Port Royale 3

The developers behind the long-running Port Royale and Patrician series are bringing their detailed economic simulation sensibilities to Xbox 360 and PS3 (and PC, of course) next April. Sixty Caribbean towns and four colonial powers are yours to profit from, defend, or conquer in Port Royale 3.

Port Royale is based in economic simulation. Hundreds of convoys are running at any time, bringing goods from cities where they are produced to eager consumers across the sparkling blue sea. Every town consumes the 20 goods simulated in the game, but each only produces up to 5, leaving ample opportunity for a savvy trader to turn a tidy profit.

Your ships are among those hundreds of convoys plying the Caribbean in search of fame and fortune. You can manage them manually if you so choose, but Port Royale has a powerful automation system that allows you to set up a largely hands-off trading empire – if you have the knowledge of the web of production and the risk involved in trading along routes pirates like to hang out around.

Pirate factions are simulated as well, preying on ships of commerce and towing their booty to port for sale. You can defend against pirate raids with military vessels of your own, but you can also turn pirate yourself if you don’t mind the diplomatic hit with the four great powers of the region (Holland, France, Spain, and England). If you want the spoils but not the hate, though, wait for a few empires to go to war and ask a viceroy for a letter of marque to get your buccaneer career rolling. You still generate ill will from the empire you’re robbing, of course, but at least you won’t make everyone angry at you.

Just as the great empires have their opinions of each other, they have their opinion of your little fleet/trading company/minor empire. So long as you stay on their good side, you’re golden – their ports are open to your ships for resupply and trading opportunities, and their mighty warships help protect your merchantmen from pirates. If you want to make your own mark, though, you can conquer towns yourself, sending your sailors ashore to overcome the garrison and replace an imperial flag with your own. This has obvious benefits, but the empire you attack will immediately declare war on you and start marshaling its considerable forces to teach you a lesson. The European powers are not invincible, though, particularly for a skilled strategist and admiral.

Combat can always be auto-resolved, but you can bring up to three ships into a real-time naval fight to test your skills against rivals. These conflicts are simple affairs, with three ships on each side trading cannon shot (including chain shot to damage masts and grape shot to take out crewmembers) and sinking or boarding one another. You don’t give full tactical orders like in Empire: Total War, instead controlling one ship directly and signaling your other ships general orders like “attack my target” or “protect me.”

Port Royale also supports multiplayer for up to four players via local or online networks. Rather than following a story like the single-player campaign, you can set the starting and winning conditions in multiplayer (or just play a sandbox game with a buddy). You could set everyone to start with nothing and call the first person to capture a town the winner, or give all players a few dozen ships and have the last man standing win; it’s entirely up to you. You can of course do the same thing with a single-player game if you’ve finished or have no interest in the two campaigns, which respectively teach the concepts behind the peaceful and warlike approaches to the game before leaving you to play in the open Caribbean sandbox with whatever empire you’ve built up.

I love the fact that a relatively hardcore simulation game is coming to console. Developer Creative Minds has been making these titles for almost two decades, so I’m not too worried that it’s going to suck, and I’d love for a wider audience to get exposed to a genre I hold so dear. Port Royale is scheduled to ship for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in April 2012.