I believe this game has a great potential like sims. However the interface is not very intuitive. I find it very difficult to find and click your character and by the time you find your character the time is up.

If the developer make the interface more intuitive, I sure this game will be great.

It is fun and interesting simulation game.

This game is very difficult to get into if you are new to The Guild series. Firstly I found the user interface to be unfriendly and non-intuitive. Secondly the game seems to impose arbitrary game mechanics that makes no sense. For example, I decided to start as a rogue and rob people. However, every time you commit robbery, you must wait 7 hours until you can rob again. Okay, fine, I sense this was done to establish game balance. But then I discovered you can murder people with no time limit, so I went on a killing spree and murdered six bystanders in quick succession. I can kill but not rob. Makes no sense. Thirdly there is no tutorial, which wouldn't be so bad if the game came with a manual. Unfortunately, it only bundles in the manuals from the original Guild 2 and Guild 2: Pirates, so I had the pleasure of guessing what information was relevant and what was obsolete. Underneath all this, the game appears to be a sophisticated medieval simulation, but it is going to take alot of trial and error, and hours of frustration, before you understand all the game's quirks.

It reminds me a lot of the SIMS series but with more depth the only things holding it back is the graphics. I find myself spending many hours playing this game it is great.

The only one worth getting, it is a game where you manage buildings and have chains, lumber yard to carpenter, to market, stuff like that, but, unlike the settlers, you only have to manage your family, not the entire city.

The guild 2 is an interesting concept of game, a mix between time management, RTS and the sims, but all in all it is a good game, the only thing letting it not get 4 stars is the lack of a tutorial meaning a long read of a manual which isn't easy to grasp.

GR 2 is an awesome game, yet as the community has already stated, either patching-up with the regular or beta patch the game can still glitch sometimes, but not a biggie. We have a few indie game designer friends, and can totally understand how a sometimes tight game-design budget can strain the "gaming coding" per say. But all things considered, GR 2 rocks. Cheers! J & J

this is a great business management game but it still has a number of problems even after all off the releases and honestly all the releases are basically like overpriced DLC

I agree with norwegicus!, Because it seems all they do is add new jobs to the same old game, Now dont get me wrong the game is awesome, but i feel that jowoods should do something a little different and that my friends is make a part 3 to this series Where You start in the early 1900, create your character they way you want, choose your country USA, England whatever keep the business aspect of the game but add newer stuff as time progress and the same with the crime aspect like starting your own mafia when the time period allows it, regardless The Guild II Renaissance is a great game and i will play for as long as i can or until they come up with something new,

I really enjoy this game. It has all good from Guild 2 Gold (that contains The Guild 2 and Pirates Expansion) and ..., Yes, many more added by developers in this standalone expansion. It is really worth buying - There are new professions for Scholar (gravedigger), Rougue (Mercenary which are "summoned" in mercenary fortress) and Patron Class, all exciting, new buildings to manage, new options in mansion menu ie. storing money in treasure chest. In this expansion process of advancing to the upper class in simulated society of players dynasty was rebuilt, for exmaple when You want to advance from (if I recall well) Free Citizen (one of new position) to Nobleman You have to gain required level of fame in Hanza of Your family - not only You need a cash to solve the problem, wchich is definetly good idea. Now city council sessions dont take so much time, because "social" options of contolled dynasty members like bribery, compliment are removed. You can still ie. bribe them, but now not during the council meeting. So ridiculous situations like when city mayor says "now we will vote the Guild Master office, there are such candidates in attendance (...) Oh, how generous, oh how nice, you wont'regret it" and so on. Its good that this was removed, because it took much time especially when player had opportunity to activate one of this options, and there was timeout, and there was no need to ie. bribe mayor and/or other council members because he/she/they was a friend to my dynasty and it only wasted time needed in other places in round especially, when 4-year round option was selected (Yes there is option to choose between 1, 2,3 ,4 - year rounds at game start - vide beta patch 4.17b, in stock there is only 1 or 4 year round to choose from).

There are many other tweaks and improvements. Graphic is beautiful and it looks better that in previous versions (however it never in this series was a problem - regarding version this game allways looks nice comparing to other titles published in the same time).

There is constant developer effort to fix exsisting problems in 4.15 version, so I would suggest applying beta patch 4.17b which removes many irritating bugs. Despite bugs it is real fun to play. If You like original mix of RPG, Sims, economic startegy It will be happy hours playing this game as I really enjoyed it.

My final word is - If You like The Guild 2 series, and its original idea is close to Your heart - I can tell You - This game is worth paying this decent price, "You wont regret it" ;)

This is a pretty amazing game. There is much to do and it provides great entertainment without burning out after the first few hours and most of the aforementioned bugs are gone. The game has a lot of depth and so I'd recommend it to most people/

Norwegicus apparently hasn't downloaded beta patch .7, it seems to have gotten rid of the vast majority of bugs and the game plays very well now. You do still get some funky little bugs like wagons that spin in circles, but those are easily solved by saving then reloading the game.

Even though how much I love this game, I felt bit dissapointed that there is not much improvements after several standalone expansions. Nonetheless, the game is still quite enjoyable to the fan of the series and gamers who enjoy empire building or life simulators.

They keep reviving an old game, adding some new professions while keeping and adding even some more bugs to the game.

They removed some of the original maps, maps which was actually working.

