I picked this up out of the bargain bin at an office store. The box said it was the best (or premeire, or something like that) Hanseatic League trading simulator. I thought "heh, I bet there's not a lot of competition for that", but hey, it was cheap.
I was so wrong. There could be more Hanseatic League trading sims than there are licensed football games and this would still be the best. Pirates, ship-to-ship combat, trading, building outposts, discovering unusually good deals... it's AMAZING. Hugely detailed. Tons of opportunities for attentive play to pay off.
I lost weeks to this game. I don't want them back. I eventually "lost" the game, in that my CD for it got scratched. A DRM-free copy is worth the fifth star, as the DRM was the single flaw I encountered in the game originally.