Patrician IV

Patrician IV

During the Middle Ages, the centuries-old merchants of the Hanseatic League was rejected by both the fatigue of serfdom and the solitude of the monastery, on the other hand consists of a good life enterprising foreign supplies mead, dominates the city's political, and in some cases, pirates of the hunt. More or less independent from their city Gentlemen Alliance nominal value and their merchants enriched by the transfer of cargo flights around the icy waters of northern Europe. Hypothetically, hijinks and retailer resources League could inspire a game full of high adventure and daring-do, but in reality, Patrician IV, the latest series of European trading simulators, is a much more mundane version of medieval life, before it defines all the trappings required to keep the cheese, meat, and the mead flows throughout the region.

In Patrician IV, which belongs to a subculture in which the medieval European crass materialism has triumphed over the spiritual, and all the pests and plagues of rats that would be interpreted by contemporary society, as manifestations of the wrath of God is, character, business opportunities only. Unfortunately, business is rather dull, consisting mainly of buying cheap goods at the port, load the goods on your boat, sail your boat to another port and unloading of goods for profit. Around the load is practically the only way that your character can interact in this world, it is regrettable that the trades are exclusively controlled by a regulator of rebels who makes it too easy to buy something to eat accidentally angering a city to its inhabitants, or sell their precious skins less than purchased.

In fact, almost all the world's problems can be solved by moving the right goods at the port or warehouse. A prince who wants to punish an arrogant vassal? Simply drag all of your meat and grains in the convoy, and starve. As for improving your relationship with a particular city? Drag and drop a load height of foreign goods in the docks. Even the lure is reduced down to make sure you have enough merchandise stored in your deposit to pay for the wedding. Of course, you could take a laissez-faire attitude toward the whole company and just set up automated commercial convoys, but then there is little value to you until the profits roll in. This does not mean it is a challenge we had here. Economy Patrician IV can be surprisingly cruel, and some poorly planned purchases can be ruinous to its operation, making it relatively easy to dig a hole.

There are only two breaks the boredom of disorder stevedores load after load of wood, iron, meat, and so on. The first break, if you can call it, is the combat. The Baltic Sea is awash with pirates threaten local businesses, so it may be appropriate to go drop a little from time to time. Once that has been updated with a fleet with a few weapons, the Marines involved and named ships and warships in the control of the organization of the ship, which is finally ready to feed the scurvy sea dogs ice. Unfortunately, after all this work, the fight is disappointing. First, you do not feel you have much control over the battle, because its navy will not fire on your order. Instead, their firing rate is apparently determined by the number of sailors in the fleet, so it shoots very well when they have time to do it. Second, do not seem to care about their compatriots and fire through their own ranks to hit the enemy.

Fortunately, the policy within a second of the game offers, and more fun fun. A popular and prestigious commercial has a good chance of being elected mayor of one of the many cities of the League. A few visits to the tavern will give you the opportunity to attack his opponent's most popular, whether by fire, character assassination, or causing discord among its workers. If elected, suddenly you have more responsibilities, may order the construction of city walls, hospitals and other essential pieces of infrastructure, and conducting research at the local university. As mayor, also has more reasons to pay attention to their relationship with their Lord, the office means more responsibility for meeting the demands of their feudal lords endlessly fickle. However, it is incredibly difficult to keep them happy. You can bribe from time to time to curry favor, but it will not last.

If you go beyond the scope of their days living as mayor of Milwaukee Mead, so you might want to turn to his ambition to become a Councillor Hansa. As a councilor, is Senior League, was charged with determining how they are different things. For example, when the infamous pirate League harassed by the dealers, you can put a price on his head and watch the movement of other retailers to remove this threat. If the market is flooded with cheap metal, it could offer incentives to retailers to acquire and to close some mines to reduce output. In addition, you can try to expand the league by specifying other merchants to join the impressive city rankings. Unfortunately, the distribution of this is not as great as it sounds, because you only weigh things, the guild will bring to your attention, and not free to develop their regional strategies and machinations.

As things get more fun by the end of the game, you'll probably lose over enthusiasm. While the merchants of the Hanse had a degree of freedom, their existence is still defined by a rigid hierarchy, and if you want to get anywhere in this world, you must always collect more wealth, improve your position in several cities, build houses counting, and expand your fleet. As a result, the preconditions for missions of both major hassle. For example, Patrician IV, you spend an hour carefully to build your rank, you can embark on an expedition to Italy to buy spices, only to discover that you are not allowed for ships in your fleet, and when it has been rectified, you learn that none of your captains are experienced enough navigation to make the trip. Why not the guild tell you all about it when you sold the rights to explore the Mediterranean?

A multiplayer mode would have been interesting, but it is not included in the Patrician IV, then your only options are to play the campaign, which acts as a long tutorial, or jump in the Freeplay mode less rigidly structured. It is probably wise to skip the country, unless you really like, and focus on free play, which is more fun than the campaign for two main reasons. The first is that some of the campaign triggers seem buggy, which means that the game does not always detect that you have accomplished something. The second reason is that the free play can start with several cities on the map, which means you can try to become Mayor of Flensburg, if the fine people of Hamburg, you are out of town.

Overall Patrician IV has some promise, but it goes too far in the representation of wear and the monotony that can be expected from the actual work. Although the game has some fun with his unique political and beyond mayoral candidate, the busywork needed to achieve good things and to fight against Matt remember. If you're a big fan of Sims business, so patrician IV may be useful to look at, but it is not a title that will bring many new fans of the genre.

On the positive side, the vessels pleasant, like everything else Patrician IV, and the sound is also very well done. In addition to fighting is not to offer a couple of things you can manipulate: And 'possible to order the men to choose a target audience, using different types of shot, or maybe even play with the sails, but the end of the day, is' ​​only to watch the little craft circle each other until one dies the other side.

The kings were perfectly satisfied with that one month before suddenly going to hate your guts, for inexplicable reasons, even if they have been giving regular taxes. As a result, you want to extend the city walls and set up what defenses you can, does not want the king's men to burn the precious beer, after all.

But there is a certain satisfaction in working your way up and make others do the dirty work.