If you like trading, making money, and killing pirates, well you've come to the right place. If you want action, adventure, constant battles then simply this is not your game.
Graphics are reasonable, interface is enjoyable. There is a slight learning curve and how to best set up your routes/convoys will be what you spend most of your time doing. OCD folks will love it, but if you are very "hands off" management style it might not be your thing.
I love it though.

Info: Haven't played any previous game before.

I feel this game is pretty shallow, unless I missed something.

After awhile I got bored, there is no incentive to stay playing. Except building more production and trade more to gain more income, and the cycle repeats with no clear goal. The campaign is basically tutorial, a really bad one at that, no good explanation on the game mechanic. It is one of those game that you just build for the sake of building more stuff at the end.

Only 3 ships that are unlocked from the start of the game. I didn't see any options to unlock more ship types, if I miss it, a correction would be nice.

A bit buggy, I had the characters speaking sound completely disappear, along with portrait not going away like it should, randomly and it stays until restart. Some visual bug too.

I really like trading/managing game, but this one is just too boring. Along the 10hr I played it was 2 play through. 1 was campaign in which I get to the highest ranking and felt there is nothing to do anymore.

For a build-up game that's in its 3.5th installment, I would have expected more.

The game concept is nice, but whoever was in charge of designing the game control mechanisms should be fired! Automatic trade is tedious to manage:
- an '(un)load everything BUT' option is still missing (as with earlier versions);
- trying to select a destination city with the mouse repeatedly results in the program switching it with another one, or simply nothing being selected at all;
- cities can only be added or deleted completely, not just the destination changed;
- and to top it all off, the game keeps arbitrarily changing certain settings of trade routes back to its own defaults, WHILE THE TRADE ROUTE IS BEING USED!
Specifically, this means that loading your ship from your storehouse in a city will occasionally get changed to buying from the city instead. Quite a big deal when you wonder why your funds aren't getting ahead for hours.

The counting house manager seems to sometimes just forget to do his job, as was the problem before with Patrician II.
Also, when quantities get really large, the default trading amount is increased - which is good for manual handling, but it sometimes seems to prevent the manager further from executing any orders, e.g. when lump trades change the average trading price and he consequently doesn't act at all. Although I'm not quite sure if these two might not just be same problem after all.

The overall game flow suffers from bad priorities for messages. Various events are lumped together as 'task accomplished', without specifying what it is exactly: a returned loan you gave, or a mission you took on.
To know for sure, you have to check the history list - where you then have to delete and confirm every single item of e.g. returned loans to keep the list clean.
Other times, your advisor/uncle - or worse, a competitor from one of the many cities - just pops up and delivers a spoken message while you were just trying to micro-manage some part of the game. You can usually just ignore the competitors, but as far as I can tell, the advisor-uncle only says everything once.

I probably forgot about 4-5 things that annoyed me like hell too.
As I was saying: The person(s) responsible for this mess should be fired.

Anyway, if all that doesn't bother you, the game is somewhat more charming than its predecessors.
Further on the plus side, the uncle's tutorial tips don't try to micro-manage your game. He only shows up at major milestones and you are free to act in between as you wish.

I will probably spend a bit more time with this game when I'm bored. But I'm not going to get addicted or look forward to playing on, like I could have.

A truly mediocre product with a great idea and name. :-(

Patrician IV is a trading strategy game based (loosely) on the historical period of the Hanseatic League. It has been a board game and Patrician I was released about a decade ago. If you are a fan of strategy games, then you have probaby already heard of (and have) the original version. If you haven't heard of it, think of the strategic map view of Medieval Total War, but with the activity done by ships, not the armies.

Essentially this is the same as the orginal. The graphics and sound are slightly better, but this doesn't impact gameplay. One improvement is a 'rating bar' against items in each market to show demand - this makes it much easier to make money without a running a spreadsheet alongside the game. The automatic buy/sell through your warehouses has been changed from the original, but splitting the buying from the selling on different tabs has made it fiddlier to manage your administrators. A better tutorial is included for new players.

