Can you recommend a good trading strategy game?

Didn't they devolve into RTS ?

Yes, but I'm not that sure for the Settlers II Remake, and for the Settlers 6 I can't say that much as well - only played the demo.

But for the earlier Settlers, maybe.

Cultures would be a good game imho as well - It has definitively a Settlers feeling in/on it, but plays a little bit more different ... The enhancements are in the details, and it isn't that RTS-like than the later Settlers. Fans call it "the better Settlers".

In its style it is like the Settlers until 5. The Settlers 5 were quite a break from the former games, much, much more RTS, and a different art style.

When I played The Settlers 5 parallel to Spellforce, at one point I didn't find any difference anymore between both in terms of game mechanics. That depressed me, and I uninstalled both immedeately. Because I'm rather a fan of the gameplay of the Settlers 1-2 - and of course of the Cultures.

To my shame I cannot say a single thing about the Settlers 4, since I've never played them.

Settlers 3 is already an departure from the Settlers 2, already into the direction of RTS. This results in the absolutely horrible thing that in solo play you always have the writing "You have won! above the screen, because the developers seemingly developed The Settlers 3 never with real soo play in mind. Atr least that's my very personal opinion.

Playing The Settlers 3 in solo mode alwys with that writing "You have won !" above just sucks. To me. And I haven't found any way to make it go away. And I never understood why no-one was complaining of that either.
 
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The Settlers 2 remake plus add-on is supposed to be very good, although several reviewers added that it's a bit low on content compared to modern standards. Still, 30 hours quality gaming for a few bucks is certainly a good offer.

The Cultures series, by the same guys who made both Settlers 2 games, was indeed often refered to as the better Settlers. Especially the last parts of the series - 8th Wonder of the World, etc - have nearly perfected that gameplay stlye, said many reviewers.

I can't say how much of this is true though. Not the kind of games I play.
 
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East India Company seems to be a RTS with strong trading elements (focusing on trade between Europe and India/Africa/Indonesia from what I can tell). I havent played it myself, but a playable demo can be found over at Gamersgate.
 
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Well, I don't remember having seen this game here yet.

At least it didn't get enough "hype" to reach my attention.
 
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It's in that kind of situation that it is good to have a playable demo to figure out what the game is about, I've gotten a few games that otherwise would have slipped under my radar due to interesting demos (Imperialism, Conquest of the New World, Demise and some others).:)

Many of the Gamersgate titles are borderline obscure and wont reach shops outside their home market, if even there... It's for instance the only place where I've found Evil Islands.
 
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It's in that kind of situation that it is good to have a playable demo to figure out what the game is about, I've gotten a few games that otherwise would have slipped under my radar due to interesting demos (Imperialism, Conquest of the New World, Demise and some others).:)

Many of the Gamersgate titles are borderline obscure and wont reach shops outside their home market, if even there... It's for instance the only place where I've found Evil Islands.

That's like Drakensang for me. I took one look at the screens and wrote it off because I wouldn't have thought my machine would run it. But I had a look at the demo and it turned out to be really good. I wouldn't have bought it if not for that. That's why it amazes me some games get released without one.
 
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I ended up getting X2 and Mount and Blade, they were both really cheap. I haven't looked at X2 yet as I'm waiting for my joystick, but Mount and Blade is terrific so far. Some of the graphics are quite ugly and put me off when I played the demo months ago but I found if you just play it for a few days you don't notice (though I still don't like my face). I'm doing a lot of trading at the moment but I don't know how long that will stay fun. But I'm not sure what to do after that.
 
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Make sure you get the final official patch for X2. It includes several extremely useful user-made mods that were QA-checked and packaged in the patch by Egosoft. I hope you'll enjoy the game once you get to it.
 
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Hmmm, I wonder if you're selling your PC short, Human_Male. Oblivion was a pretty demanding game and, honestly, graphics haven't advanced very much since then. Plus there are always those "low graphics settings" options.

You definitely don't need a joystick for the X games. I plugged mine in, got it working, used it once, then left it off to the side for weeks until I finally unplugged it and put it back into the closet to collect more dust.
 
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That's like Drakensang for me. I took one look at the screens and wrote it off because I wouldn't have thought my machine would run it. But I had a look at the demo and it turned out to be really good. I wouldn't have bought it if not for that. That's why it amazes me some games get released without one.


What are the specs for your current PC?
 
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You definitely don't need a joystick for the X games. I plugged mine in, got it working, used it once, then left it off to the side for weeks until I finally unplugged it and put it back into the closet to collect more dust.

Why is that? Does the game not handle joysticks very well? You dogfight and stuff don't you? I would have thought a joystick was more fun even if you don't actually need one.

The one I'm getting is a Saitek Flighstick that's compatible with both PC and 360. I don't do much PC gaming these days so being able to use it on the 360 is excellent. Plus it looks cool.
 
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Make sure you get the final official patch for X2. It includes several extremely useful user-made mods that were QA-checked and packaged in the patch by Egosoft. I hope you'll enjoy the game once you get to it.

Thank you.

Is the final 1.4 or do you need 1.5? I'm not sure if 1.5 is the final or you only need that if you want to use the UPLINK feature to export your game statistics.

And what about the Artificial Life update? Do you need that if you update to 1.5? Assuming you should update to 1.5.

http://www.egosoft.com/download/x2/patches_en.php

My games 1.2.
 
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That's like Drakensang for me. I took one look at the screens and wrote it off because I wouldn't have thought my machine would run it. But I had a look at the demo and it turned out to be really good. I wouldn't have bought it if not for that. That's why it amazes me some games get released without one.

Drakensang was especially designed - or so I understood it - to also run on weaker machines.

It even supports Windows 98 !
As far as I know.
 
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Thank you.

Is the final 1.4 or do you need 1.5? I'm not sure if 1.5 is the final or you only need that if you want to use the UPLINK feature to export your game statistics.

And what about the Artificial Life update? Do you need that if you update to 1.5? Assuming you should update to 1.5.

http://www.egosoft.com/download/x2/patches_en.php

My games 1.2.
I'll confirm when I get home, but I believe you want to get to 1.4 to get the official mod bundle. I don't remember needing v1.5. With the computer I was using for most of my time with X2 (Athlon XP1700, GF3, 1G RAM), the artificial life mod would have caused my rig to chug even worse once my "empire" really got going, so I didn't use it. If you want to play as a villain, having all those extra ships running around to capture would be nice, but I found that the pirates, Xenon, and Khaak provided enough victims for my taste.
 
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