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Sequel Galore

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yet another sequel to the original and original part 2....nothing much new in the game really....updated graphics some items newer but really its not a very new invention...

Is it good? Yeah. Its ok...Would be great if they could do more...more in depth stuff....but overall its ok.

I am defintely looking forward to a new generation of these games that will leave the sequel junkies in the dirt....just need to find a company willing to use some fresh new ideas rather than hashing up old games and updating them to repackage them as "Newly Created"

Hard to find better!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Maybe not the best graphics ever, but certainly smart and realistic. May keep you interested up to the rest of you life.
For no doubts I'd recommend this RTS game for any age, along with another game from same vendor (Ascaron) - "Port Royale 2" (this one has really beautiful graphics, but require relatively powerful videocard to show all effects).
These 2 games are really outstanding comparing to all other RTS games I've tested.
Cannot say more. Just excellent...

Patrician 3 Not a Good Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 54
Date: January 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I saw this at a popular mall store and ended up buying it.It looked similar to Caesar 3,Civilization 3 and several other games of that sort. I always start a new game with the Tutorial.
It gives you several modes to play in from Sea Combat to City development and Trade to Political.It doesn't give you any sense of how to maneuver your ship or what reasonable goals would be for a starting player that has never played the Patrician system before.I have to hope that people who have played Patrician 1 and Patrician 2 can make it through it .I'm not sure that that's
enough to reccommend the game.At one point you have to hire a crew and it tells you to hire a crew but there is no hire button.There is also no Strategy guide available for this game.
I'm not talking about a cheat book,I mean a book that says Shift+H = hire .Wait til its in the $5 or less before you buy this.

Empire Building at its Best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Of course, the empire is one financial in nature but the results are the same. I started with Patrician II then went to Patrician III.

The Patrician World is circa 1400 and you start out as a poor trader with little wealth. You begin trading and work to build a business Empire Spanning the 20 towns the game starts with and ending up building two more.

I like the trade, the accumulation of wealth. Once you get going you are able to build your own businesses which enable you to make more of a profit.

There's a couple things that make this superior over P-II and that is:

1. You get to save your trade routes. For those of us who like to replay the game, you still have your money making routes from the game before.

2. Auto repair. Captains will automatically put into dock and repair your convoys. And let me tell you, when you are several game years into the game and you have dozens of various convoys, this feature is invaluabe.

3. Pirate hideouts. YOu get to find and desroy pirate hideouts and capturing ships to add to your fleet.

There are several more but those are the best.

This game takes an unbelievable amount of time, you can't just sit down and be done in an hour, day or week. This sucker takes months to finish. In fact, you probably could play indefinitely.

You can turn pirate. My favorite ploy is to capture every other ship in the world and make them mine. Of course if you are caught there are hefty fines you must pay, but bribery in the right places will take care of most of it.

Ship battles, trade, pirates, storms, and lots of gold make this a great game.

Excellent empire builder

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I actually bought Patrician 3 about a year after I looked it up on the internet. As a fan of strategy games I suppose I was looking for something new to add to my collection. I found it largely by accident while surfing Amazon, did a bit of research on the internet about it. Just reading about it though didn't really inspire me to buy it. The screenshots didn't look impressive; the graphics looked too similar to the endless slew of mediocre isometric strategy games of the late 1990s, and the subject....build a trade empire in late 14th century Northern Europe. Uh, didn't exactly sound riveting.

But about a year later I decided to get it anyway out of curiosity amid a large games buying spree. First impresssions were promising, it had a colourful paper map of Northern Europe included and the manual was attractively presented. Gameplay itself was a bit slow at start....buy some beer at London, sell to Cologne, buy wine at Cologne, sell to London...hey, I made a small profit! It became addictive. I used to play a game called space trading game Elite in the late 1980s, Patrician 3 started to awake those dormant feelings of satisfaction in seeing your profits increase.

Later I began to appreciate the attractive and atmospheric way the game was presented. The soundtrack is excellent (albeit probably more Rennaisance than late medieval soundtrack) and the graphics have touches here and there to invoke a 14th century atmosphere.

But this is more than simply a trading game. Piracy is a large part of the gameplay, whether equipping your ships to ward off attacks of pirates, joining or forming your own convoys, or even deciding on a clandestine career as a pirate yourself. As you increase in wealth, you'll find many more options are available to you- getting involved in politics, diplomacy and intrigue are all available once your trading empire expands. "Side missions" such as hunting pirates, treasure maps and smuggling are also available at points.

I honestly find it difficult to find fault with this game, except perhaps that once you have a large empire it can get quite difficult to keep track of everything! It can be hard to remember that you've told your brewery to stockpile in the warehouse Bremen, while you've forgotten that you're still selling meat in Edinburgh when you should be stockpiling for the upcoming festival. It is possible to automanage to an extent by hiring AI controlled employees, but nevertheless you sometimes feel that you're juggling too many plates. But that is all part of a good management game.

If you enjoy management/ empire building games of the Ceasar 3 variety then this is a title I can recommend with no hesitation, although it's probably more biased towards trading than city building. One of the most pleasant gaming surprises I've had in years.

Excellence in Strategy Gaming

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: October 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This long awaited sequel by many truly dedicated Patrician Gamers has finally come to fruition.

With the addition of many fan suggested features (Nice to See a developer respond to their fan base) the game has a feeling of completeness about it. Not entirely complete of course do to its unlimited re-playability.

This game will be loved by those looking for a challenging strategy game where multiple skills, critical thinking and creative solutions are necessary in the dynamic environment Ascaron creates.

A must have for the intelligent strategy based gamer.

