Yes, it allows you to 'stat out' empires, and run them as 'characters.' So at a high level you can see if the kingdom is getting into debt, whether they are more likely to defend with religion or arms against subversion attacks, etc.
It's a good, imaginative, genre-neutral system. I'd also say it's pretty much independent of RQ, other than keeping the RQ-type mechanics.
A few other observations:
* Written at an 'abstract-gritty' level. A region has things like "Law" and "Religion" as characteristics, and things like "Technology" and "Espionage" as capabilities. But you will have to fill in the 'color' commentary below those.
* The rules don't scale well: Great for one empire against another empire, or one Duchy against another Duchy. But trying to roll up 15 Duchies into one empire and manage both will require some intepretation.
* Empires does not explicitly translate to the local campaign. For instance, my players' characters have been granted a small fief. Empires tells me how much 'wealth' they can generate per year, but I can't tell you how many warhorses that will buy.
But if you're looking for good background material for this (often ignored) area of your campaign, Empires is brilliant.
