Carribean equivalent of the Patrician series, but with its own specific flavor and attractiveness.
Patrician players will find this game intuitively similar.
1a.Trading plays a large part in this game and the same mechanics apply. You buy cheap, sell expensive... pocket the profit and reinvest it in either more goods for trading or a ship. Goods vary from your everyday basic goods like iron, wheat, corn, meat, cloth and such... to exotic goods that were of high value from the new continent, like sugar, tabacco, coffee.. you name it. There is a much greater variety of goods to trade then there is in the patrician series... so this is a +
1b. Trading is done through cities. You go in a city and buy/sell what you have in stock. Here is however, where it gets very simple. Each city comes in 3 categories, in order of importance: viceroy city, governor city and colonial city. Every city is proficient in producing 5 goods and pretty much requires you to provide the rest. This means that you can turn a profit very easily through trading. Cities produce most of the goods in accordance to their regional position. So if you go on the coast of N. america/mexico you will find dyes and coffee which are needed in cities that occupy modern day cuba, haiti and the other islands... from where you are surely to buy sugar and iron and tabacco which you can sell in the cities from N. America and mexico. About 10h into the game, if you are very good at exploring, you will make up 2-3 trade routes that will take you 2-3months in game time and each will give you over 50-60k gold with your initial trading ship.
On one free game I managed to make the first 2 ranks and over 100k gold in one go. Which leads me to my 2nd point:
2. Ranks and status... just like in a patrician, you "level up" if you have certain requirements fulfilled. Gold, ships, standing with nations... leveling up means you get perks like buying better ships, meeting viceroys and governors and taking on missions from the tavern.
3. Ships: Ships come in various size and battle power. Here is where it is very simple for you to become one of the strongest fleets in the game. Every convoy can have numerous amounts of ships (for cargo) but only 3 ships can actually do battle at any given time. So this means that if you have 3 of the strongest ships, fully armed with men and crew (this will cost you hundred of thousand of gold and have a good rep with factions) you will be unbeatable... since the combat AI is fairly mediocre.
4. Factions: 4 factions... Spain, France, England and the Netherlands. They play a part only if you want to side with one... and by the time that you do... well... you usually have a lot of gold in your pocket and a pretty large fleet. This is however required, from what I've seen, if you want to have access to the strongest ships. You can also raid convoys, take cities... if you do these things on your own, you become a pirate... if you do then in the name of France, you become a hero.
5. It was implied that you can marry... though I haven't encountered this event thus far except for the trade campaign/tutorial which I recommend you undergo if you are a noob.
6. The World Map: Is bloody gorgeous. I like the art, I like the cities and everything. There is also a nice feature of exploring. When you start a game you only know the cities in your staring area. You need to explore the rest... I haven't played prev. Port Royale games but I have played Sid Meier's Pirates and finding the cities was quite easy because I knew relatively where they were.
7. Becoming really wealthy and important: You need more than trading for this. You can buy lands, properties (houses to rent or factories), invest in the city, help the Church, whatever. This, coupled with trading of needed supplies, increases your standing with a city. It is said that you can have a peaceful takeover of a city, I imagine by being voted into office. But if you want to be a free man with no allegiance your best chance is to take the city by force.
All in all I recommend this game. I give it an 8 because its core mechanics, trading and fighting, are very simple but I don't drop it lower because of the way it is done, the mechanics, the complexity and the overall enjoyable experience it provides.