Rating: 
Summary: Interesting genre but derivative and repetitive game
Review: As other reviewers point out, there is plenty that is right about Middle Kingdom. I won't bother repeating what they have said. Instead, I will state why I am not impressed and not addicted. There are two main reasons for this.
Firstly, this game is a rehash of older games with new graphics. This game feels almost exactly like the last member of the series that I played - Caesar III. Since Caesar III, the games Zeus, Poseidon, Pharoah and Cleopatra were all released, yet even after all that, this is almost entirely the same game I purchased in 1998.
Secondly,the game quickly becomes repetitive. I was bored with the same old same old before I even cleared the Shang Dynasty (the first historical one and the first one that is not simply represented as a tutorial in the game). Cities need more or less the same things and so you do more or less the smae things each time. There may be twists - one city might need to import hemp, another might be able to smelt bronze and turn it into bronzeware for export, but that still doesn't add a lot of variety. There is, thankfully, a campaign mode with set missions. This helps. A bit. But since one must mostly just rehash familiar steps to complete the missions, and since what you do in one missions doesn't have much influence on what you do in later missions, this too gets repetitive. Also, you can build armies and send them away to conquer other cities in China, which, again, is a step in an interesting direction. But you don't get to see the battles and you don't get control of enemy cities or resources - the best you can do is to extract some tribute.
The game badly needs to give the gamer some purpose other than just knocking over missions. A very simple optional wargame element would help tremendously. Building an army would be a lot more meaningful if you could take it into the field, position it according to the terrain, and guide it to victory. Fancy graphics and a keen AI are not needed - just something to give you the feeling that you are crushing your enemies instead of just being informed that they got crushed. Another thing that would help tremendously is the ability to control more than one city at once. This would allow for the addition of a strategic element of battling for land and resources as you rise from a lowly village chief to be emperor of all China - you could still build city after city as in the present campaign, but each city would mean something in the long run. Again, the strategic engine would not have to be complicated to add a lot of flavour and interest to the game - the meat of the programming could still lie almost entirely in city-building. Think of how the Total War series benefits from its strategic element, despite the fact that all the serious work went into the battle system.
In short, Emperor has a fascinating engine that could be built on and used as the basis for a great game. But it hasn't been.
Rating: 
Summary: The best by far
Review: Absolutely stunning! I've played all of the others in the range and this one beats them all. The graphics are brilliant - extremely detailed and realistic without any blocky appearance. The idea is not just plain-old conquer-rule style. The game includes all aspects of building and ruling a city - trade, politics, tax regulation, providing different foods and materials, luxuries such as ceramics, carved jade, bronzeware,hemp,etc. And obviously to add to this military. There are many different attack/ defense modes to enable in your troops and different ways to attack other cities and the tribute that you would want from that city (money, food, etc) Relating to review one where so called "dumb walkers" are mentioned. If you were good enough at planning a city and where rodes should go then you wouldn't have a problem. In my opinion it makes for a realistic small challenge. And as for the Gods; you can always check their status which is written above their name to see if you need to pay homage or not. And they DO have a purpose - apart from other things they can bless different work areas in your industry, agriculture, etc to improve production, which at times could be vital. there are differrent play modes - single player campaigns in which you are taken through chinese history, achieving objectives along the way. Multiplayer mode in which you can take you city online and interact with real live players. Open-play mode in which you choose an era in chinese history and build a city to your delight without any limits. To conclude: don't even thing twice - just get! rest assured you won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Sino-builder
Review: As usual the folks at Sierra have created a very insightful, yet fun, look at the development of ancient China. I found it very enjoyable and interesting at how to grow this very ancient civilization. As it is a game, there are good elements of fun including the various characters and how they react to varying conditions. Some of their comments are just too much! I definitely recommend this.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy successor
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy successor
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great follow-up for Pharaoh and Zeus
Review: Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom is a great follow up if you have been playing the city-builders series of Sierra/Impressions Games. I have been playing Pharaoh for sleepless months and when I acquired Emperor, I sure will miss sleeping... again. Graphics have improved since Zeus and gameplay is a lot challenging. I recommend you buy this game along with Great Empires Collection 2. All games are excellent. Can't wait to see the expansion.
Rating: 
Summary: Great game, bad technical problems
Review: Emperor: ROTK is a very worthwhile game to get. The graphics, the sound, and the gameplay are all top-notch. I am giving 4 stars instead of 5 because it is a great game, but there are still significant bugs in the game (Requires multiple start-up attempts, game glitches, etc.) and no patch as of yet...
Rating:
Summary: Patience is the watchword
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: Good Game, May Get Better With Updates
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful but Pedantic
Review: I have been a long time fan of the Settler series of games where you build your city and economy to conquer the world and it is perhaps because of my fondness for Settlers that I have reservations about Emporer.
Coming from the Settlers series, I do not find the commands instinctive or easy to learn. There are far more necessary elements to make your city run smoothly and it can get a bit complicated. The tutorial is awful. It loads at the beginning of the tutorial campaign but to continue you must close it and unless you've read far enough into the text, it isn't obvious how to bring the tutorial instructions back up. While it attempts to try to break the necessary learning into managable chunks, the pictures provided on where you are suggested to put houses, mills, warehouses, etc. are small and frustratingly limited. The result is that when you move on to the next section of the tutorial you can find out that you have made some significant design errors in the previous section which will prevent you from easily completing the next section. As there are many sections to the tutorial, the problems can increase greatly as you progress.
The city designs are grid oriented, everything deals with a standard square. I personally prefer the more organic layout of the Settlers series than this enforced grid pattern but that is a matter of personal taste.
There are many beautiful elements to Emporer which is primarily the reason I haven't given up on it entirely. At New Years, if you have the necessary supplies, you can permit your people to have a celebration which is fun to watch! I really enjoyed watching the New Years' dragon parade around the city.
I'd suggest that you download the demo and give the game a try before deciding to purchase it. Some will find it wonderful, others may find it beautiful but pedantic.
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