I need to play some economic strategy

[Havoc]

Yea... Recommend me some. What I'm looking for: not combat oriented, but can be TB or RTS, economic in sense resource gathering and spending. What I mean... I don't want to play Imperialism, but a game similiar to Knights and Merchants. Where you build up your empire/town. I want to manage a city/empire but not like Caesar or Pharaoh.

 

[torpid]

Patrician III. It's on GOG.

 

[Havoc]

No Patrician and Port Royale or whatever. I'm not into sea merchants.

 

[poocolator]

I guess you could go for Capitalism II, if you can find it.

Also, if you're not averse to transport, you can try (the free) OpenTTD (Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe):
http://www.openttd.org/en/
It has an active community, multiplayer, and is regularly upgraded.

And, an old gem that received no attention when it was released, involving merchants (not necessarily sea merchants) would be:
Trade Empires -- http://pc.ign.com/objects/016/016269.html
Once again, if you can find it.

There's buttloads of old DOS games floating around on abandonware/torrent sites. All you need is the latest version of DOSBox. Some of the older games are still the best.

 

[Havoc]

Capitalism 1 is better. Played both.
OpenTTD also played.
Trade Empires too.
Not wanting to play anyone of them... got something else?

 

[Malakal]

Industry Giant series I guess. Limiting those games to non naval ones greatly decreases possible choices.

 

[Havoc]

Played Industry Giant 1... 2 didn't work for me.

 

[poocolator]

I've played Detroit
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/270/Detroit.html

and Free Enterprise
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/538/F ... prise.html

and if you like stock market trading:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/1036/ ... ation.html

All free for download at the sites linked to.

Conquest of the new World allows you to found a nation in the new world. It's not necessarily strictily an economic simulator, but managing town layout to maximize resource collection/production is key.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/con ... index.html

That's it for now for DOS games.

Have you played the Railroad Tycoon games?

EDIT:
Ah, yes. Merchant Prince.

EDIT 2:
And The Corporate Machine, which I played a while back.
http://pc.ign.com/objects/016/016858.html

 

[Eyeball]

Europa 1400 - a medieval life simulator allowing you to operate a large variety of different businesses and take on different roles, from stonecutter to carpenter to priest to thief to moneylender.

The Corporate Machine - real-time business simulator about running a large company focusing on one specific type of product and then crushing your competitors by price dumping and sabotage carried out by playing specific "cards", provided you have the resources to play them. Good fun.

Colonization - Better game than Civ, in my opinion.

Imperialism - It's one of the best games in history, play it some more.

 

[poocolator]

Europa 1400 - a medieval life simulator allowing you to operate a large variety of different businesses and take on different roles, from stonecutter to carpenter to priest to thief to moneylender.

AKA
The Guild, right?
I recommend this one highly. Don't play The Guild 2, just go straight for The
Guild. It was more fun.

And while we're at it: have you tried Anno 1602?
http://anno.uk.ubi.com/pc/history1602.php
It's a settlement-building game, not exclusively maritime trade.

 

[Epsilon]

I always liked Motor City
When facing economic ruin it had the proper way out for true bros.

 

[Havoc]

Detroid - a car empire game? Nah.
Free Enterprise - Looks good. Dunno thou.
Rags to Riches - Not into.
Conquest of the new World - Played... I don't think if it will work on Win7 64bit.
Railroad Tycoon - Yes. I think all of them.
Merchant Prince - Sea Merchant. Not my kind of cake.
The Corporate Machine - Looks good too. When I will feel a need to play some capitalist game... I think I will pick this up.
Europa 1400 - AKA Guild 1? Played Guild 2... mixed feelings. On one side it was good... on the other it was kinda boring. Will try Guild 1.
Colonization - Heard... never played. How diffrent is it from Civ?
Imperialism - Yes, it is... but I don't want to try Pippin now.
Anno - played every one. 1602 is my fav, 1404 is second. 1701 and 1503 were a joke.

What I found:
Fragile Alliance - http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/24546 ... iance.html
Played a demo long ago... Dunno if it will work. Any opinions?

War Diary - http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/24066/War+Diary.html
Like Fragile.

