I've only played about 45 minutes, so no opinion on the game one way or the other. Just wanted to open up a discussion thread.
Right now I'm a little confused as to why there appears to be no manual for the game. There is no link from Steam nor is there one in game. There are some very nice tutorial videos, but they only advance as you meet the next campaign objective. The one issue with the tutorial is there was no basic introduction to the HUD (if you've played Patrician 4 it is near identical), which is odd to say the least.
Anyway looking forward to sitting back and transporting some rum and sugar around the Caribbean later on this evening. Perhaps firing on some pirate ships in some naval battles.
Let me know what condition it's in.
I'd imagine it should be pretty stable & bugless considering it's just a modification of their prior game. But ya never know..
I plan on getting it (sometime) but in no big hurry yet, what with the buttload of games coming out this month.
downloading now
Quote from: Bison on May 04, 2012, 04:57:18 PM
Right now I'm a little confused as to why there appears to be no manual for the game. There is no link from Steam nor is there one in game.
there is a user manual PDF in the Port Royale 3 directory in your Steam directory...at least that is where I found it on my PC.
cant find it locally on mine - but theres a link to the manual on the games store page - takes a while - dont lose heart, it is downloading it!!
:-[ oops, my bad. Forgot I bought mine from Gamersgate. The manual was in the installed game directory...sorry.
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 04, 2012, 07:51:01 PM
cant find it locally on mine - but theres a link to the manual on the games store page - takes a while - dont lose heart, it is downloading it!!
OK. They must have just added a link recently. It wasn't there this morning when I installed the game.
Played for 40 or so minutes. I'm fairly happy with what I see. It isn't exactly ground-breaking, but the graphical updates are pretty. I can't tell exactly what was added, as I haven't played enough to really get very deep (I can't even build buildings yet).
yeah - same here, just getting used to the interface at mo - by the time i figured how to send a convoy to another island they didnt want sugar anymore!!
I'm going to say it. The fact that this was designed for consols did not dramatically change overall gameplay from the Patrician/Port Royale mold. However, you can tell that the graphics are scaled back for them. I'm running it on ultra and the graphics are pretty meh. For the amount of time you spend on the world map, the eye candy is pretty lacking. The town graphics are pretty uninspired too. Not a game breaker by any means, but it is a slight disappointment.
Would it be such a bad thing if it turned out to be a modernised, updated PR1 or 2?
I also hate the slider to buy/sell. There is no check. So if you slide the bar to price out a commodity and accidently move your mouse off of the slider, you just bought or sold the commodity. That is a pretty horrid design choice. I don't like the way ships are sold either. You check into Port Royale and either a ship is ready instantly for sale or not. You get no choice of type of ship. Nor are you forced to wait for the ship to be built. It's just instantly there and ready to be assigned to a fleet. So it's possible in 3 seconds that you have a new fleet of 2-3 ships ready to be assigned a trade or patrol route. I liked the old method from PAT3 of I'd like to commission a ship. What kind? Corevette please. Ok no problem. Come back in 30 days. Sweet. Now. It's just we have a corevette ready to kick off the dock. But I want a frigate. Sorry no frigate for you. Just keep clicking back on Port Royale for the next 20-40 minutes and we might decide to build one.
Now does the game suck? No. I was enthralled for over 3 hours and I'm getting ready to go back in for more. I'm currently trying to figure out how the self designed trade routes work. I thought I had it, but now my experiment fleet has stopped buying anything. Once I crack the code, it's game on to build up a pirate hunting fleet.
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 05, 2012, 03:16:49 AM
Would it be such a bad thing if it turned out to be a modernised, updated PR1 or 2?
No. It's not a bad thing. It's still Port Royale. I guess in regard to the graphics it just highlights the common occurance in games designed for both the PC and consol markets. The graphics are tailored for the consol not the pc.
