Rise of Nations was a ground-breaking title that injected new life into the real time strategy genre. With traditional gameplay given a new twist and elegant graphics to enhance the user experience, it was an instant hit, and in particular the Risk-esque Conquer the World campaign was an innovation that meant that even the most hardcore gamer could spend upwards of 20 hours trying to dominate the world, often (at least in our case) without sleep and very little food. With no less than 18 different races to choose from, each with unique units, and 7 ages to battle through means the game was, and remains, incredibly re-playable, and this is reflected in the rampant fan base that still exists for it.

So what could Big Huge possibly add to this?

Well, 6 new races for a start. The Dutch, Americans, Iroquois, Lakota, Persians and the Indians join the fray with their own variations and unique troops. Coming with them are beautiful new graphics for their buildings and units, showing that Big Huge is willing and able to maintain the standard that they set with the original. Gameplanet particularly enjoyed playing as the Dutch, with their armed merchants and caravans and incredible naval power.

Three new wonders have also been added and a new building, the senate, representing a new arena of gameplay. Wherever the senate is constructed that city becomes your new capital, and at the senate a player can research governments in the fashion of upgrades that give your side economic and/or military benefits. With a government comes a unit called a Patriot, essentially a super general that comes with its own radius benefits based on what type it is. For example, the Comrade, obtained if the player has chosen a socialist government, provides the benefits of a supply wagon as well as healing nearby troops. The strategies embodied in the senate concept are obvious: if your capital is being besieged the senate could be built at a city far behind the front lines and so the defeat engendered by losing your capital is avoided.

A number of minor gameplay enhancements have also been made, most of them unnoticeable unless looked for. Particularly useful was the fact that now technology can be researched via the current age bar at the top of the screen, which you can see in some of the screenshots, rather than having to tediously locate the library and do your research there. Other than this, most of the game improvements are what you would expect from a patch rather than an expansion pack.

Where this expansion truly shines, however, is in the new Conquer the World campaigns. In the original you could play as one of the 18 nations on the world map, starting in your historic home territory and then each turn battling to take other territories for wealth and power, the game being won once you had conquered the entire world. A typical game could last anywhere from a few days to a week, depending on how good you were compared to the determination of your enemies. Thrones and Patriots takes this a step further and in addition to the original, bread-and-butter world domination, there are no less than four variants on the theme. Four. And each is different in all that matters. No bland Civ II scenarios here. Each of the campaigns has its own goals and priorities, though of course in the end they are all about conquering everyone.

In the Alexander campaign you play as the legendary Macedonian king, who conquered the known world 3,000 years ago. The map played over represents the Greek and Roman peninsulas and the lands of the Persian Empire, with you starting in control of Macedonia. Right at the start of the game your advisor recommends two choices for you to decide between: to either quell the barbarian tribes to the North or annex the Greek city states to the South. The path the ancient general took is marked by numbers, which you can take if you wish to fight all the same historical battles. Or you can choose forge your own path, and try to better Alexander's achievements with your own original strategies. For example, after subduing the Greeks you could strike westward and conquer the rising nation of the Romans, something Alexander never did.

The Napoleon campaign is different again. You start at the historical turning point where the French general has the choice of two armies to command, that of Italy or Paris, to gain glory abroad or crush the rebels at home respectively. As a lowly but rising general of France you have little choice over where you go or what you attack, as your duty is only to command for your superiors. Once you've conquered six territories, however, you have sufficient power to crown yourself emperor and dictate the fate of the French empire. Once again it's time to conquer the world as you see fit, be it to destroy the evil British or to annex the territories of the Dutch and Germans or otherwise.

In the Old World campaign you can chose out of 11 different nations to play as. As one of the native American peoples, the Inca, Aztecs, Mayans, Lakota or Iroquois, it is your task to expel the dirty Europeans from your beautiful homeland and in turn to subdue your ancient rivals from whichever of the two continents is historically your own. As the Spanish, French, British, Dutch or Portuguese you will want to conquer the new lands before your rivals, and must amass vast amounts of wealth and territory to do so. Finally, as the lowly Americans you must build up your empire much like the other Europeans, but additionally throw off the yoke of the British. For the opening turns of the game the Americans have to pay tribute to the British until they choose to declare independence.

The final campaign provided is the Cold War, where you can play either the Americans or the Russians. The politically charged atmosphere of this era makes for awesome gameplay, with the opening moves of the game involving the two superpowers maneuvering about each other trying to avoid direct conflict while at the same time taking control of key territories, once independent nations but now little more than playthings in an international chess game.

In addition to normal battles like the taking of the Middle East and Korea, you can also execute espionage missions against your foe to win strategic bonuses, missions that consist mainly of being placed in an enemy territory with a bunch of spies and commandos with orders to infiltrate enemy cities. The arms race is represented by buying nuclear weapons for your territories from the main map, and a DEFCON meter keeps track of the current nuclear tension. Eventually, if the war hasn't been ended diplomatically, you can make the ultimate decision and hit the big red launch button to fire all your nukes. Of course your enemy will also fire everything it has so it pays to have a substantial nuclear superiority if you want to initiate Armageddon and come out as more than ashes.

These new campaigns more than quadruple the single-player re-playability, and it is unfortunate that they can't be played in multi-player modes, although it would require truly dedicated gamers to play a campaign against each other lasting up to a week. Each campaign comes with its own atmosphere, making you feel like crushing the American capitalist pigs for the glory of communism, for example, or clearing away the natives and the British dogs in Mexico so that your mighty Spanish empire can reign in the New World supreme!