Patrician 3 offers the attention to detail that I find charming and the game play I find no where else.
Graphics are outdated but it is a pretty old game, however the game play is unlike anything else, and in a good way. You are a trader in the Hanseatic League, an association of free cities in feudal Europe who are supported, owned, and ran by traders like yourself. You start out in one of the twelve Hanse Towns as nothing more than a mere shopkeeper with a ship, a few men aboard said ship, hardly any notoriety with your home town, a small fund of beginning Cash, and ambitions that reach the sky. First order of business, increase your standing with your home town and make a good amount of money to lay down framework for your trading empire. Simply support the needs of your Home towns citizens by buying what they need at towns that make the good for cheap prices, and selling them in your home town for a profit and a little more respect from your fellow man. Of course you can buy goods produced in your home town and sell that in other towns for the sake of money, for as the worlds first capitalists you Hanseatic traders already know the simple equation of Money=power. Through this trading you gain knowledge of successful trading patterns for your ships as well as respect with the towns you are buying and selling with, perhaps even gaining enough respect to gain permission to build a trading office in their towns vicinity, allowing a whole new range of business opportunities for you, not to mention the invaluable ability to trade with the town without your ships present allowing you to buy at the most opportune times.
Gaining a substantial amount of cash and new standing in your hometown will help you, but in order to truly be successful you will need creativity. Joining merchant guilds, searching the taverns across the land for captains, hiring administrators for your offices, and constructing businesses in your office-towns to allow you to sell goods at production price rather than retail price are only a few of the things you will need to do to be successful, all while increasing your funds and standings, eventually gaining rank of councilman in your hometown and getting some real power!
As a councilman you can propose things like improving town defenses, expanding town walls for more protected space and such, as well as influence the decisions of both your town council and the Hanseatic league, which has its capital based in Cologne, a wise place to build an office to always be there for a vote on things such as boycotts. After becoming a truly enigmatic figure in your hometown you may run for lord mayor of your free city and getting to manage town defenses directly, as well as beginning to run things for the League, like founding new towns, forming pirate hunting convoys and so on. And then there is the prince.....
The princes are fat, stupid lords who rule through blood and brutality. They sit upon their regal thrones and grow jealous as your cities prosper; and they, as well as bandits, will attempt to besiege the free cities of the Hanse. Unlike the brigands however Princes can be dealt with, differently. As a councilman you can begin dealing with these lords and should for the well being of your town. Keep them happy with cheap[ goods and substantial trading and they will stay their personal armies.
Then you may become a patrician, and eventually the Alderman of the Hanseatic League. But even there it doesn't end, as new option open up for you. The fact is that this game has such depth and attention to detail that it would be ridiculous to try and cover it all. Things like handling sieges, suitors, underworld dealings, escorts, sea battles, Mediterranean trading posts, land routes, production facilities, housing, and so on are all things you'll need to deal with. This game is a medieval climb up the corporate ladder, and even at the top you'll find more to do. I did leave one thing for the end though, probably one of the most useful (and fun) things in the game, piracy, but you'll have to buy the game to lean about that.
All in all I found this game to be of a quality you'll rarely find anywhere else. This is the best business game to ever be made in my honest opinion, and continues to provide me with quality entertainment to this day.