Zoomed out 2d islands. They are very practical in the sense of here's the town. What it wants and any natural disasters effecting it. Which nation has the naval power in the region (the faded flags in the water). I guess was just expecting a little more visual bling. Again I play HPS games for the love of God, so visuals aren't everything. It's just that I do like graphics in my economic simulations. I like to see the people walking around. Ships sailing the high seas. Dolphins swimming in the ocean.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi830.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fzz227%2FBison36%2F2012-05-05_00002.jpg&hash=9e0aa31336f95b9d8ffdfe8962b05b502d30fe73)
This is the zoomed in view of Chitzen Itza. It certainly looks to me to be a 2d image on a 3d world map. And all of the land looks like this by design. The ships and water are 3d, but the land isn't? Wierd. Again not a game breaker, but an odd artistic design IMO.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi830.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fzz227%2FBison36%2F2012-05-05_00001.jpg&hash=16ad8f6ddbe5ea75008aa368fad72db1bd3db225)
The dock view it looks nice, but it just seems uninspired. This might change as the city is built up. To be fair I've not gotten to the point of a fully developed town.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi830.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fzz227%2FBison36%2F2012-05-05_00003.jpg&hash=70b35daa7e52bcadaa595cac2dd5db718c32e9f9)
This is a full zoom view of the city market with Cathedal.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi830.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fzz227%2FBison36%2F2012-05-05_00004.jpg&hash=13d3400572e5e2c9477e3022eea1346029fcebc7)
Quote from: Bison on May 05, 2012, 03:27:11 AM
I also hate the slider to buy/sell. There is no check. So if you slide the bar to price out a commodity and accidently move your mouse off of the slider, you just bought or sold the commodity. That is a pretty horrid design choice. I don't like the way ships are sold either. You check into Port Royale and either a ship is ready instantly for sale or not. You get no choice of type of ship. Nor are you forced to wait for the ship to be built. It's just instantly there and ready to be assigned to a fleet. So it's possible in 3 seconds that you have a new fleet of 2-3 ships ready to be assigned a trade or patrol route. I liked the old method from PAT3 of I'd like to commission a ship. What kind? Corevette please. Ok no problem. Come back in 30 days. Sweet. Now. It's just we have a corevette ready to kick off the dock. But I want a frigate. Sorry no frigate for you. Just keep clicking back on Port Royale for the next 20-40 minutes and we might decide to build one.
Now does the game suck? No. I was enthralled for over 3 hours and I'm getting ready to go back in for more. I'm currently trying to figure out how the self designed trade routes work. I thought I had it, but now my experiment fleet has stopped buying anything. Once I crack the code, it's game on to build up a pirate hunting fleet.
from the manual Bison:-
In the dockyard you can repair, buy and sell ships.
Because the dockyards in the New World don't build any
ships themselves, there is usually not much variety in the
selection of new ships. Thus you can only buy ships that
were previously sold by other merchants. Each town has its
own selection of ships.
Incidentally, you can have entire convoys repaired in
the dockyard. This spares you from having to reorganize
convoys, which can be a tedious process. Another advantage:
Repair times and costs for convoys are less than if you hand
over the ships individually.
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 05, 2012, 04:07:31 AM
from the manual Bison:-
In the dockyard you can repair, buy and sell ships.
Because the dockyards in the New World don’t build any
ships themselves, there is usually not much variety in the
selection of new ships. Thus you can only buy ships that
were previously sold by other merchants. Each town has its
own selection of ships.
Incidentally, you can have entire convoys repaired in
the dockyard. This spares you from having to reorganize
convoys, which can be a tedious process. Another advantage:
Repair times and costs for convoys are less than if you hand
over the ships individually.
Bah! Now it makes sense. It's like a used car lot, but for ships. I'll get over it. To be fair I played Patrician more than Port Royale, so there are some differences that I need to get used too. Like buying used ships.
I don't mind the repair option. What is crazy is that (unless that precious manual of yours has this answer too!) if you are running on a trade route using your captain. You need to catch your convoy in a harbor. Unactivate the trade route. Repair ship. Reactivate trade route. Rather than just having the trade route "paused" during the repair process, which you schedule your captain to do regardless of location on your ship menu. Anyway again not a big deal. Just another mouse click or two.
