Patrician 3 - GOG.com

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genre

download size

avg. user rating

release date

compatible with

developer / publisher

available lang.

strategy / economic / historical

460 MB

based on 242 customer votes.

October 31, 2003

Windows XP & Windows Vista (32 & 64 bit)

ASCARON Entertainment / Strategy First

English

buy for $9.99

or add to cart to buy more with one order

manual (65 pages)

in-game soundtrack

map

click on selected thumbnail to enlarge

Welcome to the Middle Ages of Northern Europe. There plenty of work to be done.

Create a medieval trade empire and expand in to encompass the whole Old World. Build warehouses, workshops, brickworks and much more to strengthen your financial position in the Hansa. Gain reputation in your hometown by developing its infrastructure with roads, hospitals, schools and become Lord Mayor thus gaining full control of the city. Be a famous pirate killer... Or become one yourself!

Visit the great cities of Hamburg, Stockholm, London, Novgorod, Oslo and more. Explore the Mediterranean as you build your trade empire. Hold galas to celebrate victory in battle and your town's growth. Run massive trading operations and cope with the consequences of enhanced seasonal weather effects.

Patrician III - sequel to the award wining game Patrician II - features advanced in-game AI, which adjusts its difficulty based on experience and ability. In this economic sandbox game you can gain wealth and power in multiple ways - what you will do with it is up to you. Invite up to 8 of your friends for a multiplayer session via LAN or over the Internet.

You can raise your standing through town improvement and diplomacy or fill your coffers through piracy and smuggling. Grow your small town into a major trading centre wielding tremendous economic power today!

This game has been patched to the latest official version: 1.1

Age requirements: ESRB Rating: EVERYONE with Violence., PEGI Rating: 3+

Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.

EVIL GENIUS

strategy, real-time

JAGGED ALLIANCE 2

strategy, turn-based

SACRIFICE

strategy, tpp

STRONGHOLD

strategy, building

STRONGHOLD CRUSADER

strategy, building

Average customer rating 4.5 out of 5.0

Realistic strategy, addictive gameplay and nice visuals (by Forthur

Forthur)

Anyone who likes tycoon games should try Patrician 3. You can start with a single ship and a pitiful few coins in your purse, and in a few (game) months can have trade offices and warehouses in several cities, ships running 24/7 on automatic routes just to supply your industries (and deliver the products you make), and heavily armed convoys hunting for pirate ships. Everything you... full review do matters - the goods you supply to a town will help it survive the harsh winter and help it grow. Speaking of winter - in the winter months you can really feel the pain of expensive food and scarcity. Or abuse them, of course, by selling the stuff in your warehouses for very high prices.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The more influence you gain in cities, the more political power you will have - if you become Lord Mayor you get to decide over extending the city walls and organizing the defenses. On the other hand, you could also become a pirate. Just load up a few ships with powerful hardware, hire a ruthless crew and attack those helpless merchant ships. Or you can send convoys to the Mediterranean to explore it to find cities where you can buy wine and pottery.
You can take out loans or grant them to other merchants, send goods over the land bridge between Hamburg and Lübeck, perform less than legal transactions in the side room of a tavern, help fight the black plague, help extend the local cathedral, marry, bribe officials in the bath house, organize huge celebrations, and more... And everything you do has an effect on your reputation, availability and prices of goods, etc.

The game has the same addictive "just-one-more-turn" feel as many other games, even though it isn't turn-based. The game speed is easily adjustable, and the pause button will slow it down to an almost-but-not-entirely-paused pace that gives you more than enough time for what you want to do without completely stopping the game.

All of this is packaged quite nicely. The cities each have a different look and feel to them, and the snow coverage in winter even depends on the local climate. The people walking around in the cities is a nice touch. The user interface is quite user friendly, with a few clickable icons and a main menu. Many city functions are activated by visiting (clicking) the right building: city hall, tavern, ship yard, etc. There may be a few things you'll spend some time looking for while playing for the first time, but the tutorials are quite good.
There are a few campaigns, one of which is a kind of "first" campaign (giving a few hints and pointers now and then), each of which will keep you playing for many hours. Beside the campaigns there is also a sandbox mode, in which you can choose your own goals (and other options). And there is a multiplayer mode, but I haven't tried that yet.

