Port Royale

by ASCARON Entertainment (UK) Ltd.

Product Features

• The adventure takes place between the 16th & 17th centuries, in the real-world location of Port Royale. Your goal is to become the governor of this port town -- how you achieve that is up to you.
• Undertake missions of behalf of various seafaring nations -- work for Spain, Holland, England, and France as you capture or sink treasure-laden convoys throughout the Gulf Of Mexico
• Accept contracts to hunt down rival ships, and earn rank that you can use politically
• The higher your ranks, the more ships you can command -- see if you can reach the highest rank, then command 100 ships in the greatest naval battles ever seen!

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000098XMO
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: June 17, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,097 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

In contrast to Patrician II, this game is about adventure, exploration and sea battles. The depth of play of the trading and economic system is decreased accordingly. However, trade still remains the main driving force behind the game.

You start out as a simple sailor on a small ship in a local region. At first you explore the world and trade between towns friendly to each other. The aim is to acquire both gold and status; enough to eventually become a governor yourself.

Over time you will gain the increasing interest and goodwill of other governors. You will be able to further enlarge your riches with the initially easy orders and missions that they provide you with.

Your status in society is critical. The higher it is the more you will:

• Obtain better prices for goods and ships
• Be able to hire more sailors
• Be allowed to set foot in more towns
• Be allowed to build additional businesses
• Win more and better orders

As the game progresses you become more and more self-sufficient and begin to fight for the interests of your nation: you will rob enemy ships and towns, annex towns or chase and battle with pirates.

Port Royale can be played to suit an individual gamer's preferences. After the initial introductory gameplay the player can move away from the trading aspects of the game and on to enjoying the game's adventure, exploration and conquering elements. At first, play is 50% weighted towards trade. Later on, trade can be reduced to about 20% if desired, moving the focus onto adventure.

In contrast to Patrician II the world of Port Royale is hardly known at all initially; in other words the player is only really familiar with their immediate surroundings. The unknown parts of the map are represented in an unfinished and inexact way--as if roughly sketched using word of mouth as a guide. The map is only rendered accurately when the player has explored an unknown region. In some circumstances this accuracy can be obtained via a completed order or via information supplied to the player.

Port Royale offers the player many different types of buildings or factories and a variety of production workshops. Countless buildings have their own unique and very specific function; from the small shipyard and the corner pub right up to the governor's palace. So players can have their ship repaired in the shipyard, get the newest gossip from the pub or request a privateering letter from the governor.

After the player has established their own warehouse, they can start thinking about establishing workshops. For this a decision is required on whether to tend to the physical welfare of the population or establish plantations of tobacco, cocoa or sugarcane for export the Old World.

However, happiness is not achieved by money alone. It is important to keep observing the changing political events during the course of the gameplay and make decisions accordingly. Even if trading between, for instance, a Spanish and English port has been a nice little earner up to now, a war between these nations can scupper this lucrative source of income completely.

The unwary player will be appraised of the changed political circumstances at the latest when sailing into the now enemy port and being greeted with a hail of cannonballs from the town fortifications.

Product Description

Port Royale is a unique combination of role-playing and strategy, as you command vast fleets and fight for power, during the height of piracy!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A finely polished trading/adventure game in the Carribean, June 4, 2003

By 

"halenthal" (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Port Royale (CD-ROM)

Set in the 1500-1700s, Port Royale lets you control fleets of ships that trade in large variety of goods at 60 ports, and fight with pirates all over the Carribean. Or become a pirate, and prey on the other nations. Or be a mix of both.
Beautiful graphics, extremely stable and balanced gameplay, and great sound to top it all off.
If you ever played Pirates!, Cutthroats, or Seadogs, and wished they had just a little more something, then Port Royale is the game for you.
The game was released in Europe in 2002, and is being released in the US soon.
Open ended gaming doesn't begin to describe this game. If you want to follow the storyline, fine. If you don't, fine. If you want to follow the storyline only when you want to, fine. You want to go to war with a country or two, fine. You want to butter up a country or two, hoping for gifts, fine.
Sail ships, trade in goods, marry a governor's daughter (who gets kidnapped often-it's great), beautiful graphics, great economic model...all this and you get to blow pirates out of the water too!

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A little Tropico 2, a little Civ, a little Age of Sail, July 11, 2003

By 

Jack Stockholm "Oddible" (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Port Royale (CD-ROM)

A little Tropico 2, a little Civ, a little Age of Sail and an excellent Caribbean setting make Port Royale overall a very engaging game in the Pirate genre. There are basically 2 tacks you can choose at the beginning of the game, though your choice won't keep you from being involved in both throughout the game.

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!

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reminds me a lot of Pirates! (which is a good thing), July 30, 2003

By 

The Christopher "chris00nj" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Port Royale (CD-ROM)

A very fun and addicting game, Port Royale has many good points and only a few drawbacks. It does resemble a much updated and improved Pirates! Gold. First and foremost what I like about the game is that it is non-linear, which means you can do whatever you want to. You can be a pirate, a bucaneer, a merchant, or a little of all three. You can accept missions from Governors, you can raid towns, or you can trade. (This is opposed to the 3d shooter games where you need to find some yellow key I can never find to open some door. Warcraft-like games always involve get as much resources as possible and have a big attack.little actual strategy) Another good thing is that if you might loose a battle, you can pick up and continue. There isnt constant reloading.

The sea battles are rather fun. They resemble a typical real time strategy game. The beauty is that there is a whole world outside it. Trading is fairly simple and straightforward. It solely involves buying commodities low in one town where they are made and selling them is a town where the are in demand. You can also build business which produce goods, which you can sell. Crews, supplies, and the business cost money to operate.

The only percieved bad side is the steep learning curve, so the game may not be for an impatient 12 year old. It takes a few hours to get the hang of the game, but it is necessary for a complex game and its worth it. (Consider it may take 3 hours to learn, but if you play it for weeks, its not a big deal.) The complexity is what makes it different and better than the Warcraft-like game, though hence, some learning is required. The automatic trading routes are decently tough to learn and require that you periodically check up on your trading routes. They also require some time to set up because you have to remember what is a good price to buy and sell and which towns have what and which towns require what. It is best to do a dry run which you manually sail the ship from port to port in your route and then decided what to buy and sell where. However, it is a good system. Although complex and somewhat time consuming, I dont have any idea to improve it, without dumbing the game down. I couldnt say I would do this instead. One good thing is you can set your routes to fight automatically. Usually you are strictly fleeing, so it removes what would be a constant harrassment.

The other small negative is that the book could give a little more help. Its not bad, but it could be a little better. They make a couple minor mistakes in the translation from German. A liner is supposedly the best ship you can get. They really mean a ship of the line. Overall, I had to give the game high marks, because its one of the most fun and most addicting games in recent memories.