A nation's borders can be expanded by the creation and expansion of cities and forts, a technology tree, and obtaining access to certain rare resources. The area near the player's settlements is considered their territory, and players may only construct buildings within their territory or that of an ally (with the exception of the Lakota). The core of Rise of Nations's gameplay centers around the concept of 'territory'. Extended Edition is developed by SkyBox Labs. Other changes to the game include Steamworks integration which adds cloud saves, Steam Trading Cards, achievements, Twitch integration and multiplayer with Elo ranked matches to the game. Graphical changes to the game include updated textures, lighting and water. It released for Steam on June 12, 2014, and for the Windows 10 Store on September 14, 2017, with Xbox Live achievements and cross-play with the Steam version. Rise of Nations: Extended Edition is a re-release of the main game and its expansion. Rise of Nations features 18 civilizations, playable through eight ages of world history.
The game has taken several concepts from turn-based strategy games such as territories and attrition warfare.
The development was led by veteran game designer Brian Reynolds, of Civilization II and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy video game developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios in May 2003.
