Customer Reviews

Rise of Nations: Sybex Official Strategies & Secrets

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I purchased this book, I was sort of expecting to see things that where sort of obvious, but I was wrong. This book gives you a thorough view of all of the civilizations, the weaknesses and stregths, the bonuses, and so much more! It also explains tons of other things in the game, such as your military, etc. It also has an entire chapter on strategies, such as rushing, booming, and needle and hammer.

If you plan to purchase Rise of Nations, or you already own it, then you need to purchase this book. If you want to play the game to the fullest, then this book is the key. Not only will it give you better gaming for Rise of Nations, but it will help you win games!

I'm not a big fan of strategy guides. They tend to be written as if talking to a 3 year old. However I was so in love with Rise of Nations to get my fill I needed more info on the game and this manual provided it. It incorporates all aspects of the game from multiplayer to the CTW campaign. The writer does a great job interlacing all the rare resource info, wonder info, unit info to specific civilizations in order maximize the efficency of your play. Great tips like how to "Age Jump" as well as perform hit and run attacks with light calvary ar invaluable in disrupting AI and Human opponents. What I really liked was the fact that he used his experience from playing only on the toughest difficulty levels to provide only top notch strategies.

I do feel there were a few aspects of this book that hindered it's drive to being a great strategy guide. The military chapters are very broad. Very few specific general tactics are described. The ones he does put forth are extremely helpful but it would have been nice to see charts or details on what he felt armies should be comprised of at different unit totals. Unfortunately we just get a broad stroke over that topic. It would have been neat to get a solid of idea what he felt the perfect "raiding army" or "seige army" should be comprised of.

My second complaint (if you can even call it that) is more info on building your nations. While he explains very nicely about city placement and the benifits of placing mines and mills in certian locations I would have liked a more analytical view of where to place buildings within the city to provide better defense/offense so on and so forth. I guess its just a minor complaint.

The highlight of the book is probably his explainations of using the functions that a lot of people overlook like the use of spies, commandos, militia, and early scouting techniques.

Overall a fantastic book, I highly reccommend it.

Rise Of Nations computer gamer, strategy guide writer, and RTS expert Michael Rymaszewski, is an in-depth and "user friendly" guide to the computer game "Rise of Nations". Offering detailed walkthroughs, analyses, and recommendations for every level, Rise Of Nations offers advanced tactics and strategies for solo or multiple-player games, as well as screenshots, meticulously delineated plans, in-depth stats, and a great deal more. Rise Of Nations a "must-have" instructional guide and continuing reference for dedicated players of this complex and involving computer game.

I have over a dozen strategy guides and will rank this as the most thorough I've seen. This book will give you all the depth you could ever want for this terrific game. Without question, it is worth every penny.

While I've played video games all my life, I've only recently gotten into the RTS genre. I love Rise of Nations, but my limited experience with strategy games was no match for its epic scope, which was a more major step up from Age of Empires II than I realized it would be.

This book has helped quite a bit with that. It has enough basics that it's taken me from extreme beginner to an intermediate phase (I actually started winning games!), and I still have a great deal to learn from it. It provides a good framework for the beginner to learn the genre as a whole, and it adds a good amount of information and special tactics specific to RON.

The more advanced RTS gamer can probably skip most of the first few chapters and get into more advanced tactics and less obvious RON specifics, but it seems like there's still something to learn for everyone.

Two stars is generous. Ditto comments of the past reviewer--this is an expansion of the guide that comes with the game, that is, an explanation of what each nation does instead of what we really want--real strategies, hints, and little known game quirks that you can capitalize on. After a few times on the lower difficulty levels, you'll know everything in the book. This looks like something the game creator would put out. Read the guide and skip this book.

Very helpful and informative. general & specifc strategies, Plus all the statistics you need to make informative decisions.

This a very good book, not great, but very good. I saw it going used for $13. Worth every penny of $13, but not much more than that price. Wyatt Kaldenberg

The bulk of the information provided in this manual is easily learned through playing the game at the lower difficulty levels. There are few if any practical strategies discussed in any detail. It appears to be merely a collection and rewording of the descriptions of the Nations and their respective strengths and weaknesses.....The book is a waste of time....