Let Them Trade, Nice Try But Just Too Short

I believe that fans of board games will need only one glance at this game to associate it with Catan - a game in which you trade various natural resources with your (un)friends to grow your city and influence. The similarities with this concept in Let Them Trade are numerous: the world is divided into hexagonal territories representing specific biomes, from standard ones (forest, desert, fertile soil...) to special ones (iron ore, coal, gold...). 

One city won't have all the resources at its disposal unless it's abnormally well-positioned, so it's inevitable and necessary to establish trade with others. You can even see that the whole world fits on a table in someone's home, with the box of the fictional board game Let Them Trade sitting on a chair next to it.

In the mood for something completely different? Check out our Patapon 1+2 replay review!

The Basics of Trade and Settlement Growth in Let Them Trade

But enough comparisons to a board game you may not have played. This is a management-strategy video game about establishing functional trade between cities in your fictional medieval European kingdom. 

Through the campaign (which serves as a tutorial), you'll work for a lazy and fat king whose kingdom needs to be brought in order. You'll start with a castle as the central building and then establish cities in places with interesting resources to exploit. When I say cities, I mean more like villages - you'll need to work your way up to a city.

The key thing is that your inhabitants determine which resource is extremely important to you. The starting class of population is peasants, and they vitally need wood and potatoes to live; without these basic necessities, houses won't even be populated. To maximize their satisfaction, which will make them willing to pay additional taxes, you can supply them with luxury goods like fish and wool. 

These luxury goods won't replace the basic necessities, so don't lose sight of priorities! Once your settlements start to attract workers, the next class of medieval society, the basics will be fish and wood, and the luxury goods will be bread and clothing. Similar rules apply to citizens and aristocrats.

Trade between your settlements happens automatically, but for those who want to know more, you can modify prices from your castle and manually buy certain goods from one city to sell to another in need, if for some reason it hasn't been done automatically. Two types of workers generated only by settlements are responsible for transportation: inter-city carriages and intra-city transporters with carts, which bring resources to homes or workshops.

Managing Threats and Exploring New Territories

In addition to the necessities for your inhabitants' growth and development, you'll need construction resources that you can mine if your settlement is near the necessary ore. The castle will also serve as a place for developing new technologies, and you can develop a mini-army led by knights as your agents. 

You can send them to discover new hexagonal territories on the outskirts of your kingdom or to deal with greedy bandits with silly names. Depending on how developed your barracks are, you can send soldiers equipped with suitable gear along with knights, and battles take place similarly to board games - three characters face off, and the winner is determined by dice. If the dice roll is the same, the one with the stronger basic equipment level wins.

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In the not-so-memorable campaign, bandits appear when it's predetermined. However, in the classic sandbox mode, which I would recommend once you've mastered the game through the campaign, you can determine the difficulty and frequency of bandits. It's a shame there's no additional content beyond the relatively uninteresting campaign and sandbox, which you'll hardly want to start again once you've done everything you can on the chosen map. 

There aren't any huge crashes in the game, but I noticed relatively frequent minor bugs, mostly in the interface, when a certain window refused to appear the first or second time. Other than that, the game is quite polished, and it'll take up only 1.5 GB of your disk space.

The Calm Nature of Let Them Trade

It seems I'm not done with comparisons, even in the conclusion, because visually, apart from those territories, all the little humans look like wooden figures, and aesthetically, it all fits nicely with the relaxing atmosphere of enjoying board games, accompanied by suitable music. On the other hand, what's missing is constant and fierce arguing with other players because who are you to deny me wood!

 Maybe some people would prefer the idea of more tension and haggling during trade between cities, but this game is about managing a kingdom that should function cohesively within its invisible borders. Instead of arguing with friends, you build and trade in peace, and apart from random bandits, you won't often need to draw your sword.

In Conclusion

This is a single-player experience, and at first glance, it seems like the game doesn't offer many reasons to continue playing once you've seen the basics. However, it easily gets you hooked on that familiar urge similar to turn-based games when you promise yourself "just one more turn." Here, it's more like "just one more fish to feed the worker who refuses to make bricks, and I need one more brick to build a new fireplace in the castle!" Something like that.

Rating: 7.5/10. 

The game gets this grade because of its engaging gameplay and relaxing atmosphere, but it's somewhat lacking in content and replay value.

Recommended age: 10+.

I would recommend this game to kids aged 10 and above because it's a management-strategy game that requires some planning and thinking ahead, but it's not too complex or violent.