Rise of Rome (Windows, 1998)

New Features

Four new civilizations: Carthaginian, Macedonian, Palmyran, and Roman, sharing the same graphics.
Five new units, two of them new super units (gold aura), all of them with new graphics:
- Armored Elephant, a super unit, upgrade of the War Elephant.
- Camel Rider.
- Fire Galley, only available to civilisations that can't get triremes. It won't show up in a full tech tree. The Fire Galley has no ranged attack.
- Scythe Chariot, a super unit, upgrade of the chariot. The blades on its wheels do some area damage on its sides.
- Slinger, a stone age unit especially adept at fighting towers.
Four new technologies:
- Logistics (government center): Barracks units count only half against your population limit.
- Martyrdom (temple): Sacrifice a priest to convert an enemy unit for sure.
- Medicine (temple): Priests heal faster.
- Tower Shield (storage pit): An upgrade to iron shield.
Four new campaigns.
New ability to queue the production of units.
New Gigantic map size.
New map types: Continental, Mediterranean, Hill Country, and Narrows.
Double-clicking a unit selects all units of that type on the game screen.
New Random civilization option so you don't know which civilization you're playing until the game starts.
You can display the game settings (map type, map size, etc.) during a game by clicking the Menu button on the menu bar, and then clicking Scenario Instructions.
When you hear a sound cue (such as an attack warning), you can press the HOME key or click the middle mouse button to go to the trouble spot. Pressing the key multiple times cycles through the location of the last five sound cues.

Similar to Hellfire, Rise of Rome comes not as a patch, but as a seperate executable. So even after installing it, you can still play the original Age of Empires.

Cheats

Age of Empires has the weirdest, whackiest cheats I ever encountered in any game. A few have been added in Rise of Rome. First, there is a number of completely off-topic characters you can get. These units all have custom graphics, sounds, and attack animations. Stats are in the order as they appear on the screen. To activate a cheat, hit Enter (this brings up the chat window) and type in the code. Pretty convenient since you see what you are doing.

Very Special Units

Winsett's_Z: A black sports car, the driver has a sort of rocket launcher. The graphic is not quite in scale, it is a bit too large. 300/10/15, 500 hitpoints. Attack animation is standard arrow. The car moves very fast and has a huge range of sight, but can easily converted by enemy priests. Like a catapult, it has a minimum attack range. Cheat: bigdaddy.
Winsett's other Z: Added in Rise of Rome, this is basically the same as the Winsett's_Z, but in white and with lower attack. The graphic is even larger. 60/10/15, 500 hitpoints. Cheat: big momma.
Nuke Trooper: There are two variants of this guy. One attacks with a laser gun, 15/10/15, 100 hitpoints, 10 shots per second, cheat: photon man. The other fires a nuclear missile with appropriate animation, 300/10/88, 100 hitpoints, he can attack ground, but has only one shot per 10 seconds. Cheat: e=mc2 trooper.
Zug 209: A mechwarrior 20/10/15, 100 hitpoints, Rise of Rome only. Cheat: stormbilly.
BabyPrez: A baby on a trike with a gun, 50/10/15, 500 hitpoints, Rise of Rome only. There is no real combat animation. Cheat: pow.

Not Quite so Special Units

Then there are a number of units that use standard graphics, but are sometimes pretty odd too. Two of them (Medusa and Flying Dutchman) are available in the editor as well. Apart from Saint Francis, these are all upgrades to existing units, and thus count against your population limit.

