Chartered corporations

[Furious Mental]

By the time the game begins, chartered corporations like the British East India Company were well established as the dominant actors in international trade, and in some cases were even granted rights that effectively made them states (e.g. they could autonomously conquer and administer territory, mint money, etc). One way that they could be implemented would be that you could issue some charter e.g. to establish a trading outpost in regions x, y, z, or establish a colony, etc, and the company could go off and perform the task without costing you any money (because it raises capital from its members). But the cost of this is that you don't control it; its activities may create diplomatic problems for you, or the regions it conquers and military forces it commands in your name are all auto-managed. For instance the East India Company's activities in India were immensely profitable to Britain but it also created problems by trading opium in China, and of course administration of India was taken off its hands after the 1857 rebellion.

[rajpoot]

I'd love to see this feature, but I cannot in anyway see how will they implement it.......

[Furious Mental]

Well we can already put provinces under auto-management and so forth, and have emergent factions.

[pevergreen]

I would rather not have them as Emergent Factions, unless they were automatic uncontrollable and unrebel(able) vassals. That would make some sense...and be awsome!

[rajpoot]

They'll need a whole new system if they want to implement it properly, because these companies were not rebeles, and having them as emerging factions would work, but only if they can manage something like a advanced diplomacy with them, where we can control them and their policies indirectly, but they have indipendant finances and armies.

[Furious Mental]

Well I don't mean to say they should be emergent factions. I mean that they would have their own AI which is basically interested in maximising its profits. They could (if you let them) conquer territory in your name but you wouldn't control it, or it might come under your control when some event happens e.g. a certain number of years pass.

[pevergreen]

im basing what they would do off the current M2TW engine.

Lets say you take over India. You can now research a New Technology or something that makes someone think of the East India Trading Company. They then form in that area, taking policy orders from you, giving profits to you, but you cant build or recruit there. Its like perma-vassals.

[RLucid]

Surely these trading monopoly companies, who initially developed trading outposts and gradually became corporate province governors, should be just seen as part of the main faction.

As initially posted, once the main government has a reason to become involved, they are ones in control. Also the kind of ppl who managed the trade, and officered the army were very much the same, as later colonialists, loyal to the same sovereign government.

There's going to be a huge number of non-realistic warts in the game, why focus on trading companies for inclusion, when the whole turn-based strategy approach is fallacy.

[Furious Mental]

The British East India Company secured de facto total control over India in the mid 18th century. It didn't become a Crown possession until after the 1857 rebellion. The BEOC had been operating as a monopolistic trading company since the early 17th century and in its area of operations it was effectively a corporate state under the powers granted by King James II.

'they are ones in control'

Obviously these companies operated in the context of a close relationship with their respective governments, but they were not branches thereof. Like all private companies, they operated so as to maximise the profits of their members. They had their supporters in the legislature and government, but the relationship with the state was far more complex than the King pointing and clicking. Take the BEOC for example- in 1698 an Act of Parliament established another east Indian trading company backed by an indemnity. When they eventually merged, BEOC bought renewal of its trade monopoly from the Treasury, and later did so again. Similarly, later in the 18th century it was found that there was practically no government oversight of Company affairs, hence why the Regulating and India Acts were enacted.

'Lets say you take over India'

Well the point i was making above is that these companies were frequently the vanguard of colonialism. For instance, the Crown did not take over India and give it to the BEOC. The BEOC received a mandate from the Crown, it then (over a period of a few decades) took over India.

[RLucid]

OK, but Britain was an evolving democracy. So why not have a simulated parliament, and force you to argue your case to enact policy, stand for election and other PITA things, rather than get to creatae & order armies about like a despot?

You're just choosing some details you like and ignoring others.

[rajpoot]

Actually even thoguh it'll be wonderful to have it all, with the BEIC and all, but as far as I know, this was just one instance.......most of all other colonisation was done directly by the respective nations' armies.............and the more I think of it, the more I feel that there is no way this can be implemented well enough, and implementing it just in passing, inaccurately, just for the name of it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

[Matt_Lane]

Actually even thoguh it'll be wonderful to have it all, with the BEIC and all, but as far as I know, this was just one instance.......most of all other colonisation was done directly by the respective nations' armies.............and the more I think of it, the more I feel that there is no way this can be implemented well enough, and implementing it just in passing, inaccurately, just for the name of it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

I think a similar system was used in North America with the Hudson Bay and London Virginia Trading Company's. The Netherlands, France and Sweden also had trading company's operating in Asia.

I think the Chartered corperation idea is an interesting one. Could it start up in a similar way to guilds, with the player being given the option to offer a charter to aid colonisation of a particular area. The AI could then run the region with it coming nominally under your area of influence. The AI would raise taxes and troops and pay a percentage of its profits to you in a similar way to a vassal but the player would control 'foreign policy' and could have the ability to reissue the charters every ten years or so.

