Introduction

Having only played Pharo once, many years ago and not paticularly enjoying it, my knowledge of and experience with the Impressions city builder games is low. As of writing this, I am still learning the ropes and having a good bit of fun - building cities that would no doubt make any experienced player vomit. I've been playing for about 20 hours and have barely scratched the surface, so this review may be altered later down the line. Nevertheless, 20 hours of playtime is enough to get the general idea of how the rest of the game is going to play out.

What's Emperor about?

Emperor is the last in a long line of city builder games made by Impressions Games. Players are tasked with building, feeding and industrialising a prosperous city set in an ancient Chinese backdrop. Trade and fight with neighboring cities, build awe-inspiring monuments, and pay tribute to the gods.

Gameplay from a noob perspective

To cut a long story short, this game is essentially a set of animated spreadsheets. There is alot of micromanagement in this game and there is a steep learning curb that can turn a new player away if they don't put their head in the game. But once you do get your head in the game and begin to make sense of the games basics, it is an immensely fun (and pretty) set of spreadsheets.

Emperor thankfully has a tutorial and a very good one at that, but be warned, it is a long one. Frankly, there is too much gameplay mechanics to cover in this one review, and as said before, I still don't know all of them yet. Essentially you just build things that enable you to build other things, or build things that need other buildings to function, with some occasional diplomacy and war thrown in for good measure. When put like that, it sounds unbelievably boring. But this game is the definition of 'dont judge a book by it's cover.'

In a game as seemingly boring as this, what's the appeal? It's a few things, probably. One of them being the sense of achievement you feel after solving a complex logistical problem, or some other hinderance. Emperor simply makes you feel clever. Second reason, at least for me, is the game just looks good. After working on a city for hours and just taking a moment to look at it all - it's like looking at art. It has to be said that Emperor is one of the most gorgeous isometric games in existence. The biggest reward in this game is just watching your city come to life, seeing where everyone is going and what they're doing, knowing that it's all your creation.

Of course no city builder would be complete without natural disasters or other devestating acts of God to ruin your city, and Emperor is no exception. These happen if you do not pay tribute to the gods frequently enough, and they can destroy hours of work. Luckily these seem to be quite rare and they can be disabled in free mode. Whilst incredibly frustrating when they do happen, it does offer the game more challenge and keeps you on your toes, and I like that.

Difficulty and temporary conclusion

This game is tough. Whilst I do recomend this game, don't jump into it looking for an easy ride because as the game progresses, it gets more and more overwhelming with micromanagement. If you like the idea of running every aspect of your city efficently, and don't mind the initial learning phase, get this game. It is the best of its kind according to some, and I can certainly see why they'd think that. Its low asking price of around £5 (and usually on sale) is an absolute steal, given how much content you get. I plan on doing a proper, more in-depth review once I have put more hours into this game, but I wanted to get this out early because I am enjoying the game that much. Expect a fully reworked review in a week or two.

New findings

Now that I have a good number of hours under my belt, I can finally give this a game a more thorough examination. Though I already outlined the basic concept of the game earlier, there is some more content and that I still haven't seen yet - these are mainly just the higher levels of housing and elite housing, and late-game resources.

The game got alot more fun after I figured out how to properly build housing, utilise precious space and use road blocks. It also got alot easier, but as you progress through the campaign, your cities will face new challenges, which I will get into now.

Resource scarcity

In the early game, you can have a booming economy by simply mass producing and exporting ceramics to as many trade partners (more on this later) as you can. Ceramics are important as they are required for evolving houses and they make great tributes for the gods. In some missions however, you cannot make them and they are only available by importing them, which can cripple a budding city due to their high cost. Ceramics require clay to make, and clay is obtained from claypits, however claypits may only be built on grass. In the desert maps, there is very little room for claypits, which forces you to trade with neighboring cities.

Some food types are scarce or difficult to grow on some maps, or simply unavailable without trading. Just when you get used to playing a certain way, the game switches it up and presents you a new obstacle. In the very early stages of a city's life, your populace can only eat meat or fish until your crops grow, however on some missions, neither meat nor fish is attainable, which would mean you would either have to wait for the harvest, or feed your populace on imported food, which will bankrupt you if you're not careful

Most if not all resources in this game will be scarce at one point or another, so it's always best to plan ahead and have alternate paths for growth for your city. For example, in a mission where you can't export ceramics, export jade carvings instead, as uncut jade is always available through trade if you grease enough palms. Wood is also good for export (when available), despite it's low price, you will always end up with alot more than you need.

