Forming a Empire, where to start

[Megas Methuselah]

I’ll need to get a feel for the possibilities first…but as India, North America, and the Caribbean Islands can have land units, and as I understand it , Africa is a trade theater I will likely want to play with sending troops and worry about Africa when I have spare ships.

Why would Africa be a trade theatre? Only the southern portion is cut off, you get the whole northern half...

Anyways, for myself, I'll insignificantly plant my little flag here and there. My main concern will be playing around with European politics and allying with various native nations to keep the European scourge off their lands(exception made for myself, of course).

Also, once I get down to playing as a Native American faction, I'll be colonizing Scotland!

[Sir Beane]

Why would Africa be a trade theatre? Only the southern portion is cut off, you get the whole northern half...

Anyways, for myself, I'll insignificantly plant my little flag here and there. My main concern will be playing around with European politics and allying with various native nations to keep the European scourge off their lands(exception made for myself, of course).

Also, once I get down to playing as a Native American faction, I'll be colonizing Scotland!

From what we have seen of the map so far I don't think half of Africa is in the game. It seems to be the very Northenmost areas, those North of the Sahara. CA themselves have stated Africa will mainly appear as a naval only trade theatre. It sucks, but that seems to be the truth.

[Megas Methuselah]

Well, that's too bad. Nonetheless, those Scots will be beaten like beetles beneat the NA boots... er... moccasins, I suppose?

[ULC]

Russia in North America, ruling over the Americans...hows that for counter-factual history!

[Polemists]

hmm, I guess I don't understand.

What exactly is a "Trade theatre"? I mean obviously you can't set up colonies but if I can't see it on the map, how is it a trade theatre?

[Martok]

To be honest, I'm not really clear on this myself. Other than that we'll need to devote naval resources to securing its riches, CA hasn't released many details on this aspect of the game yet.

[Polemists]

devote naval resources to securing its riches

Ugh, I hope this isn't like other games where I have to send my ships off the map for a odd number of turns to return with money. Aka: Tropico 2: Pirate Cove. Ship leaves, when it gets back you get certain amount of money.

"Oh hey, this admiral just got awesome wonderful, oh now you and your fleet have to vanish for the next 30 turns"

That would upset me, hopefully it's just tradeships or something.

[Pantsalot]

Well, that's too bad. Nonetheless, those Scots will be beaten like beetles beneat the NA boots... er... moccasins, I suppose?

Is this an insult!? (look at my location)

Well I have chosen Africa as my spot, I h8 Indian & Indies locations as I h8 jungle warfare &
I just personally h8 America. To answer a question b4, they said they'd be including the Ivory
coast, which was known to have supplies of slaves & of course, Ivory among other goods. I
would have preferred it though if they had included South Africa. I noticed on the campaign
trailer that when they were looking at the Indies, the map was still looking at Europe. This
is quite puzzling, there is a possibility that they hadn't made the map yet for the Indies yet
for some strange reason.

It would be nice to know if you could take control of the Suez & Panama canal in Egypt &
prevent other countries getting through without military access, going to war or they have
to pay a toll to pass through, I believe the latter was what the British control when they
were in puppet rule over Egypt, though my mind is always quite flimsy..

EDIT:
I found this picture on another forum, the map has North America but I also read an interesting
thing that some1 there has been told by CA that it is going to be a completely seperate
campaign from the rest that you have to unlock. That would be pretty but I find it
unlikely.

[Martok]

Well I have chosen Africa as my spot, I h8 Indian & Indies locations as I h8 jungle warfare & I just personally h8 America. To answer a question b4, they said they'd be including the Ivory coast, which was known to have supplies of slaves & of course, Ivory among other goods.

I believe the Ivory Coast is simply another "trade theater" (like the East Indies) and cannot be conquered or colonized. I'll see if I can find the actual quote from CA, but I'm reasonably certain that's the case.

It would be nice to know if you could take control of the Suez & Panama canal in Egypt &
prevent other countries getting through without military access, going to war or they have
to pay a toll to pass through, I believe the latter was what the British control when they
were in puppet rule over Egypt, though my mind is always quite flimsy..

Actually, neither canal existed at any point during the time period covered by Empire. The Suez didn't open until the late 1850's, and the Panama wasn't finished until 1914 or 1915 (I forget which). So unfortunately that will not be a factor in ETW.

I found this picture on another forum, the map has North America but I also read an interesting
thing that some1 there has been told by CA that it is going to be a completely seperate
campaign from the rest that you have to unlock. That would be pretty but I find it
unlikely.

There's going to be a separate "Road to Independence" campaign (starting with the English founding colonies in North America and eventually leading to America's rebellion against Britain), but you don't have to unlock it. It will be playable from the beginning.

