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Rise of Nations - Beginners Guide Version 0.80
For The PC
Written By - Dauragon C Mikado88
DarkChaosPrince@hotmail.com
June 27, 2003


UPDATES:

------------------
June 27, 2003 Version 0.25
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Started this FAQ, got Buildings Section is done. Other Sections will be made
in the next day or so.

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June 28, 2003 Version 0.80
------------------
Units, Ages and Resources completely done. Expect the entire FAQ completed
and version 1.0 very soon. From there it will just be minor
updates however I will still touch up the FAQ a lot and be constantly
adding more. I understand the Table of Contents is bare too,
expect a overhaul in the next version as well.


-------------------------
I. Table of Contents
-------------------------
1. Introduction to Guide
2. Introduction to Rise of Nations
3. Beginners Guide for Building
4. Beginners Guide for Units
5. Beginners Guide for Ages
6. Beginners Guide for Resources
7. Basic Strategies
8. Frequently Asked Questions
9. Contact
10. Copyright

KEY:
--------- - Main Section
********* - Sub Section to the Main Section
========= - Sub Section to Sub Section

-------------------------
1. Introduction to Guide
-------------------------
Rise of Nations is a newly released game by Big Huge Games and Microsoft Games
This RTS game is indeed challenging and requires a divirse strategy in order
to overwhelm your opponent or suffer defeat by early invasions by your enemy.
This game started off challenging for me and I frequently was in last from all
the computers, however in time after game after game and watching recorded
games. Then I slowly got better and better and was the leader in tech races,
and miltary. In this guide I hope to help you become a pro in Rise of Nations,
and future Real-Time Stategy (RTS) games.

-------------------------
2. Introduction to Rise of Nations
-------------------------
Rise of Nations was developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft.
The game is quite a large leap from known RTS games such as Age of Empires
and is much different from WarCraft III. The game is a bit more stategic
than all three! You start at the Ancient Age, where your civilization is
very small, your boarders are very small, and resources are extremely low.
As you progress through the ages, you'll notice your income rate for all
resources will dramatically increase and making units and buildings don't
even seem to dent your overall resource income. You can advance all the way
to the Informative Age (today) where you can create units that you see in
today's world, and even build weapons of Mass Destruction to destroy your
enemy, but not without economic consequences and the risk of Armadgeddon
(everyone dies) if you use to much nukes. This game overall in detail and
effects was excellent and Big Huge Games has made a definate RTS success.

---------------------------
3. Beginners Guide for Buildings
---------------------------
In this section of the Guide, I will list every single building in the
entire game and tell how you should work each building to your advantage.

********************
Towns/Cities
********************
This is your most important building in the entire game besides from maybe
the library. This is where your civilians are made which is an absolute
need to establish your nation. Your Capital City is without a doubt the
most important building in the game overall. Since if your enemy takes it,
you are screwed! Your main objective should be to make as many Towns as you
can throughout the game to expand your nations boundry's, build more farms
for more food (since it is 5 farms per city). Many buildings are also limited
to only one city such as Wonders, Universites, Lumber Mills, Granaries...and the
list goes on. The bottom line is build as many towns as possible! Construct
many civilians to help build the towns and collect resources! These are the
#1 aspects of getting yourself ahead!

********************
Library
********************
The Library is single-handly the most important building in the game aside
from the Town Centers. The Library is your gateway to researching new
technologies such as Miltary, Civics, Commerce and Science. It is also
needed to advance throughout the ages. I will break up the types to research
in sections.

MILTARY: Be ahead in the Miltary field when you want to build up your
population limit, and upgrade your armies to more powerful units.

CIVICS: Civics is a very important technology to research. Civics is what
determines how many towns you can build, and without a very far research
in Civics, you cannot build new towns, which leads to not collecting too
much resources! It's also important to research this for taxation, religon
and attition techs.

COMMERCE: Commerce is important when you want your civilization to prosper
in your resource/wealth causes. So naturally you would want to research this.
However it's the most expensive technology to research. Commerce upgrades
determine how many Caravans you are enabled to have. Which collect money by
trading with other towns and peaceful or allied nations. It is also important
so you can collect the full amount of income from all your resources. For
examples. Lets say your Commerce max is currently +100. If you build to many
farms and extend your Commerce max of 100, you will no longer be able to go
past that limit until your Commerce level is updated. So it's important to
update this frequently to keep your resource income to it's max, and increase
production overall.