The game runs stable and smooth in the highest resolution (1280x1024) on my XP machine, without any hiccups or glitches, even when alt-Tabbing.

The only gripe I have is that the music gets a bit repetitive after some time. Thankfully, you can turn it down without disabling the other sounds, and have your hi-fi player provide your own.

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first time player (by billabongbronco

billabongbronco)

Having never played a game like this I wasn't sure what to think. I wanted a good game that would make me think and be a addicting time sink and boy did I pick the right game. First I must say that I really like the presentation of the game. Between the user interface used in the city where all your trading and etc. is done and the constant clicking between world map and city... full review

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(27 users agree with this review)

One of the few games I go back to and play again and again (by LoneGunman

LoneGunman)

I don't know about you but for me, most of the games I play tend to be one-offs. You play it when it comes out, you beat the hell out of it then you eventually get bored and move on. Patrician 3 was one of those games that I came across (found it on the shelves of a GameStop by chance) and gave it a shot. I've been installing it and reinstalling it every time I upgrade my computer.... full review />
There's no real story beyond you starting out in the mid 14th-century as a lowly trader in Northern Europe with a small ship and some money. The easiest way to start making money is to trade. You'll ply the waters of the North Sea bouncing around between cities doing the usual buy-low, sell-high strategy. But, before you think that'll become routine, keep in mind that the devs added some features that make it easier to automate the more monotonous parts of the game. You can hire a captain for any of your ships and once you do, you can set up trade routes where you have the ship hit specific cities and trade in whatever goods you want. This combined with a map view that makes it easy to quickly view the town's goods and prices if you have a ship or a trading office in the town (which you want to build as soon as you can afford to). You can set up those trading offices (you get one in your home port at the start of the game) to automatically buy up stock in whatever goods you want at certain prices. That way you can weather the price fluctuations that come from yours and the various AI traders doing business in those ports.

Once the money is rolling in (set up a skins run from Reval or Riga back to Lubeck, Rostock and Gdansk with a backhaul of iron goods from Lubeck and you'll be making money in no time), you can think about building your own industries up. All of the goods have some building that manufactures it though not all towns support all goods. Still, you can build up certain industries to the point where you can supply yourself with goods you need to become a supplier of something, like iron goods or skins. Lastly, you can build up housing to help grow the town's population which increases the labor pool and production in the town (as well as demand for products that aren't made in town).

And all this is just touching the surface. You can join a trader's guild and start exploring the Mediterranean region (not directly, you send missions with your ships). You can bribe, donate and party your way into the Mayor's seat (or even head of the Hanse which essentially governs the region) and deal with sieges and expanding the town. You can become a pirate and plunder and pillage ships or even towns. Or you can do what I like to do and hunt down the pirates out there. There's a whole mini-game to handle ship combat which takes some getting used to but can be very engaging and fun. It's also a slightly faster and cheaper way to build up your fleet as you can capture the ships and their cargo. Tip: load up on cutlasses for your crew, have a captain on your ship and make sure that captain's got a high fighting/combat ability...as long as you've got a few more sailors than the enemy, you'll capture every time.

The simulation is very deep and can be very rewarding. You can get married and have kids though that has little effect on the game beyond maybe your reputation in town. You'll be able to piece together treasure maps from tips and get some loot. You can act as a lender and make money off other trader's loans. There's just so much in this game that you'd never expect to see.

So, all in all, if you're a fan of tycoon games but really like deep simulations (none of this casual games crap), this is definitely worth a try. It still plays well on XP (for me), doesn't require a ton of graphics hardware, and will keep you on that "just a few minutes more" cycle that keeps me up late into the night.