$29.99Oriental Empires Build an Empire of Ancient China
Grow one settlement into a sprawling realm, command armies of hundreds, and test your statecraft against up to 15 rivals on a single living map.
Is Oriental Empires worth it?
Oriental Empires is worth it if…
- you like slow, deliberate empire building where a single map can take many evenings
- you enjoy planning battles in advance and watching your formations carry the orders out
- you want a strategy game rooted in one setting, ancient China, rather than the whole globe
- you would rather scheme against friends in a 15-player match than fight the AI alone
- you don't mind learning dense systems through trial and error
Screenshots
From one village to the Son of Heaven
You start with a single settlement and a long road ahead. Farms need hands, population only grows when food outpaces it, and every new city stretches your authority a little thinner. Push too fast and unrest boils over into rebellion; grow too slowly and a rival quietly overtakes you. Buildings queue up eight at a time, markets and ports open trade by land and water, and edicts, laws and decrees let you steer the realm as its ruler. The aim is simple to state and hard to achieve: become the Son of Heaven, recognized by every other faction, by force or by diplomacy.
Battles fought on the map itself
There is no separate battle screen. When you end your turn, your orders play out where they were given, with hundreds or even thousands of soldiers clashing right on the game map. You cannot grab a unit mid-fight, but you decide a lot beforehand: stack infantry, archers, chariots, cavalry and generals into one army, set each unit's behaviour, arrange formations, and tell your spearmen to charge while crossbowmen harass and horsemen swing around the flank. Sieges ask real thought too, especially late game, when surrounding a city and breaking through its walls matters more than wearing down a health bar.
One map, endless zoom
Everything happens on a single large map of China and Mongolia, rendered with mountains, forests, plains and deserts. The zoom range is seamless: pull back for a strategic overview of the whole board, or step right down to street level, where every soldier has a distinct face and clothing, and peasants work the fields around your cities. Armies move when the turn ends, not when you click, so planning ahead matters: an order given now plays out after everyone else has moved too. It turns each end-of-turn into a small held breath.
Conquer together, betray together
Multiplayer supports up to 15 players, and the same map that hosts your empire hosts theirs. You can ally to take down a shared rival, trade across each other's borders, or save the betrayal for the moment it hurts most; anything goes, and with human opponents it usually does. Turns resolve simultaneously for everyone, so nobody waits through a long queue of other people's moves. For a lobby night it is straightforward: pick a faction, agree on the rules of engagement, and settle in. Just know the sessions run long, because empires do.
Can you play it solo?
Can you play it solo?
Yes. The single-player game against the AI is the core, with scenarios to play through and a map and scenario editor to make your own. The AI plays actively too: it will corner you diplomatically and use small units to surround and pin your big armies. Multiplayer for up to 15 players is there when you want human rivals, but nothing requires it.
How does research work?
There is one elaborate tree covering technology alongside cultural, philosophical and religious development, and the four streams can be researched separately, so you advance on several fronts in the same turn. Pushing into a new Era as Emperor brings new technologies and military units that change how the game plays.
How do the factions differ?
There are 24, each with its own bonuses or penalties, including farmer and herder factions that play quite differently from each other. Some starts are only unlocked after playing further, which gives the game a reason to come back to it: each faction and each map plays out differently.
Do you control soldiers directly in battle?
No. You set unit behaviours, formations and battle orders before the turn ends, then watch the fight resolve on the map in real time as your armies carry out the plan. If you miss a battle because your attention was elsewhere, you get a battle report rather than a replay.
