Rating: 
Summary: Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdon
Review: I have only played the demo which I downloaded and found it absolutely fascinating. I want the whole thing! It is nearly as much fun as Zeua, Pharaoh, Cleopatra and Posiden all in one! I love it!
Rating: 
Summary: Emperor: ROTMK - Good Graphics - Not a War Strategy
Review: I liked the evolvement part of City Building, but after playing for hours, I get bored because the aspect of adventure and war gaming is not there. Can't expect to be a best game, but it will only last one / two round of play.
Rating: 
Summary: Love the Game, but...
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Rise of Total Addiction
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: It's A Pretty Decent Game
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother
Review: I've been playing the Sierra City-Builder series since the first Caesar. Change the graphics in Emperor and you have any of the following: Caesar III, Pharaoh, Zeus. The same problems that plague the user in the earlier 3 games are made even worse here ("dumb" walkers that force the user to make unrealistic and repititous road patterns, supplies going exactly where they are needed least [how does Sierra do that?], farms not functioning because cart walkers bypass empty warehouses to use the one furthest away, etc, etc.) The gods in the game are annoying. You have to remember to give gifts every few months, which can be a problem if you're trying to accomplish something and you concentrate on that instead of remembering the gods. And the game doesn't tell you which god you last pleased, so you had better have a good memory. It's not that there's any real point to the gods in terms of playing the game--they're just a distration. And as for the Feng Shui, well, let's just say that if you ever ran out of useable land in the earlier games, you're in for a real treat here. The manual is pretty to look at, but useless for gameplay. If you don't already know what you're doing, don't count on the manual to explain it; and if you do know what you're doing, you've already played this game, so don't waste your money. In spite of the manufacturer's claims to the contrary, this game is not much more than the other city series games with new graphics. After playing a few maps, it is little more than building the same housing grids over and over and over again while trying to look for places to put the buildings you need to reach the map's goals. Instead of fixing the problems with the older games, Sierra has just invented new ones. Bottom line: if you have Caeasar, Zeus, or Pharaoh, you already have Emperor.
Rating:
Summary: great game
Review: If u are a fan of the sims or reality games this game goes way up above this and the graphics are preety good. Also if you are looking for a challenge this is the kind of game you want. There are others like pharaoh and ceser also zeus but this is this game involes more fun than the others,GREAT GAME.
Rating:
Summary: Great fun while you learn about China
Review: In the tradition of Caesar, Pharoh and other city-building strategy games, we finally have one set in one of the largest kingdoms the world has seen - China!Fans of the previous city-building sims will feel right at home here. You start out by building a road, and putting little house lots alongside it. Soon you're placing wells, firehouses, and more advanced structures. You're learning about Chinese history and culture as you play, wokring with shrines, help shops, mills, and more. You build up your trade and commerce, and fortify your city against attacks. The graphics are great, and you really get involved in the success of your town. There are even Feng Shui aspects to the game - placing your buildings in auspicious areas of the town help your prosperity! A fun new addition to the city-strategy series, and a non-violent way to spend countless hours. Recommended! As a side note, I read the other reviews that said people were having issues. I'm running XP and haven't had any problems at all with the software.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Of The Series - But Nothing New
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Intoxicating and Rich - Like a Chinese Sunset
Review: Like Pharoah? Caesar 3? I have played most of the historical sims, and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom competes well. The graphics are even better than Pharoah, as are the food types and interplay between your citizens and yourself. If you enjoy Impressions' other City Building Series games, you will be able to drink deeply of this exotic elixir. I find it fascinating to sit back and watch the mulberry tree farmers raise silk worms, harvest them, and then send them to a weaver to be turned into beautiful, exotic fabrics for trade. (A great way to put $ in your treasury!) Remember: These City Building Series games are not high on military play; the real action comes in developing an efficient, thriving city via excellent planning and strategic trade pacts. The military forces you create in E:ROTMK are primarily used for defensive purposes, so if you are a war gamer, instead you might want to spend your $ on Shogun Total War: Warlord Edition (historical Japan). One problem: Unlike Pharoah, I have been unable to find a way to control allocation of labor via a central screen. In Pharoah and C3 you can prioritize your labor, but not so in E:ROTMK. Other than this slight oversight on the part of the Impressions team, this is a fun and engaging addition to the excellent City Building Series.
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