Diplomacy and war

You aren't the only power in China - some of your neighors are hell-bent on conquering you. Some are peaceful and simply want to trade with you, others will demand you to pay tribute before they even conquer you. Rivals will generally ask for a few loads of a paticular good you produce and in exchange for that, they won't invade. Of course you can tell them to get stuffed, and they will invade or keep harrassing you for goods. The diplomacy in Emperor is quite shallow and leaves alot to be desired. Essentially, you send cities a gift, usually money, in order to butter them up, then you send a diplomatic request to open up trade between you and them. There are other options like allying with other cities but I never really bothered with that as I found no use for it in my style of play. Thankfully, war can be avoided entirely by simply bribing an invading army, which I appreciate despite it's questionable realism. Some missions force you to go to war but it's not paticularly hard, just a pain.

War in this game is not fought like an RTS. If you're invading, the combat happens off-screen and is decided by who's got the bigger army. There are options like formations and choosing which area to attack, but to me it made little difference. It is simplistic, but that is good because it allows you to focus on building and maintaining your city. Doing that, combined with an RTS-like combat system would be way too much of a headache for most people and I'm glad the combat is simplified.

There are other diplomatic choices too, like sending spies to gather information or sabotage missions, but again, they don't seem to actually do anything noticeable.

Trade

To survive and thrive in Emperor, trade is crucial. Money is your lifeblood and without it, you will go into debt which decreases popularity, and your people will eventually need certain foods and goods that can only be obtained via trading. If the peoples needs are not met, they will leave, causing your houses to devolve and lowering your workforce, thus making trade an important inevitability. Thankfully, trade is simple and you can, for the most part, set it and forget it. As said earlier, opening trade with another city is easy and just requires a gift of money or a resource that a city needs (buys). You will have to open trade with multiple cities however, as not all cities buy and sell the same things. For example, a city that produces (sells) silk will not buy silk or appreciate silk as a gift.

If you are exporting alot of valuable goods early game, it is a good idea to import some food too to lessen the load on your farmers, as sometimes you can get a smaller harvest due to people leaving, or just bad luck. Importing food ensures a steady consistent supply, as long you can afford it. Just don't feed your populace on entirely imported food because this will cost too much money regardless of how much goods you export.

Religion

This is quite a unique mechanic for a city building game, and it plays a big role in every mission. Paying tribute to a paticular god enough times will cause it to spawn at the nearest shrine, and it will stay as long you keep paying tribute every month. Gods have can do different things, some can improve crop growth, others can increase production on certain resources, and some can buff your military. There are 12 gods in the game, all from different religions, (Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism and Ancestors) all of which are unlocked at various stages of the game. There is also a downside, as not paying tribute frequently enough will anger the gods and they will evoke natural disasters and bad harvests, which can run your city into the ground.

Monuments

Probably the coolest feature in the game, monuments are gigantic structures that are built in multiple stages. Unlike other buildings, a monument must actually be built from the ground up, in a slow resource-draining manner. Some monmuments can take an entire game to build and on many missions they are a victory requirement, so its best to start construction ASAP. The actual process is really cool to watch, as each process is animated. When beginning a monument, carpenters will construct a frame for the dirt foundation, which is later filled with dirt by labourers, and then carpenters can construct the rest, or masons if the monument requires stone. It is very impressive to watch them being built and the final product is pure eyecandy.

Monuments, despite their grandeur, are not really useful considering the effort required to build them. They increase the appeal of an area by a lot, and they please the gods alot, but by the time construction has finished, the game is usually already won. In freeplay these are alot better for just making your city look nice as there is no time or mission constraints.

Conclusion

There's not really much else I can say about Emperor without turning this review into a wikipedia article about the games mechanics. What I can say is it is an incredibly addictive, well made city builder. And as someone who was never into city builders, this game has opened me up to a whole genre. Emperor is the perfect mix of simplicity and depth - its the old 'easy to learn, difficult to master' conundrum. There is honestly no game ruining flaws I can think of other than the screen resolution being so small. This is fixable by a patch but it just refuses to work for me which is a shame because the sprite work looks absoulutely stunning in 1080p.

Verdict is still the same as earlier: dont buy if you're looking for an easy ride. Play the tutorial, look up some guides and get a understanding of the games basic mechanics like housing and markets. Once you have figured those out, you just pick up the rest as you play. It's low asking price of £5 makes it worth it for newcomers and veterans alike, and if you're a newcomer, you won't get a better introduction to the city builder genre than Emperor.