Machiavelli the Prince is a game that takes place in Eurasia in the year 1300. The character that you will be playing is part of the head of merchant trading family in Venice. You are competing with three other Venetian trading families with a range of methods. The game's main focus is on trading and skullduggery. The main object of the game is to end with more money than any of your rivals.
At the beginning of the game, you will begin with a certain amount of resources and a map of the known world.
The map is somewhat accurate until you begin to travel further away from Venice. To begin, your first task will be to start exploring, finding other cities and begin trading with them. When you locate a city that supplies an item less than it would cost somewhere else, you will want to purchase a ship or caravan to start a trade route between the two cities. Once you get a larger network of trade routes your income will assist in expanding your commercial empire and engage in politics. You will have a selection of several different ways for transporting your goods. Two are land and four are water transportation.
The politics are quite simple, but can be very important. You will
want to bribe one or more of the ten-member Senate so that when the next upcoming Doge is elected you will be given a government post. The best one to receive would be the Council head because you will be capable of having senators executed, allowing it to be easier to dominate the Senate and become the Doge. There will be a popularity rating for each family in the Venetian public. When you take over a city and open it to trade with Venice you will receive large popularity points. When you have a low popularity it may make things a little more difficult for you.
The game can be played either single player or multiplayer with a turn based strategy. The game has been done similar to other tile map based strategy games, but has a featured high-resolution graphics, which were a change from the normal format. There was little animation other than the objects moving on the map. No matter how little animation that has been put into this game it does have a solid strategic game play that will be enjoyable to most. If you enjoy strategic simulation games you will want to try this one.
