Deep trading and production economy
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“It plays like an advanced train simulator with midevil themes and a lot more to do.”
Steam review · 1.1 h played ↗
Rise of the Merchants
Worth buying? What 51 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 51 Steam reviews actually say.
Mostly Positive · 75%Mostly Positive · 75%Black Duke Games2026City Builder · Life Sim · Strategy
−20%$24.99$19.99
US Steam price, checked 2 h ago
Early verdict·51 reviews so far·we’ll re-check within 3 days
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The verdict
A slow, addictive medieval trading sim with light MMO elements and active developers, but still rough Early Access with a clunky UI and mandatory online servers. Skip it if you want offline play or lots of content.
Great for
Patient fans of The Guild, Patrician and logistics-heavy economic sims who like a relaxed, think-ahead pace
Main risk
Online-only servers can block you from playing, and the clunky UI and thin content wear thin quickly
What players love
Light multiplayer layer with chat and friends
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“so you can play with friends and help build up each others cities”
Steam review · 8.7 h played ↗
Addictive one-more-turn loop
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“I struggle quitting the game, I tell myself "just one more turn and Ill go to bed" haha.”
Steam review · 10.7 h played ↗
Responsive, active developers
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews
“the developers have already made several updates, mostly based on community requests on Discord, which you don't see that often”
Steam review · 60.8 h played ↗
Relaxing, play at your own pace
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews
“You can totally go on in your own pace, which makes it very relaxing for me.”
Steam review · 32.5 h played ↗
Clean UI and good value for Early Access
Mentioned in ~1 in 10 positive reviews
“The user Interface is extremely clean, a dying art.”
Steam review · 1.1 h played ↗
What players complain about
Online-only, servers often unavailable
Mentioned in ~1 in 2 negative reviews
“Forcing online mode on a single-player game is utterly ridiculous.”
Steam review · 0.1 h played ↗
Clunky UI, slow animations, bugs
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“Convoys randomly add routes to cities and home without asking you, zooming out sometimes zooms in”
Steam review · 8 h played ↗
Thin content, grindy and slow
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“good fun for 10-20 hours and then it's not clear what to do further”
Steam review · 21.1 h played ↗
Poor tutorial and steep start
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“turns end in 10 minutes after 9 turns happyness goes to 0 and your kicked out of town, I failed the intro!”
Steam review · 1.4 h played ↗
Multiplayer feels pointless
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“In three hours I've interacted with zero players.”
Steam review · 3.1 h played ↗
Severe lag and low fps
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews
“even at the menu my fps drops below 10”
Steam review · 0.1 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: UnknownController support6 GB
Minimum
OSWindows 10, Windows 11
ProcessorIntel i5 3470, AMD FX 6350
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce 670 GTX or AMD Radeon R9 285 (2 GB of VRAM, Shader Model 5.0)
Storage6 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 10, Windows 11
ProcessorIntel i5 4690k, AMD Ryzen 5 1400
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce 970 GTX or AMD Radeon RX 480 (4 GB of VRAM, Shader Model 5.1)
Storage6 GB available space
OSWindows 10, Windows 11
ProcessorIntel i5 3470, AMD FX 6350
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce 670 GTX or AMD Radeon R9 285 (2 GB of VRAM, Shader Model 5.0)
Storage6 GB available space
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