SCIENCE: It's always important to research Science when you want to make
production on things faster and more efficent. With high science you can
make Graneries which increase your output for Farms, Lumber Mills which
increase your Lumber output, Smelters for your Metal output, and so on.
As you upgrade in Science you can also upgrade your University output
which is extremely important when you reach the Classical Age and above
since new technology relies heavily on your knowledge income.

AGES: As you research all these new techs in the library, don't forget
to update your Age period to further advance your nation to the lastest
technologies. As you advance in Age, you can build more advanced buildings
such as Castles, Stables, Seige Units, and more importantly in the Modern
Ages: Airbases and Nuclear Centers. Also when you upgrade ages buildings
may upgrade to bigger and better looking buildings.

******************
Market
******************
A Market yet again is another important buildings for you to construct
as soon as your finish your first Commerce research. Markets are used
to buy/sell resources, create Caravans for trading, and create Merchants
to collect special resources. Special Resources are a special type of
Resource that only a Merchant can access and will give a constant bonus
to a certain ability. Such as faster building production, faster miltary
production, faster stable production, faster civilian production, and the
list goes on and on. Be sure to send a Merchant out to any special resource
you discover, provided it's in friendly terrority. Be sure to always keep up
with your commerce research so you can build as many Caravans as possible.
Caravans are wagons (eventually trucks) that collect wealth by trading with
your cities within your nation, and eventually other nations that you are at
peace/alliance with. The further the trade route, the more wealth you will
collect by venturing there. The more Caravans you create, the more overall
wealth you will get. However there is a Caravan limit, which depends on how
high your overall commerce level is, so again, be sure to research commerce
whenever you can.

******************
Temple
******************
Temples are also useful buildings to construct when you wish to gain extra
wealth. Be sure to research religion which is useful at expanding your overall
vision for buildings and units, and also expanding your nation's boarders a
little bit. This also connections with researching taxation. Taxation is bonus
profit that you collect which is dependent on how much land your nation covers.
The more land you own, the higher your taxation wealth income will be. So always
be sure to research Civics to build more towns and expand your boarders to have
more wealth income from taxation.

******************
University
******************
When you reach the Classical Age, Universites are an absolute must for advancing
your civilization through all the ages and technologies. Each University can hold
7 scholars, which each generate a small amount of knowledge. You are only allowed
1 University per city, and just 1 University doesn't provide much knowledge, so it's
reccommended you have a University in the majority of your cities. It's also important
to research in the science field to upgrade how fast your scholars increase in their
knowledge output. If you have a lot of scholars spread out in your cities, when you
upgrade you'll make a huge increase in your overall knowledge as long as you keep
upgrading when the time comes, and you will be ahead in researching new technolgies
as they demand more and more on knowledge as the ages progress, so it's a good idea
to have a lot of Univerties and Scholars whenever possible. Having a lot of knowledge
not only pays off in the beginning when researching new technologies, it pays off in
the long run when building nuclear weapons and missiles all require a significant
amount of knowledge to be created.

******************
Farms
******************
Building Farms is the main resource for getting your food income. However you are
limited to having only 5 Farms per city, so be sure to always expand your towns
and build farms whenever a new city is created. Also be sure to research commerce
frequently so you aren't wasting any resources if you go over the max commerce
income. Building Granaries are also very important in increasing your food outcome
see the Granary below for more info.

******************
Woodcutters Camp
******************
Constructing a Woodcutters Camp is also is like your Farms, your main income of
Lumber in your nation. Always be sure to try to construct Woodcutter's Camps in
areas which have a lot of trees, the more trees you build a Woodcutters Camp by,
the more citizens that can work there. You can build Woodcutter Camps outside your
nations boarders, but only in unexplored land or allied nations. Be sure to construct
Woodcutter Camps whenever you spot a group of trees before your ally or enemy gets it
first! Be sure to build Lumber Mills as well to increase your Lumber output. See
Lumber Mills for more details.

******************
Granary
******************
If you want an increased food production without building more farms, then a Granary
is the building for you! You are limited to only 1 per city, but not like you would
need more than 1 per city to begin with. Why? Because a Granary increases your food
output by 20% of your farms in the city it was build in ONLY. If you want even more
food output, build a Granary in every city that has farms. Also be sure to research
science to research higher food production which increases your farm output percent
even more! They also contain Herbal Lores and upgradeable Medicines which increase
your overall foot unit production!

*******************
Lumber Mill
*******************
Lumber Mills are exactly the same as Granaries except they affect your lumber outcome.
For more info just read the Granary section above. HOWEVER, they contain building