In 1994, QQP released Merchant Prince, an economic strategy game developed by Holistic Design and set in Renaissance Venice. A year later, MicroProse picked up the game, got Holistic Design to improve the graphics and tweak the game a bit, and rereleased it as Machiavelli the Prince. A full six years later, TalonSoft has decided to take a turn at rereleasing the game, and once again, Holistic Design was called upon to resurrect it. Unfortunately, the latest incarnation seems simply to be a reissue of 1995's Machiavelli the Prince, which has been optimized to run under Windows. And that's it.  The graphics have hardly changed in six years... Merchant Prince II is a turn-based strategy game dealing with the development of Venice as center of commerce. As the leader of one of the leading merchant families of Venice, you must use your ships and caravans to establish trade routes with the major cities of the Old World (ranging from the Mediterranean basin to the Far East and Africa) to bring valuable commodities to the markets that demand them. At the same time, you have to be active in Venetian politics as well as those in the Vatican, since becoming the Pope or the Doge of Venice can significantly enhance your power and, of course, your wealth. Amassing wealth is the point of the game, and the first player to collect 1 million florins over the course of a variable number of turns (up to 200 for long games) wins. There are also scenarios set in the Far East and Northern Europe. It's a captivating premise and one that made the original Merchant Prince very noteworthy.