To understand a civilization you need to rummage about in that which made it a civilization to begin with. Understand its people and their struggles to live off the land, the pressures of warlords placed on those officials in charge of expanding the nation, and you will understand some of how the nation grew from nomadic roots to thriving hubs of culture.

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, a PC release from Sierra and Impressions Games, is a game that delves far into the past of China. With gorgeous graphics, compelling game play and challenging city management, this is a game that is a pleasure to play. You will get lost in the past; revel in the glory of cities constructed according to the concepts of Feng Shui, and delight in meeting quotas from the emperors of the nation.

Impressions Games has some expertise when it comes to creating compelling civ games. The company was responsible for such titles as Lords of the Realm, Lords of Magic, the Pharaoh series, and the Zeus series. Its’ ten years experience in what works and what players enjoy about civilization games is evident in the way Emperor plays out.

Fail to pay proper homage to the ancestors and disaster may visit you in the form of floods or earthquakes. Pack the people into the landscape without regard to safety measures, and you risk fire devastating the growing community. You receive updates on hygiene, food, worker numbers, and in the single-player campaign, you must meet quotas ordained by the emperor of the nation.

Campaign mode features seven dynasties. The Xia Dynasty is the tutorial. You create your character by creating a name (or you can select from one of the male or female historical names), and then selecting the governing animal from the Chinese zodiac. There are a variety of difficulty levels that you can choose from, and you can go for the easy game play or the extremely challenging gaming.

The second campaign is the Shang Dynasty, and this is an example of how the game melds Chinese history seamlessly into the game. At the end of the Xia Dynasty, a new leader emerged from the province of Shang. His name was Tang and he vanquished the Xia, established his capital in Hsiang, and led the people into the Bronze Age. Your initial task is to build a city at Bo, and the goals to winning are to have 600 people live in Spacious Dwellings while producing 12 crates of ceramics in one year. You have to feed the people, provide for their spiritual needs while insuring the growing city keeps its hygiene high (wells and herbalist shops help in that regard).

Suddenly an emissary from Hsiang shows up in your city and offers you some money as a gift from Tang, the emperor. Of course you can permit him to enter your city, or execute him on the outskirts. You just know that money has strings attached. But it does cost to build and maintain the city. Sure enough, not long thereafter you are visited again. The emperor demands you send him crates of ceramics. He mentions, in his missive, that he can send troops in to grab them but would rather not. You can decline to send him the ceramics, or cave in to his demands.

The New Year arrives: have you trained enough entertainers to hold a festival for the people? Have you built markets with shops for them to buy products needed? Do you need to collect taxes and begin the concept of city government?

Emperor addresses so many aspects that you are constantly creating and recreating your city. The concept of Feng Shui deals with the layout of your city, and the harmonious arrangements of objects in relation to the environment. Can you create a beautiful city, with flowering trees, gardens, ponds, pavilions and statues?

In addition to the campaign-driven game, you can also play an open-ended game, where the goal is to establish whatever you wish. Grow at your own pace, and create trading centers and cities of incredible wealth and beauty.

There are multiplayer collaborative games online, or you can compete against other humans. At the start of a competitive game, each player has the same goals, and you are scored. When one player has realized the goals, the game ends and scores are tallied. However, a nice feature is that if a player has accomplished all the goals by a certain date, each player in the game has until the same date to try to do the same. Scores are tallied and the winner announced.

The player interface for Emperor is quite easy to use. There is a sidebar that contains all the building options for the game you are playing, and players use drag-and-drop mouse commands to build. You simply click on what you wish to build, and then find the spot on the land where you can build it. You can clear land to make room for your structures, and it is easy to run out of space if you don’t plan wisely.

The graphical elements of this game are wonderful. Houses begin as straw huts, and then blossom into real homes as amenities are made available. People work in the farm fields, carry water throughout town, or labor in the mills and workshops. The animation is terrific and you can pick out someone in town and see what they are doing or thinking (which is akin to the personal view of people in PopTop’s Tropico).

This game is wonderful to look at, and the sound elements are equally delightful. The city you build is alive as any city would be. Earthquakes rumble and vibrate the graphics on your screen, floods rise (somewhat awkwardly) to submerge portions of your town, and fire jumps from one structure to another, leaving only rubble and ash behind.

The wonderful thing about Emperor is the way it appeals to almost all players. Young or older, male or female, experienced or novice, this is a game that will entice, enchant and entertain.

Gameplay: 9.3
The game plays seamlessly from the moment you launch it, whether in scenario or open-ended play. The game appears to be quite stable. The mapboards may not be that big, especially when you are expanding at a rapid pace, but if you plan well, you can realize the city of your dreams in the space provided.

Graphics: 9
While the overall look of the game is wonderful, some of the effects – like flooding – seemed a little weak. The animation of the townsfolk, and industry is wonderful. The environments are well rendered. This game is bright, and lush.

Sound: 8.8
A solid sidekick to the graphics, this game features the sounds of a prospering city, with a backdrop of oriental music. While everything here is what you would expect, the audio tracks are delivered with crisp, full-bodied sound.

Difficulty: Medium
You can set the difficulty level to create the challenge you want. The player interface makes this an easy game to dive into and enjoy.

Concept: 9
This game seems to combine all the best elements of a series of civ games into a package that is inviting and richly detailed.

Multiplayer: 8.5
This game provides some nice variations on the standard “king of the hill” variety of multiplayer gaming.

Overall: 9.3
Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom is another in the city-building series from Impressions Games and Sierra. It is a game that delights the eyes and ears, while challenging the mind. It is an incredible, well-designed journey into the past of a nation that has existed for more than 4,000 years. This program will appeal to players of all ages and experience levels. It is great fun.