Rise of Nations: The Cold War and The Entire World

I went back to Rise of Nations to play the two remaining campaigns. The first was The Cold War. The two sides were the Americans and the Soviets, of course. I let the computer choose randomly and I was assigned the Soviets. It was up to me to lead the USSR to glory. The campaign simulated four decades or so. American presidents ranged from Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan. Out of the six campaigns, this was probably my favorite, surpassing the Napoleon campaign. It was a great setting with NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, plus client states and police actions. It also had separate espionage missions and nuclear stockpiles. One of the most memorable moments involved nuclear negotiations. The Americans led the Soviets in nuclear weapons four to three. They approached us with a proposal for nuclear disarmament. They agreed to destroy two nukes if we would do the same. I intended to fight a conventional war. I had no desire to get into a nuclear arms race so I agreed. Although the Americans kept up their end of the bargain, the scheming Gerald Ford bought another nuke the very next turn. We then trailed three nukes to one. Although we built up our stockpile a bit, both sides avoided a nuclear exchange. The industrial output of the USSR was far enough ahead of the Americans to give us an economic victory.

The final campaign was named The Entire World. It was a free for all with 24 nations vying for supremacy over the entire globe. Again, I chose random nation selection. I ended up playing the Greeks. We conquered the Germans, Turks, Persians, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Americans. In the end, it was a showdown between the powerful Greek empire and the Mayans. We came at them from South America but eventually marched from Mexico to conquer their capital in the Yucatan.