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General Questions

Is there a demo of the game available?
What does the demo include?
What is the difference between the difficulty levels?
Can I rotate the map?
Can I rotate buildings?
What does the "Part of the city is isolated from the main road to China" message mean?
Are there any updates to Emperor available?

Is there a demo of the game available?

Yes, you can download it from here

What does the demo include?

It has the 6 Xia tutorial missions plus the first 3 missions of the Shang Dynasty. It also includes a multiplayer mission though this can only be played on a LAN set up.

What is the difference between the difficulty levels?

Difficulty levels affect start up money, cost of buildings, wages paid, number of workers available, fire/damage/health/crime risks, how other cities in the Empire interact with you, strength of both friendly and enemy troops.

Can I rotate the map?

Yes, the second from the left icon at the bottom right of the screen that looks like a compass is used to rotate the map.

Can I rotate buildings?

Only some buildings can be rotated by using the "r" key. The buildings that can be rotated include the Palace and Administrative City, forts, statues and non square monuments.

What does the "Part of the city is isolated from the main road to China" message mean?

You get this message if you build housing in an area which immigrants can't reach. The most common cause is because it is across water from the entry point and there is no bridge or ferry. It can also occur if you completely surround housing with other buildings and/or water, rocks etc or if you build on a raised area that does not have ramp access.

If you build non housing buildings in similar situations you will not get the message but the buildings will never get workers.

Note that the message has nothing to do with the actual road that is often on the map when you start except that this road usually marks the entry point. You can delete part or all of this road if it doesn't fit in with your city plans with no ill effects.

Are there any updates to Emperor available?

Yes there is an update, the 1.0.1 patch. If you have the 1.0.0 version you should download the patch from here and install it. You can check which version you have from in the game by looking in Help then About, or by right clicking on the Emperor.exe file then selecting Properties then Version. Details of what the patch fixes and the new features it introduces can be found here

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