How does the words trade simulator make you feel? If that right there doesn't get your interest then it's time to move on because the game we're looking at here is aimed squarely at those who have an interest in this sort of thing. Gaming Minds, a group of German developers who are ex-Ascaron employees, are hoping to pull people into a rather unique gaming experience with this title.

Your first glance at this game might lead you to think that it's an RTS but it really, really isn't. What you're looking at is more of a historical based game, set in the middle ages of northern Europe. Here an association of various towns and traders created what is, debatably, the basis for global trade. So what you've got here is an incredibly in depth experience that appears to have been slaved over by the developers.

This entire game is based around simulating an economy and all of the various dangers that it entails. Something as simple as a fire can cause serious upheaval for your entire operation. If that's not bad enough pirates can plague your trade routes, ruining your hard work, until you send out people to purge their hideouts. Even then they will tend to spring up like weeds requiring you to be constantly on alert for them.

Prices are based on the same things they would be based on in the real world. In cities where things are produced you can buy them cheap and sell them to far off places where the demand is higher and thus have a higher value attached. Thus you're going to need to get workers trained, start shipping things around and get production up and running. In addition you need to balance the consumption of your goods and how they're shipped out to keep value up while keeping your own workers happy.

All of this makes the game very hard to master but yet very easy to play. Gamers everywhere can get their hands on the game September of this year.