Merchant Colony - Impressions RRP œ29.99
         (Strategy/simulation for PC, ST and Amiga)

My first thought when I read the manual of Merchant Colony was
'ah, Railroad Tycoon on water'. In it you take the part of a
merchant in the 1700s and must establish a fleet of ships which
you then sail all over the world, establishing colonies which will
produce goods which you can sell elsewhere, building up your
colonies and watching them thrive and, hopefully, making a profit
into the bargain.

Starting from your home port of Liverpool, you must first buy a
ship. There's a choice of three, each with different capabilities
for seeing off the pirates who inhabit the oceans you must cross,
and each carrying different amounts of cargo. Thus a frigate is
fastest in the water and best at fighting pirates but has the
smallest hold whereas a cargo ship, not surprisingly, carries the
largest cargo but is pretty useless in combat.  Searchers come in
between.

Next the ship must be equipped. Initially you won't be carrying
goods, just men (sexist!) to start your first colony. These can be
recruited from various trades. There are soldiers to protect the
colonies against native uprisings and the like, settlers who farm
the area, workers who build factories, explorers for mining,
teachers to educate the natives and make them less likely to
attack you, engineers for bridge-building, storemen to construct
warehouses for storing excess goods which would otherwise be
dumped. These different men are represented by chunky figure icons
in appropriate clothing and can be hired using a book in your
office, the command centre for your operations. Frigates hold only
4 men but cargo ships can hold as many as 16.

Once your human cargo is on board, you can set sail to whatever
part of the world takes your fancy. Certain areas are already
settled by foreign powers. Others just have a landing site, shown
as a coloured dot on the coastline in the ST version.  Planning
your route takes three mouse-clicks across a map of the world, so
you can avoid pirate ships if they are visible. Once you've
reached your destination, some fine-tuning is necessary to get the
ship to dock. Again, this is done using the mouse, as is all the
game.

Land ho! The site chosen and your ship berthed in the harbour (who
built it, I wonder?) you can unload your men. This is where the
first real example of the crudity of the graphics shows up. As
your men hit dry land, these large people-shaped icons start
tramping about the area, looking for a suitable site to put down
roots. Once they find a place they fancy, they stand still and if
you click on them, they'll be transformed into the appropriate
building (fort, warehouse etc) and start to produce goods to
export (rugs, sugar, cigars or whatever, depending on the area
you've picked and its natural resources).

The next step is trading. You have to find a market for the
commodities and manufactured goods where you can sell them for a
healthy profit (or even a meagre one, which is often the best I
can do in such games). Trading must be done at foreign ports and
if you click on these, their buy/sell prices will be displayed.
Load up your ship, set sail as before and pray that pirates, or
more natural hazards such as waterspouts, don't get you en route.
If you should encounter a sinister black ship heading towards you,
you might be able to get away. More likely you'll enter a combat
screen and the outcome can be decided by the computer if you don't
trust your own skill with the cannon.

Battles can also be fought on land if you feel belligerent enough
to attack either a neighbouring settlement or the natives. Or you
might be called upon to defend your own property if the natives
get restless.

In your office you have access to a financial advisor who will
tell you which goods you should be concentrating on at that time.
You can also call up a world prices report to see the best places
to buy and sell. Obviously there are many factors to consider when
trading, the state of the economy and whether or not the item
concerned can be produced at the port you're aiming to sell at.
Clearly you'll get better prices if goods can't be produced
locally.

Various other reports are available in your office, annual
accounts, reports on sales, overheads, assets and stock. If you
want to expand, you can borrow money from the bank if you don't
mind paying their interest charges!

After spending a considerable time on Merchant Colony, my final
thought when switching off the computer for the last time was that
if I'd seen this game before Railroad Tycoon I probably would have
been quite impressed by it. But Sid Meier's games are now the
standard by which all others must be measured and Merchant Colony
comes off poorly. It's partly the poor controls, partly the
uninspiring graphics (even though Railroad Tycoon doesn't exactly
have the most awe-inspiring display) but mostly it's the sheer
lack of realism. I go back and back to Railroad Tycoon and each
game is fresh and different. Merchant Colony just gets tediously
predictable.
                                       Sue