I really only read the manual to figure out how to crew my ships, which you also have to deactive the trade route in order to hire crew, buy ammo, guns, swords. And to learn about the manual trade settings, but it was pretty brief in regard to that.
ill give it a thorough read this afternoon - im a manual geek
is there any interaction with the amount of settlers and what theyre doing? im not sure i want to get into colony management that much! i see figures for what theyre doing and i see that new immigrants come in on treasure fleets and are sent to viceroy towns, filtered to governor towns and finally are shipped to town towns - i dont think we as a player do anything - i hope
You do actually. You build up the city buy houses, commodity manufactoring, etc...it's one of the ways to win economically. You need something in the order of 75% of the population of a town working for you and a goodwill with the nation/population of the twon then the viceroy will assign the town to you for management. It's also why you'd do the mission for the church or guys in the tavern for example to host a carnaval. So you build up popularity in the town.
The graphics look okay to me. I kinda prefer 2D in a number of situations. It resembles the gfx in Patrician 4, so nothing unusual.
I don't think the 3D city graphics are bad, either. Not astounding, but not bad. *shrug* I also never had a problem with the trade sliders in Pat4, on the contrary I thought they were much more user friendly than the multiple clicks required to trade a quantity of one type of good in previous iterations. Now you just click, slide, release instead of setting single/tens/hundreds quantity click-hold multiple times, change singles/tens/hundreds qty again, repeat, repeat. That was something that annoyed the hell out of me after awhile, in the earlier games. Just interface preferences, and I think there are some options to change how that slider behaves IIRC.
in a good way this is getting deeper than i thought - junior is going to euro disney this weekend with her mum - im in for a long session this evening and tomorrow - have you got a basic 'what to do in the first few turns/hour' Bison - i remember playing Pat3 for hours but still only had 1 ship. Im thinking the first goal is a warehouse in everytown so you can see the market prices?
Quote from: Bison on May 05, 2012, 03:29:36 AM
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 05, 2012, 03:16:49 AM
Would it be such a bad thing if it turned out to be a modernised, updated PR1 or 2?
No. It's not a bad thing. It's still Port Royale. I guess in regard to the graphics it just highlights the common occurance in games designed for both the PC and consol markets. The graphics are tailored for the consol not the pc.
Woah! I had no idea this was also being sold on the console!?
I actually like the graphics quite a bit, but they are a significant upgrade from PR2 (and about the same as Pat4). I don't mind the trade sliders either, but I got used to using them in Pat 4 as well. They make buying a bit quicker than it used to be in the old ones.
That used ship thing seems new. Didn't PR2 have ship building? Maybe not... can't remember. I also think that the notion New World ports didn't build ships is a little jejune. And is that even accurate? IIRC, Boston made it big by building ships. Of course, I don't know about the Caribbean, but I thought there was SOME shipbuilding.
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 05, 2012, 04:43:30 AM
in a good way this is getting deeper than i thought - junior is going to euro disney this weekend with her mum - im in for a long session this evening and tomorrow - have you got a basic 'what to do in the first few turns/hour' Bison - i remember playing Pat3 for hours but still only had 1 ship. Im thinking the first goal is a warehouse in everytown so you can see the market prices?
Considering the game will do all the trading for you if you use a captain just take advantage of it. Setup a trade triangle and put on profit or prosperious. Once you make a little bank, buy your second and third ships. Here you can make some decisions. Also long as you are a political non-factor you can basically go with 3 trade routes and no crews/gun. Build up capital, search for the remaining towns. And then it's a matter of adding more ships to your convoys, doing the missions to build up faction favor and learning the commodity production routine of your commonly visited towns. It's then that the warehouses can be built. You need faction score, town approval and money to by the permit.
