Chartered corporations

**rajpoot** · 04-30-2008, 19:53

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** · 04-30-2008, 22:22

Originally Posted by asj_india

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** · 05-01-2008, 04:42

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** · 05-01-2008, 12:37

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** · 05-02-2008, 04:31

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** · 05-02-2008, 09:07

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** · 05-02-2008, 11:15

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.