Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom

by Vivendi Universal

Product Features

• Start building your empire by attracting immigrants -- use them as workers and farmers to create commerce
• Introduce merchants, soldiers, doctors, craftsmen and guards to make your city safe and prosperous
• As your cities grow larger, you'll have to deal with new obstacles and puzzles -- deal with new technologies, forge alliances, and build monuments to your own everlasting glory
• Beware the barbarians -- they'll come to invade and take your wealth, so prepare castles, walls and a standing army to defend against them
• Compete or cooperate with other kings as you go online in 7-person multiplayer action!

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005V9QE
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 10, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,574 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Developer

In Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, you are transported back in time to when emperors reigned and China was the greatest and most resplendent power on Earth. Epic in scope, Emperor spans seven dynasties and more than 3,000 years of Chinese history--from China's preimperial Xia dynasty circa 2100 B.C. to the Mongol invasion of the Middle Kingdom under Genghis Khan in A.D. 1211.

As emperor, you will build housing to attract immigrants to your new city. Then the city's workers and farmers, administrators and soldiers will be yours to command, and you will have the work force you need to build a provincial city into a great metropolis. At your bidding, legions of workers will toil to erect walls strong enough to keep the barbarians at bay. Under your banner, armies will march forth to do battle with the enemy. Trade and commerce will flourish, and an army of tax collectors will collect the taxes due. Schools and clinics, palaces and gardens will embellish the city you have built and proclaim your benevolence to the world.

Product Description

In Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, you are transported back in time to when emperors reigned and China was the greatest and most resplendent power on Earth. Epic in scope, Emperor spans seven dynasties and more than 3,000 years of Chinese history--from China's preimperial Xia dynasty circa 2100 B.C. to the Mongol invasion of the Middle Kingdom under Genghis Khan in A.D. 1211.

As emperor, you will build housing to attract immigrants to your new city. Then the city's workers and farmers, administrators and soldiers will be yours to command, and you will have the work force you need to build a provincial city into a great metropolis. At your bidding, legions of workers will toil to erect walls strong enough to keep the barbarians at bay. Under your banner, armies will march forth to do battle with the enemy. Trade and commerce will flourish, and an army of tax collectors will collect the taxes due. Schools and clinics, palaces and gardens will embellish the city you have built and proclaim your benevolence to the world.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's A Pretty Decent Game, September 12, 2002

By 

Phyllida Ludd (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (CD-ROM)

I want to start this review with a disclaimer: I don't know a lot about game programming, so if you want a technical analysis of the game, this isn't the review for you. I do know that I like it though.

I would say that this game is on a par with Sierra's other city building games-Caesar III, Pharoah, Cleopatra, Zeus, and Poseidon-but with one new feature: you can play it online with your friends. If not for that feature, I probably would've only given this game 4 stars. The graphics are pretty cool but I've been having a hard time with the toolbar. The icons all look the same to me. The warehouse icon looks like a trading post icon that looks like a mill icon, etc. I suppose I'll get used to it. I remember not liking that about Zeus at first either, but that one eventually became my favorite.

The other interesting thing about this game (I say interesting because I'm not sure I like it yet) is that feng shui is very important to your people. In the other games, if you could place a building in a certain spot you got a green footprint, if you couldn't, you got a red footprint. In this game you get red, green, and YELLOW footprints. If you get a yellow footprint over the spot you want to place a building on, you can still put it there if you want, but it decreases your feng shui rating. And the less harmonious your feng shui, the less your people like you. So you really have to think a lot when you're building your city.

I'm not sure that this game is Sierra's best city building game yet, but it's still fun to play and I would recommend buying it. I would also recommend getting Acropolis, which is Zeus and it's expansion pack Poseidon in the same package.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy successor, May 5, 2004

By 

"primewalker" (Springfield, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (CD-ROM)

Contrary to what some other reviewers have claimed, Emperor is not the same game as Caesar 3, Pharaoh, and Zeus. Having played all of these games extensively, there are differences both subtle and overt between all four of these games, and none of them is an exact clone of any of the others.

Yes, the foundation for all four games is the same, and knowing how to play one of these games will get you 75% of the way along to learning how to play any of the others. But there's still that 25% that makes each game its own beastie.

Caesar 3 was the first of these games (Caesar and Caesar 2 are sufficiently different that knowing how to play them confers no insight whatsoever in how to play any of the rest of the games), and Pharaoh was a refinement and evolution of C3's gameplay. It wasn't a revolutionary change, but several extra layers of complexity were added, making it much more challenging than C3.

Zeus came along and did a dramatic revamp of the basic game engine. Several elements which were standard in C3 and Pharaoh were either gone or drastically changed in Zeus. In addition, Zeus added features that hadn't been seen in either of the previous games, such as the episode format, adventuring heroes, and the ability to conquer distant cities.

Emperor is seen as a refinement and evolution of what we saw in Zeus, in much the same way that Pharaoh is seen as a refinement and an evolution of what we saw in C3. It is a more complex game than Zeus, in much the same way that Pharoah was a more complex game than C3.

For example, Emperor has a completely new and different way to provide food to your citizens. And it's pretty challenging, too. Gone are the granaries. In their place are mills, which have the same capacity for food (32 units) but which churn out higher (or lower) quality food depending on how many (or how few) different types of food are in its storehouses. The highest level of housing requires the highest quality food -- which requires you to balance 5 different food types in one 32-slot Mill.

Farming is handled in a different way as well, with variable field sizes now allowed, and with the ability to mix crops.

For added complexity, your buildings (and your city) have Feng Shui ratings. If the Feng Shui goes too low, Bad Things(tm) happen. Many die-hard City Building fans have taken this as a challenge, and work to produce only cities which have Feng Shui in "Perfect Harmony." (Me, I just settle for "Auspicious," which is pretty easy to achieve.)

Residential walls have been added, which are different from city walls in that they don't offer protection from enemies, but they do block out low desirability. And the gates for these walls can be configured to allow some walkers to go through them while other walkers treat it as a roadblock. Thus giving you more fine-tuned control over your residential and industrial areas.

All in all, this game is a worthy successor to the City Building series, and any fan of the original series will get much enjoyment out of this game.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Game, May Get Better With Updates, September 16, 2002

By 

Terrance H. Heath "terrancedc" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (CD-ROM)

I downloaded the demo of this game, and thoroughly enjoyed playing it, so I went out and bought the full version. Having played all the games in Sierra's city-building series, this one takes its style after Zeus/Posiedon and raises the bar a bit. The interface is easy and intuitive, so users familiar with the other games will recognize it immediately and total newcomers will quickly adapt.

My only complaint is that I found there was a conflict between this game and Pharaoh/Cleopatra from the Great Empires II collection. Emperor uninstalled Pharaoh/Cleo before it would install, and vice versa when I tried to reinstall Pharoah/Cleo. I checked Sierra's forum, and apparently they are working on this issue now and hopefully it will be fixed with an update.

The campaign editor works like the one in Zeus/Posiedon, but seems a bit buggy on my screen. (Maximizing it helped, but it still ran pretty slow.)

The online campaigns are what sets this game apart, and I was able to play online without any problems. I'd say this game is worth buying, just keep your eye out for updates from Sierra.