Quote from: Nefaro on May 05, 2012, 04:42:51 AM
The graphics look okay to me. I kinda prefer 2D in a number of situations. It resembles the gfx in Patrician 4, so nothing unusual.
I don't think the 3D city graphics are bad, either. Not astounding, but not bad. *shrug*
If you buy it you will see the green blob that is the jungle on the islands. It's not horrid, but just bland.
Anyone tried to combat to see if they consoled that up?
Well I've be attempting to play the adventurer campaign. Attempting is the key word here. I get the first mission to hunt for a pirate SW of New Orleans between Corpus Christi and Tampico (SP). 45 minutes of real life time and no pirate. I gave up because frankly watching the ship follow a white line around the Gulf is not my idea of fun. It was boring and frustrating at the same time. When I get another 45 minutes of life to waste, I'll attempt to find the pirate again.
just done 2 hours of the trader - its getting very busy and complicated but i cant escape the feeling im cheating - ive automated 3 routes and the money is pouring in on the prosperity settings but theres little i do other than watch the money roll in.
The windward islands have a massive demand for dyes, the place i get it from (new orleans) never seems to supply enough to my convoy on automatic - i can have 7 or 8 ports asking for dye and the ship will leave orleans with about 20 barrells fully capable of selling about 100 - the same islands demand coffee just as voraciously but the ship leaving Belize never seems to be full of coffee. Id feel much more rewarded if i could refine the dispersion of goods by bringing just coffee in from belize, and just dyes in from new orleans to a central warehouse and then dispersing them from there - ill give this a go next
The trade routes you define really become useful as you start to own commodity production buildings. You can control the flow of goods for your production and distribution chains.
Quote from: Bison on May 06, 2012, 11:45:06 AM
The trade routes you define really become useful as you start to own commodity production buildings. You can control the flow of goods for your production and distribution chains.
This sounds like a plan for me. I now have those cotton farms (foisted on me by the campaign), so I need to start automating my trade routes.
Have they made it easier to have a "hub" by telling the automated trade route to pick up, for example, dyes from the warehouse and sell them to other ports?
As to the 45 minutes of pirate hunting... yuck. Hopefully this is a bug that can be squashed.
Quote from: Bison on May 06, 2012, 11:45:06 AM
The trade routes you define really become useful as you start to own commodity production buildings. You can control the flow of goods for your production and distribution chains.
Ahhh.... ive found all the coffee producing regions down south so i have 100 coffee coming into the warehouse, 100 dyes coming into the warehouse and have just started building some coffee plantations on Belize, have found the clothing and meat producing areas too - im looking for the 'luxury goods' here (well, high priced at least!) - as far as i can see there isnt an 'auto' setting that will distribute goods from your warehouse - profit and prosperity dont touch whats in your warehouse as i can see - i got my fingers burnt trying to produce 'just dyes' fleets from the warehouse to those that need it - they were always running at a loss - im still experimenting here - great game (its exactly what i was looking for)
issues so far - the UI wont switch to another ship in another port even though its selected on the side bar - just 2 more clicks - no biggie
i have tried 3 times to find the womans husband who fell in the sea north of providence and i can never find him
getting pillaged by pirates, im supposed to, its great - just havent figured out how to strike back yet
I thought the 'Luxury Goods' were the fancy stuff, produced in Europe, that gets automatically shipped to a few main ports & dropped off by AI fleets? Didn't think it was something you could make a manufacturing building for IIRC - a trade only one that's meant to be taken from big Caribbean city hubs and traded to the smaller colonies?
apologies - misuse of the word luxury - im merely referring to the goods that carry the higher prices
Are there any "luxury goods" still in this game?
Quote from: Bison on May 06, 2012, 10:42:00 AM
Well I've be attempting to play the adventurer campaign. Attempting is the key word here. I get the first mission to hunt for a pirate SW of New Orleans between Corpus Christi and Tampico (SP). 45 minutes of real life time and no pirate. I gave up because frankly watching the ship follow a white line around the Gulf is not my idea of fun. It was boring and frustrating at the same time. When I get another 45 minutes of life to waste, I'll attempt to find the pirate again.
