The worst thing about Patrician IV was its snotty development team and worthless Community Forums. My experience with those folks at Kalypso Media and Gaming Minds Studio, plus the dweeb Europeans on the forums, really turned me off to that game and its community. However, it remained the best version of a boat-trader for basically all time.

I mention this first because every game that seeks to come after Patrician IV will be compared to it. (Just like other hallmark games like XCOM, CIV, Dark Souls, etc.) So, here is where "High Seas, High Profits!" comes in.

So far, I genuinely like this game. While it currently does not compare to Patrician IV in every way, it definitely has two things going for it: (1) it compares very well to P4 in the most important ways; and (2) I believe that it has the potential to be better than P4.

On that second point, Patrician IV ran out of juice at the very end of its development; and while many Quality of Life (QOL) things coordinated with its awesome city-building (and land routes, to a smaller extent) schematics, it just never did get over the hump with some of its bugs and features.

High Seas, High Profits! (HSHP) seems to be a much more simplified version than P4 though as an obvious homage. From what I can tell so far, HSHP could really add, subtract, and multiply on the the greatest qualities of Patrician IV and make them better. At this time, however, it is not really close; but I see the path ahead, if this developer (Lexy) ever takes all the money he's raking in and does this.

I would recommend that we all play Patrician IV for some hours, write down notes, and then tell Lexy what we want. He can then make them his own thing, but even expand on other good ideas that we can come up with.

Basically, I want more of this game; and I never want to remember Patrician IV again.

Patrician III on steroids. Needs a lot of stuff yet but it's clearly it's spiritual successor