Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome is a 1998 expansion pack for the 1997 real-time strategy video game Age of Empires, developed by Ensemble Studios for Windows and published by Microsoft.
The expansion adds four new playable civilizations, including the Romans, as well as new units, map types, and minor improvements to the game. Development of The Rise of Rome was prompted by delays to the creation of a sequel, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, leading to Ensemble Studios creating an expansion to maintain sales of the original game.
Upon release, The Rise of Rome was commercially successful and received positive reviews from critics, with praise directed to the expansion's inclusion of features and gameplay mechanics beyond the expected addition of new maps. Reviewers later expressed that the expansion set the standard for the sequel to Age of Empires II, The Conquerors, released in 2000.
Gameplay
left|thumb|Rise of Rome features new art for four additional playable civilizations, including [[Ancient Rome|Rome.]]
The Rise of Rome is an expansion to Age of Empires, a real-time strategy title in which players build and develop a civilization and conquer competing empires. The core gameplay of Age of Empires involves gathering resources to construct buildings, recruiting units, and develop technologies to progress through Ages that unlocks stronger units, new abilities, and more efficient resource gathering. The Rise of Rome introduces four new playable civilizations: Rome, Carthage, Palmyra, and Macedonia. New technologies also introduce new game abilities. These include Martyrdom, allowing players to sacrifice a priest to convert enemy units, and Logistics, allowing units recruited from the barracks to count only as half a unit under the population limit, providing the player with the ability to recruit more units. charting the period between Rome's history as a city-state to the start of the Roman Empire.
Development and release
The Rise of Rome was created by the Age of Empires development team at Ensemble Studios, The expansion was conceived to provide the studio with additional time to complete the development of the game's sequel, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, delayed from its originally planned release in 1998. According to designer Bruce Shelley, the development team opted to delay the release of the sequel and developed The Rise of Rome in the interim to maintain commercial interest in the original title. Studio co-founder Tony Goodman stated that the proposed expansion was pitched to Microsoft and accepted on the basis of the original title's commercial success. Shelley stated the expansion's focus on Rome was chosen to bridge the early ancient setting of the original game and the medieval setting of its planned successor. A goal of the expansion was to implement "small but significant" adjustments based on player feedback to improve the balance of the game and reduce the gameplay emphasis on rushing to the next age. and in the United Kingdom and Europe on 6 November 1998. To promote the game, Microsoft held an online tournament of the game on MSN Gaming Zone over November to December 1998, with the winner receiving a cash prize and trip to Rome at the final held in Seattle. A demo containing three missions was also made available to promote the game. In 2001, The Rise of Rome was packaged with the original game as the Age of Empires: Collector's Edition. Shelley remarked that the expansion's strength demonstrated how an expansion release could "extend the life of a game and keep the experience fresh", and used to inform the design of Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. Goodman stated that the success of Rise of Rome convinced Microsoft to pursue expansion packs for other products.
Reception
Sales
The Rise of Rome was a commercial success. Global sales estimates have varied between 800,000 and 1.2 million units by the early 2000s. The expansion entered second place behind Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator on ELSPA monthly sales charts for computer games in the UK in January 1999. Shelley considered that Rise of Rome to be a commercial success,
| GPPCG = B+
| CGW =
| GamePro = 3.5/5
| GSpot = 7.4
| Hyper = 82%
| PCPP = 90%
| PCZone = 83%
| rev1 = GameWeek
| rev1Score = A−
The Rise of Rome received positive reviews from critics, with reviewers generally considering the expansion's additions to the game worthwhile. and nominated as a runner-up for the 'Best Mission Pack' of 1999 by PC PowerPlay.
The additions to the core gameplay were praised. Ken Brown of Computer Gaming World wrote that the new civilizations and units generally added "interesting counters" to those in the original game, although he found the Romans to be weaker than expected. Elliott Chin of GameSpot found the campaigns to have "interesting premises", but considered them to be "unusually short", lacking end cutscenes and featuring objectives with "tedious" difficulty. Cindy Vanous of Computer Games described it as an "excellent follow-up" that improved the gameplay mechanics and added new content. Chris Lombardi of Computer Gaming World also considered The Rise of Rome to be a "massive improvement over its predecessor". Describing the expansion as a "complete overhaul" of the original game, Laurence Scotford of PC Zone stated that The Rise of Rome "set the pace for expansion disks to come". A retrospective review by Kotaku writer Ash Parrish focused upon the difficulty of the expansion's missions, citing their difficulty in successfully completing the mission Metaurus.
Academic reception
Rise of Rome has received commentary from historians for its depiction of Roman history. In an analysis of the campaign depicting Julius Caesar's revenge on the Cilician pirates, Maria Wyke noted that the game's representation did not take an "ethical or moral dimension" to Caesar's capture and revenge, but instead used the game's strategy mechanics to reinforce the player's "sense of their own power to shape events" of Roman history, reinforced through flavor text that imitates "masculinity, Roman history and Julius Caesar's youthful escapade". In an overview of how Rise of Rome portrays historical events, historian Alexander Flegler critiqued the anachronism of the game's ages as inconsistent with their depiction of historical events, such as scenarios depicting the Battle of Actium and the Year of the Four Emperors beginning in the "Stone Age", while suggesting the ages were abstract representations of gameplay progress rather than depictions of "actual historical epochs".