If history is any guide this will be based on Jean Lafitte (and his brother). Just hang around Barataria Bay and they'll show up. That's *if* it's based on history.
10 hours of trading now and im hooked - ive started again and switched off the auto feature - as Bison stated, creating triangles around core hubs is very rewarding as you see the money each trade route is bringing in
SoM - You can create routes out of your warehouse stocks. What you cannot do is use your warehouse manager to sell in town, which makes no sense and iirc is a departure from previous games.
unless i have the meaning of what you said incorrect, i believe you can get him to sell - well, at least mine does - theres a button in the manager menu that says 'sell goods' - when you do, he does - so much so that he sold all my coffee!!
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 07, 2012, 04:32:36 PM
unless i have the meaning of what you said incorrect, i believe you can get him to sell - well, at least mine does - theres a button in the manager menu that says 'sell goods' - when you do, he does - so much so that he sold all my coffee!!
In Pat4, you could also set a minimum amount for them to keep in-stock for you - and sell the rest. I'd be surprised if they took that out of this one.
Sorry I meant auto-buy not sell.
Quote from: Nefaro on May 07, 2012, 08:21:19 PM
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 07, 2012, 04:32:36 PM
unless i have the meaning of what you said incorrect, i believe you can get him to sell - well, at least mine does - theres a button in the manager menu that says 'sell goods' - when you do, he does - so much so that he sold all my coffee!!
In Pat4, you could also set a minimum amount for them to keep in-stock for you - and sell the rest. I'd be surprised if they took that out of this one.
you can indeed on this one - just forgot to set the levels! :-[
Quote from: Bison on May 07, 2012, 03:51:32 PM
SoM - You can create routes out of your warehouse stocks. What you cannot do is use your warehouse manager to buy in town, which makes no sense and iirc is a departure from previous games.
Hmm... I hadn't noticed this. He can't auto-buy... that is a big negative change! Auto-buy used to be the way you could ensure you had low priced goods to ship elsewhere.
I'm not sure I fully understand the auto route system, "profit," "prosperity," "stock," etc. The descriptions seem clear, but how they are executed is not. I also have a thing coming up to tell me that my trade route is inefficient, but I have no idea why. That could use some more feedback.
i think inefficient means the overheads of the route are more than its profit - you can see how much the last circuit generated by clicking on the route planner and bringing up that specific ship
That's the basics of it UCG. Or you could be attempting to pull more of a commodity from one location then it is able to produce, so you have a lot of empty space on your ships.
had an unintentional 5 hours with this yesterday only to realise it was 1 am - im prepared to admit im doing it wrong but im having a freaking great time doing it! All i was doing was setting up a trade route round Cuba - thats all i wanted to crack in the session - no 'prosperity route', i wanted to do it all by myself.
Set up the route, visited each port to find out the goods made and goods required, sussed how much to take without fluctuating the price too much, watched the money come in at each port, goods in, goods out and thoroughly enjoyed myself - beaming like an idiot when i went to bed, just need to source some metal, corn, bananas and rope as i keep destabilising the local markets and im happy
much fun
On the unusual occasions I feel like a trading game, these guys are the ones I look for.
Gonna have to pick up PR3 before long. My play list is overwhelming, though. :D
How much will I get out of this game if I already have Anno 1404? I guess I'm asking for the key differences. Thanks in advance.
They don't compare, quite different games!
Anno 1404/Age of Discovery is pretty much a city builder and focuses on that.
In the Port Royale series, you're an enterprising merchant sailor-businessman (or whatever you want) and the only buildings your create are those for producing and storing your trade goods. It's focused on trading & managing your merchant fleet(s), with options to do some side work like pirate hunting.
