Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom

Another RTS game by Sierra.

This ridiculously detailed game was greatly praised to be better than its predecessor, but apart from having better graphics, I do not think there could be a game more Difficult By Design. You start out as Village Emperor who has to build his town and achieve certain things. Even though this game embraces Video Game Time and Instant Build Just Add Money, it still involves so much micromanaging it gets nearly impossible to play later on.

Check this: Your people need houses. If food and other resources are delivered, it evolves to take more people. If services and resources stop being delivered, it degrades and throws out people to the point it was before it got the services resources. With me so far?

Your workplaces need workers, who live in Houses. If there are not enough workers, then the building will fail to produce services and resources.

If a higher-tier resource stops being delivered for some time, a housing compound degrades, throwing out 90 inhabitants in total. They are then subtracted from the working buildings, causing the middle- and lower-tier resources to fail as well, which leads to the Houses degrading even further...

And when you do not make offerings to the Gods then they will get very Angry and Flood your rivers, kill your crops and burn your buildings to the ground.

And the Pedestrians who deliver services just go around and around and you need to build your entire cities so they stay where they are and.. and... and....

The best remedy for this is the Usual: SAVE! YOUR! GAME!