1869
for Amiga (OCS/ECS)
Also available for: PC (VGA)

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Mr Creosote:Popular Vote:
3/6
Alternate Titles: 1869: Erlebte Geschichte Teil 1 , 1869: Hart am Wind
Company: Max Design
Year: 1992
Genre: Strategy
Theme: Business / Historical / Multiplayer / Nautical / Logistics
Language: Deutsch, English
Licence: Commercial
Views: 88574
Review by Mr Creosote (2021-11-13)
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The Patrician, covering the Hanseatic League, had just been released out of inland Germany when just few months later, things turned even more absurd when 1869, a game about worldwide maritime trade in the age of imperialism, arrived from provincial Austria. Which you wouldn't have guessed if there weren't these small in-jokes (check the description of Trieste), the game being polished through and through. Hard to believe this was the work of newcomers to the business. Though then, this was of course still the age of the bedroom coder.

1869_02.png
Beautiful ship, but no haggling allowed

You send your ships around the globe on a nicely drawn world map. Or rather, at first, it is just a washed-up little barge. You transport goods from port to port, hoping to sell them for a profit elsewhere. Though the naive baseline to just look for a higher selling than buying price is obviously not sufficient, as running costs for crew, taxes, repairs etc. have to be considered. As common since those times, there is no deeper purpose to any of this. In purely capitalist fashion the player who earns most money within the pre-set timeframe (5 - 25 years) wins.

The choice of historical period is rather smart. True worldwide trade was only just emerging at the time. It was an age of large-scale commercially motivated wars - the American civil war, the opium wars - but also of industrial revolution, like the eponymous opening of the Suez Canal or the gradual triumph of steam ships. The game simulates this highly volatile world meticulously through a set of predefined events.

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100 bags of silk, please

Attractive graphics and menus in multiple choice adventure style make for an inviting first impression. Only the controls can become a bit cumbersome in place. Sending out a ship, for example, requires an unintuitive sequence of left and right mouse clicks, and keeping an overview over the balance sheets with all their various options isn't exactly trivial, either. At least it works well enough once routine has set in.

The very high difficulty level, on the other hand, is much harder to stomach on the long run. Running a profitable business is unfortunately not just a matter of intensive study, planning and talent. On top, you are expected to perform quite some busywork, diligently noting down price sheets of all ports. Though even after that, you will at some point realize that profit margin on regular trade routes are simply too small. Under otherwise perfect conditions, they are just enough to cover running costs.

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Might as well give up now

The only thing really giving a major injection to the company account is taking on special missions or reacting to global events. Shipping weapons to crisis regions yields high profits if you can sneak past the warships. Tea deliveries to London are almost as profitable, but (particularly before existence of the Suez Canal) the distance from India is large and the goods are highly perishable. Everything promising real profits is also highly risky.

Which makes a lot of sense, but in-game implementation is hardly adequate. War blockades are completely out of the player's control - they are a pure game of chance. Wind and current maps to optimize travel times have been packed into the box at least. On top of that, different quality crews can be hired, the captains can be given orders how to treat the sailors. Looks like sufficient room to influence travel time, right? In theory, yes. It's just that the effect of such settings isn't comprehensible, which makes the over-abundance of detailed options and combinations of each even more absurd.

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A history book will tell you when this war will end

On top of this, as volatile the world state may appear to be at first, it is really just statically plannable, fixed events. A real simulation of the world is not part of the game. Writing down all prices asked and paid per port is only useful, because they are static throughout. You may think delivering large amounts of the same wares should decrease their price over time in this port, but no, the only effect is that trade will be temporarily stopped completely. Just to be taken up again at the old price few days later.

A high difficulty level is not by itself a cause for complaint. in case of 1869, however, it is all for the wrong reasons. The basic world settings are too fierce and random bad luck strikes too severely. The breadth of actually relevant, strategic planning decisions made by the player is – hidden behind a smoke screen – paper thin. 1869 is a game which offers a lot of beautiful tapestry, but it fails at its own gameplay-relevant core.

Archived Review(s) ↓

Review by Mr Creosote (2005-11-06)
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In late 1992, two trading simulations were competing for the (German / European) market: Der Patrizier (also know as The Patrician abroad) and 1869. The latter came a little later (wow...) and it was generally considered the loser in this direct duel by the press. Only by a small margin, though - a very good second place.

Shortly thereafter, the game sailed into my home. It needed 1MB RAM which my Amiga wasn't equipped with at that time, but just a few more days later, I was finally able try myself at making a fortune in the historic period of imperialism. Ok, first steps: buy a used ship, hire a crew, buy some cheap goods, sail to another port of the world and sell the stuff there for (hopefully) more money. Sounds easy enough. Half an hour later, I was broke and the game was over.

Ok, he was younger then, and it was his first try, you're thinking. Problem is, every single try went like this. Including the one right before writing this review. Because the game is just too damn hard. Impossibly hard.

What you basically get is pretty standard fare: Each port has cheap surplus goods as well as the ones they need and will pay high sums for. Everything else, they'll still buy, but only for very low prices. Problem is, the profit margins are so small in almost all cases that they're hardly enough to pay for the crew and keeping the ship in one piece.

Special 'missions' promise to come to the rescue. London is in desperate need for tea? Sail to China or India and get back before the goods get stale. Odessa is under siege? Deliver weapons and get rich. Or have your only ship fall into the hands of the military which was blocking the port.

So, the normal trading routes aren't profitable enough and the special ones are risky or take a very long time. Not a big chance for success (blatant understatment).

All that is very sad, because not everything about the game is bad. The graphics are excellent. All the locations of each port are shown in Adventure style, accompanied by fitting multiple choice menus. A very nice touch.

The same can't be said about the rest of the controls, unfortunately. On the world map, where you control your ships and enter ports, the required clicking procedures are totally unintuitive. Right-clicking on the ship, left-clicking on the port.... whatever?

With the economic model being pretty much impossible to master, it's very unfortunate that 1869 concentrates fully on it. There's no other sideline the player can concentrate on, like the poltical branch in Der Patrizier or Die Fugger 2. So the player is doomed to fail on the trading, with no distration of a more interesting nature.

Question: What made the professional reviewers give out such good ratings in 1992? Status: Unresolved.

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PeterGraves:
Hello, big fan of the site. Keep up the good works!
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