Great strategy guide to a great game!
Rise of Nations™: Sybex Official Strategies & Secrets
by Michael Knutson

When a new game comes out, you can bet that within a few weeks a strategy guide will be available for it. Personally I hardly ever use them, because I think that it can take the surprises out of the game, because I want to look and see what will happen in the future of the game. The nice thing about Real Time Strategy guides are since the plot usually isn’t that think, in comparison to Role Playing Games, the guide can focus on the different strategies players can employ during the course of a game. Sybex’s strategy guide is the thing the doctor ordered for anyone who needs a little help in this game, or if you want to learn a few new tricks.

If you wanted to know everything about this Rise of Nations (check out the review here), than you will get your hearts content when you read this. This strategy guide outlines every single unit, nation, land, and anything that you ever wanted to know about this game. It will tell you what units are the best to use when being attacked by another unit.
It also diverges information on what land is the best to get an economical boost, and what nation to that you might find most appealing to your strategy tastes.

One thing that is not clearly outlined in the instruction book is the use of wonders in the game. Like every other game, when you build a wonder, you will get certain bonuses, but this guide goes into depth on what it will provide, and what is the best ones to get in each error, depending on your playing style.

Do you want to know how to advance to each level the fastest? That is the thing that is always on everyone’s minds in this genre of games. The one who can get to the farthest age before the other player always has a distinctive advantages, especially during war. This guides shows you what to research that will benefit players the most when they advance, so they won’t use up all of their natural resources while upgrading.

Another important chapter that is in this book is multiplayer tactics. As everyone knows human players will play a whole lot differently than AI. Nothing is a sure bet, but this guide will tell you certain things that will be the most beneficial to you in a multiplayer game.

Pros:
This strategy guide will tell you everything you need to know how to become a master at this game. What is not to like about that?

Cons:
The only con for this is if you prefer to learn how to do everything by trail and error.

Verdict: 9.6
If you like using strategy guides, than look no further than this one for Rise of Nations. You will learn a lot that will benefit you during the course of this game!

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