I'm trying to install a wide screen modification to Emperor Rise of Middle Kingdom but I'm not sure how to do it after reading so many read me files. It just doesn't work. On all the patches i get the following error as well "the code execution cannot proceed because aal.dll was not found". Can anyone please help me. i really want to play this again, but I can't zoom in or out and everything is so large. Please help

Have you seen this thread?:
https://www.gog.com/forum/emperor_rise_of_the_middle_kingdom/emperor_resolution_customiser

I'm using the one I got from Nexus

I managed to install the widescreen mods, but I think it wasn't the issue in the 1st place. My issue is that i would like to know if there is a way to make the map size smaller that it's not so large. That you are able to see more items on the screen itself. The view are is to large. And this is not fixed with the wide screen mod. See the red circled area i mean in the pic.
Is there a way to zoom out to see more of your city?

Somehow your request(s) seem to contradict themselves...

You mean, you want the Mini-Map "cut-out" to be bigger (see attachment), so that the main map (on the left) shows more of your surroundings?

As a non-programmer, I guess, the way to do that would be, to open the program's files and change the x/y coordinates of the Mini Map cut-out to bigger values.

Doable.

IF you can gain access to the program files and know where to find these exact values.

Easiest way (even for non-programmers) to do something like that, would be, if the .ini-file would contain that info and it could simply be changed...but I don't think "E:RoMK"'s .ini-file contains that particular info.

So...I guess you're out of luck here, unless you find someone who hacks the game for you.