Quote from: Nefaro on May 10, 2012, 07:30:28 AM
In the Port Royale series, you're an enterprising merchant sailor-businessman (or whatever you want) and the only buildings your create are those for producing and storing your trade goods. It's focused on trading & managing your merchant fleet(s), with options to do some side work like pirate hunting.
I'm not sure why that sounds like fun, but it kinda does. I might have to bite.
Yeah, I'm coming around to the idea too. Yet another title to go on The List, I guess. :(
Thanks Nefaro.
Quote from: LongBlade on May 10, 2012, 08:48:33 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on May 10, 2012, 07:30:28 AM
In the Port Royale series, you're an enterprising merchant sailor-businessman (or whatever you want) and the only buildings your create are those for producing and storing your trade goods. It's focused on trading & managing your merchant fleet(s), with options to do some side work like pirate hunting.
I'm not sure why that sounds like fun, but it kinda does. I might have to bite.
a man of your calibre didnt know this was the general premise?? ???
or has Nef simply nailed what it should say on the back of the box?
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 10, 2012, 09:48:41 AM
a man of your calibre didnt know this was the general premise?? ???
You would be shocked at the games I *haven't* played.
Believe it or not I have neither infinite money nor infinite time ;)
The simple answer is that you can't play them all. And really, you can't play all the good ones, either. The upside is that I have guys like you who play games I don't play. I can at least learn from you. I might not remember it eidetically, but much of it can be stored for future use.
-----
Not that I'm complaining, but here's the list of *active* games I'm looking at - either to write about or to come up to speed on: Heroes & Generals Preview, Warlock Review, Flames of War (minis) AAR campaign - and painting them, Command Ops Battles from the Bulge Highway to the Reich (undetermined), Conflict of Heroes (probably review unless someone else takes it)...none of that includes daily duties of wandering the halls of the forums or editing content that comes in and planning upcoming editorial focus. Nor does it include a list of games that I might break out recreationally ;) Also, it is my hope to clear those games off my plate in the next two weeks and befocused on something else. Diablo III is incoming and I've never played any of those games either. Probably need to pick it up, too........
wow - thats some schedule, i have been tempted to paint a few minis - wasted my mid teens and early twenties doing the same - but theyre never going to get played with and will collect dust somewhere - being an OCD perfectionist doesnt gel well with minis painting - i know the GW painting guide is for basic troops dont go into too much detail but i end up spending 2-3 hours on just 1 figure of a basic troop - i found night goblins and skeletons the easiest to do but the irony of that is theyre the most numerous/cheapest troops - sigh, the old days
as for Port Royale 3 - its brilliant - i played a rice growing game for a course when i was 11 in geography GCSE against others in the class and was hooked instantly on a import/export vibe to a game - this is it for me - currently trying to set up a third triangle around the bahamas, started growing my own bananas in cayman and looking for coffee plantations
Quote from: LongBlade on May 10, 2012, 09:57:40 AM
You would be shocked at the games I *haven't* played.
Ain't that always the way? I've recently discovered the delights of the
magnificent Age of Wonders series thanks to GOG.com. I can't imagine how I missed these games when they were released - I must have been heavily into a MMORPG or something - but it happens.
I never played Master of Magic either. :-[
Interesting developments here. Apparently Port Royale 3 isn't supposed to have a retail release in North America until later this year.
So it looks like I'm going to be able to get my hands on the game but will write a *preview* based on the fact that it hasn't been released yet. Then I'll circle back and write a review based on the formal release here in a few more months. It's a little convoluted but should work.
Quote from: Bison on May 06, 2012, 10:42:00 AM
Well I've be attempting to play the adventurer campaign. Attempting is the key word here. I get the first mission to hunt for a pirate SW of New Orleans between Corpus Christi and Tampico (SP). 45 minutes of real life time and no pirate. I gave up because frankly watching the ship follow a white line around the Gulf is not my idea of fun. It was boring and frustrating at the same time. When I get another 45 minutes of life to waste, I'll attempt to find the pirate again.
