Instead of improving on Zeus, Emperor plays it safe by returning to the earlier games in the series. Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom breaks this promise. Zeus had a few of its own problems, but it introduced so many great ideas and features to the series that it seemed like a promise of even greater things to come. The series improved even more significantly with Zeus, which added more-creative mission goals and downplayed the military element, which had previously been a problem with the series because of the cumbersome combat interface. The series improved dramatically with Pharaoh, the first game to leave the Roman confines of the Caesar games.
Each entry in Impressions' city-building series has been an incremental upgrade to the previous one.
