Forming a Empire, where to start

[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.