Patrician 3

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. 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.

Good Ship Prudence takes nine days to circuit Aalborg, Bergen and Oslo, delivering beer to the natives. They consume 170 barrels of beer each week. Convoy Charity, your crayer-hulk convoy for long-distance hauling, travels from Hamburg to Aalborg to Lubeck back to Hamburg by way, again, of Aalborg. Charity's circuit takes 13 days and despite stopping twice in Aalborg before returning home for repairs it has only one chance to drop off beer for the Aalborg region. Two questions: How many barrels must Convoy Charity drop off in each trip to completely sate the needs of the people there? How many barrels must Good Ship Prudence pick up at the beginning of each circuit? Answer: 315 barrels; 218 barrels. This, however, is subject to change once we include increased consumption during the winter, considerations about Bergen's port freezing in the winter and therefore shortening Prudence's trade route. We assumes falsely also that pirate activity, other merchants, traders, businesses and miscellaneous random acts of God or barbarians will have no affect on supply or demand of said beer. If you multiply this problem to compensate for the two dozen cities and 20 resources and the cities' varying consumption --- whether it's by businesses opening or shuttering or merely the increasing or decreasing city population you begin to appreciate the enormity of this simulation. While sea battles and sieges are clunky --- think the army battles in Ceasar III clone Pharaoh, but worse --- they do break up this massive Excel spreadsheet waiting to happen. This game has me hooked. Not even for Myst did I take out a spiral-bound notebook to make notes for later. For this game, however, I break this fast. I believe it's best approached as a crossword puzzle. I take just enough raw data at night to keep me writing in my notebook through the day at work. Highly recommended.

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 map its all well done and easy to use. Later on in the game you will have five, ten, twenty, ship going around to different towns and you need to quickly buy and sell what you need and that's where it really works well. Then's there's the graphics for the game. They're on par for what i would expect for a game like this. They're nothing great but the people walking around the towns and different weather effects depending on the time of year are nice enough. The sound is for the most part average but helpful. The normal music,which seems like it's always playing, is pretty annoying but the game does a nice job of giving you bleeps and bloops when your ship arrives somewhere, you received a letter, or something useful happens. I would tell you about the story but if you're looking for a game with a story go play fallout or something else because you're not getting that here. After playing countless hours playing this game all I can say it's awesome, very friendly to beginning players even though looking intimidating at first, and if your looking for something to pass your time you can't go wrong go buy it.

The majority of the games on this site came before my 'prime'. I started playing simulations on Simcity and never really grew out of them thanks to Sid Meiers. I never played Patrician 3 when it was in it's graphical or game play prime, I just randomly picked it because it sounded like fun and I got it in a two for one. I didn't expect much, and in doing so really underestimated how much fun it could be. I find most of the games on this site needing what I call the 'Nostalgia factor'. If you didn't play it in when it was on top, it's hard to get into years later. Not so with Patrican 3, I was completely enthralled for almost a month, and still very much involved for months after. This game is just too much fun for city-building, resource trading, diplomacy-craving dorks like me. Some of the gameplay aspects- such as the battles- seemed too simple to have to fight for more than two or three minutes; I remember a particularly annoying battle where I had to chase a pirate against the wind for five minutes, then he turned around and sailed with the wind to the other side of the screen while I could only match his speed and never close the distance. These minor nuisances are completely overshadowed by the real meat of the game as you expand your own trade empire. You start with a trade office in a single city with a single ship. You must outfit this ship with sailors (and later captains) and weapons for defense. You visit surrounding towns, selling what's needed there and buying what's in surplus. You build your own resource gathering and manufacturing plants in your home city, as well as warehouses. You build houses so your hometown grows faster to accommodate your labor needs. Your fleet grows, and you can group your ships together, perhaps a few quick, heavily armed ships protecting the cargo behemoth. You expand your trade offices to other cities so you can secure other raw materials for your own manufacturing. Your trading rank rises as your wealth and influence grow. Once you can get voted mayor of a specific city, you are tasked with that city's defense. The gameplay takes an upward and outward approach: as you rise the ranks, more becomes available to you. It has elements of Pharaoh and 1701 A.D. And thanks to GOG, it's DRM-free and easy to jump in.