Step into the world of the ancient Orient. Control a city or tribe from the dawn of Chinese history, and turn it into a great empire. Develop your land, create great cities, raise huge armies and fight epic wars. Advance your technology, culture and religion to create one of mankind’s great civilizations. All the action takes place on one spectacular game map that brings to life the mountains, forests, plains and deserts of China. Zoom in close to review your troops and see your peasants toiling, or zoom out for a strategic overview. Plan your battles, end your turn, and then watch as your armies obey your orders, with hundreds of soldiers battling right on the game map.

Oriental Empires covers the period from earliest recorded history, until the widespread adoption of firearms (roughly 1500 BC to 1500 AD) and aims to realistically depict the world of ancient China, with a focus on the unique aspects of that civilization. This extremely deep strategy game includes both an historic scenario on a realistic period map of China, and skirmish-style scenarios on random or user generated maps.

Oriental Empires received an update that adds a scenario editor, letting players create scenarios similar to the Warring States scenario, which was added to the game when it graduated from Steam's Early Access program in September 2017. Oriental Empires entered Early Access in 2016 and continues to be supported by the development team. 

With the scenario editor you can define your own factions, easily place cities, buildings and armies, and even include your own faction symbols. Players are able to share their creations with the community via Steam Workshop.

In addition, the update adds new features to the map editor, which went into beta last year. The map editor is now released in full.

The update also includes a number of bug fixes and improvements.

Battles:

• Fixed battles sometimes not resolving properly in single player when the player doesn't view them.
• Improved siege initiation. Stack can begin attack if any stacks around the settlement can breach the walls.
• Units dismount and artillery stay unpacked if two hexes away from the city wall.
• Artillery oriented towards settlement at the start of the battle phase.
• Large trebuchets don't stop firing when first rope puller killed.
• Spare artillery crew re-assigned duties between turns, so the engine can continue to work even with some crew losses.
• Fixed crash when land units without flaming ammo fire at ships.
• Fixed some stats for faction specific units.

Settlements:

• Can now delete roads. Use the delete key to remove the roads in the hex under the cursor when in road building mode in the settlement view.
• Fixed bug when irrigated farms leave farms behind when their city is destroyed.
  Settlements can take over resources when previously owning settlement is destroyed.
• AI won't auto build farms on potential mine sites.

Multiplayer:

• Fixed being assigned an eliminated player when joining a hidden humans game.
  Changed save game name of hidden humans game to not include faction name.
• Fixed battle indicators showing for human players in MP hidden humans mode.

Other:

• Changed font for the Chinese version
• Added ability to import a map from png file into the map editor. Mainly intended to work with files from the Demis Map Server.

Key Features

• Start out as a single nation or tribe, starting from humble beginnings with a single settlement and expand your empire and develop your culture with the aim of becoming the universally recognized Son of Heaven and ruler of the world. 
• Persuade the other factions to recognize you as such by either military force, or by diplomatic persuasion.
• Play as one of 16 different factions each with their own special bonuses or penalties.
• Vast beautifully rendered map featuring an attractive and authentic depiction of the landscape of China and Mongolia.
• Large scale battles with hundreds or thousands of soldiers, depicted in detail right on the game map. Watch skilled armies and reinforcements go to battle, according to the battle orders and formations set by the player.
• Fully animated 3D models, with variations in face and clothing for each model, including infantry, cavalry, chariot and artillery units, as well as naval forces.
• Long seamless zoom range lets you step right into the game world or zoom out for a strategic overview.
• Develop your settlements by constructing buildings and developing the landscape around them, build markets and ports to enable trade by land and water. 
• Elaborate research tree including technology as well as cultural, philosophical and religious developments.
• Many other elements will determine the outcome of you quest for dominance such as Leaders, Sieges, Unrest and Rebellion, and Authority and Culture ratings.
• As Emperor, set edicts, laws and decrees to balance power and move into a glorious new Era, with new technologies and military units that change the game!
• Conquer together or betray your allies. Anything goes in multiplayer mode, supporting up to 15 players.

Development of Oriental Empires is being led by R.T. Smith and John Carline, two veteran strategy game developers with more than 30 years’ experience between them. Previously they worked together on the Total War series of games, in roles including Project Director and Lead Artist, and have credits on many other AAA titles from studios including Crystal Dynamics, Pandemic, Frontier Developments, and Slightly Mad Studios.

Oriental Empires is currently available as digital download through Steam for $29.99.