East India Company

**frogbeastegg** · 07-22-2009, 16:38

This thread replaces the one started by Slaists and completely derailed by talk of ETW.

Please talk about East India Company. Comparison with ETW is acceptable provided that the post - and thread - remain on topic i.e. focused on East India Company. This is not an ETW forum, and this thread is not about ETW!

Posts which cannot manage this will be deleted. I will not have a repeat of that last thread.

Slaist's original post from the other thread:

Originally Posted by Slaists

East India Company goes gold. Release date scheduled for end of July in the US...

Read the blog on naval warfare: interesting details there.

**Reverend Joe** · 07-22-2009, 16:46

Why do you hate freedom?

**frogbeastegg** · 07-22-2009, 16:55

I hate topics being flooded with off-topic material which belongs in an entirely different forum. Out of 27 posts only 4 were about the game the topic was dedicated to. 4!

If you want to talk about ETW we have an entire series of forums dedicated to it. If you dispute my decision, take it up with me via PM or the watch tower.

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 07-22-2009, 17:32

I've only read RPS coverage of the game, but it sounded good. Is there a demo?

**Mailman653** · 07-22-2009, 17:34

No demo that I know of, but they were giving away beta keys for it a few weeks ago. If you preorder on Steam you get the expansion pack for free, it includes a pirate faction.

**Zenicetus** · 07-22-2009, 17:37

Okay, here's a start. I've read the two dev diaries on naval tactics, and watched a video on their site. It looks promising, but I'd need to play a demo, or read a really in-depth review from a fellow naval nut before buying it. A few concerns:

The graphics look okay. Not quite as good as ETW's naval battles with the ship modeling and damage, and there's something odd about the look of the water. On the other hand, the skies and weather look good, and apparently you can have night (or dusk) battles. There is a mode where you can command an individual ship and move to various places on the deck during a battle. That could be interesting, and it gets away from the "toy boats" look with overhead views.

Lip service is paid to wind direction (just like CA did with ETW), but it's hard to tell from that one video whether it's realistic or not. And if it's not realistic, there are no real tactics (ETW, again). Square riggers are shown sailing suspiciously close to the wind direction, based on the mast flags and buoys. And I'd want to see if they'll repeat the mistake of "small ships faster and more maneuverable than big ones," which isn't how sailing ships and displacement hulls work. If the game is reasonably realistic with the sailing dynamics, it could be both challenging and fun, instead of just an arcade game with pretty graphics.

Apparently each side can have a maximum of 5 ships, so there will be no "grand battles." I suppose that's realistic since only national navies can support large fleets of the line, but it does restrict the potential a little bit. It means you'll just barely be able to send a few escorts along with some cargo ships.

Since cargo is central (a nice change from ETW, actually), on the one hand it adds an interesting dynamic about protecting cargo vs. fighting. On the other hand, most gamers I know aren't that fond of escort-type missions. If most sea battles involve protecting cargo, I'm not sure how fun it will be in the long run... unless you can play as basically a pirate raider. That could be fun.

From what I can tell, you build up a trade empire by establishing trade routes and building ships, with no land-side management at all; no territorial occupation and expansion. The trading side sounds lie a spreadsheet game, so the naval battles really need to be varied and fun. There doesn't seem much else there for replay value.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the reviews, and I hope they release a demo. It's an unusual concept for a game these days. It looks like someone on the dev team (or the whole team) has a deep interest in that period of sea trade and combat, so it could be very good.

**Mailman653** · 07-22-2009, 17:57

Originally Posted by Zenicetus

Since cargo is central (a nice change from ETW, actually), on the one hand it adds an interesting dynamic about protecting cargo vs. fighting. On the other hand, most gamers I know aren't that fond of escort-type missions. If most sea battles involve protecting cargo, I'm not sure how fun it will be in the long run... unless you can play as basically a pirate raider. That could be fun.

From what I can tell, you build up a trade empire by establishing trade routes and building ships, with no land-side management at all; no territorial occupation and expansion. The trading side sounds lie a spreadsheet game, so the naval battles really need to be varied and fun. There doesn't seem much else there for replay value.

