This is not a new idea but I suppose that the location has merit as it reminds people of a better game. The basic gameplay loop isn't bad but it is very simplistic. The only thing this game has going for it as a real positive, if you can call it that, is the difficulty. Which is achieved by making the caravan guards really necessary and yet outrageously expensive. You will spend more money on guards than your goods and while your pprfits from trading will be dyynamic (more on that later) the cost of your guards is constant. Banditry isn't a rare occurrence by any means, so you need them. But honestly, they are worse bandits. You have to pay them a fee to hire them. You hae to pay them every 'day', you have to ppay to ugrade them to make them stronger and then you have to pay them more per day. You get nothing back when they die,. The only saving grace is that when you kill bandits, you will sometimes get a piece of gear you can sell. It never covers the cost of your guards, but it hels. I was spending around 2,000 Gr per day on my guards. My wagon could only hold 480 KG of stuff and the average cargo weighs 15-20 kg. You make 5 Gr pprofit on average, so you get about 100 Gr in profit. In the late game, there is finally a cargo that weighs 5kg... the only one. The best profit I ever made on it was 20 Gr / unit, so that is almost enough to pay my guards. WOW! Thanks.
Dynamic Pricing. There is no real hint of the Supply and Demand curve here. Shields could be in such demand today that they will ppay 128 Gr for them. But, if you go get some and come bback the next day, it has suddenly dropped to 75. Goods havve a pprice range but they don't tell you waht it is. Instead, they color code it. If it is green, the greener it is, the better the price is. Unless you haave a color picker and take screenshots to measure the exact hue, green looks green. Red looks red. Most of the timee, all of the goods are green. Unless you want to take pprice notes, you need a really good memory to keep an eye on the best prices. Hoever, if you only bbuy the small handful of products that Weigh 10kkg, liike I did, it's easier to keep track. Why did I do that? Simple. It's the only way to buy a lot of anything. When your profits tend to be in single digits, you need quantity to make any headway.
Events. The same handful of events are recycled over an over. Bandits, Beggars, Falling Rocks, Fallen logs, Ppetty Knights, an an occasional traveler. (I saw it in a video, I never actually ran into them.) Bandits might try to join you. I wouldn't advise it unless you are desperate. Usualy you have to fight them. Petty knighs demand a chunk of your cargo. Ifyou don't gie it to them, they just sieze it all. You cannot fight them. Beggers will often rob you of your purse after you chose to give them money. Rocks and Logs just take time, e.g. cost you money.
This game is a poor rendition of 'This Merchant Life' which is a much better game and more fleshed out. The viisuals of both games are similar but I prefer TML since it is easier to find the towns and you don't need to 'Unlock' towns with leeling. I honestly bought this game because I like merchant games, and it cost about the same as a large fries today. It will frustrate you but it wont break you if you decide to try it out. I still don't advise it.
