User Reviews (11 - 21 of 21)

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From a Hard Core Strategy Gamer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: September 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Patrician II is by far the best strategy game I've ever played and I've been playing for many years! There's much more to this game than meets the eye, as I've discovered over the last nine months that I've owned the game. Trade is just the tip of the iceberg. The gamer can put himself in the shoes of Andrew Carnegie by building up the Iron Goods industry or Richard Arkwright by building Weaving Mills. (I prefer both!) You can expand your trade empire by becoming a renowned explorer of the Mediterranean and even beat Columbus to America! And then there's the Dark Side, Piracy! You can steal ships and cargo from your AI opponent, sink them to the bottom of the sea and even take your wrath out on the AI Pirates. You can venture into the arena of politics and become Fleet Master of the Hanse. You can become the next Jakob Fugger or Nathan Rothschild by loaning out money to other AI traders. There are many, many aspects to this long play strategy game. I've had two different games that have both lasted over a month! For those of you who enjoy "Empire Building" games, I highly recommend this one. There's nothing else out there like it, I promise you! (Robber Baron)

A must have!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

After several years being a video gamer finally I've found this incredibly addictive game. Patrician II definitively isn't like other action games that last just the weekend. Long term playing without boring, trade and fight for power and glory. Excellent graphics and music score; what a simulation!!
I'm waiting for the next releases from ASCARON SOFTWARE: Patrician III and Port Royale, also based in the old trading ages and piracy. Hunt or be hunted...

Split down the middle...no end in sight

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Great starting and lots of fun up until you have so many ships and need to set up auto-trading... wow! what a pain in the [rear]!!! It took me over a half hour of repetitive manual entries to set up only ONE ship for auto-trading. Multiply that by 20 or 30 trading ships... OR you could do each one manually from port to port while you try to explore out into the atlantic and into the medeterainan for unknown ports. Then I never did reach the end of the game... I had offices in every town, millions of gold, a hundred pirates working for me, hundreds of trading ships and fleets. Was elected to the highest office. Where is the end? I never found it.

Totally addictive and engrossing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: April 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the most mentally challenging games I have played, the best trading sim I have yet come across. It is about as far from the shoot-em-ups that seem to dominate the market these days. The money and recognition doesn't just come flowing in after a couple of hours; you need to do some real planning and have some good management skills if you want your trading empire to be a success. Get ready to watch the hours fly by, once you get the hang of the game. The historical detail and graphics are extremely nice. Aesthetically, this game is a real treat to look at. If you enjoy history, and you need a game that requires some brain power rather than a quick trigger finger, then this game should be considered, at least until Patrician III is finally released into the American market.

Amazing Medievil accuracy!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Certainly challenging and infinitely complex, but much more than a game. After a bit of play you find yourself becoming familiar with the universal rules of the merchant mariner.

Every history department should require play. It is the only way to truly understand how the renaissance and the industrial age came to be.

Tough! Takes a bit practice at first but worth it!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

A great game! While most strategy gamers wont appreciate it at first and find it a bit complicating, it is still a great game in the end. Well worth the practice! I love the fact that I can take on many roles in this game. A merchant, a buisness man, a producer of goods, a pirate, a courier, a politician or many of the above mentioned or all of them! Great game!

A cross between Pirates and Civilisation

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Don't be concerned about the subject matter, this game about trading in the time of the Hanseatic League (a powerful trader's union in Northern Europe around the 14th century) is huge loads of fun. It's detailed, pretty, has a meticulous attention to detail and lots of avenues to pursue your goal of becoming the leader of the Hanseatic League itself, from honourable Patrician to cut-throat pirate.

It is open ended, you can keep playing forever and keep adding ships and trade routes to your trading empire. Some people have managed to get hundreds of ships trading goods all over the European coast at the same time! However, once you get past a certain point, the user interface becomes very cumbersome, especially when planning, implementing and changing auto-trading information (auto-trading is a feature whereby you can tell a ship what to buy and sell, and at what prices, and then leave it on auto-pilot. Without this feature the gameplay would become cumbersome much sooner).

A cut'n'paste feature for auto-trading would have been extremely useful, as well as the same feature applied to your town storehouses in the beginning (this latter feature is available in the patched versions).

