is Patrician 3 better than 4?

[Wild Card (와일카드)]

anyone?

[TangoBravo]

It is lazy game design and the whole "people want it that way" is kind of a lame excuse. Civilization, Pirates and Railroad Tycoon were all self explaining, had all a certain complexity (at least compared to other games of their time) and had a scalable complexity (not just difficulty, which would just inceases or decreases some factors, but instead whole game mechanics which get excluded or included, while the game stays balanced).
Patrician 3 does that in some places as well over the course of the game: first it is just about the ship trading, then production comes into the mix and in the end one can manipulate whole markets. This makes it easy to start but at the same time lets you end up with a complex game.

A steep learning curve on the other hand is not necessarily an indicator of a good game, it also could just be bad game design, which is lazy on the other end: instead of reducing options to make getting into the game easier, it shies away from creating a balanced beginner state.

In the end a good designed game is like a good pop song: something one can whistle along almost immediatly but at the same time still allows you to discover something when revisiting it for the 100th time.

[S4ro]

for me, P3 is better, cause it have a sort of shine, in graphic indi stile that i really like, p4 it seem to been semplified, and it's a mistake.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

The problem with sequels is that they focus on better graphics too much, while the AI still fails to make interesting moves. To a degree updated graphics are nice. Usually the interface gets clearer and the most important menues get easier accessable. But Patrician kind of gets stuck at a point when the first trade routes are set up: it is basically waiting for the money pouring in, building a bit and in the best case having to deal with the mission. It does not scale too well. From that point it is a casual game, a lot like farmville, and no civilization, which manages to keep the tension up until being close to winning.

In P4 though, the problem isn't even an AI issue at all... They dumbed down the game so much as to make it completely inferior to its predacessor. It's like they traded half of the ingame content of P4 in exchage for a few more purchasable ship. It just feels kinda... empty to me. P3 was such a well made game that literally all they would have to do to it was graphically update it, intro a few extra ships and sold it as P4 and everyone woulda been happy. That is NOT what they did though.

[Bennie]

Originally posted by PawelK198604:

I played once in Patrician 3 and very loved it :-( i have it on CD sadly i lost it somwhere :-(
I want to buy Patrician 4 but i heard that Patrican 3 despite it's old age is much better than Patrican 4.

Now is sale i want to play some trading game, does better to buy Patrican (It's considerably cheaper, but both games are on discount :-) )

No brainer... Get Patrician III

[Bennie]

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

... One thing I really dislike about Patrician III is the lack of information. One has to click over the map and through several menus to get to the data one needs and therefore the only way to play the game is by actually writing down that information outside the game, which is kind of silly. ...

Not sure what you refer to? I do not recognize a bit of what you say. Unless you never got to auto-trading & manned warehouses; in which case you have hardly played the game and your comments seem more to appear knowledgeable than anything else.

Rest of you post is off-topic.

[TangoBravo]

Very simple: prices. To create trade routes you have to know all prices on the route. There is no comprehensive screen which shows the necessary information at once. Instead one has to click forth and back to get the trade route running. The game is to trade, not to click through menues. Which is something game designers, especially when it comes to economic simulations, too often forgot, which shaped the genre in an unfortunate way.
Don't worry, once you set up your second or third warehouse in that game you'll be able to see what I mean. Just keep on playing, it is not as difficult as it seems in the first minutes.

Had bothered to read the post I was refering to, you would have seen why every single sentence of my post was very much on the topic of comparing games of different times.

[Draconyx]

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

Very simple: prices. To create trade routes you have to know all prices on the route. There is no comprehensive screen which shows the necessary information at once. Instead one has to click forth and back to get the trade route running.

This tells me you are doing it wrong. I worked out what a good price to sell goods is, lets use beer as an example usually you can purchase or make it for less than 45 or even with enough time 40 or lower. Most places that buy beer at a decent price pay 45-72 for it. Once you transport it set the Trading office to auto sell only above a set price. Voila profit. Also you can save trade routes and use them in a new game.

[TangoBravo]

And how do you know in which city to sell the beer? You have to click it. And there is the problem: the moment you have a trade route which does just make a small ship inefficiently travel between two ports with one ressource, you have to know what to load and what to unload to the warehouses in each of the cities to optimise the profit. To set up that route you either have to spend a lot of time clicking through a bunch of menues or you have to write it on a sheet of paper out side your computer and setup your trade routes according to that. A good interface would allow to skip that step and to have the data you need visible the moment you need it. P3 does not have that interface.

[Draconyx]

Erm you dont rely on ships you rely on getting enough gold to build a trading office then a warehouse. you have to play for long enough to build preferably 3-4 trading offices and a warehouse for each. It is possible to manage fine with 2 trading offices one that you started with and one that you build when you can afford it. That allows you to make a decent profit.

Here is an in game example that approximates my last game.

I started in Stockholm, I traded in game till I could afford to build a warehouse and then repeated till I had built 3 Iron smelters and 1 sawmill. after this I used the sale of the goods and trading to get enough coin to get a workshop built. At this point I stopped selling pig iron and the lumber, I replaced these with Iron goods. I then started to build up my fleet while trading and various activities. At this point I had plenty of ships and goods flowing. The second trading office I built in Settin. I worked on getting enough supplies to build a warehouse there and then multiple grain farms. I then started work on a brewery. Once this was finished I could then focuse on transporting beer and iron goods along with other items.

