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And while it's rewarding to watch towns grow and thrive as you augment them with businesses and warehouses, you ought to have more control over their look and development. Turn-based naval battles are short, but aside from a handful of special tactical abilities - such as repairing ship damage or extending your turn - there's not much to sink your teeth into beyond clicking to attack. Slightly more concerning is that the combat and town development elements of the experience are a bit underdeveloped. The trading eventually grows a bit repetitive as tricks for success begin to reveal themselves over extended play, but such is the case for most business simulation games. You'll feel like you have control of a satellite camera with super zoom. Bonus: The whole thing looks lovely, especially the details that reveal themselves when quickly scrolling from the world map into towns. And since you can establish your own businesses in home territory, you can strategically plan to meet demands as they come up, ensuring adequate supply while taking advantage of shortages when opportunity presents itself. You'll have control over just about everything, from buying ships, creating convoys, and hiring crew and captains to creating efficient routes based on avoiding enemy patrols while taking advantage of prevailing winds to shorten journeys so you can deliver more goods in less time. Port Royale 4 nails the commerce portion of the experience, providing a wonderfully in-depth simulation of what it must have been like to run a naval trade business in the colonial era. It grows a little repetitive after a while, but this historical simulation ought to scratch an itch for players who relish the idea of establishing and fostering a thriving trade empire. What to do is largely up to you as you navigate the treacherous waters of the Caribbean. With success comes fame, which will allow you to negotiate with your nation's viceroy to receive permission to start new types of businesses and perhaps even engage in a bit of piracy yourself. You'll need to be on the lookout for rivals looking to attack your convoys, and prepared to defend them in short, turn-based naval battles should cannon balls begin to fly. As colonies grow, so, too, does competition.
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As the game progresses, players will also be able to establish businesses in these towns to help them grow and meet demands as they arise.
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Players can set up trade routes between multiple settlements so that ship convoys can start to move resources and products fabricated in one town to others that need them, aiming to buy low and sell high in order to maximize profits. After playing through multiple tutorials that teach the game's basic mechanics, players can either begin playing freely in a big Caribbean sandbox or take on one of several campaigns as the operator of a trade empire under the viceroy of a specific European nation with the aim of using naval trade to support and grow various settlements. PORT ROYALE 4 drops players into the middle of the potentially prosperous but often dangerous world of naval trade during the colonial era in the Caribbean.
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