Rise of Nations | Top 10 tips for new/returning players

Rise of Nations can be a confusing game for even experienced players! If you're new or coming back to the game after several years these top 10 tips will help you save time, play more efficiently, and generally enjoy the game more by removing frustrating elements and highlighting everything I wish I'd known when I first started the game!

00:34 mega tip number 1
01:44 super duper tip number 2
03:13 big tip number 3 (that's what she said)
04:43 tip 4 - I've run out of things to say
06:24 tip tippedy 5
07:45 tip 6 and subscribe!
09:23 tip 7
10:39 essential tip number 8
12:00 tip number 9
13:31 a tearful tip 10

Here are some other tutorials you may find useful from my Rise of Nations tutorial playlist:

[twiglets]

Which tips would you share with new players? I wish I could turn back time and tell myself about the TAB key!

[thejerk]

This is one of the best games ever made in my opinion

[cobbysparks]

Man, took me down memory lane big time. I haven’t played since June 2006 and it’s 2024. Almost 18 years!!!

We use to be about 6 college friends who played against each other over LAN.

Let me tell you it was brutal.

We formed fake alliances, broke them at will and fought bloody battles in every corner. It was a proper war zone.

The deceptions, the pretenses, the demand of resources to postpone the inevitable war, the destruction, the sound of an attack in a city where you had zero soldiers, the nukes. It was something else.

As I recall one of my friends, Albert was the best player. But the madness meant it was never easy to tell who would be the last man standing. But he usually came out on top, though always almost out of resources. 😅
Oh my days!

Thanks for these memories.
I’ll be playing one of these days but I’ll miss my friends. 😢
No two ways about that.

Great content!

[vru]

Rise if Nations will always be a part of my childhood. One of my best memories and having one of the most mind blowing graphics for those times in rts genre.

[notzyroh]

this game was my childhood and one of the very first pc games i played when I was young, came back to play this game again after all these years, thanks man!

[Zenrikku]

One more I'd like to add is once your able to build a tower build one asap (preferred at solid defense location to protect from early invades)so u can research allegiance so u can start doing attrition damage to unwelcome enemy unit that aren't yet being protected by a storage wagon in your territory.

[amvkarthik]

Great video! Also press q to infinite que (if you have the resources, example: at the early game workers are very much needed but it's impractical to train a lot of em at a time, so having sufficient farms and just infinite que them so that you don't have always click on the town centre all the time!)

[Valdaur]

Hey, great video! One thing regarding the temple tip is that usually unless it's placed in front of an enemy city, (and as a result making it harder for your units to capture the city itself) it's best to not waste time sieging it down because the enemy can just rebuild it and regain hit points on the city. In fact this is one strategy I sometimes employ when I'm in games such as nomad. once the enemy has reduced the city, and starts sieging down the towers behind my city, I rebuild my temple and also research religion and the second lumber mill upgrade to further increase the city's hit points. I then garrison some units inside the repaired city, and proceed to focus fire the city to attack the siege units that moved forward to target my towers behind the city.

Generals are also useful, just in case you're in the heat of battle and your patriot gets killed in action, it's nice to have a backup general so that you don't lose the armour. It's also useful if your patriot runs out of craft, and you need to retreat your units away you can still use your backup general for a hasty forced march. They're also nice for raiding parties as those units will have armour whilst they do their annoying raids :)

[Ramjet]

I just played my first game today, my friend bought me the game and has been wanting to play. Unfortunately, I didn't know the ai strength, and he didn't tell me to turn it down. Lets just say that we played on moderate and got demolished. A lot of these tips will help me a ton! Can't wait to play some more.

[BeerfootBandit]

Good tips, I never was good at placing temples until now but scouts/special forces are very important too. They can make it much easier to get hidden resources early in the game, spot hidden units, stop spies from bribing, snipe certain units like generals in a battle, destroy other buildings, no attrition so you can scout the map easier and so on. Keep at least two in each of your armies

[SuperLukette]

One of my very first game when I was 5-6. Now, it's time to replay this master piece, so I just want to thank you sincerely for your tips, that helps a lot !

[joshved]

Love it!
For super tanky buildings, play as Mayans and use temple + Taj Mahal. Takes FOREVER to bring down a Mayan building like that. Even Temple of Tikal is good if I remember correctly.

[swealer]

I'm kinda late to the party but holy heck, Tip 8 was by far the most useful and i didnt know that... Just got this game 3 days ago because i got bored of AoE :D (been playing on and off about25 years or so^^)

[olkhovskyrus]

Good tips!

But the like is earned by placing Origin Of Symmetry there.
Strategic!

[jonshive]

Incidentally Wiki Fandom has this to say about rallying to Patriots or other units: "Note that created/evacuated units will actually move to the target unit's position, not to the unit itself. So moving the target unit to a different location won't send created/evacuated units currently on their way automatically to the new position." In my last game had to direct these "errant" units manually, but that's cool.

[Sticky_Ricky]

Long time Age Of Mythology and Age Of Empires player here, I've been thoroughly enjoying Rise Of Nations. Even though I've got a good bit of RTS experience under my belt, I've been struggling a bit with RoN, even playing on Easy, so thank you for these videos!

[dancoways]

This was super helpful. Coming from AoE IV, it seems very similar. I just wish there was a more up to date version of the game with current graphics. The Extended Edition feels very badly done in terms of the overhaul they apparently did to the original.

[rogerc]

Excellent content, could you make a guide on how to micromanage army combats? I never know the units are focusing on the units that are weaker for their type.

[Orthodox_Serb-xu]

I've always done this and placed mg42s around the riverbanks 😂 2:45 industrial and modern aged were my fav

[BVasquezp]

Something forts and temples help a lot with is expanding your territory. Having more territory as soon as posible allows you to better secure resources, have more options for city and building placement, gives you more income from the temples tax technology, and provides more area to better defend your cities with attrition damage, or to get closer to the enemy before an attack.

A tactic I liked to use back in the day is to pick Russia and use every attrition and territory boosting building and tech available. Whenever the enemy entered my territory they essentially melted down from the attrition damage. If they brought supplies or a general, a small force of cavalry could swoop in and kill them before retreating, costing a minimum of resources to defend.