Age of Empires: Rise of Rome

Microsoft
PC $69.95

Age of Empires is a great game and this expansion pack enhances it considerably.

The original is loosely set around the time of the great Greek civilisation, Socrates, Plato and all those wise old guys.

I say loosely, because you will not become a classical scholar by playing Age of Empires.

It's an out and out real-time-strategy game and the historical aspect isn't really explored in a fairly limited campaign structure.

The real beauty of Age of Empires is its random map generator, which gives you an infinite number of different games.

So what's new in Rise of Rome? The main feature is the addition of four new civilisations -- the Romans, Carthaginians, Palmyrans and Macedonians.

Rise of Rome has more and better campaigns than the original -- especially the three surrounding the emerging Roman empire.

A fourth lets you fight Caesar and his legions, giving 20 separate missions in all.

There are five new units, too. The most interesting is the devastating scythe chariot, which acts like a hyperactive lawnmower on your enemies.

Others are slingers, who fire stones as in David and Goliath, camel riders, and the incredibly tough armoured elephants which are the ultimate weapon, especially against enemy towers. The fifth is a docks upgrade to fireships, which throw flaming balls of tar and sulphur.

It's a paper, stick, stones thing -- for example, slingers cost a measly 40 food and 10 stone, but they are devastating against chariot archers. Camel riders are also effective against chariot archers, and cavalry, to a lesser extent.

These two units have been included to counter the cavalry rush early in games, when your human or computer enemy throws everything at you.

And although fireships are deadly, they are more easily sunk than triremes.

Priests get a lot more options -- including being able to sacrifice themselves to instantly convert an enemy -- select your target and then press the delete key.

Mind you, don't go throwing away good priests -- they cost a fairly hefty 125 gold, which is often the scarcest resource.

There are other subtle changes in Rise of Rome. Different civilisations have a wider variety of strengths and weaknesses.

For example, Shang need fewer villagers to gather food, yet have a weaker Iron Age than other nations.

And Romans can build towers more cheaply than others up to sentry level, but do not get strong cavalry units, although their swordsmen are about 33 per cent quicker.

The population limit is still 50, but you can overcome that to some extent by researching a new category, logistics.

This effectively gives you two for one Barracks units, apart from slingers.

One change that caught me out was the fact that the food-gathering capacity of fishing boats has been cut back as designer Bruce Shelley thought this feature was too powerful.

You do need the original game to play Rise Of Rome, but a standalone demo can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com. It weighs in at a manageable 20.7Mb.

-- Peter Eley, 7DAYS, 05/11/98

* Send your comments e-mail to peter_eley@herald.co.nz

Pictured: A mighty army ready to defend the Colosseum.