The next step is to build up reserves of everything and then you can expand as you choose.

I might have missed out on a little but this is the basics of how to do it.

[TangoBravo]

Well, I have trading offices in every city, a huge bunch of ships which automatically circle between those cities and trade everything possible to trade at profit between the cities on their route. I am not talking about kidding around with some single trade route and minor autotrading. I try to squeeze out every profit on the map I can get.

How did I find out where to buy, pick up, unload and sell the ressources? I clicked through the cities and compared the prices. Trading office by trading office.

Could I do that comfortably within the menu while setting up my trade route? No, I could not.

So what did I do? I printed out a sheet, in which I entered every ressource per city which could either be bought or sold and then organized the trade routes that they could pick up and unload the needed materials. And as those ressources change depending on what structures get build in every city (and of course when new cities get founded), I had to update them from time to time and the trade routes accordingly. With the help of said table which the game was unable to provide, although all that data is in the game.

So was this table part of the game interface? No, it was not.

Was it written on paper like one did it in the early 90s? Yes, it was.

Do modern games force you to write things on paper? No, they don't.

So do modern games have an advantage towards older games? Yes, THEY DON'T FORCE YOU TO WRITE DOWN ♥♥♥♥ ON PAPER MANUALLY.

That is my whole point.

[Draconyx]

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

Well, I have trading offices in every city, a huge bunch of ships which automatically circle between those cities and trade everything possible to trade at profit between the cities on their route. I am not talking about kidding around with some single trade route and minor autotrading.

Then your doing well, the way you were complaining it sounded like you didnt know how to play.

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

Was it written on paper like one did it in the early 90s? Yes, it was.

Do modern games force you to write things on paper? No, they don't.

So do modern games have an advantage towards older games? Yes, THEY DON'T FORCE YOU TO WRITE DOWN ♥♥♥♥ ON PAPER MANUALLY.

That is my whole point.

Your complaining about this game being like the 90's games, you do realise that this game was released in 2000. Do the math that is 1 year out from the very games you refered to. Your seriously complaining about this.

I am so staggered by your failure to think critically and not know some basic facts about the game such as a release date that I have lost hope that humans are becoming more intelligent.

[Wooteman]

go for nummer 3, its simple design looks nice and its a game hard to master. that gives a good challlages! i found nummer 4 i dispoint ment for the name Patrician

[TangoBravo]

Originally posted by Draconyx:

Your complaining about this game being like the 90's games, you do realise that this game was released in 2000. Do the math that is 1 year out from the very games you refered to. Your seriously complaining about this.

I am not complaining about it. I mentioned a flaw which in newer games does not happen. Even if the game was released 1984 this would be a flaw.
One reason why the "compare older to newer game" discussion never works is that people wear their nostalgia glasses and ignore every flaw of the older game (ironically while babbling about thinking critically). Had the question been "which game was better at its original release?" that would make sense, but that was not the question.

As someone who loses track of the context of a discussion that easily, you should be a bit more careful to operate with big words like "intelligence", as it - to put it politely - simply does not seem to be your most outstanding characteristic.

[Draconyx]

Originally posted by TangoBravo:

Originally posted by Draconyx:

Your complaining about this game being like the 90's games, you do realise that this game was released in 2000. Do the math that is 1 year out from the very games you refered to. Your seriously complaining about this.

I am not complaining about it. I mentioned a flaw which in newer games does not happen. Even if the game was released 1984 this would be a flaw.
One reason why the "compare older to newer game" discussion never works is that people wear their nostalgia glasses and ignore every flaw of the older game (ironically while babbling about thinking critically). Had the question been "which game was better at its original release?" that would make sense, but that was not the question.

As someone who loses track of the context of a discussion that easily, you should be a bit more careful to operate with big words like "intelligence", as it - to put it politely - simply does not seem to be your most outstanding characteristic.

Your basically complaining the game isnt dumbed down enough for you. Modern games are getting easier and easier. The main pokemon game series can be used as an example, in the original you had hidden stats and you had to work hard to get them, in the latest gen oh wait you can go somewhere and get ones that are 1/2 done already.

As far as the personal insults go I stated you were not thinking criticially and was not saying your an idiot, although you seem to have taken it that way. Oh and I would say you are projecting your issues with intelligence onto me. By the way nice trolling attempt.

[TangoBravo]

Okay, so good game design for you is to hide information which is otherwise freely available at the wrong end of the game? What about hiding all prices completely? Then the game would seem less casual. Just turn the monitor 90°, and according to your design philosophy, the game gets more sophisticated my that. Invert the mousecursor in farmville, it will seem like increased game depth to you. Or maybe just add a lead weight to your mouse in counterstrike.

You seem to have no idea about game design at all. Either an information is available for the player, then it has to be available at the point where he needs it, or it is part of the design that it is not available at all, in which case it should not be available at all, not even in a side menu. There is the difference between this game and the example you mentioned. It probably goes straight over your head that those things could be different.

And of course there is the usual witty "projecting" defense, which pretty much plays in the league of a "your mom" joke or a white flag. So, I guess I'll just accept your surrender, but feel free to stomp with your foot on the floor or to throw around your feces or whatever people like you do in such situations.