default is for them to end in AD 1400, but they may be set to end after 15, 30, 60, 150, or 192 years as well. The manual includes an overview and glossary of this period and incorporates aspects of the era both directly and through game mechanics. The Venetian–Genoese Wars, corsairs, Black Plague, condottieri, and indulgences appear and the players' actions may instigate an early Reformation, recreate the ignoble Fourth Crusade, or mirror the struggles of the Medicis, travels of Marco Polo, or precepts of Machiavelli. On historical maps, the rounding of Africa and assaults on Turkey, Persia, and India may be achieved by the players or AI ahead of the Portuguese, but there is no effect on the prosperity of Venice. The Hundred Years' War, Turco-Venetian wars, and Tatar invasions appear in minor form. Game mechanics push players into adopting a coasting trade for galleys, large caravans and convoys for important routes, and working for the good of all Venetians in public while covertly bribing officials and sabotaging rivals. Numerous items, however, are simplified: the doges were appointed for life but the Ten served only one-year terms and could only have a single family member serving at a time. The Republic of Venice maintained its allegiance to Rome throughout the Western Schism but the earlier Avignon Papacy goes unmentioned. Cities only occasionally and randomly close themselves to trade. Florence is treated as a seaport in place of Pisa and Constantinople is given its earlier and terser name Byzantium. Merchant Prince II included a few cut scenes and five new scenarios in addition to Afro-Eurasia and the random map generator. They were the Hanse (the Hanseatic League in the North and Baltic seas), the Mediterranean (a Venetian family), the Orient (a Shanghainese trader in the Far East), Marco Polo (along the Silk Road), and a fantasy treatment of Atlantis (represented as a single island city in the Atlantic). The scenarios were not differentiated apart from their maps, however: players continued to see Venetian gondolas and St Mark's in "Atlantis" and "compete[d] to become the Doge of China or the Pope of Asia". Game history Merchant Prince was written by Several Dudes Holistic Gaming and released by Quantum Quality Productions (QQP) in 1993. Ed Pike credited his rereading of Machiavelli's Prince during the 1992 US presidential election, along with post-Watergate American politics generally, for his concept of the game. Pike