Port Royale 4 News

• Optional armed merchant convoys added to free game mode.
  
• If armed merchant convoys are enabled, every trading convoy will be guarded by 1 to 2 military vessels (1 to 2 bars in military strength), making early game piracy more challenging but potentially more rewarding. This will also allow the player to fight battles earlier in the game.
  
  
  Enemy convoys will still surrender if you are much stronger than them, allowing you to grab 50% of their transported goods. If the enemy convoy is of equal or superior strength, they will fight you, allowing you to steal up to 100% of their transported goods as well as potentially boarding their military vessels.

1. Selling ships prices adjusted
   Selling costs of ships reduced
   
2. Ship repair costs adjusted
   Costs for repairing military vessels increased
   
3. Using shipyards requires a trading license
   Using a shipyard from another nation now requires a trade license in that town. This will put emphasis on using shipyards associated with your own nation in the beginning of the game
   
4. Fireworks after town was captured
   Added a visual effect to make the “town captured” event more rewarding.
   
5. Firing administrators
   You can now fire warehouse administrators
   
6. Building town buildings without warehouse
   If the option “Warehouse: Mandatory” in free game is chosen, you will be able to build town buildings in your hometown without having to build the warehouse first. Only production buildings will then need the warehouse to be built first
   
7. Price curve changes
   Further increased the price curve to reduce price plateaus during trading
   

1. Fixed: Rare crash related to the pathfinding system
   
2. Fixed: Rare random crash
   
3. Fixed: Arrow hint in tutorial chapter 4
   
4. Fixed: The bell chime now also rings for automatic convoys when they are selected and are arriving in a harbour
   
5. Fixed: Issue related to newly-built ships in New Orleans portraying the Spanish flag, when the city is under French control
   
6. Fixed: Issue that allowed the user to go into debt during a specific trade interaction with self-produced commodities
   
7. Fixed: Issue related to rounding numbers for the cost of produced commodities
   
8. Fixed: Issue related to annexing Cuba
   
9. Fixed: Issue related to filling up a convoy with priority leaving out one barrel of a commodity
   
10. Fixed: Issue related with updating a convoy’s name when leaving a harbour
    
11. Fixed: Debug text for quest rewards
    
12. Fixed: Number of manufactures displayed incorrectly during construction
    
13. Fixed: Being able to rotate the camera while in a menu
    
14. Fixed: Mouseover for unlearned captain skill
    
15. Fixed: Limited number of towns for tasks asking for more towns than we have on the map
    
16. Fixed: Issue when rearranging towns in trade route editing
    
17. Fixed: Rare blocker in tutorial chapter 4 about not having enough production slots
    
18. Fixed: Game speed in tutorial increased from 0.5 to 1

• Introduced a difficulty setting to Free Game allowing you to choose between the current warehouse system (“Optional”) and that found in previous titles (“Mandatory”) in the series. The latter will require you to first build a warehouse before being able to build production buildings.
  
• From now on, to have your warehouse auto-sell goods to a town, you will first need to hire an administrator.
  
• Reduced cost for warehouse upkeep and split this between the warehouse itself and the upkeep for a warehouse administrator.

• Removed trade license requirements for towns belonging to your nation.
  
• Decreased starting funds as you no longer need to buy trade licenses from the start (this should make money feel more valuable).
  
• Tweaked price curves to reduce price plateaus during trading.
  
• Increased the cost of buying ships, making ordering them a viable option again

• Revamped difficulty settings for Free Game, adding a new difficulty screen and making each option much easier to understand.
  
• Added more difficulty-related options such as choosing between the new and the old warehouse systems.
  
• You can now choose between 3 pre-set difficulties or a ‘Custom’ option so to customize the game’s difficulty to your liking.
  As starting difficulties, we recommend ‘I Want A Relaxing Game’ for new players, ‘I Want A Decent Challenge’ for those familiar with trade simulators, and ‘I Am The Ruler of The Seas’ for those wanting to put their skills and trading acumen to the absolute test

• Once hired, you cannot fire an administrator. This function will be added in the next update.
  
• When choosing the ‘Warehouse: Mandatory’ option, you cannot build in your town prior to constructing a warehouse. Please note: this restriction applies only to production buildings.
  
• In Tutorial Chapter 4, the arrow is not currently pointing at the ‘Create New Route’ button due to the button positions being switched.

• Launch the Steam Client
  
• Open your Steam Library and right-click on Port Royale 4
  
• Select 'Properties' and click on the 'Betas' tab
  
• Click on the drop-down list and select 'legacy -'
• Press 'Close'
  
• Wait until all necessary files have been downloaded and start the game

It's been almost a decade since we strategy gamers had a proper Pirates of the Caribbean-style economic simulator to play with. Sure, you've got your Tropicos here and there, but these are banana republic city-builder games. The release of previous Port Royale game -- Port Royale 3 -- happened in 2013. Finally after eight years, Kalypso has deigned to give us a sequel.

Port Royale 4 is a trade and management sim set in the Age of Sail, on a very large map encompassing the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico in the 17th century. The map is dotted with colonies in what are now Mexico, Cuba, the Bahamas, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and the US state of Florida, along with dozens of other smaller countries and islands.

At the time these would have been divided up between the major powers of England, Spain, France, and the Netherlands, and as the player you will play a character from one of these nations. It is your job to set up trade routes in the Caribbean and improve the colonies for the good of Queen/King and country. Or just for yourself.

Read the rest of the story...

• Warehouse: re-worked functionality and system
  
• Early game fun/balancing: AI-trading-convoys will now include armed ships
  
• Difficulty settings: more transparent and refined settings
  
• Money: improved significance and value