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I had this game as a (German) original back in the day.
Here's some stuff I remember which might clear things up a bit.
1. Bugs:
The game is horribly bugged in the unpatched version and AFAIK only 10% of those bugs were patched. Also judging from the text files (in the German version) it seems that there were a lot more missions planned than made it into the game.
2. Adventure:
The game has sort of a quest line that includes several missions you do for the queen and might even reward you with some nice videos.
However the line is not continuous and each part requires you to be in a certain port during a certain period of time. So you can easily miss your next mission which will kill most of or even the whole questline.
3. Trade:
Elizabeth I. employs a new trade system which is outright stupid and was fixed in Patrizier II (The Patrician 2 in English afaik).
Price is calculated by supply and demand as in most of those games BUT supply includes not only what's in store at the port but also what you got in your ship.
If you were for example bringing 2 shiploads of beer to a town that has no beer at all, the price would plummet because there's a lot of beer on your ships and you wouldn't be able to sell at a profit. The only way to work around this is to limit the amount of each type of cargo you haul. The upside is, that you can keep prices low for goods you want to buy frequently just by keeping enough of them in stock at the port.

cheers Bharatma