If there’s one thing that seems to have been popping up a lot more lately, it’s games that revolve around pirates, piracy, and the 14^th – 17^th century timeframe. Encore has released two different PC titles that play out during these eras, one of which being Pirate Hunter (see http://www.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r22781.htm for a detailed review), which is the more action based of the two games, and Patrician III, which seems to rely more on strategy and building than naval warfare and continuous combat.

Patrician III is being called a “real time city building simulation” by Encore. What this means is that you play through single missions or a campaign based setting starting as a shopkeeper, trader, or someone of a more lowly status. The ultimate goal here is to work your way up to Patrician status, and you do this by either playing the role of a good guy and helping to increase the trade, wealth, and happiness of your town’s citizens or by going the opposite direction and taxing them near to death or even taking up a life of piracy or smuggling to make your bank account fat. Basically, the ultimate outcome of Patrician III and how you choose to get to the end lies solely on you.

There are a few things to like about Patrician, the first of which (aside from the open ended style of gameplay) is the number of options available to you in order to achieve your ultimate goal or just have fun with. This includes building lots of things to increase the town’s overall visibility, like warehouses, schools and such, but you can also focus on building up armies and defenses to help your people feel safe. Also, you can take a much simpler road in life if you choose to do so by simply focusing on the buying and selling of goods, or even set sail to try and be a hero by destroying pirate lairs. Basically, it’s all up to you.

OK, so while you’re doing all of this trading, diplomacy, and piracy on the high seas, is there anything else? Of course there is. Along the way, you will also get various messages, tasks, or events that will pop up that you can pay attention to (or not, since you can do what you want). While running your errands, you may be asked to watch your home town for people who may be trying to trade with a rival city, or to help make a celebration great by bringing in various goods for the people, or even get married … and rather than the bride’s father footing the bill, it’s up to you to make sure that your own wedding is well tended and enjoyable.

Another nifty feature about Patrician is in the mission structures that are offered in the campaign mode, and each mission can be chosen as you want to play it versus playing one, then another, and so on. The missions range from such things as simply gaining status from shopkeeper to Patrician to more exciting things like being a traveling merchant during the time of the Black Plague and being responsible for helping out during the tough times and helping it get back to normal once the plague has past. There is even a mission where you leave your business to a worthless cousin who runs it into the ground, so now you have to try and amass your 3 million dollars back in a 3-month timeframe.

Lastly, there is an option to actually go in and edit your own maps, and then set various options up in the single mission mode to challenge your overall skills. You can base your ultimate goal around population growth, wealth, points, or rising in status to become Lord Mayor or Alderman. You can also set the total amount of time that you want to accomplish this by, and can set the timeframe between 1300 and 1500 AD. There enough customization here to create a game that you feel comfortable with that can provide a decent challenge without being too outrageously difficult. 

Really, the biggest downside to Patrician III is the fact that it is not as action based as some other nautical or piracy games that are out. The game takes place in towns where you go about building things or trading while keeping an eye on the overall population’s happiness. When you’re ready to send your ship or ships and their cargo out to sea, a line going from point A to B on the world map represents your ship’s path. You can pick the destination and speed up time or just sit and wait. While the second option tends to be the safer one to ensure that you avoid pirates or bad storms, it also can be an uneventful and long time in front of the PC. The random events help to break up monotony at times though, but they are random and don’t occur constantly.

Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed Pirate Hunter a bit more than Patrician, even though I liked Patrician and it offers a lot more actual building options and the ability to customize gameplay.  This is simply because I am more of an action gamer myself. Patrician III is well suited for the “tycoon fan” player who is looking to amass wealth and power, while having events and actions that take place help to shape the overall outcome of the game.

Gameplay: 7.8
The game takes place mostly in the maps and visuals of cities as you go about building, trading, defending or preparing to set sail. The second part of the game takes place in a world map, where you determine where you want to go. There are a few different campaign missions to play in whatever order you see fit, and the ability to edit your own maps and customize options like winning conditions, timeframes, and the era that you want to play in. The game is simple point and click style though, and there isn’t a lot of fast and furious action which could cause a lack of interest in action based gamers. 

Graphics: 7.9
The graphics to Patrician III aren’t bad, but tend to be very simple. Most screens are “still shot” styled with movement added in as animals move about on land, waves roll and break in the ocean, and people go about their lives as they wander around in towns to do what they need to do. There is some good detail added in for the towns themselves, like statues and markets, and some cool weather effects were also added in like snow, rain, and fog that not only look neat but also can effect trading.

Sound: 8.3
Patrician III, like Pirate Raider, contains an orchestrated music score that adds to the overall game and environment and is very well written. You also hear the sounds of the waves and occasional seagulls as you sail the seas, and sometimes will hear the rumbling of approaching storms in the distance to help you keep wary of your surroundings.

Difficulty: Medium
While there is a tutorial, it may take a couple of tries to really get the feel of what style you are the most comfortable with as you play. There are a lot of options to mess around with to help make it easier or more difficult though, and the open-ended play style helps a lot in not only learning, but overall enjoyment of the game.

Concept: 8.1
This was a really well thought out game, and I didn’t encounter any issues or problems to interrupt a smooth play experience. There are a lot of things that you can do here, and the style caters to a more strategy-based audience than the typical sail around and blow stuff up approach that a lot of other similar titles have.

Multiplayer: N/A
Patrician III can be played over LAN or Internet, but there were no other games running or players that I encountered to give an accurate opinion.

Overall: 7.9
Overall, Patrician III is a lot of fun and can grow extremely addicting very, very quickly due to the various things and ways you can play, plus these factors also help to extend replay value and longevity well beyond a month or two. Fans of tycoon based or building sims will probably find the most enjoyment and long time use in Patrician III, but people who enjoy a good nautical romp through pirate laced waters may want to give it a try as well.