History VideoGame / EmperorRiseOfTheMiddleKingdom

* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Pandas appear on numerous maps. They can fight, but only do so to defend themselves, otherwise they're docile and will plop down in the middle of your crops to munch some bamboo as your farmers work around them. You can't even hunt them for game meat like other animals. But you still have full ability to hunt them down and kill them.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Carved Jade fetches the highest price of any commodity at 230 strings for 100 units, but Jade always has to be imported, and at 90 strings a unit that cuts the profits of Carved Jade to a more modest 140 strings. Not to mention you need someone to supply you Jade and someone to sell the carvings to. Carved Jade ''is'' still practical, but it isn't as profitable as it first appears.

** Calvary are JackOfAllStats MasterOfAll: They move fast, have strong attacks, and decent HP and armor, which makes them all-around the most versatile troops.
** Chariots are LightningBruiser combined with EliteArmy: They have strong attacks, the highest HP, their armor is almost as good as infantry, and they move almost as fast as calvary. However, you can only have four to a fort, making it difficult to get large numbers of them.

** Paper/Iron Smelting/Lacuqerware/etc has been discovered! Time to integrate it into your city because the old stuff just won't do anymore.

(during a seige) "I better hide before my business goes up in smoke!"

* SequelDifficultySpike: The game reintroduces many of the complexities present in ''Caesar III''' and ''Pharaoh'' but dropped in ''Zeus''. Several types of foods are needed to fully evolve houses, and a fertility system is again present. Taxation takes a while to be implemented, and the appeasement to the gods mechanics returns. No free militia exists anymore and the slow, recruitment process is again used. Money is not carried over from one mission to the next, instead a fixed, limited budget is given at the start of most missions.

* ShownTheirWork: It's obvious that as much as a historian will facepalm at the game's events, the developers did at least some research and often refer to real historical cities and figures with accuracy.

* SequelDifficultySpike: The game reintroduces many of the complexities present in ''Caesar III''' and ''Pharaoh'' but dropped in ''Zeus''. Several types of foods are needed to to fully evolve houses, and a fertility system is again present. Taxation takes a while to be implemented, and the appeasement to the gods mechanics returns. No free militia exists anymore and the slow, recruitment process is again used. Money is not carried over from one mission to the next, instead a fixed, limited budget is given at the start of most missions.

** Infantry are MightyGlacier combined with CloseRangeCombatant and ZergRush: they have the best armor and decent hit points, a good melee attack, and train in groups of sixteen to provide numerical superiority.

** Any demands for troops will likely come with a month or two of advance notice, but even if you send your forces immediately they may not arrive in time, and how ''dare'' your soldiers be late when they were so sorely needed! Sometimes you can also send your army, but they're too weak of be of use, so your ally is still annoyed with you. Of course, if you're getting attacked and request military aid from an ally many months in advance (perhaps because you don't have an army of your own, which is possible on numerous maps), they're liable to take their sweet time responding, will just refuse, or will send you ''one infantry unit''.

* InstantWinCondition: The city is hopelessly in dept, outlaws roam the streets killing indiscriminately, people are leaving the city, and in two months the Xiongnu arrive to attack and you don't have an army. Oh good, the year production tallies are in and you met your quota, mission complete! Averted if you actually get conquered -- you cannot win any mission if you're another city's vassal, even if you meet the requirements.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Hemp cloth is one of the core resources of any city, which is historically accurate, the Chinese along with a lot of other civilizations used hemp for clothing. But the game includes winks and nudges about it's more famous uses, including the hemp farm ambient noises including coughing, and the farmers at the hemp farm can be seen smoking. The merchants from the market squares also provide these quotes:

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Guan Yin, the Mother of Mercy; the name should be a hint. All of her abilities and benefits are in the name of city beautification and health, such as reducing the construction cost of gardens and parks, acting as a water carrier, improving city health, and lowering the cost to bribe enemy armies. And only the latter is of any real use, and if you're in a mission where you're at risk of being invaded then you should be building your own army to defend the city anyway.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Mission briefings often open with words to the effect of "the previous emperor is dead and now his son is in charge."

* TooDumbToLive: AI cities never learn that if you've got a standing army as large as the game allows, maybe they shouldn't make unreasonable demands of you, or refuse and insult you when you demand something of them. They will do the latter even if your army just returned from ''conquering'' them and making them your vassal. As mentioned above, your rivals will demand resources of you with the warning if you don't comply they'll just march into your city and take them by force. It's almost always a hollow threat, but you the player are full rights to actually do it.

* PaperThinDisguise: It usually isn't too difficult to spot spies in your city. Hint -- it's the random herbalist/water carrier/taoist priest wandering through your industrial sector, or walking halfway across the map to reach your trading posts. Subverted if they disguise themselves as inspectors, which are omnipresent in cities and thus rarely look out of place.

* MookChivalry: The only aversion in the ''Caesar III'' engine/saga, soldiers no longer engage the enemy in one-on-one fights, but every man in a company of up to 16 soliders will spear the same single target at the same time if the odds allow it.

** For the heroes, Xi Wang Mu and Su Wu Kong. Xi Wang Mu reduces monument construction time by variably increasing the amount of workers that can be at the monument at a time, allowing them to do more work before they leave, and/or causing them to work quicker. When monuments take years to complete, the speed boost is appreciated. So Wu Kong meanwhile makes emissaries to other cities free and they travel faster, invaluable if you need to speed up communications for whatever reason.,

* InstantWinCondition: The Xiongnu are attacking, the walls are broken and your troops lie dead, the city has fallen! Oh, it's the new year and your production tallies are in, mission complete! Averted if you actually get conquered -- you cannot win any mission if you're another city's vassal, even if you meet the requirements.

what do the market sellers say of it?

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Hemp cloth is one of the core resources of any city, which is historically accurate, the Chinese along with a lot of other civilizations used hemp for clothing. But what do the market sellers say of it?

** And what's more, the ambient noises for the farms include people coughing, and the farms themselves show a farmer smoking ''something'', you can't tell what but you can guess.

** Chariots are LightningBruiser combined with EliteArmy: Their melee blows are devastating, they have the highest HP, their armor is almost as good as infantry, and they move almost as fast as calvary. However, you can only have four to a fort, making it difficult to get large numbers of them.
** Catapults are GlassCannon: Their missile attack is ''the'' most powerful attack in the game, strong enough to kill most enemies in one shot, and they have very long range too. But they have HP and armor, no melee attack, and move very slowly, making them easy to kill.

* ArtificialStupidity: The walkers that carry and fetch goods are completely incompetent. They're liable to go across the map to gather a resource they can get from a warehouse just two tiles away from their spawn building, and will sit outside a full warehouse and complain it has no room when there's an empty warehouse right next to it.

* EasyCommunication: Soldiers instantly respond to orders, and will depart to conquer a city instantly regardless of their actual location relative to the city limits. Played with for messengers -- they take a couple seconds to spawn and have to walk to the city entrance before they head off, but from there it depends on what message they carry. If you're demanding something of a rival, the rival will instantly be notified as seen by their history, but if you're giving them a gift or sending a trade request, you can watch the messenger move towards the city on the world map. Send one of either message at the same time and usually, despite this variance, the city will respond to both at the same time, when the gift messenger arrives. As well, cities that send demands to you will not acknowledge you sent them what they asked for until a month or two after the fact.

* BladeOnAStick: Most combat walkers, including heroes, utilize assorted varieties of spears and polearms. Doubles as ShownTheirWorn; the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji_%28polearm%29 ji]] and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagger-axe dagger axe]] were common weapons in ancient Chinese armies.