I skipped the ‘just build some houses and roads” tutorials for Caesar and Pharaoh but with Emperor it’s a little bit more complicated because you revisit the same map for three tutorials in a row. As such I’m just starting at the beginning and this first go at Bampo is....very not exciting. That said, Emperor is the most different of the three of these I’ll be playing so let’s get into that...
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One big difference in Emperor is for the market works. In Caesar and Pharaoh, the market is a single building that buys and supplies food and various goods. In Emperor it’s an area upon which shops for specific things can be placed. It’s also where entertainment is centered.
It has two entrances/exits but I only make use of one, placing it at the end of a row of houses like above. The reason for that is that I found using both was trickier to plan around correctly. I may try to revisit that some time now I have played more, but for now I’ll be sticking to these sort of corridors of housing.
Another big difference, arguably the biggest difference, is that in Emperor labor isn’t accessed by every building sending out a walker to see if there’s houses nearby. Housing is ultimately walled off though that comes up later on. This makes city design very different. And to me, more fun. In some ways it’s more realistic, and in others less so, but in terms of the game itself, it’s a feature I quite like. If you’re not familiar with Caesar and/or Pharaoh this will not make much sense nor matter in the slightest.
As usual, the first three things people want are water, food, and religion though they also need building maintenance. Above you can see a well from which water is carried along the road giving the houses clean water, an inspector’s tower that keeps buildings from catching fire or collapsing, and an ancestral shrine. Eventually there’s multiple religions to juggle but not for centuries yet.
Housing evolves and holds more people depending on what goods and services are available to it. Buildings that provide these, like the well, the shrine, or the shops in the market square, all have send out walkers that have to follow the road past the houses for them to have access.
here’s a food shop and granary with some meat in it. Once the food shop keeper goes to collect the meat, the houses have food. One interesting thing though is that if you click the market square it will tell you what food is being served, both in terms of the overall quality and even specific dishes. A neat little detail.
