I consider myself that
Merchant Colony (1991, Impressions Games) is an underdog, as I have not found much information on the internet or videos in comparison with other video games from the same age that I also love.
I will go straight to the point of the technical issue I have with it. I have played it in DosBox and it runs much slower that the original game I remember. If I increase the CPU speed, it seems to run just a little faster, but I never gets the original speed. It is so slow that it makes game unplayable.
Some clues about the issue:
1) I remember that this game was slowed down when I was deactivating the Turbo key from my old computer.
2) This game seems to run normally in some screens, for example during naval battles with pirates, or the main menu (that looks like an office). When mouse hoovers the globe (on the left), it starts spinning in normal speed, and it seems to be sensible of the CPU speed variation. However, at the same time, days in calendar on the right draws on very slowly even if we speed up CPU. In the original game, one day was a second, or even less.
3) There are some in-game natural disasters (storms, plagues, etc.) that happen recurrently. However, it seems that this feature is not working as well, and it happens just once (first pirate sighting).
Any hints about if these issues can be solved?
The English version for the DOS game is available to be downloaded from
myabandonware or
gamesnostalgia. Unfortunately, it is not available in Abandonia. :/
"Merchant Colony" is a strategy game set in the 18th century in which you lead an European nation to the colonization of the other continents, by building colonies and trading with natural resources and manufactured products. The other nations colonies and pirates makes your life a bit more complicated. It may sound as the same premise as "Colonization", but this game was released three years before and most important, it was real-time based. I always expected a newer version that improved the original, but it never arrived.
I would appreciate your help to be able to play this game as it was meant!