Medusa: Probably the strangest unit in the game. A Medusa has the same graphics and stats as a villagers, but when a Medusa dies, he (?) becomes a Black Rider. The cheat medusa converts all villagers that have not yet been assigned a task as well as any you create in the future to Medusae. Caution: In Rise of Rome, Medusae cannot perform any tasks!
Black Rider: Basically just a Heavy Horse Archer on steroids (8/0/2/7, 60 hitpoints), however, when he dies, he becomes a catapult! The cheat black rider will upgrade any horse archers to Black Riders.
Saint Francis: In Rise of Rome only, convert this! will create this priest that kills with lightning. 200/0/10, 25 hitpoints. It's a pity that Saint Francis is not available in the editor, in a fantasy themed campaign he would make more sense than the Medusa or the Flying Dutchman.
Stealth Archer: An upgrade to the Composite Archer. When standing, his graphic is changed to that of a tree, and he can walk on water. His damage and hitpoints are also increased. Cheat: dark rain
Big Bertha: Upgrade to catapults, 65/0/16, 200 hitpoints, and a damage range of 10! Cheat: big bertha (duh). — Big Bertha was the name of a Krupp canon in World War I. Its official name was M 42 (it was a 42cm canon). Depending on type it weighed up to 20 tons. Big Bertha could breach the French Gelopin turrets, which were had walls up to 10" concrete, armed with nickel steel.
Flying Dutchman: A Juggernaut with somewhat higher attack power that can move on land. Cheat: flying dutchman (duh again).

Fun Cheats

Apart from these units, there are a few other weird cheats that are not exactly useful, but amusing:

Gaia: Usually you read in cheat lists that gaia gives you control over the animals, while you lose control of the humans. While correct in many cases, this is not a precise description. What gaia actually does is that it lets you play as Gaia. You will know what this means if you ever have used the scenario editor. There's not much you can do as Gaia. You can move your units around, you can attack, but you cannot create new units (your population limit is set to 0), research, or have your villagers perform any tasks.
Jack be Nimble: Select a Catapult and jack be nimble into the cheat prompt. The missile graphics will change to somersaulting villagers, if the Catapult faces north to cows, if it faces northeast to naked super villagers with capes.
King Arthur: In Rise of Rome, king arthur will Turn birds into dragons. They have 999 hitpoints, but since you can't target birds anyway, this is of little consequence. Amusingly, the shadows remain unchanged.

Standard Cheats

And then there are, of course, some more conventional cheats, designed to make the game easier, or in one case, harder.

woodstock: Gives you 1000 wood.
pepperoni pizza: Gives you 1000 food.
coinage: Gives you 1000 gold.
quarry: Gives you 1000 stone.
home run: Win the current Scenario.
reveal map: The complete map is revealed (no black areas).
no fog: Removes Fog of War (no gray areas).
resign: You resign, the game is over.
hari kari: All your buildings and units are destroyed, game is over.
diediedie: Buildings and units of all players are destroyed.
kill#: Destroys the buildings and units of player #, thus eliminating this player. Kill1 is the equivalent of hari kari.
hoyohoyo: All Priests have 600 hit points, and increased speed. If you have not researched mysticism before you activate this cheat, doing so later will give you priests with 1200 hitpoints!
icbm: Ballista has range of 100.
upsidflintmobile: Speeds up Chariot movement and fire rate.
steroids: Instant build, research, harvesting, upgrade. Works for all players and can be toggled on and off.
grantlinkspence: Turns animals into animal kings, Rise of Rome only.

Fake Cheats

On some sites, you will find cheats listed that definitely do not work. Some may be from earlier versions of the game, but most are probably pure hoaxes.

young men, bflied: Supposed to remove the population limit.
black death: Supposed to kill all other players.
gunners: Supposed to make your soldiers invulnerable.
how do you turn this on: A blue car. I think this one is from Age of Kings.
peanutbutter: 1 million of each resource.
popcorn: 1 billion of each resource.
amgod: Supposed to make you receive tributes.
modern day: Advance to post age.
tough guy: Supposed to give you a hot air balloon with an elite war elephant with a lazer gun.
eddboys: Get Edd,Ed and Eddy from the Ed,Edd n'Eddy show on cartoon network. Not that I think anyone ever believed this anyway.

A special case is zeus. It is obviously a valid cheat, since it does not show up on the screen when you type it in, but I could not find out what it does. It probably somehow makes your units stronger.