Machiavelli: The Prince

Machiavelli was initially received more tepidly by critics. David Cook complained that "Machiavelli quickly becomes a game of doing the same old thing over and over" and that "for a game that touts its historical basis... it just doesn't mine the richness of their period".[1] Jay & Dee gave it 3 of 5 stars.[2] It has subsequently earned praise compared to other turn-based strategy games,[3][4] including by professors of history.[5] By 2009, Troy Goodfellow was enthusing, "Merchant Prince/Machiavelli is one of the very few strategy games that gave you partial information and very few games since have picked up that torch. Fog of war generally applies to enemy troop positions, of course, but map information in strategy games is generally either perfect or perfectly unknown. Exploring is less about moving hesitantly to what you think is there and more about walking boldly into the darkness because you know that the next civilization can't be too close or that no one ever starts more than a few seconds from a gold mine."[6] Home of the Underdogs describes it as "undoubtedly one of the best—if not THE best—medieval strategy games ever released".[7]

Next Generation reviewed the game, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "there's more than enough here to keep strategy fans happy."[8]

• Joystick (French) - Jun, 1995
• PC Gamer - Jul, 1995
• Computer Gaming World - Jul, 1995
• PC Games (Germany) - Jun, 1995
• PC Player (Germany) - May, 1995

• Official page