Cheap Port Royale (Software) (Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 95) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Port Royale

The first choice is as a trader and you get bonuses to help your path. As you discover new cities on the various islands around the Caribbean you will see that each has its own production strengths and weaknesses. You buy where a good is being produced and sell where its needed. There are also goods that are only delivered from the host countries - so these will need to be distributed from their point of delivery. As you become accustomed to the prices in your locality, you can set up complex trade routes and set a convoy of ships to automatic. This frees up your time to take on lucrative and influence gaining missions from governors and adventurers in the local tavern. Of course your trade convoys are not just free to sail the open seas, you must fear the pirates.

Which brings me to the second path you may chose. That of the privateer. This will give you battle bonuses. Engage pirates who are preying on your country's convoys to increase your influence. Buy a letter of Marque and help your country's war effort by pillaging other countries convoys. The ship to ship battles - though not as complex as Age of Sail - are very exciting RTS. You will want to disarm your trade convoys and set them on auto-fight to cause them to flee in most cases, but your military convoys should be armed to the max and ready for battle. There are some interface tweaks here - despite setting the battle on manual, you cannot always fire when you want to and often your ships will turn course despite your directives. Still, with a bit of strategy and the right wind position, a smaller human fleet can take on larger AI convoys with success and allow you to capture ships well beyond your means. You will soon find that you have more ships than you know what to do with! Well set up a trade convoy to support your large military convoys.

When I first sat down with this game I found a steep learning curve and a not so complete manual. I began as a trader and quickly got bored with the more tedious trading activity. My advice to anyone trying Port Royale for the first time - don't get bogged down in one activity - there is a lot going on in this game. Visit the inns and take missions, visit the governors help your nation - and very importantly - build an island industry. My first few games could not support the number of ships I had in sail. By building up an island industry, you will still be making money when you lose a ship to piracy.

One fascinating aspect to this game is the storyline. As you advance in skill, you will be given more and more advanced missions and responsibility from your host nation(s). Eventually, to win the game, you must win governorship of an island.

This game also has a multiplayer aspect - which I haven't yet tried. Will conquer the AI first to get my sealegs on then see where we go from there. Despite some minor interface issues (like the misrepresentative word 'Cancel' to close every dialog - doesn't cancel, saves), I have had few technical issues with this game. I'm currently playing an English buccaneer - I have massive industries in Port Charles and Grand Bahama and a dutch wife. For more details and a great Port Royale community, check the Ascaron forums.

See you on the high seas, matey!

Seems geared for economists, but strangely addicting
"Port Royale" is basically a trading/economic simulation with a pirate "game" attached. The trade, production, and consumption of various Carribean products is heavily detailed, but the fighting and sailing aspects of the game are presented in a more broad manner.

This game is big- a full scale map of the Caribbean Sea with 60 towns is the playing area. The ships of four nations (Spain, France, England, and Holland) ply the waters- trading from town to town or hunting down pirates (freebooting marauders) or buccaneers (captains licensed by a legit nation to attack the shipping of an enemy nation). Meanwhile, the player slowly builds up his reputation by either trading, completing a variety of missions, or fighting by chasing down pirates or becoming a buccaneer. The player starts with the ability to recruit one captain, but as reputation increases the player can recruit more captains. The more captains the player has the more convoys he can have out at sea on trade routes, doing missions, or hunting down enemies.

The biggest strength of Port Royale is that it is completely open-ended. You can achieve victory by a variety of ways. (Gaining enough reputation to be announced as a "governor" is the goal.) You can play as a peaceful trader or you can be as bloodthirsty and greedy as Blackbeard himself!

But there are design problems. The player is seemingly playing in a vacuum with little interaction with AI opponents. Although, set during an exciting historical period- the 16th-17th century struggle for the New World between rival European powers- the player is not really effected by the political scene. The player chooses a nation, but he can sit on the sidelines of any wars that occur. Thus, if the player's nation is at war with Holland and the player chooses not to attack Dutch shipping then the Dutch will leave the player's shipping alone. Yet even if the player decides to engage in war the AI will only attack the player's armed convoys. The game lets the player's unarmed ships flee from every attack without harm. For example, I had a convoy of six trade flutes often packed with expensive goods, but since those ships were unarmed they were never in danger of being captured or sunk. (What would a real pirate have given to be able to take such a tempting prize?) Also, while the player can attack and loot towns, the AI cannot and thus the player has no worry that his production facilities will be damaged. The result is a game without much of a competitive environment.

