Trade Empires is a PC game developed by Frog City Software

Frog City Software

Frog City Software was a computer game developing company which focused on strategy games, opened in 1995. Frog City Software was a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive until they closed it in 2006....

 in San Francisco and published by Eidos Interactive

Eidos Interactive

Eidos Interactive Ltd. is a British video game publisher and is a label of Square Enix Europe. As an independent company Eidos plc was headquartered in the Wimbledon Bridge House in Wimbledon, London Borough of Merton....

. During development its working title was The Silk Road; however, this was changed by Eidos Interactive as they were concerned about the title being too highbrow

Highbrow

Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, highbrow is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The word draws its metonymy from the pseudoscience of phrenology, and was originally simply a physical descriptor...

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Trade Empires is a pausable real-time strategy game about building a merchant empire. Gamers build vast transport and trade networks that change over thousands of years as new technologies are developed and more modern products are discovered. The rules of the game are simple; the variety comes in through the discovery of new products to trade and new ways to transport those products.

Gameplay

• Play the first trading and transporting simulation to emphasize the effects of technological change over thousands of years on the relatively simple model of producing and delivering commodities to make more money than the competition.
• Start out simple, with one merchant and his donkeys. Gradually build up your merchant empire until you control a vast trading web.
• Manipulate the supply and demand economy to dominate the other merchant families. Corner the market. Undercut their prices.
• Explore and Exploit: Continually discover new markets and products, from silk in the Far East to steel in industrial Europe.
• Adapt your family's trading network to an ever-changing economy or instead face defeat when your competitors purchase advanced technology and deliver superior products.
• Span the centuries and the world, in regions from Ancient Sumeria to 19th century Europe.
• Build vast transportation networks, using anything from dirt trails to railroads.
• Compete against other merchant families who are powered by a clever artificial intelligence that plays by the same rules you do.
• Rendered units and buildings on a 3D map.
• More than 200 structures and 30 units in 15 different episodes.

Campaigns

The game features 19 campaign scenarios based on historical trading periods in human history. A step-by-step walkthrough is playable by users on the Learn to Play mode for the Shang Dynasty

Shang Dynasty

The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

 of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 (1700-1100 BC). The game imitates the historical period through the supply and demand process of that time. Goods such as rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

, millet

Millet

The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...

, silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

 cloth and jade idols

Chinese jade

Chinese jade is any of the carved-jade objects produced in China from the Neolithic Period onward. The Chinese regarded carved-jade objects as intrinsically valuable...

 are traded during the campaign. The Tang

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

 & Song

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

 Era (AD 615-1280) of China is also depicted, although not as a Learn to Play option.

Other Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n trading periods include First Civilization (2500-2310 BC); based around the regions of the Indus Valley, Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, Zagros

Zagros Mountains

The Zagros Mountains are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq. With a total length of 1,500 km , from northwestern Iran, and roughly correlating with Iran's western border, the Zagros range spans the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian plateau and ends at the Strait of...

, Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

 and Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...

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