Each entry in Impressions' city-building series has been an incremental upgrade to the previous one. The series improved dramatically with Pharaoh, the first game to leave the Roman confines of the Caesar games. The series improved even more significantly with Zeus, which added more-creative mission goals and downplayed the military element, which had previously been a problem with the series because of the cumbersome combat interface. Zeus had a few of its own problems, but it introduced so many great ideas and features to the series that it seemed like a promise of even greater things to come. Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom breaks this promise. Instead of improving on Zeus, Emperor plays it safe by returning to the earlier games in the series. Developed not by Impressions but by BreakAway Games (whose previous work includes the Cleopatra expansion for Pharaoh), Emperor is much like Pharaoh, with a few of Zeus' additions thrown in for good measure. Though it includes some improvements of its own, it also brings back a few frustrating issues from earlier games. And some of these problems--such as the combat interface and the aimless wandering of your workers--aren't as easily overlooked as they once were.
It's not a major criticism to say that Emperor plays much like its predecessors. Impressions' city-building games have always been formulaic, but it's a solid and addictive formula. With the last three city-building games, most of the major changes have been cosmetic. The gods, buildings, and commodities available are specific to the setting, but the basic gameplay remains almost identical. You lay down residential areas, set up trade with other cities, provide food and commodities for your residents, and occasionally fight to defend your city or send your troops out to conquer another.
Emperor follows this formula to the letter, though instead of being in ancient Rome, Egypt, or Greece, you are now in ancient China. With Zeus, the setting lent itself to more-exciting mission goals: You would often need to attract mythological figures and send them out on quests, or build huge sanctuaries to the gods who would then bestow considerable bonuses to your city. The mission goals in Emperor return to the basic quantitative goals of Caesar III and Pharaoh. You'll be required to produce a certain quantity of a commodity in a year, save up an amount of money, conquer a number of cities, or reach a target population. Occasionally you will be required to build a monument, but these monuments are goals in and of themselves and don't bestow any benefit to your city apart from satisfying an objective.
Part of the problem is that Emperor only occasionally lets you continually build and improve a single city. Zeus made a significant change to the series' formula in that most missions were simply continuations of the previous ones. Over the course of a campaign, your city would grow to massive size, with occasional excursions requiring you to build a colony from scratch and then return to your primary city with added benefits for having a colony. Emperor occasionally allows you to resume a city that's already working, but most missions require you to start from square one. And when you consider that square one is the same in every mission, the missions can get rather repetitive as you go through the motions of starting all over every time.
It's not a major criticism to say that Emperor plays much like its predecessors. Impressions' city-building games have always been formulaic, but it's a solid and addictive formula. With the last three city-building games, most of the major changes have been cosmetic. The gods, buildings, and commodities available are specific to the setting, but the basic gameplay remains almost identical. You lay down residential areas, set up trade with other cities, provide food and commodities for your residents, and occasionally fight to defend your city or send your troops out to conquer another.
Emperor follows this formula to the letter, though instead of being in ancient Rome, Egypt, or Greece, you are now in ancient China. With Zeus, the setting lent itself to more-exciting mission goals: You would often need to attract mythological figures and send them out on quests, or build huge sanctuaries to the gods who would then bestow considerable bonuses to your city. The mission goals in Emperor return to the basic quantitative goals of Caesar III and Pharaoh. You'll be required to produce a certain quantity of a commodity in a year, save up an amount of money, conquer a number of cities, or reach a target population. Occasionally you will be required to build a monument, but these monuments are goals in and of themselves and don't bestow any benefit to your city apart from satisfying an objective.
Part of the problem is that Emperor only occasionally lets you continually build and improve a single city. Zeus made a significant change to the series' formula in that most missions were simply continuations of the previous ones. Over the course of a campaign, your city would grow to massive size, with occasional excursions requiring you to build a colony from scratch and then return to your primary city with added benefits for having a colony. Emperor occasionally allows you to resume a city that's already working, but most missions require you to start from square one. And when you consider that square one is the same in every mission, the missions can get rather repetitive as you go through the motions of starting all over every time.
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