Normally, the uncompetitive and unhistorical nature of this game would be a killer for me. Yet, strangely I've been addicted to playing it. It has been very stable on my system and its sheer size and open-ended style have kept me playing into the wee hours. It is fun to set up a trade route- picking the order of towns to be visited, setting the max price for buying and the min price for selling, watching the convoy sail from town to town, the cargo hold filling and unfilling, and the money coming in. It's also fun to complete a variety of missions. Overall, I enjoy Port Royale, but its the kind of game that I see so many ways it could have been better. While playing I wonder why couldn't the sailing and fighting aspects be more realisic? I'm not asking for a naval warfare simulation, but something akin to the Broderbund classic Ancient Art of War at Sea would have worked great! (It's amazing that a game more than 15 yrs older than Port Royale still had a more detailed fighting model.) Also, why aren't storms and hurricanes a real factor? It's the Caribbean! It would have also been nice if wars effected the player with or without his consent, that towns vital to the player could be attacked, and that sending unarmed merchantmen into pirate infested waters means danger!

Why 3 stars? Port Royale is a nicely polished economic simulation with an addictive open-ended playing system. If I was truly into economic based games then I would have bumped up the score, but as a person looking for more of a strategy/military/political game I just don't think it will last too long on my harddrive. I've enjoyed what is there, but I think it's probably not enough to truly hold my interest for the reasons I've mentioned.

Fun but probably not the game for everbody
As one other reviewer mentioned, if you are not into trading & spreadsheet management, then you will probably will not derive a great deal of enjoyment out of this game. Probably Ascaron's "Pirate Hunter" is more your cup of tea. I tend to play Port Royale while the more violence-prone 10-year-old in the house enjoys blasting ships to smithereens in Pirate Hunter.

Nonetheless, there is plenty to enjoy in Port Royale, if only you are patient. It takes a little time to build up reputation and resources, but once you get a steady source of income in place, the game is flexible enough to allow you to shift your attention to rampaging across the Carribean with your formidable fleets of battleships.

The game is flexible and open-ended enough to allow the player several options. One can simply to be an unassuming neutral trader, moving from port to port, quietly amassing a fortune while staying out of harm's way. One can also suck up to the governors of your respective nation, running mission after mission, currying the favor of the establishment. Doing this means that you tend become despised by the other nations, so sometimes it is a good idea to hedge your bets. One can take it even farther by getting a letter of marque, a form of legalized piracy, which allows you to loot and pillage the ships of whatever nation your letter of marque concerns. It is one step short of being an actual pirate --- just make sure you check the validity of your letter of marque, or you will find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

Finally, of course, you can throw respectability to the winds and cost your lot with the forces of lawlessness. This is easier said than done. If you find yourself an outcast from all nations, hunted by numerous military convoys, and short on cash and resources, your days may be numbered. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The game also has a loose story-line, which you can choose to follow or ignore. It gives you a chance to mix it up with some pirates if you want to, and reunite you with long-lost relatives. You can also get married, which affords your wife an opportunity to get kidnapped frequently by scurvy knaves, and affords you the opportunity to blast still more evil-doers out of the water.

For those who complain about the learning curve --- believe me, it is not nearly as difficult as Patrician II and Patrician III. Those who are familiar with those games will immediately recognize the economic model of Port Royale. I have heard some Patrician players comment that they play Port Royale when their brains need a rest from the extremely steep learning curve of the Patrician games. Learning curves are all relative.

This is not to say that Port Royale does not have some unique difficulties to it. Contrary to what one reviewer said, international affairs can have a devastating effect on your well-laid plans, depending on what nation you play. If you play as a Spanish player, the number of Spanish ports is so vast that you can ignore all other nations for the duration of the game without any impact. However, try playing France or Holland, both of which have far fewer ports. For example, you can be a French trader who has established good relations with Spain, to the point of even building up a thriving industry in a few Spanish towns, but then France & Spain go to war. It becomes impossible to maintain good relations with both nations, and eventually Spain will bar your ships from entering Spanish towns. If you depended on those towns' resources to keep your whole economic empire going, then you are seriously screwed, unless you can buy your way back into Spanish favor. The Dutch have it even worse than the French. Once again, it is all relative.

A few comments about the operation of the game: when I first began playing the game, it crashed constantly, and while Ascaron has provided a patch that has solved a lot of problems, the game continues to crash regularly. Save early, save often. The game does have a nice multi-tiered autosave that will give you a lot of loading options, but be prepared for a crash at any moment.

If you enjoy micromanagement, puncuated by occasional violence on the high seas, then you will find this to be an engrossing, addictive, time-burner of a game. If you are in need of a quick fix of violence and mayhem, you probably ought to look elsewhere.