You Will Enjoy This Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 17
Date: April 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

For those of you who are looking for a game with depth this is it. It does take awhile to learn how to play the game but once you do you will enjoy it. You start out with a single ship and trade or fight your way to riches. You build up towns that you build offices in by suppling the town with various goods that you can buy in other cities or produce yourself. This is not a process you complete in a few hours. It's like a project that you work on for several nights. Set goals before you begin, such as how many people will be in the cities. I like to start in different towns and see how far I progress in say 10 years. Trying to do better than before. Each city is different and looks great. This game really makes you think and stratigize how to best build up your fortune.

Patrician 2 With Improvements

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: November 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Patrician 3 is nothing more than Patrician 2 with more the features flushed out. The initial stages of the game are exactly like Patrician 2. Further down the line you will find a few new features. Those expecting a completely new experience will be disappointed. This game is not a sequel but an updated version. Don't let the 3 confuse you, its just a marketing scheme.

Its worth the buy for new players and most old players will probably enjoy it just as much since its practically the same game. If you really liked Patrician 2 then get the this one too. If you are not too keen on Patrician 2 then you probably don't want to play enough to make Patrician 3 worth the money.

90% Same Game as P2

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 21
Date: June 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Patrician III is not much different than PII, so if you have PII don't buy this game. I enjoy playing Patrician, but the only useful feature this "new" version offers is the ability to save and edit your trade routes. Now for those of you who are new to Patrician games, you should buy this version.

I enjoy the historically based games that merge city building, battles and a touch of RPG all in one. In the beginning you have one ship and no reputation...As the game develops you can easily become overwhelmed in the micro managing of 15-20 different cities,Numerous ships, politics, housing, industry, and just plain old buying and selling of goods.

Many of the other reviews go into the specific historic issues as related to the Hanseatic league, but all you really need to know is you need to make money. Buy low-sell high! That is all you need to know to start. You trade goods from town to town with your ship(s).

As you begin to gain money and status, you will start to learn which towns need certain goods(Which I won't go into here), and then to build industries, housing, more ships, etc. Eventually you become targeted by Pirates. The battle graphics are very basic and controls very low tech. I has hoping for an improvement from P2, but it is the same. Some battles take 15-20 minutes, esp. when you have to chase a badly damaged ship against the wind. Don't buy this game if you are into battles... I think they were an after thought.

My first P3 game is now 40 hours long, and I control 30 ships and have offices in 5 towns. I don't even turn the game on unless I have two hours to spend. I enjoy the game very much and try to automate as much as possible to allow me to keep an eye on the markets and fine tune trade routes for the most profit. My defenses are quite good to cover trading, and when a pirate attacks they are usually sunk or captured... but there goes another 20 minutes. You control the speed of the game, but as slow speed your trade routes will take so long you might look up and the sun is rising!!!

If you enjoy reading historical fiction and sim-city type games, then buy this game, but don't tell your wife... or husband.

Plenty of new features make this worthwhile

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 27
Date: August 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The common criticism of this game is that it is merely Patrician II in some new packaging. Insofar as experienced P2 players will have no problem diving right into P3, I suppose that is true. However, there are more than enough new features in P3 that will challenge even an experienced P2 veteran's learning curve.

In particular, the new version guarantees that becoming Mayor or Alderman actually means something now. A mayor now has access to the town coffers, which means that if you are some sort of Hanseatic Boss Tweed, you can line your pockets with impunity --- that is, until the next election, when the citizens of your possibly bankrupt town may decide enough is enough and toss you out on your patrician behind. If on the other hand you are more civic-minded, the game now allows you (as both a Councillor & a Mayor) to contribute actively to the overall health & prosperity in the town. In P2, being a Councillor was largely symbolic --- you got to vote for Mayor once a year, and participate in the occasional Hanseatic vote, and that was it. As Alderman, strangely there was even less power to wield, so it never really represented a significant improvement of your fortunes. You are also given the opportunity to suck up to the local noble (or antagonize him, if you are so inclined). How you choose to deal with the local Prince can determine whether or not your town finds itself under siege. Sieges have also been tweaked to allow you a more active role rather than sitting by helplessly waiting to see if the attacking army will break through the gates.

Additions of civic buildings like a school & a mint allows you to have an influence on a town's growth, and the inclusion of Hanseatic missions providing for the contstruction of entirely new towns gives P3 an entirely new depth. The missions can sometimes be fairly straightforward, but they can also leave you struggling to provide the necessary resources --- a failed mission will leave you in extremely poor standing with the Hanse, so proceed with caution.

The ability now to save your shipping routes is a welcome time-saving addition. Less welcome (but accurate nonetheless) is the tendency of the northern ports to freeze solid during the winter months. Watch the ports freeze and then watch your finely tuned trading operation unravel all across the map --- what fun!

For those who find endless trading and management of municipal infrastructure to be a bit tedious, P3 now offers you more opportunities to duke it out with the pirates who seem to litter the north seas. Escorting fugitives and other travellers can find you in the midst of a battle with a pirate, and if you play it right, can provide you with a nice hulk for the low low price of a few sailors' lives. Hanseatic missions will also allow you to attack pirate hideouts which can sometimes involve fleets of ships blasting away at each other. The potential for violence and mayhem has vastly increased from P2, but strangely, the sea battle graphics still are rather primative. Anyone who has played Ascaron's "Port Royale II" knows that the sea battle graphics can be much better than what is found in P3.

Other inclusions such as raising a family may not actually improve gameplay, but it does personalize your game character a bit more, and that is a nice detail to be appreciated. All in all, Ascaron's tweaking has resulted in a game that is different enough from its predecessor to make it worth acquiring. Rest assured that the newest "Patrician" entry is still the all-consuming time-burner it has always been. Be prepared to devote a mininum of 2 hours each time you play it.

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