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A classic from the golden age of RTS. I played this a lot 10 years ago, but didn't like it much because of the presentation. Projectiles feel very slow and have little to no impact. Sound design has the same issue. It's in stark contrast with for example Empire Earth.
Revisiting it now, I realize Rise of Nations, in terms of gameplay, is actually the best designed RTS that I know of. Here's why:
1. In Rise of Nations, territories are an intricate part of the gameplay as you generate Wealth proportionate to your territory's size. Thus you are incentivized to capture and keep as much territory as possible no matter where it may lie.
2. You get to take over enemy cities along with their factories and other buildings, which is much more interesting and less tedious than destroying everything owned by the opponents.
3. You gain resources by pillaging, thus further raising stakes of each battle. With the Despotism government, you even gain resources when killing enemy soldiers within the range of the leader. The other choice, Republic, gives you a higher Commerce, that is economic output limit, and a leader that can heal troops in your own territory.
4. The initial units of one type are always quite a bit cheaper. This incentivizes you to create a more diverse army with infantry, cavalry, siege, etc. instead of specializing in one unit at a time like in Age of Empires.
5. Wonders in Rise of Nations are relatively cheap such that you can build them in any Age, and they provide huge benefits like raised Commerce limit. Building wonders becomes another theater of competition.
6. It has an interesting campaign style where you need to capture territories like in the board game Risk. But each controlled territory will grant you small initial bonuses during a match, so you get a sense that every territory matters.
7. You need Knowledge to research upgrades, but eventually that Knowledge is used to produce weapons. So even after you've researched all upgrades, the scholars won't become useless.
8. Citizens go to work automatically after some idle time. This reduces some need for micromanagement.
9. Units become transparent when they're on a building under construction, which means you can start building something without having to wait for everyone to leave the construction area. They regain collision detection after leaving a building.
10. Just a cool detail: crashing aircraft cause damage.
On top of all these unique features, it has:
1. 8 Age advancements all the way from ancient to modern day. Only Empire Earth has more.
2. Unique soldiers and perks for every nation. And there are a LOT of nations in this game.
3. A whole bunch of game modes. Here are perhaps the most interesting ones that are literal gamechangers: In Assassin!, you have a designated player to defeat, you receive huge attrition when attacking other nations. In Musical Chairs, the lowest score player is eliminated after a set time interval. In Tech Race, you compete to be the first in the last age. You can choose to enable or disable combat.
4. The best soundtrack among all classic RTS' in my opinion. Duane Decker really created a masterpiece here. Each track is memorable and distinct. I think my favorite is Eire, with its cheerful bagpipe melody. There's also this contemplative piano piece Battle at Witch Creek. But the most epic piece has to be Wing and a Prayer. Just wait for that organ to come in!
On a sidenote, there is an electric guitar cover of High Strung and Across the Bog by FamilyJules on Youtube, and they are absolutely mindblowing. Even the composer himself was full of praise.
Rise of Nations is a masterclass in RTS design, perhaps game design in general. It successfully makes you invested in every of its many aspects, while ironing out rough edges. The result is smooth, multi-faceted gameplay that constantly delivers dynamic challenges to step up to. All while treating you with the greatest soundtrack among RTS's.
I'm just wishing for some graphical remake, because the graphics and sound are the only sore points for me in an otherwise amazing RTS.
Also important, the game is quite buggy on my PC. Especially when playing the campaign, it would crash about 1 in 10 times on average, most often after a match. Didn't stop me from 100%ing this game though.