Since you're a merchant family, you have a family tree and can interact with your family members. Family members provide skills and bonuses, such as more rep gain or more wealth. You can even marry into a family of the council of 10, which will give you even more bonuses. If you want a more powerful convoy, you can put a family member as captain of a convoy, providing a stronger starting skillset over computer-generated captains. Captains also get experience to level up attributes that'll help you travel quicker, have more strength in battle, etc.
Rise of Venice isn't just about trading, though. You'll have to test your skill in sea battles against pirates and rival merchants. You can choose to automate these battles – which is fine if you have a stronger convoy – or you can play them out yourself. During the battles, you either can control each ship or just set the tactics and manage them. Strategy and skill really come into play during these battles. You choose the type of shots, the ammo type, control movement, and even perform special moves, like leaving a trail of oil behind your ship and setting the sea ablaze. Ships can get stuck in shallow water, and if you're skilled enough, you can pull alongside an enemy, board their ship, capture it and gain sailors.
One other element to sea battles are sailors falling overboard. During the course of battle, sailors fall off the ship and into the water – it happens. You can navigate your ship over them to pick them up, but you only have a limited time to do so. When a sailor falls in the water, sharks start to circle them. As time passes, the sharks circle closer and closer until eating the sailor. Not only do you get to see a cool little animation and the water being doused with blood, but it provides a little minigame during combat.
Rise of Venice is 90% trade simulator, 10% ship combat, which you'll experience across four game types. There's the Campaign, which will let you experience the core of the game, treason, intrigue and mechanics; Sandbox mode will let you change all of the settings for a custom experience; Scoreboard mode tasks the player with specific advancements and goals for you to make, featuring a score multiplier and sending your score to a leaderboard; and finally, there's multiplayer.
The multiplayer mode allows up to four players to play together locally or online. All attempting to rise to power at the same time, players will have to all agree on win conditions and settings, such as game speed, beforehand.
I don't have much experience with the Port Royale series, but I am nothing but impressed with the depth of gameplay shown to me for Rise of Venice. While I touched on a lot, I've only skimmed the surface of the game. Rise of Venice will tickle your trading simulation fancy, becoming as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.
Rise of Venice releases for PC on September 27 through retail and Steam.
You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at [email protected]
I recently attended a Kalypso event in San Francisco to see two new games coming out later this year. Of the two, I was most impressed with Gaming Minds' Rise of Venice, a trading simulation/strategy game releasing for PC on September 27.
One of the developers walked us through most of the details and features of the games; there is far too much depth to cover them all. At first glance, Rise of Venice looks a lot like Port Royale. They're both created by the same developers, but Rise of Veniceis a new IP that was described to us as the direction Port Royale should have gone.
Rise of Venice drops you into the Renaissance era in the 1500s, set in Venice and other cities around the Mediterranean Sea. Since Venice was the linchpin of civilization and the cultural center of Europe, it's where your adventure begins. You play a young man of a mercenary family striving for power, wealth and success as you try to build a trading empire. Starting with one trading ship, you'll have to build a fleet and find success in trading from port to port. There's more to power than just trading spices and goods, though. You'll have to navigate the rough waters of political corruption, and will have to answer to a council of 10 families that hold power.
First off, the game's visuals are an absurd leap in progress from the Port Royale series. It's lush, pretty and is easy on the eyes. Visual effects from world events, which I'll touch on later, add life to the map. The colors are vibrant and you'll enjoy spending time in the bustling Mediterranean. Also, there's a really cool graphic comic-like art quality to the cutscenes. It's almost as if events are being painted before your very eyes.
Rise of Venice's trading simulation system is based on supply and demand. As you create and transport materials and goods, they get consumed by the system, which reacts accordingly to the trades you conduct. Watching Sebastian, the developer, play it, there was an obvious ebb and flow to the system. It looked very dynamic and responsive to the actions of the player.
You'll swap between a city view and sea map view. With a new custom engine built for this game, players are able to seamlessly zoom in and out of city view to sea map view. In city view, you'll be zoomed in on that city where you'll be able to build warehouses and production facilities, in addition to taking out loans, lending money and building your fleet. From the sea map, you'll be able to see everything going on in the 25 cities featured in the game. You'll see trade fleets traveling between cities, your trade routes, and world events like forest fires and volcanoes.
Like I said, you'll start off with just one trade ship and two city trading licenses. City trading licenses are required for each individual city and are purchased in each city. If you want more ships and better items, you'll have to progress and rank up. As you gain access to more ships and cities, you'll have to make smart trades to gain power and wealth. For beginners, it's simple to set up convoy trade routes. You can see from the sea map what each city has and needs. Simply choose a convoy, choose the actions for each city you want on their route and you're good to go. If you're a core gamer, you can get really in-depth and adjust the amount of each trade item/goods and the price of each. You can also set parameters for when to sell them in each city and for what price.
You'll also have to adjust to world events, which you can see from the sea map. For instance, if an earthquake happens near Athens, glass in their building will be shattered. That creates a need. If you're smart and timely, you can supply them with glass for great profit.
This all leads to how you rank up. There is a council of 10 powerful families which you must appease. Politics come into play and you must hold a certain reputation with each one to advance in rank. Each family, complete with their own backgrounds and goals, have missions you can perform for them to gain favor. In addition to missions, you can bribe them, set up a monthly bribe, get them on your side, gain reputation, and hopefully take the council to vote for you to rank up. When you gain votes, you'll get more convoys, power and a higher rank. When you're powerful enough, it is possible to become Doge of the council and influence political decisions yourself.
