Rise of Kingdoms

Rise of Kingdoms Review: 2.2 GB and No Loading Screens

One Map, No Loading Between City and Field

The technical decision that made this game's reputation is continuity: your city sits on the same map as everyone else's, and marching an army to a barbarian camp or a rival's gate happens by scrolling rather than by entering a separate battle screen. Troops are visible as formations on that map, hundreds at a time during alliance fights, which gives sieges a scale phones rarely manage. It costs 2.2 GB and a good deal of battery, and it is the reason the game reads as a strategy title rather than a menu with timers.

Commanders Are the Collection

Progress runs through named historical figures — a Chinese strategist, a British king, Mayan and Greek leaders in the store screens — each with skill trees and a rarity. They are acquired as sculptures from chests, and the game now allows resetting a commander to recover those sculptures, which matters in a system where investing in the wrong leader used to be permanent. Eleven civilisations give different starting bonuses and unit preferences, and the first weeks are genuinely about choosing a direction rather than following one. Rarity still governs the ceiling, so the strongest leaders remain a long collection project.

Adverts on Play, Loot Boxes on Apple

Google Play carries an advertising badge alongside in-app purchases — unusual among the big strategy games here, most of which sell only packs — with 50 million installs and 4.5 stars from 2.55 million reviews. Apple rates it 9+, listing contests and loot boxes, and shows 4.5 from 187,000 ratings on the 2.2 GB install. The App Store's listed purchases run from $0.99 daily deals to $9.99 gem packs, with commander training bundles between; the genre's usual much larger packs sit inside the game rather than on the storefront.