I found a slightly odd problem last night with Emperor,
when I started the game the various screens I.E. options screen, multiplayer/skirmish screen and the log in screen moved onto my screen really slowly.
At first I thought it was my Firewall but after considerable troubleshooting, I discovered it was the Creative Sound Blaster Live drivers, the newest one isn't compatible properly with Windows XP Pro.
So I rolled back the driver and it worked again without problems !