Had the same problem, Could see the pirate flag but never found the pirate spend an age in game time and probably weeks in game time. Gave up. The other parts didn't really enthrall me either, so uninstalled. God I'm fickle.
Not that I'm complaining, but here's the list of *active* games I'm looking at - either to write about or to come up to speed on: Heroes & Generals Preview, Warlock Review, Flames of War (minis) AAR campaign - and painting them, Command Ops Battles from the Bulge Highway to the Reich (undetermined), Conflict of Heroes (probably review unless someone else takes it)...none of that includes daily duties of wandering the halls of the forums or editing content that comes in and planning upcoming editorial focus. Nor does it include a list of games that I might break out recreationally ;) Also, it is my hope to clear those games off my plate in the next two weeks and befocused on something else. Diablo III is incoming and I've never played any of those games either. Probably need to pick it up, too........
[/quote]
Yeah...but what do you do with all that free time that's left? ;D
Quote from: LongBlade on May 10, 2012, 11:41:51 AM
Interesting developments here. Apparently Port Royale 3 isn't supposed to have a retail release in North America until later this year.
So it looks like I'm going to be able to get my hands on the game but will write a *preview* based on the fact that it hasn't been released yet. Then I'll circle back and write a review based on the formal release here in a few more months. It's a little convoluted but should work.
???
This sounds like the plot of Inception.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on May 15, 2012, 10:57:23 PM
Quote from: LongBlade on May 10, 2012, 11:41:51 AM
Interesting developments here. Apparently Port Royale 3 isn't supposed to have a retail release in North America until later this year.
So it looks like I'm going to be able to get my hands on the game but will write a *preview* based on the fact that it hasn't been released yet. Then I'll circle back and write a review based on the formal release here in a few more months. It's a little convoluted but should work.
???
This sounds like the plot of Inception.
Well, after speaking with Kalypso that's what's happening. Odd that they delay the US release for so long, but there ya go.
so............. have you managed to play it or not?
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 16, 2012, 09:49:40 AM
so............. have you managed to play it or not?
Yes. I like it a *lot* more than I thought I would.
There is more to the game than just trading - city development, warfare. But honestly, I just love sailing from port to port making money. Finding a good bargain on dye in the Americas, then sailing down to the Spanish main to make a tidy profit is fun. Along the way I sell sugar, buy rum and cigars, and shuffle it all around. This is good, clean fun, and I have sat there for hours doing nothing more than that.
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 10, 2012, 09:48:41 AM
Quote from: LongBlade on May 10, 2012, 08:48:33 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on May 10, 2012, 07:30:28 AM
In the Port Royale series, you're an enterprising merchant sailor-businessman (or whatever you want) and the only buildings your create are those for producing and storing your trade goods. It's focused on trading & managing your merchant fleet(s), with options to do some side work like pirate hunting.
I'm not sure why that sounds like fun, but it kinda does. I might have to bite.
a man of your calibre didnt know this was the general premise?? ???
or has Nef simply nailed what it should say on the back of the box?
I would add to Longblade that the original (or previous anyway) PR2 was intended to be a direct remake and update of Sid Meir's Pirates (the original version not his remake) with tons more economic options but still the ability to career as a pirate or pirate hunter. That includes eventually building towns from scratch (like a city econ sim) if you earn enough political credit with a colonial government.
Quote from: LongBlade on May 16, 2012, 09:59:03 AM
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 16, 2012, 09:49:40 AM
so............. have you managed to play it or not?
Yes. I like it a *lot* more than I thought I would.
There is more to the game than just trading - city development, warfare. But honestly, I just love sailing from port to port making money. Finding a good bargain on dye in the Americas, then sailing down to the Spanish main to make a tidy profit is fun. Along the way I sell sugar, buy rum and cigars, and shuffle it all around. This is good, clean fun, and I have sat there for hours doing nothing more than that.
then we derive the same enjoyment from the game - ive no idea why its so satisfying to digitally sell low, buy high and play with the rewards
but it is