I played the original version of Patrician for hundreds of hours and the lack of major changes means that I'm expecting to get hooked again. So, for experienced players, this is worth the upgrade fee during Steam sales whilst new players should enjoy this even at full price.

i wish i can say anything i love this game, however, i cannot

this is worse than Patrician III
it is way easier, all i need is one ship, turn on automatic trade, sit there and see profit rools in
serioulsy, this supposed to be a trading simlator.

and the buildings, where can i buy weapons? where can I trian troops?
they are removed in this game

i love the sea battle thow, but i cannot escape?

this game is broken in spirit, but if you love making profit and are not a thinker, this super easy relaxing game is for you

It's been a while since I've written a recommendation for a game, and it's a service I feel the community really needs doing, so here we go:

Patrician IV, henceforth known as "Patty IV's" is in something of a niche genre, in that it is a Renaissance trading simulator set around the Hanseatic League in Northern Europe. Doesn't sound like the most riveting game now, but when I rephrase that as TIME TRAVELLING DOSH SIMULATOR 1420 EDITION it starts to sound ♥♥♥♥♥ing dank. (Note to self, make montage video with that title)

Patty IV's behaves something akin to a sandbox, and the main campaign introduces you to the core concepts in a really intelligent way rather than simply throwing a standard tutorial at you, whereupon you start with modest resources as a simple hemp smuggler operating out of Lubeck aspiring to grow his empire until you control all the booze and kush in Denmark.

The difficulties in the true sandbox mode work pretty well too, they basically make more bad things happen the higher difficulty you select, like pirates stealing your ♥♥♥♥ or bad winters freezing ports over as well as ramping up the costs of production, so that in order to maintain a decent profit margin you actually have to spread your goods out intelligently. Because of this, on the higher difficulties you truly end up as a wicked beer baron, having to ship your product all over Europe to find enough people keen for your booze and bud (Stockholm can't get enough hemp for some reason).

Once you've gotten enough dosh behind you from your 'legitimate businesses' you can move into the world of protection, racketeering and exploitation. You can create fleets of pirate vessels or hunt the pirates that menace your trade. You can be 'elected' in charge of a town and pay off the local authorities to leave you in peace. You can build 'schools' where the goal is to design bigger guns for you ships or ways to grow danker kush. You can even pick up some wench and start 'The Family' (watch that ♥♥♥♥♥, I caught mine cheating once).

Have I mentioned that it doesn't stop there?

WELL BUCKLE UP KIDS

IT EVEN HAS A GODDAM CO-OP MODE FOR TWICE AS MUCH DOSH.

Because by know you're already clicking add to cart I'll discuss the DLC now, so you can wrap it up in one easy purchase.

The expansions adds some pretty legit content, so if the gold edition is an option go for it, but the game isn't fundamentally handicapped by missing it out. I even managed to drop about 50 hours into the full edition before finding the key feature of smuggling booze and 'exotic spices' overland that the DLC introduces. It seems like there were a lot of little tweaks that were added with Rise of a Dynasty too, including some fixes with the aforementioned co-op mode, however, so I would recommend picking up the pack if possible.

This is a ♥♥♥♥ing wicked game, potentially the best game to play while you're browsing the net or whatever at the same time, which is ironic due to it not being terribly casual. The reason it has a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ metascore is because all the reviewers are cowards that don't want to put any effort into learning how the systems work, which are relatively easy to understand and smooth to operate. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s are too busy giving 9.8's to on rails shooters to learn how to run a criminal syndicate, uh, I mean 'trading syndicate'. I wouldn't say the game is immaculate, but it's challenging and interesting in a fun way, and I don't regret sinking plenty of hours into it. The ship combat is a little dry too, but that's not the focus of the game.

If you like simulators or relaxed strategy of any kind I'd say it's a must buy.

Overall I'd give TIME TRAVELLING DOSH SIMULTOR 1420 EDITION 80/100.

Having spent numberless hours playing Patrician III, this game was a must buy for me.
Couldnt have been more wrong. This would have made an acceptable Patrician II since is clearly a step backwards.
Patrician IV its clearly worse than its predecessor.

If you are thinking about buying this, my advise, pick up Patrician III.

I bought the game just now, and I can't play it because it requires me to make a 'Kalypso Media Launcher Account' for no given reason. So I did that, and now it tell me my account does not exist. I sent an email to Kalypso's support, but I've read it can take like 16 days to receive a reply, so...

I thought it was an improvement of the Patrician 3, but I wasn't expecting this... The same mechanics, same map, same gameplay... Disapointing... I still prefer Patrician 3 instead of this. I'm lucky I bought it now with the Steam summer sales!

Needs a Kalypso account just ot register and play in Steam - and no warning on the Store page.

Bad move Kalypso - you lost an old fan with this extra DRM. More than that you lost someone who has recommended Patrician to thousands over the years. I can understand you protecting teh Disc based version but this is silly.

Very disappointed :(

This is not a complex or deep game, but it definitely scratches that 'middle ages naval trading' genre itch. Very distilled with little excess.

There aren't many games out there, where the point of the game is to traid and to do some capitalistic ♥♥♥♥. One of them is definitely Patrician IV. I've been playing the game for some time now and I think it is time to say something about it.

