Rise of Nations series

Have been playing Rise of Nations (RoN as its called everywhere) series for a few days now, ever since I got my new lappie - while I have been playing RoN for a while now, I had not played the Expansion version and the new Rise of Legends earlier. The Expansion version, Thrones and Patriots, adds some new campaigns and civilizations (including Indians). I have always loved real-time strategy games and still love Age of Empires I and II (simply hated III though - seems like the good guys moved to the RoN production studios, and never could relish the Civilization games (i.e. turn-based RTS games) a lot. But I think RON takes the cake when it comes to real uncomplicated RTS. I tried my luck with Medieval II - Total War. Hell, why do they make gameplay so complicated? Almost like the Hitman equivalent of an RTS game...The Legends gameplay in my new laptop revealed some of the most awesome video playing capabilities of the NVIDIA 8600M GT card - now I know what a good GPU is all about! Though I don't (and shouldn't) play much these days - leaving Shveta brooding alone, its Rise of Nations series that would remain the flavor of the season in our home for sometime...