[Pantsalot]

Actually, neither canal existed at any point during the time period covered by Empire. The Suez didn't open until the late 1850's, and the Panama wasn't finished until 1914 or 1915 (I forget which). So unfortunately that will not be a factor in ETW.

They'll probably make it an event you have to unlock by researching specific technologies
As I don't think to get to India we would have to go around Africa every single time.

It's still a mystery on how the travel to the next area will be, like the current thought
brought up is that you put your ship to the edge of the sea in the direction of which
continent you're going for, so if they don't ever have the suez canal then that would
be far more likely. But the thing is that if Africa is going to be another trade theatre
than that is really dull the fact that all you can do with it is have trade rights..
It's included in the map of Europe without them slicing off the bottom so I hope you're
wrong as it's just next to Ottomans who would probably be allowed to attack the
tribes down South, & how we Brit's fought the Benin people who also had a good bit
of gold for trade, though I can't really tell if Benin is on the map, probably not really.

[Martok]

They'll probably make it an event you have to unlock by researching specific technologies
As I don't think to get to India we would have to go around Africa every single time.

I don't know. While it would certainly be convenient if it were possible to "unlock" the Suez, I'll be fairly surprised if that's an option in the game. Of course, one can always hope that that's one of the things CA hasn't told us about yet....

It's still a mystery on how the travel to the next area will be, like the current thought
brought up is that you put your ship to the edge of the sea in the direction of which
continent you're going for, so if they don't ever have the suez canal then that would
be far more likely.

Yeah, so far there's not been much information on how ship travel between "theatres" works. I know CA did say something to the effect that apparently you can view the entire game map at once, and that the three separate maps (Europe, Americas, & India) are merely there for convenience's sake. If that is in fact the case (and I'm remembering the details correctly), then I'd suppose that the player can simply use the large overview map to facilitate ship/fleet movement between the 3 sub-maps.

But the thing is that if Africa is going to be another trade theatre
than that is really dull the fact that all you can do with it is have trade rights..
It's included in the map of Europe without them slicing off the bottom so I hope you're
wrong [snip]

That makes two of us.

Personally, I would really like to see the entire continent open to European exploitation. From what CA has said, though, it sounds as if only the lands along Africa's Mediterranean coast can be colonized/conquered.

[Zaleukos]

I'd go for India or the Carribean. India has rich developed places to simply take over, while the Carribean sugar colonies are the great moneymakers of the era.

What?!?! How can you have a game set in the 18th and early 19th centuries and not include Africa!! That was like thee place to conquer and colonize in that time period! I really wanted to raise that American flag in Tripoli if you know what I mean. Oh well, I guess I just have to plant the flag in the heart of the British Empire and squash the Brits, who doesn't like
that?

Not in the games timeframe. Africa was mostly untouched until 1860 or so.

It would make a lot of sense to make it a trade theatre. Except for South Africa it has a pretty hostile climate and nasty diseases. Europeans only built trading stations on the coasts and generally died like flies. Inland trade was almost exclusively handled by locals. The scramble for Africa only came almost 100 years after the game when the Europeans had better medicine.

Tripoli should be reachable though. The corsair states of North Africa were a major nuisance and are very close to Europe. But their land should be rather useless, there are barely any resources in the area:p

[Eusebius86]

Depending on how privateering/piracy works in ETW, I might be tempted to just take the British merchants treasures and trade at sea, instead of bothering to colonize the west indies

I'm not a huge fan of colonizing, better to be strong at home and focus on expanding your own borders... unless of course you're on an island with nowhere to expand.

[Pontius Pilate]

I'd go for India or the Carribean. India has rich developed places to simply take over, while the Carribean sugar colonies are the great moneymakers of the era.



Not in the games timeframe. Africa was mostly untouched until 1860 or so.

It would make a lot of sense to make it a trade theatre. Except for South Africa it has a pretty hostile climate and nasty diseases. Europeans only built trading stations on the coasts and generally died like flies. Inland trade was almost exclusively handled by locals. The scramble for Africa only came almost 100 years after the game when the Europeans had better medicine.

Tripoli should be reachable though. The corsair states of North Africa were a major nuisance and are very close to Europe. But their land should be rather useless, there are barely any resources in the area:p

Yeah, about the Tripoli thing, I was just joking. Anyway, they should still have put the whole of Africa in the game because it would be something new, we already have seen enough of North Africa in the Rome and MTW2. Even though it might be a little bit out of the time frame we should be able to rewrite history.

And the slave trade was big during this time too, but then again the Europeans didn't actually go into the continent to get the slaves, that was done by other Africans. So I guess I can understand Africa just be a trade theater.

[a completely inoffensive name]

All the other countries can split apart the world. I just want New Zealand.