Background

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (hereafter Emperor) is the latest installment to Impressions Games ancient citybuilding game series. A now-classic simulated city game system, the series began with a Roman Empire installment (Caesar III), then continued with an ancient Egypt city builder game (Pharaoh/Cleopatra), and finally evolved into an ancient Greek city-state game (Zeus/Poseidon). Emperor now takes that game series out of the Mediterranean area into ancient China and addresses the various dynasties from 2000 BC to 1200 AD.

Main menu for Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom	Victory! The Great Temple is built for Tang, our people prosper, and the ancestors are pleased.

Similarities

Players familiar with Zeus/Poseidon will be extremely comfortable playing Emperor. Most of the game's functions are very similar to the Zeus/Poseidon games and are much improved over the older Pharaoh/Cleopatra) system. Experienced Zeus players may feel that playing the Xia tutorial isn't necessary but it is helpful to see the new graphics and understand functions of the different figures and structures, which are comparable to those seen in the previous games. Graphics now are larger and have more detail and granularity than seen in the previous games of the series. Some of the Chinese structures are visually exquisite!

Missions assigned in the campaigns may require the player to achieve various levels of housing sophistication (reflecting quality of life standards), trade levels with other cities, construction of monuments (one mission tasks the player to build the Great Wall of China!), or achieve a level of military strength to resist threats of attack. The Zeus/Poseidon games featured two discrete types of housing: common housing for the working class and elite housing for nobility and wealthy; this hierarchy is carried over into Emperor.

Emperor offers about four dozen single-player scenarios, grouped into a handful of dynasty-specific campaigns. Emperor players can begin any campaign and are not required to work sequentially through them as they had to in Pharaoh/Cleopatra. The campaigns are listed in chronological order so players can journey through the evolution of China's dynasties by playing the campaigns in sequence. Emperor also has "sandbox" modes as in Zeus/Poseidon so players can simply play without the need to attain objectives to end the game. Several multiplayer scenarios are also available for competitive or collaborative play, and Emperor will also ship with a campaign/scenario editor similar to the one which appeared in a post-release patch for Poseidon.

The Great Temple, almost completed.	Embark on one of several single-player campaigns, each depicting a different dynastic period.