Oriental Empires

Oriental Empires is a confusing game. There’s a lot to enjoy about it: the interface, the campaign map and the general style of the game are very appealing and perfectly on point with its theme. As a historical game, it’s great, but as a strategy game, it’s not sure entirely what it is. To put it plainly, the battle system isn’t good, and that would be fine if it felt like it wasn’t a necessary component of the game. There isn’t enough settlement management to cut battles out completely and go for victory via an alternate route. Without the Civilisation-esque buildable tile improvements and without the trade, there isn’t actually much to do other than to settle, accrue income, queue buildings and diplomatize. I’m sure like most 4Xes, time and technology bring greater depth, but I can’t see them improving the battle system. So if you’re a Civilization player and combat feels secondary to you, then I would recommend maybe looking this up, as it is a beautiful game and feels historically accurate. If you’re a Total War player, however, and battles are a must to you (like me) I would say stay away, or at least wait for a rainy day and a Steam sale.

Oriental Empires is a very well made strategy game that allows you to get through a campaign in a few hours instead of having saves that span days, though that is an option as well if you wish. Despite its smaller scope focusing on Ancient China instead of the globe, the stakes actually feel higher due to the limited resources and high number of factions fighting for them. While some of the systems require a lot of getting used to Oriental Empires is well worth persevering with.

Attacking a recently settled city near my borders and settling for peace immediately afterwards, instead of being embroiled in an eternal war against a drastically inferior enemy due to imbecilic AI diplomacy.

Oriental Empires shall surely frustrate some players, though that really boils down to his or her shortcomings, not the any of the title. You shouldn’t be upset about historical accuracy: plagues happened, bandits are terrible, and — who would have thought — peasants hate building things for their oppressive overlords because they’d rather be with their families. Sitting down and learning how to be a sovereign to the people and not just field marshal to armies will open players up to a superb experience in the genre. The foundations of other efforts in the genre may show, but ultimately, Oriental Empires builds upon them anew, just like real life.

Quotation forthcoming.