Jurassic War - http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/27890 ... c+War.html
Didn't play... wut is this?

Diggers 2 - http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/23844 ... ctors.html
What is this? O.o

Reunion - http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/150/Reunion.html
Never got to Earth... I will try this again. Wonder if it will work...

Powermonger - http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/444/Powermonger.html
Had the original... doubt it will work.

Realms - http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/618/Realms.html
Dunno.

Any opinions on those games?

 

[poocolator]

I always liked Motor City
When facing economic ruin it had the proper way out for true bros.

Hahaha, yes. I remember this. Good stuff.

 

[Frau Bishop]

SimIsle?

One of Maxis' "sim" series games from 1995, released for DOS and Windows 95, although their involvement was only as a publisher. The developers were a company called Intelligent Games and it was merely branded "sim" on publication.

It's also possibly one of the most morally dubious games I ever played . In it, you are the head of a subsidiary of a multinational corporation, named the Porpoise PanGlobal Corporation, and you are presented with a virgin, untouched tropical island somewhere in South East Asia (ecologically it is based on Malaya according to the manual), inhabited by grass-skirted natives who have contact with outsiders once in a century or something like that. You have a bank account, full of ECUs, or Ecological Currency Units, and a number of agents who have different skills like Construction, Exploration, Flora & Forestry, Industrial, Negotiation, Employment, and similar. You can either play with pre-set objectives, or just play free-form.

Are you seeing where this is going yet?

So okay, if you fancy, or if you're a hippie, you can leave it as is, allowing limited numbers of sustainable eco-tourists to the island and exploring the jungle and discovering rare and endangered species and putting them in game preserves so that they don't die out, and setting up nice, wholesome co-operatives with the natives to export organic fairtrade produce. Sounds all nice, right?

Trouble is, if you do this, unless you're very skilled, or very very lucky, you'll probably go bankrupt. So on your next attempt, you'll build beach hotels and vulgar amusement parks, and open the natives' sacred burial caves to the tramping of endless tourists, and cut down the pristine jungle habitats of the monkey faced disco hawk or whatever rare animal you would have discovered to export as hardwood tables and/or to build big heavy industrial plants, and mine for coal (of which there is an inexhaustible supply conveniently under the darkest, lushest rainforest) to fuel coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on in the city that's just gone up to house all the folks who work in these heavy industrial concerns. And as you do this the soundtrack changes, slowly, but inexorably, from this light, tinkly new age stuff with whalesong and forest noises and bird calls to this furious, grinding industrial metal, and then the fun really starts.
...

 

[Havoc]

Rainforest one? Yea, played it too.

 

[Quilty]

I guess one could fit Tropico in the category you mentioned. Really lovely game, though not too complex when it comes to economy.

 

[DakaSha]

Ive played fragile alliegience.
I actually remember it as being a great game that was extremely hard with some flaws
Of course that was back when I smoked 4 grams of hash a night
It has some cool mechanics regardless. You could give it a try

edit: it isnt purely economical though. It's kinda like a 4x

 

[chzr]

if colonization was mentioned... vicky 2?

 

[Lyesmith]

Maybe Cultures.

I only played second one a bit, and really can't recall is it any good.
It feels a lot as Settlers (obviously from screen).

 

[Heechee]

Fragile Alliance - Played a demo long ago... Dunno if it will work. Any opinions?

If I remember correctly, the combat element was quite strong and couldn't be avoided eventually.

 

[Malakal]

Damn, so many good recommendations here, maybe I'll try some myself...

 

[Havoc]

Played Tropico, Cultures 2. Victoria, Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis... those "Risk" games... aren't my type of game. But maybe I'm wrong... how is resource gathering and stuff in Victoria 2? Or it's all made into one resource? Gold/Money?

I will come back to Cultures. Didn't play 1. Right now I'm checking Northland and Wonder... sequels to Cultures 2. Wonder if they changed something.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It sounds like economic simulation games aren't your type of game. At least, the best ones aren't...

 

[Havoc]

Dunno... I liked very much Capitalism.

 

[poocolator]

How does Cultures/Cultures 2 compare to Settlers? I may be interested; have lots of experience with Settlers games.