Patrician 3

Of trading games from this era, most implemented hand-holding features like indicating when prices were good or bad, and some even had straight up auto-trade functionality where you just told a ship to start making you money. These features eventually infected Patrician IV. Patrician III manages to wrap in-depth trading and career features into a simple and easy to understand package. You quickly get the hang of things; yet you still find things to improve on after hundreds of hours. The only real flaw in the game in my opinion, is that after you get rich, trading becomes trivial enough that it can be difficult to motivate yourself to keep optimizing your routes. It's not uncommon for career/progression games to end this way and it's not bad in Patrician III but it is worth noting. Many multiplayer games I've had with friends only start to fizzle out after 50-60 hours; singleplayer games can go for much longer.

This is an old favorit that I played for countless hours when it was released a very long time ago. I still have the original box kept among my valuable memories. The game to my surprise is still very enjoyable. It's an economy simulator with some role playing features and lots of variation to what you can do. I'm quite impressed by how much efforts have been put in to small subtle details, something I didn't notice or appreciated enough when I played it many years ago. The UI is intuitive and the game has a good balance between micro- and macro- management. I set the speed to slow or very slow and just enjoy watching my trade empire grow over time. The graphics still works pretty well and the background music and sound as well. The resolution tough is sadly -to my knowledge- not adapted for newer/wider screens. I would love to see a remake of this game. Just don't change what already works because the basic game is excellent! There are newer and better looking games for sure but remove the shiny stuff and Patrician 3 will still be the superior one.

Normally I would avoid trading simulations but this one is pretty good - when its not crashing. Your goal is to become rich and to increase your reputation with the world so you can finally become elderman. aside from trading with goods you can do a ton of sidequests (especially in Multiplayer) like helping traders, working for your town, transport goods, kill pirates and many more. There is much to see, much to learn and lots of fun. Sadly the poor optimisation for modern systems holds this game back. Especially annoying are the constant crashes you WILL experience while playing this classic and sometimes it simply freezes but you can fix this with a reload. Entering a town: Crash. Entering the church to pray: Crash. Entering the Bathhouse for bathing: Crash. try to enter a naval battle: Crash. Just to name a few. Sadly the issues are inconsistant. One can play for hours without having a single problem or for 20 with for crashes and freezes. These issues prevent the game form recieving the 4 stars I would normally give. You should only pick up this game if you either have nostalgicfeelings for it or if you are ready to save often and reaload even more often.

Have played this on and off for 20 years or so and I still find it challenging and enjoyable. Nice way to relax, stimulate those grey cells whem you don't want to do anything much.

I remeber at the time the manual for the game was rubbish, and it was difficult to work out game mechanics. Having watched The Old Guy's play through on YouTube first has really made the game more enjoayble this time.