New strategy titles

[fable]

I'm reliably informed that Ascaron's Port Royale 2 and Golemlab's Superpower 2 are both due out shortly in the US (and the former is evidently available alreaedy in Scandinavia.) I raved in a review about Ascaron's Patrician III, a tough, open-ended game about building a career as a sea merchant/pirate/Hansa official in the early Renaissance. Port Royale 2 is set somewhat later, and has you working as a merchant or pirate (or any combination of both) in the Caribbean under the flag of one of four Imperialist nations. It also has so many of the wonderful options and fine visuals of the other game.

The original Superpower was a flawed but highly interesting, open-ended and ambitious game that let you play as a power on three fronts in the modern world, against other nations: diplomatic, economic and military. By the look of things, Superpower 2 offers better gameplay, far better graphics, and support for multiplayer.

I can't say whether either game is going to be the kind of thing you'd enjoy, but I expect to get both, myself.