Nevertheless, I think Port Royale 4 manages to blend the historical situation nicely, with my Spanish campaign being mostly about growing the Spanish cities and defending against attacks from the other nations, for example. Being Dutch myself, I would've liked to have started playing as the Netherlands right away, but annoyingly you're required to win a campaign as the Spanish first. Lastly, the dominant power of the time was the Dutch Republic. The French are based around the Louisiana area (named after Louis XIV, after all) and are also looking to eat away at the pie of Spanish territories. England on the other hand is one of the newcomers and will challenge Spanish dominance and their island possessions. They start with most of South and Central America under their control.
The Spanish are the most established power in the region. There are four playable nations in the game, each with four different characters who emphasise either trade, construction or piracy. The accompanying background music is decent enough, too. There are plenty of nice details, such as people walking around in the towns, weather effects, and a day-and-night cycle. The game map looks pretty good in my opinion, with jungles and cosy-looking houses observable on land and a clear difference between bright, shallow waters and the deep seas.
In contrast to earlier games in the series, the campaign map is entirely in 3D and you're able to zoom in and out of your towns and cities in order to construct new buildings. The huge game map spans the entire Caribbean area, including the Gulf of Mexico, delineated by Florida to the North and Venezuela to the Southeast. Most of the time, you're scrolling along the game map to find your cities and ships, looking for a profit. In fact, Gaming Minds Studios refers to it as a trading simulation game.
Micromanaging your trade is, without doubt, the core gameplay element in Port Royale 4. So how do these elements work together, and do I like the end result? As it turned out, Port Royale is a lot more focused on trade than I anticipated, with combat and conquest playing secondary roles in terms of importance. I admit I haven't played the other games in the series, the last of which (Port Royale 3) came out in 2012. The game is set in the Caribbean of the late 16th and 17th centuries, back when the major colonial powers of the time were fighting each other and numerous pirates over control of the lucrative commodities the West Indies had to offer. As a lover of historical and empire building games, I was initially pretty excited about Port Royale 4.
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