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"Emperor RotMK" is one of the best games I have ever played.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: June 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

One day in Wal-Mart I noticed a bin of old computer games for $4.88 each. Looking through it, I saw this game. Having already been familiar with "Zeus: Master of Olympus", one of the game's forbearers, and a fan of this game, I decided to buy it. After all, what did I risk?

I'm here to tell you that I still, months after purchasing it, get great enjoyment out of this game. Whether you want to complete the requirements for a scenario or plow your own course; conquer every city in the Middle Kingdom or set up a trading empire second to none; this is the game for you. It helps if you also like Chinese culture, because you're about to be emersed in it. From Nu Wa being the creator goddess to Xia being the name of first dynasty, you'll learn quite a lot.

In short, this game is worth $4.88. It's worth its original $19.99. In fact, it's worth much more. At $17.88, it's a steal.

Rise of Total Addiction

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I started off with Pharoah. Then for Christmas I get the Acropolis Pack, Caesar III... and Emperor. After playing all of these, I must say that Emperor is by far the best. You can see the evolution of the quality of Sierra's city-builders series as it progresses.
The main difference is the amount of player control in diplomacy and empire-wide relations. The Feng Shui bit is an added challenge that can get frustrating at times, but is an extra element of interest.
My one complaint with Emperor (as with Pharoah) is the fact that the monuments take years and years to build, while the months' penalty methodically erodes your score.
Other than that, though... this is a great game! Buy it at your own risk, however: I completely lose track of time every time I play!

The Best Of The Series - But Nothing New

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Ive been an avid fan of sierra's city building series since ceasar 2 - and each game keeps getting better (as it should be). The question is - better enough?
Here's the low down on the Sierra city building series games: Caesar, Caesar 2, Caesar 3, Pharaoh + Cleopatra expansion pack, Zeus + Poseidon expansion pack, Acropolis (which is Zeus and Poseidon in the same game), and now Emporer: Rise Of The Middle Kingdom.
Many of the micro management problems that plagued the series up until Zeus have been ironed out. The wagons still take the long route around, but there seems to be a lot more control with the warehouse/mill options and roadblocks than before.
The Gods/Goddesses system has changed, as it has in every game since Caesar 3. Now you have only a few religious buildings that can cover several "heros", and Seirra sure came up with a good solution to getting rid of all that excess produce - you can now give it away to the heros (everything but cash) to improve your rating with them (increasing the likely hood they will appear in your city). There is a pleasant improvement of the system in Zeus here - now you can actually control the heros. You can choose which buildings they should bless, animals they should capture etc.
The capturing animals for your menagerie is a nice little touch, but nothing more. It is yet another means to get you to be forced to interact deeply with other cities - whether through military means (conquering them) or peaceful (showering them with gifts). Aside from capturing animals on your own land, this is the only way to get animals. The cities have to like you a whole bunch. Some scenarios you have to have like 10 different animals, and its get tiring. Also, it would have been nice if you could have bred the animals or something and given them away as pets. But you seem to be limited to 1 type of animal only.
The production system is pretty unchanged from Zeus - aside from the types. You can now harvest laquer, silk from silkworms, hemp (woohoo), soybeans, rice and a bunch of other Chinese themed things you can think of.
The graphics are not much improved, unfortunatley. Sure they are cute little characters, but they aren't different enough to the ones before them. Just based on the graphics, this could have been an expansion pack to Zeus. In fact, it seemed to be that some of the cute little touches of the people moving around on the buildings had lost its cuteness. Not as much effort seemed to go into the little things, graphically.
Gone is the laborious building of temple after temple in Zeus - here you at least get some variety with the great wall of china, canals, temples, burial chambers (tumulus), and underground vaults (to name a few) on various missions. But its a bit irritating - you can only see what materials are needed to complete a phase in a project, not all the materials. You can kind of figure it out logically, but sometimes you get shocked by "8 pieces of carved jade, 4 weapons" demends, especially with the burial things.
The battle system is still pretty basic, but now you can choose between some different chinese fighting styles and some new units are introduced. Gone is the tedious rabble vs high class troops, now the number of forts you can place just goes by population like before. But its not exactly an improvement, more of a deprovement or something.
Overall, Emperor is fun and money well spent if you've always loved games like this. But it breaks no new ground for the city building genre. It is basically a continuation of the same thing.

Patience is the watchword

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Forget the critics. The demo is remarkable for its flexibility and its breadth. Sure, it takes a while to understand what all is going to happen, but that is part of the delight. Who wants to know everything at the start. The learning is the fun and you can easily repeat the process as many times as you wish -- each time becoming more competent.

The scenery is fantastic and the operational challenges presented to the "governor" are ten times more fun than Caesar III. You can become so engrossed in watching what's happening on the screen you can forget that your job is to govern and to watch the economic/political interply. Operationally, you get much more flexibility than Caesar III offered. Industries can come and go as times change without penalty.

I loved the demo and can't wait to get the full game!

