Santa Paravia is a variation of the computer game Hamarabi. The first time I encountered Hamarabi was on a mainframe computer in college in the 1970's. In that game, you were the ruler of ancient Mesopotamia. To rule well, you had to balance the amount of land tilled and grain produced to the amount of grain released from granneries. If you released too much grain, the population of Mesopotamia would grow too numerous and the amount of tillable land could not produce sufficient grain to feed them next year. The result was starvation. If you released too little grain, you got the same result.

Santa Paravia moves this scenario into the Italian Rennaissance. It places you in the position of an ambitious 15^th century ruler of an Italian City-State. In additon to managing your grain reserves, there are many more things for a ruler to contend. You must remember to keep enough grain for your next crop. You may buy land if your population grows. You may buy grain if your crops are too small. You may build markets for your merchants and woolen mills to put your serfs to work. You may build a cathedral or supplement your palace. And, you must watch your treasury because you can buy more than your treasury holds. If you cannot make the interest payments you will be bankrupt. Don't forget taxes. A good tax policy will fill your coffers and grow your economy while a poor tax policy will fill you coffers to overflowing and ruin your economy.

Santa Paravia was originally written in TRS-80 BASIC by the Rev George Blank. It first appeared in the magazine SoftSide in December of 1978. This was a text-based game with one graphic screen.

I've always loved this game. Since I'm familiar with its mechanics, it makes a great learning tool for me to investigate a new language. Supprise, here I am using it again to learn ASP.NET in C#.