These games can be boring sometimes, and this or similar kinds of gameplay, are usually part of some bigger game. But the thrill is not in the gameplay, it is in the role that you are playing. In this particular game you take the role of a merchant in medieval times on the Baltic sea. Your goal is to be the biggest merchant of them all. And as far as the story goes that's about it. So, as you can see, there isn't much of a story. But there is a lot of trading to do and you have to industrialize your production of goods and trading roots.

For the gameplay I can say it is simple as far as handling it goes. You don't have any trouble trying to figure out how to do things around there. The mechanics of demand and supply are realistic and you can quickly overproduce or oversupply a market of a city that you came to trade in. So in that way you have to be careful that you always keep them a bit short on supplies.

There is one thing that is in this game and has to be mentioned separately, and that is the naval battles. You can have naval battles with pirates or you competitors, but these battles are not big ones which is little bit disappointing. You can only have fights 3 on 3. Never the less, it is a welcome change in the monotone playing experience.

I am enjoying playing this game, but I think that those who like more action will be bored. That's why I am giving the game 6/10, and I gave it a rating that high just because, I like to play it once in a while when I feel that this capitalistic world is not the best decision that humanity has made.

A trading game at heart. Don't care for that sort of thing? Automate your ships to buy low and sell high, then focus on any of the other "omg-where-did-the-last-six-hours-go" inducing activities available.

Economic game. Very involving, well made.

It has an easy, steady pace to it.

Essentially every Anno game ever created...only supplamented with hilariously terrible lip-syncing.

Fun if you like trading games. start with a ship and slowly move your way up to be mayor and hold a large merchant fleet .....also pirates.

really good game. it's been a long time since i was looking for a merchant simulator this well made. got me going for about 8 hours. but the game is a bit too easy and shallow. its easy to dominate all the trade routes and everything else. too few objectives to accomplish and not a lot of variety. so, its kinda boring after a while.

6/10

Hey I really like this a lot it's just like the old NES game Uncharted Waters. It beats on my video card a bit which is weird for a 2D game but it's tough and complex and you can switch between RTS or stopping time and cueing forward (like turn based).

I love strategy, I love all kinds of strategy, all aspects of it, and all forms of a good balansed strategy game. That is my reason for recommend this game.

The concept of the game is simple, you're a trader in the Hansiatic leauge, and you have too expand your trade empire. How? By selling and buying a number of diffrant goods, all from Hemp, bricks, pelts, salt, wine and much more. The whole game is built around supply and demand, you buy goods were its cheap, often were the goods in question is produced, for example logs and mead from Stockholm or wine and wool from Colonge. These goods you will then need to deliver all across the Baltic sea and the northen Atlantic. After a few hours you might have enough money and respect in one of the cities to start producing your own goods, maybe you will start a grain farm in Lübeck and have it delivered to Riga and Malmö. The trading is very very simple to learn but hard to master, you will trade by sending trading ships into diffrant towns ( or if you have a counting house in the city you can sell goods from your local storage) and then sell any goods that you have on the boat. You can avoid all the micro management later in the game by setting up basic trading route running along maybe three towns. You can with this system have a boat sail from Stockholm with a bit of logs and hemp, and then have it sold in London were you then pick up wool and iron, you can then inturn sell these goods in Oslo were you pick up Salt and bricks that you take back to Stockholm and restart the route.

The Combat in the game is quite small, you can turn into a pirate and harrass your compeditors, but also you will need to defend your own ships from organised pirates that sail all over the Baltic sea, the battles will have you control a max of three ships as you order them what kind of ammunition you want them to fire and what ship you want them to target. But this really does not effect the main gameplay that is trading, Later in the game you will also be able to become mayor in a town, this enabling you to construct certain buildings and increasing the size of the town.

With all this put together there are still some flaws in the design of the game, at times it can seem too micro heavy to handle and often you end up unable to handle the changes to the trade, you sometimes lack an overview over what effects your income outcome and how you can change it, the tempo of the game might also scare away anyone who is not willing to put a sizeable ammount of time into it.

Despite this I find this game to be extreamly addictive, this is not for the large cool battles or the huge cool citites you can construct, but because I can have an impact on the flow of trade around the whole region, I can utterly destroy the price on hemp or spice, and ruin my enemies chances on a market on that specific ware. This can enable me to buy up the market and then I can sell it to a very high price instead, the effects of your trade matters and you can have an complete blast seeing how your trade empire grows month after month. 7/10 for one of the best medival trading simulators out there, it will challange you to be effective in your trade, and plan out a strategy for how you will become the most popular and richest trader in the Baltic Sea.

Political intrigue, mayoral privileges, get filthy rich from taxes and trade..