No game beats Emporor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: April 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is certainly the best game Sierra ever made. In fact, I think this game is the best game that any company ever made. If my house suddenly catches on fire, and I could only grab one thing before jumping out the window, I would grab Emperor. My parents say I'm addicted to it, it's like a drug, I can't stop playing. They had to hide it a lot to stop me from playing.

Emporor would have been very hard unless you have cheats, which I do have. While playing, if you go to Ctrl + C, you can enter cheats. Try Typing in "Shutime" with the capital S. You automatically get $5000. Or "Gimme Goods" which gives you anything you want in your Warehouse or mill. There are also a bunch of funny cheats. If you type in "SpawnMugger" or "SpawnBandit", Muggers and Bandits will appear. Once, I made like 50 muggers, and sent my army to destroy them. Man, Muggers are strong! they killed almost half my army!

Its fun to get Heroes in your city. When I had Sun Tzu in my city, I sent him along with my huge army to conquer every city on the map, and guess what? I did conquer all of them. I usually conquer the Nomads first. I don't like Nomads, they suck.

But anyway, if you like this review, buy the @#$& game!
Trust me, you will like it.

Oh, and go to emperor.heavengames.com for cheats!

Emporer: Rise of the Middle Kingdom

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

To start with, let me give you the good. The graphics are... okay. Sierra could have done better. I like the variety of commodities, from millet to laquerware. The gods are way easier to please than in Caesar3. Campaigns are the best part of the game, and they gradually get harder as you progress. I like the monuments, another strong point. Relatively short time to build. Another thing, I had LOWER than minimum system requirements on my old machine, and it ran fine. Now, the bad. The battles SUCK! The armies walk straight towards where you tell them to go, even if there are enemy soldiers ripping them to shreds as they walk. AND you can only have two forts, which I think is a rip-off. There is a diminished variety of buildings. Why are the only schools entertainment schools? Also, open play gets repetive after you have played for a while, although I do like how certain crops are only available in certain ages and on certain maps. Overall, it's an okay game not really for the hardcore gamer. Hope this was helpful. Here's something; how come salamanders attack your walkers in the streets?

Emperor (not very original, but it'll have to do.)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: April 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

When I first saw Emperor rise of the middle kingdom on the internet in December 2003, I knew I wanted it. Unfortunately, I didn't get the game until August 2004.
After all these months, I still play extensively, although I am a cheater (God, I love cheat codes).
I do not agree with what other reviewers say about Emperor being a remake of all the other great Sierra games. I should know, I have played these games extensively.
Caesar III came out, then Pharaoh. 2 very good games, but excrutiatingly dull.
Zeus and Poseidon came out and quickly revolutionized the way Sierra made games. Those are my favorites, next to Emperor.
And then I finally got Emperor. I still play it.
Emperor gives one to grow new crops, build new monuments, and discover new ways of fighting. And you can now play online- which I still can't get on my computer.
So all in all, Emperor may seem a little like all the other Sierra games, which is ok, because you can be a little more familar with the game, but they are not all the same.
Emperor is a good game,I applaud Sierra, and I anxiously await the next one.

Good game once you get it started

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is a very good game. The graphics are suburb! This is one of the better simulation games that I have used. I really enjoyed the "Chinese" music and the paintings during the loading of the game. There is one minor problem with this software. After you have loaded the software and you try to play it, sometimes the "Autorun" or the "Emperor.exe" does not start running. It is really hit or miss trying to get this game to start running. Sometimes it starts whenever you click the icon or the start menu on the first try. Other times it acts like it starts but then shuts down. Once the game starts, it is excellent. I highly recommend this game. I am sure that Sierra is working on this problem. They have given us great customer support in the past.

Love the Game, but...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I love this game and am addicted in a matter of minutes. In fact, most of the Sierra city-building games are pretty addictive. However, the one thing that does wear on my nerves is the "real-time" factor of how long it takes to get through some of the architectural items in the game. Maybe pyramids (Sierra's "Pharaoh") or Chinese architecture took 2000 years to build, but I don't nearly have enough time in this lifetime to get through it in my game! That aside, the games are great, and "The Emperor" is pretty engrossing and fun. Just make sure to limit the number of hours you allow for this game or you'll forget that life exists outside of the Emperor's China! By the way, check the homepages of these games often to download patches for improved gameplay.

Similar to Caesar 3

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Emperor is the game for fans of any Simulation game, or big history enthusiasts. It has everything that a game based on Ancient Chinese would have: large cities, trading, war, prosperous provinces, feng shui, etc. I really like this game, and you may too! I was playing this game for months a few years ago and now I miss this game and want to play another mission. :D

This game focuses on government. You are required to balance the prosperity, health, and some other things in your city. Make sure that your citizens are employed, healthy enough, well educated, have access to entertainment facilities to keep them happy. As an Emperor, you can adjust taxes, hold festivals, open new trading route, and many more!

Emperor is not a new game, yet it is fun to play. With a few bucks, you can get great simulation game that will run smoothly on slower PCs.

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