Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots

during the Cold War campaign Within Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots players control various units during battles, including land, sea, and aerial units. Units used during gameplay include slingers, musketeers, tanks, large Persian war elephants, aircraft carriers, and nuclear missiles. Players progress in different ways in Thrones and Patriots by using various means including espionage, political strategy, technology races and population growth. The gameplay takes place from ancient history to modern times. Players are able to lead their nations at the macro and micro levels, and build their nation up and expand it throughout the game. Thrones and Patriots added six new nations to the original Rise of Nations game. The 'New World' situation playable in the game was enhanced by the introduction of the European nation—the Dutch. Three North American nations were added, the Americans, referring to the ex-colonial civilization, and two Native American nations were added, which were the Lakota and the Iroquois. Two Asian nations, the Indians and the Persians, were introduced. New Wonders were made available for building, such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Forbidden City, and the Red Fort. New features of the game were added to the new nations, for instance the Lakota, which is unable to build farms to generate food, instead receive a constant food supply for each of their citizens, scouts, and cavalry units. They can make buildings in any region that is not possessed by their enemy, can raze buildings quickly, receiving a full refund. Additionally, they receive resources when enemy resources are destroyed. Campaigns Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots added four new "Conquer the World" campaigns: Alexander the Great, Napoleon, the New World, and the Cold War. ==Development==

, designer of Thrones and Patriots Microsoft Game Studios and Big Huge Games announced the development of the expansion pack for Rise of Nations, Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots, on November 21, 2003. By December 16 of that year, the game's development was about 70% complete. A website was launched for the game on February 13, 2004, which contained information, screenshots, and other details about the expansion pack. Big Huge Games added multiple new features to the game during its development, in an attempt to fix issues with the original version. In an interview with GameSpot, executive producer Tim Train explained the development of the expansion pack. He stated how some nations were previously either too weak or too strong, and so features were added to balance gameplay. One way they did this is armed caravans and merchants were added to the Dutch nation, in order to weaken raids initiated by other players who rush their opponent. He said Big Huge Games brought in professional players in order to get suggestions on how to improve the game. NPD sales figures for May, the first full month of Thrones and Patriots release in the United States, showed it as fourth in PC sales for the month, with its predecessor needed for the expansion pack going from twelfth in sales in April to fifth in sales in May. By October 27, 2004, combined sales of Thrones and Patriots and the base game Rise of Nations had passed one million copies worldwide. On October 28, 2004, Rise of Nations: Gold Edition was released for Microsoft Windows. The new product included both the original Rise of Nations and Thrones and Patriots. In November 2004, a port of Rise of Nations: Gold Edition was released for Mac OS X. It was published by MacSoft and developed by both Big Huge Games and Westlake Interactive. In December 2012, official servers for Thrones and Patriots were shut down by GameSpy Technologies, which made it difficult for multiplayer matches to be played officially online. Programs like GameRanger could be used to continue playing multiplayer games online without the usage of official game servers. The rights to the assets and intellectual property of Rise of Nations, Thrones and Patriots, and Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends and the Big Huge Games trademark were sold in the bankruptcy auction of 38 Studios to Microsoft Studios on December 11, 2013. Gross proceeds of the auction totaled $320,000. Rise of Nations: Extended Edition is a re-release of the main game and the expansion on Steam that was released on June 12, 2014. Graphical changes to the game include updated textures, lighting and water. Other changes to the game include Steamworks integration which will add cloud saves, Steam Trading Cards, achievements, Twitch integration and multiplayer with Elo ranked matches to the game. Extended Edition is developed by SkyBox Labs. ==Reception==

Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots received "generally favorable reviews", about two points shy of "universal acclaim", according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. However, IGN declared that the developers only added many features into the game "in the hopes that it would seem coherent," rather than actually giving the game a "central theme." Computer Games Magazine nominated Thrones and Patriots for its 2004 "Expansion of the Year" award, but it lost to Call of Duty: United Offensive. ==References==