In many maps the AI never make produce your characters business need so your business come to a halt unless you do it your self. Meaning no competition and you might have to start a profession you have no interest in doing in the first place.

The banker is poorly done, you have a few customer once in a while that will borrow 2 gold and paying each. Also they don't wait in line. so the few cases where you get 3 customers, the other 2 will just leave. There are no point in opening an account to lend out money as you will never profit from it.

The new mercenary castle looks ugly and have probably been made in windows paint in a couple of minutes. And all you and your workers does is collecting toll and hush money, and no one tries to stop you, so there are no challenge at all.

I don't see much improvements from The guild 2 or pirates of the European seas.

They just added some stuff that don't work because of bad AI and poor and hasty production.

In short, Its still broken like much of Jowoods games.

They just add a few things on an old game trying to make some quick money.

The Guild II Renaissance is a game that I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of economic simulators. As others have mentioned it plays similar to The Sims but is centered around building a network of Renaissance era businesses. The variety of careers offered in Renaissance add some replayability to the game, though many of these careers play in a similar manner. Overall, a good game but can get repetitive pretty quickly.

What can I say I love this series I only wished it weren't so bug ridden in all of them initially and still after so many patches. You have to love this series to stick with it because of that. Frustrating crashes to desktop without reason and sometimes corrupt save game files that you can't reload the last point save when it does crash.

Still it's like Daggerfall used to be but if you are a diehard fan of something and enjoy what you can play out of it you just keep on reloading and restarting it till you get one that goes good and you can finally finish (if finishing is your goal).

I like to just build a dynasty and I don't really try to take out the other ones and since I play on hardest difficuly and even beef that up with the config.sys settings for difficulty the AI ends up taking itself out and I make friends with all of them.

You might want to wait for the enevitable discount pricing that is sure to come soon. (I expect around Christmas). I would say $7.99 to $9.99 is a fair price since this really is just a patched up The Guild 2 origional.

I paid full price because I just couldn't wait. I enjoy this so much and I think The Sims goes Medieval may finally dethrone this one and certainly have a lot less bugs and crashes to desktop.

So get it if you have liked the rest of the series wait if you can't deal with crashes to desktop for a $20 game.

Just a few words : this is what The guild 2 should have been from the start. Period :) Pirate add-on wasnt interesting. The stock game has its flaws, Renaissance adds new features, some from the first titles of the franchise, most welcome !

This is a great toy. You can play it open-ended or you can play with goals. It's like Sims 2 meets Patrician 3: a bit of family building, a bit of trading, a bit of economic domination, some intrigue and back-stabbing, some Machiavellian power grabbing. The folks at Rune Forge have done a really good job with the game and continue to give it good support.

Amazing game. You really must buy this game it is wonderful to all player types. You create a character and then marry and can have kids. Create a business or get into politics. In addition, you can send your children to schools to get education. Amazing game you will really like it and it can be played over and over again and for long time. Endless scenario, one of the best games I ever played in my life. It has much more additions then previous versions.

Do not buy this game. The graphics and gameplay are archaic, the game is as intuitive as heart surgery and a massive disappointment. Try Civ IV or Victoria II instead.

2 starts

I cannot say enough about what an improvement Renaissance is over past Guild 2 releases. This is a game which has always been a guilty pleasure of mine: fun to play, but infuriating to the extreme with its instability. Venice was without a doubt the worst expansion pack in that regard. Renaissance, however, absolves Jowood of all of its buggy sins. I've yet to encounter any serious bugs, though I know a few have been mentioned on the company's forums, for which quick fixes have already been posted there. The game plays great, and finally, for the -first- time, in my opinion, The Guild 2 can be enjoyed for all of the wonderful gameplay it offers. For those who enjoy quality RPGs or the prospect of a deep, rich, rewarding Medieval dynasty simulation, get this game NOW!

This is what Guild 2 should of been originally, too bad it took this long and so many expansion packs.

If you liked Guild 2 then this is a must buy, it fixes alot of problems from the original game and adds some more to it (you can now play 1 year at time instead the original 4 years per turn). There still is some bugs that can get annoying but hopefully those will be patched, meanwhile the stability and performance seems to be better, i only had 1 crash in 10+ hours of gameplay. Still its a must buy for anyone who enjoyed the previous titles or if you like this type of game, theres not many games that have the same mechanics as this one has (building the town you live in, having kids and grandkids and then they taking over the businesses that you own, political side). I give it 5 stars.

The Guild 2 Renaissance is a fantastic game. Not only does it run very smooth but there are also some interesting new things compared to the other games in the series. First of all som of the older professions are back like being a banker or grave digger ect. Basicly this game have the previous included and you are also able on some maps to trade using ships ect.

Some maps are litterly huge but you know most maps from the past. A new things is that now your town can send people to a war against other nations if you loose it will cost you later when the enemy come to demand their tribute... But in general there are some new things and even the HUGE resident buildings are back. In general i love "Renaissance" it feel finished and does not have any serious bugs, so finaly after more than 5 years of waiting " The Guild" actually are a very good working game that work out of the box. The small patch that have been released today fix a few select things.. In general if you love the guild series this is a MUST HAVE its really good i can highly recommend it to everyone.

Do not expect to see a 100% new game with new characters and buildings ect. it look very much the same just with some modifications and more carers ect. But a must have for any real fan, its fantastic ;-) Rating 5 stars from me.