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Parents' Guide to

Rise of Nations

By Common Sense Media, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Conquer the world with economic force and might.

Game Windows 2003
Rise of Nations Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

Community Reviews

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age 11+

Based on 3 parent reviews

thomas1foot
thomas1foot Parent of 17-year-old
February 27, 2011
age 10+

For All Ages, Amazing

This has got to be one of the greatest strategy games of all time, it's brilliant. Without even being very violent sure there is a heap of killing but honestly that looks like someone falling over and falling asleep!!!
CSMContentDefault
CSMContentDefault Adult
December 29, 2009
age 10+
This game manages to show players the development of people from the early ages to today. Diplomacy is also a key aspect of the game and shows in a simplistic, effective way the aspects of diplomacy, especially in the way of resource trading (committed aid). There also exists a learning curve that doesn't happen to be very steep, and the difficulty of the AI makes for a possibly challenging and fun game. The Conquer the world campaign also gives players an idea of world geography, as well as the history and aspects of a particular area of earth or a particular people (For example China's "Power of Culture", highlighting China's advantage in the area of cultural development in the middle ages over other civilizations, or Egypt's ability to have two extra farms per town being reflective in their agriculture in the early ages due to the Nile.) This is a fantastic game.
See all 3 parent reviews

What’s It About?

For teens who like to imagine themselves as the sometime ruler of the world, RISE OF NATIONS provides a way to experiment with strategy. The player's goal is to guide one of 18 great nations through a campaign to take over the world.

Rise of Nations combines the turn-based play of a board game like Risk, with the on-the-move excitement of a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game. In RTS mode the play is continuous, as both the player and the opponent build up resources and strategically attack each other's cities to control territory.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (3 ):
Kids say (3 ):

The game some educational potential, offering specialized units and traits for each nation and following a rough timeline of national development from ancient times to modern ages. These elements could spark a player's interest in a particular nation's history, but the game doesn't take advantage of this by explaining the historical significance between the special units and that particular nation. From an entertainment aspect, the game performs admirably with artificial intelligence that offers multiple levels of difficulty. Players can use a multi-player option to challenge friends.

Although battles are shown fully animated, the violence is tempered by the player only having a bird's eye view rather than being fully immersed. In the end, Rise of Nations is a good game; from an entertainment point of view it is excellent. However, a little more effort could have given players not only an entertaining time, but also an educational one.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about world history. Encourage kids to learn more about the countries they get to know in the game.

Game Details

  • Platform: Windows
  • Available online?: Not available online
  • Publisher: Big Huge Games
  • Release date: September 30, 2003
  • Genre: Strategy
  • ESRB rating: T
  • Last updated: November 4, 2015

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