The advantage for the player would be a guaranteed steady income from an area without the need to manage it. It could also have the added advantage of supplying troops locally in times of need.

[Furious Mental]

The British East India Company was fairly unusual in how big its territorial possessions became, but bear in mind that before that most of southern India was under the control of the French East India Company and, of that, a substantial portion was directly administered by it. Take the Dutch East Indian Company in Indonesia as another example. Even in the late 19th century, when these companies had become more heavily regulated, they were still engaged in autonomous territorial conquest in Africa.

[RLucid]

The problem is that realism reduces player control, and they want their decisions to matter, to have the excitement of responsibility for outcomes.

Say, the Governor of Cape Colony, goes off and decides to invade Zulu lands on a pretext, against the wishes of the Capitol government who are trying to diplomatically lower tensions and reduce commitments; despite their colonies views. Realistic, but where does it leave the gamer, who can't decide on policy nor control his empire?

And you know if you do introduce such a faction, someone is going to try to conquer everywhere with it, having it act totally autonomously, even (more than likely) invading the homeland to. There's going to be 50 something factions in the game, if you add in all the large trading corporations, who had hired guns at their trading outposts and tried to expand their trading areas, against the foreign competition, it's going to be even bigger, for a feature that will frustrate many players.

[Furious Mental]

It's not the same as simply giving the player no control over the territory they conquer. The player makes a trade off- give the company a charter and it will, at its own expense, undertake trade and conquer territory for your expense. It may even pay for more privileges or for their renewal. So the player has a discretion what powers to give the company or to refuse it altogether. If there were no trade off in delegating functions and losing control it would be silly because you would get a whole lot of benefits for nothing.

[RLucid]

Would make more historical sense, if giving the charter reduced control, reduced trade profits (the monopolists benefit from their rent, your economy suffers due to lack of competition). The incentive for offering a monopoly, guaranteeing disgusting profits, is not having to invest capitol or pay for development, or army of conquest.

The company should bring it's capitol, allowing more development elsewhere. When general rebellion ensues, and the company appeal for your help, with the main army; then you could take over.

That does make some sense, and would add a twist to game play, bit like the civil war in RTW. I'm just not convinced it'd be worth the development effort, nor that most ppl are going to want to give the AI free reign, rather than be in control taking decisions.

[PBI]

I'm not sure I like the idea of having a company do all the conquering and management for me, seems to me that wouldn't leave an awful lot for me to do. Besides, I'm not sure I'd trust an AI faction to mount an effective campaign of conquest on my behalf, I suspect it wouldn't do as good a job as I could myself.

But I think chartered corporations could be implemented in a more limited way, perhaps like the guilds in M2TW, i.e. the company would ask for a charter to set up an office in your newly conquered territories, which would increase trade.

[vasilisguru]

Independent provinces under your authority is a very good idea. It’s making the game more realistic but you miss all the fun if you don’t control the army. It’s a Total War title we talk about!
Companies can give you missions to attack china and restore opium trade for example.

[Csargo]

I'm not sure I like the idea of having a company do all the conquering and management for me, seems to me that wouldn't leave an awful lot for me to do. Besides, I'm not sure I'd trust an AI faction to mount an effective campaign of conquest on my behalf, I suspect it wouldn't do as good a job as I could myself.

But I think chartered corporations could be implemented in a more limited way, perhaps like the guilds in M2TW, i.e. the company would ask for a charter to set up an office in your newly conquered territories, which would increase trade.

There will still be wars on mainland Europe, settling more colonies, etc. You'd probably have the choice to whether or not you want to establish the corporations. You could probably control what the corporations do as well(management, conquests, etc.).

[PBI]

There will still be wars on mainland Europe, settling more colonies, etc. You'd probably have the choice to whether or not you want to establish the corporations. You could probably control what the corporations do as well(management, conquests, etc.).

I'm a little unclear, then, as to exactly what the corporation is for. If I'm controlling management and conquest, what else is there for the company to run?

Hopefully corporations will be represented in game in some capacity, but hopefully it will be in such a fashion that it can help you a bit to use it, but if you don't like it you can safely ignore it without any problems, like the guild system, or the merchants in M2TW; you can easily play a successful campaign in that game without recruiting a single merchant.

What I wouldn't want to see is the model of the corporation being essentially an independent vassal state, which takes care of its own wars and economy and just pays you a certain amount of money every turn. I've been fighting over mainland Europe for the past three games now, I know every strategic detail of the campaign map, there are no surprises there. I need a change of scenery; the first thing I intend to do when I boot up Empires is to dump all of my troops on a ship bound for America or India and forget about Europe until the very end of the game.

Now, if I could charter a corporation to run my European holdings for me whilst I'm off having adventures in the New World, that might be useful.

[Furious Mental]

Also it's worth considering that the same mechanism could be used for vassal states generally, which are a key to any empire but have never really been represented perfectly.

That's another thing- enemies always preferring to be wiped out rather than become vassals (unless they are offered half the earth).