Hello!
I'm looking for a game (games) similiar to Europa 1400 : The Guild and, ofcourse, it's sequel "The Guild 2". Political-Backstab-Economic with elements of rpg.. In both you could accomplish your goals in truckloads of differend ways! Listing possible ways to accomplish any task would take far too long, and that's exactly the type of game i'm looking for!
Since Europa 1400 isn't a known game, this is how it goes :
I started the game as an alchemist, with just one worker, a terrible house and some gold. After enduring robbers, blackmailing and unpredictable market prices, i managed to buy out one of other alchemist workshops in town, leaving only one. Which i harrassed for years with sabotage, mugging and buying out all ingridients. At the same time i was befriending, bribing, blackmailing or killing people to help me rise as one of government figures, an unsignificant spy, but still a good start.
Once i established monopoly on alchemical goods (except for imports from other countries) i could turn my eyes to other fronts. My rivals couldn't get valuable potions (that greatly help in gameplay, but are hard to make) and had to resort to illegal activities to accomplish some of their goals, but that only helped me get evidence against them. I falsified some, influenced some high ranked friends to change some laws, and the crime list quickly piled up.
Married the town judge, and romanced guard captain and a wealthy mine owner...
The list goes on. My character, who lived over 100 years thanks to very rare, and very expensive faust elixirs (monopoly on alchemy!) who lost all his children to a deadly curse, who was frequently attacked by much fitter enemies, who had trouble maintaining monopoly on alchemist goods due to world traders taking more interest in our city..
Eventualy he owned half the buildings in the city, beign ran by his minions (because he didn't have the required knowledge to run, for example, a graveyard), became marshall of the empire forces and the major at the same time, controlled the entire market with dozens of his traders, killed one of his opponents in a duel - cheated - sentenced one to death for crimes she didn't commit - and caused another powerful family to die out, due to..
well , you get what Guild is about.
Regards