Nevertheless, you won't regret buying this game, as you'll get dozens or even hundreds of hours of playing time out of it before the interface becomes annoying. Or, you could just play it as a Pirates-style game and become a buccaneer or a pirate-hunter - the sea battle mini-game is really fun (but if you don't like it you can have your ships fight automatically)! Most of the time you will dabble in all these things, as well as building your own production factories, farms and businesses.

A must-have game if you like strategy or logistics, empire-building, or you are a history buff.

A thinking ,not a shooting Game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Quite a change from the point and shoot,"market to kids", attitude in Game design.This requires Memory,Skill and Luck.

The RTS game that replaces the model train set

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

When I first played the demo for this game I found myself immersed in its realistic events. The challenges are daunting and the detail has that of a model train set that my father used to entertain himself with. After buying the game last spring I saw how the challenges in the game are to be overcome. While playing, a unique element of learning and discovery rewards me for my risks taken as a Navigator and as a Trader in the North sea. As I played on I discovered that (although the game can be played in the role of merchant, politician or pirate) my character in the game reflected my decisions in a way that mirrored my real self. This game is complex in design and yet very simple by way of economic structure. It takes attention to detail to enjoy the game, some may find it tedious, but once the gamer recognizes the exactitude and "organic" nature of the economic model, this game becomes rewarding as a learning tool and hobby.

Addictive!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The player begins as a small trader in one of the cities of the Hanseatic League and tries to build up a trade empire. The starting point is up to you: choose comfortable trading from a home town centrally located and rich in resources or try to make a fortune based in a town that is remote, under-supplied and surrounded by pirate-infested waters.

There are 20 different goods to trade with. The market operates according to supply and demand and you will have to find out where to buy cheaply and sell dearly. So if you sell fifty barrels of wine the last will bring you a good deal less money than the first, always provided you get to that city in the first place before your competitors flood the market with cheap plonk!

No town produces all goods the people need, so at first you'll have to travel quite a lot to buy whatever your town requires. Later on, as the population figures are rising, you will have to establish trading posts in other cities and produce goods yourself to ensure a steady supply. In addition you can open up trade routes to the Mediterranean Sea or even to the New World. It's anachronistic but immensely rewarding when the 'discovery' video comes up and your fame and popularity ratings go up steeply. Only a happy, impressed and well-fed population will elect you mayor and perhaps even Head of the Hanseatic League.

The trade setup is well balanced between realism and playability. It's almost impossible to get rich quick as you cannot confine yourself to trading in luxury goods. The poor are the majority of the population and you need to provide low-profit food staples like grain, beer and fish for them, as well as things like furs, wine and cloth for the rich.

The game remains interesting once you do have a lot of money and property because then you will also have plenty of expenses (taxes, wages etc) and the task of running your huge empire in the face of threats like disease, fire, sieges, blockades or pirates. Your ships will suffer from wear and tear on journeys and your sailors might start a mutiny if they don't get regular leave. Many routine tasks can be automatized but the overall strategy and any adjustments are your own decision.

The real beauty of the game is that within the parameters you have a lot of choice: for instance, it's a given that you will need more and more ships as your business expands. However, it's up to you how you get them: if you are a respectable trader you will have them built in your home town's dockyard. This creates employment, wealth and happiness among the people. If you are a more daring character you will invest in a fast ship, an able captain and a couple of cannons to capture pirate ships and incorporate them into your own fleet. This will boost your reputation as a person not to mess with. And if you happen to be a thoroughly bad egg you will use said armed ship to rob your competitors's ships and goods. This is probably the most lucrative option, but if you're caught you will have to pay a large fine and also write off election for office as well as any prospects of a rich marriage for the foreseeable future.

Random events, entertaining sub-plots and 'just-for-fun' details make this a game that keeps you interested for hours on end. The music deserves a mention, too: very pleasant and atmospheric.

There are a couple of campaigns, I myself prefer the open-ended game, though. Having played the original German version for over a year I understand from other players (I haven't got there yet ;) ) that the logistical limits for feeding, clothing and housing the entire Hanseatic League all on your own are reached at a population count of about 680.000. This should be enough for anybody's aspirations!

This is not a game for instant results and you might have to do a couple of trial runs to find the strategy that suits you best. After that you can have almost endless fun with a superb and challenging game.

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