People keep asking as to exactly “what kind of a game RoN "is". It's very tough to explain unless you have played it. It's not turn[-]based strategy, but it's not real-time strategy as you know it. It requires way more thinking than real-time strategy games, almost as much as turn-based strategy. However, pausing is a normal part of the game to review situation and issue orders. Borders and cities are also new concepts for RTS, so this is not exactly one. I would say that Rise of Nations can, maybe, become a new genre.
Why a new genre? Because it not only combines things from two genres very well, it can also actually appeal to players of both genres. I know of great numbers of people who are planning to buy this game, both among real-time and turn-based players. And indeed, this is a game that I anticipate a lot – [and] wish to see the final version. Note that the game length in RoN can be vari[ed] – while RTS gamers will appreciate the possibility to play a game easily in under an hour, TBS gamers can use some other options and make it for a long game, if so they wish.
One final thing I need to mention are the scenario creation tools. Although the editor is not included, it's possible to see that RoN scenarios can come with giant scripts. There's a whole scripting language for events in scenarios and such stuff, so you can basically create scenarios as complex as you please, as long as you learn the language. This includes scenarios such as long RPG type ones, or nice battle scenarios. [Developer] Big Huge Games did an excellent job of showing what their scenario editor is capable of, in their Conquer the World campaign. It's not similar to any RTS campaign you might have played before, for the turn-based elements are pretty strong in it. You play it as if a turn-based game where the real-time thing suddenly pops up – there you spend 15-30 minutes on a map. They're not too large and don't take many hours. The campaign overall won't be a massive 50 hour one, but, it has a lot of replay value. It's because you can really make a lot of different choices while going through it.
My bottom line is, Rise of Nations is an excellent game from this new company, Big Huge Games, and I have no doubt it's going to win a lot of 2003 awards. I can only hope that Big Huge Games continue to produce other pieces as great as this.
'Rise of Nations' Beta 2 Review (Page 3) 