Thats where the Pirate add-on comes in. You don't have to trade for anything or build up an empire. All you do is raid commerce and try to amass all the wealth you can in about 20-30 years.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/900925/

If your more of an RPG person, try looking around for this game http://en.akella.com/Game.aspx?id=32

**Slaists** · 07-22-2009, 19:13

Originally Posted by Zenicetus

Okay, here's a start. I've read the two dev diaries on naval tactics, and watched a video on their site. It looks promising, but I'd need to play a demo, or read a really in-depth review from a fellow naval nut before buying it. A few concerns:

The graphics look okay. Not quite as good as ETW's naval battles with the ship modeling and damage, and there's something odd about the look of the water. On the other hand, the skies and weather look good, and apparently you can have night (or dusk) battles. There is a mode where you can command an individual ship and move to various places on the deck during a battle. That could be interesting, and it gets away from the "toy boats" look with overhead views.

Lip service is paid to wind direction (just like CA did with ETW), but it's hard to tell from that one video whether it's realistic or not. And if it's not realistic, there are no real tactics (ETW, again). Square riggers are shown sailing suspiciously close to the wind direction, based on the mast flags and buoys. And I'd want to see if they'll repeat the mistake of "small ships faster and more maneuverable than big ones," which isn't how sailing ships and displacement hulls work. If the game is reasonably realistic with the sailing dynamics, it could be both challenging and fun, instead of just an arcade game with pretty graphics.

Unfortunately they have done just that (what I've bolded above). There are unit reviews somewhere on their site. Small ships all have "fast speed" as their attribute whereas the large ones are slow.

**al Roumi** · 07-23-2009, 16:03

Originally Posted by Slaists

Unfortunately they have done just that (what I've bolded above). There are unit reviews somewhere on their site. Small ships all have "fast speed" as their attribute whereas the large ones are slow.

If that's true, this could be lame...

I had momentary high hopes that this could offer more depth and accuracy that ETW does to trading, piracy and naval battles.

I'm sure i read a dev diary that mentioned fortifying and garrisoning ports, as well as improvable dock-yards. No comment on land battles though, I'm guessing that would be "sailing too close to the wind" (pardon the pun) of ETW.

**Reverend Joe** · 07-23-2009, 19:14

Originally Posted by Zenicetus

Apparently each side can have a maximum of 5 ships, so there will be no "grand battles." I suppose that's realistic since only national navies can support large fleets of the line, but it does restrict the potential a little bit. It means you'll just barely be able to send a few escorts along with some cargo ships.

Five ships? Bleah. That gives me bad memories of my idiotic decision to buy Imperial glory. If ETW can have 20 ships per side in a battle, this game has no excuse not to.

The other thing that bothers me is the lack of tactics. Okay, true, naval battles at the time could be fairly disorganized, but I'm sure the history experts can think of some tactics that could have been implemented... Monastery freaks, I look to you.

**al Roumi** · 07-24-2009, 14:33

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

There is a lot of strategy that can go into a truly good Naval game. Especially an Age of Sail type naval game like this one wants to be. Unfortunately they can't even get more hull displacement = faster correct, so I don't have high hopes.

I guess the concept of moving entirely based on the wind, which is quite invisible and better "felt" makes it harder for it to be well implemented in a game?

That said Sid meire's pirates!, although quite cheerfully arcady, at least got the wind thing playable and satisfactorily credible.

**Zenicetus** · 07-24-2009, 19:15

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

A properly done Naval game would only appeal to people that like deep strategy, numbers, and charts. Think Silent Hunter on the hardest settings, and then triple that. Trying to sacrifice realism in order for some allegedly superior playability and marketability only creates a mediocre game that annoys everyone.

That's certainly true when the game company makes a fixed, inflexible design. There used to be a tradition in PC tactical simulation games, where the player was offered a screen full of sliders to adjust realism settings. Silent Hunter does that to an extent, with things like historical dud torpedoes that you can turn off, auto-targeting settings, etc. But it's still a "hardcore" sim because it requires massive amounts of patience for stalking and evasion, with very brief interludes of excitement/terror.

A sailing combat game has the potential to be more "exciting" in the conventional gaming sense. And it could appeal to a wide audience if the player is given a wide range of choice on a realism configuration panel, like the better combat flight sims. You could choose realistic wind, or driving around like motorboats ignoring the wind. You could choose realistic speeds for ship sizes, or more of a rock-paper-scissors game. It's more work for the game developer, but it maximizes the potential gaming audience. ETW blew it (at least from my hardcore sim perspective), by deciding they'd do only one type of naval game for one type of arcade gamer audience, and not including a realism option.

It sounds like this new EIC game is going down that path too, but let's see what the actual game is like. We're doing a lot of pre-judging here. I really hope there's a demo.