for middle earth wich looks like a nerds dream come true. not that i'm a nerd, i can't programm.