Patrician 2

List Price: $39.95 Discount Price: $8.44

Accessories:

PC Gamer (1-year)

Customer Reviews:

Totally addictive and engrossing [Posted on 2003-04-20]
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.

Split down the middle...no end in sight [Posted on 2003-06-06]
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.

Very addicting! [Posted on 2003-07-22]
Who would have thought a game about the Hanseatic League could be so fun? I barely knew that the Hanseatic league existed. I never normally rate stuff 5 stars because most products are not perfect, but in my opinion Patrician 2 is as close to perfect as any computer game is going to get.

I chanced upon the game while surfing Amazon. When I saw it for $... at the PX boy was I glad I bought the game. I was very pleasantly surprised with Patrician 2. The game does not have flashy graphics but it is one of those games where you think you played for a half an hour and 2 hours have gone by. Patrician 2 combines Sid Meier�s Pirates and SimCity. You can build buildings to rent, businesses, and ships. You can trade within your own town or other towns.

The best thing about it, is that it is open ended w/out cumbersome missions to perform. One can take many different routes as an honest trader and businessman or a cutthroat pirate. As a member of the underworld you can bribe politicians (and what politician doesn�t like bribes?), burgle your competitors, hire pirates, or become a pirate yourself.

The ONLY stuff that might turn off players, in my opinion is that the game is brain intensive. You have to learn the profitable trading routes which for me meant writing down commodity prices at first. You have to keep track of your businesses as well. If you want a game where you will just veg out, Patrician 2 might not be as fun.

Patrician II - CD Rom [Posted on 2003-09-13]
Hello Out There:
If you have a job and work for a living this game is not for you. It has many qualities-realistic scenes, authentic schemes,interesting intrigues, many fun things-but you will spend the rest of your life catching on to any undergoing themes which could facilitate and make your playing the game, fun.
For some it can be a "highly" challenging game. I'm not sure who they are.
The game is intricately thought out and without a doubt, a jewel, if you can learn to memorize pages of information and critiquing before attempting the game. Have fun!

A cross between Pirates and Civilisation [Posted on 2006-05-06]
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.

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