East India Company Review

I am suddenly interested in the price of tea in India.  I guess that’s what happens when you are a merchant on the make in the 17th Century.  The price of goods, the upkeep of boats, and incessant worry over the approaching retirement age of one of my finest captains - they all occupy my every waking thought.  Why did I choose this line of work again?

Oh yeah, I didn’t; rather, Nitro Games got me to play their mercantilist title, East India Company.  If you were ever interested in ruling the high seas while making a tidy profit, this might be a game you want to check out.  It’s not perfect, but it certainly has its charms.

The Big Picture

Would-be mercantilists can start their career by choosing one of eight European powers, from the English to the Holy Roman Empire, and a campaign that can be as short as fifty years or as long as two hundred.  Once selected, the player is shown the main strategic map, one that stretches from England to Africa, to India.  Upon this map are the Home Ports of the eight European powers, along with a healthy scattering of independent ports all over the world.  It’s these non-aligned ports that will quickly become the center of the gamer’s focus as they are essential not only as supply waypoints for his fleets, but also as the only areas where ever-so-valuable trade goods can be acquired.

Before the player even gets to that point, he needs to actually build his fleet.  By clicking on his Home Port, the strategic map is replaced by an animated view of his port district (a little loading time is involved, but the player can opt for a static view and skip the loading delays).  It is here the player can purchase and sell trade goods, build port improvements, and, of course, build ships by selecting the Shipyard menu.  Initially, the player will only have access to a few basic vessels, such as cutters and schooners, but as he becomes wealthier, he will be able to unlock more formidable vessels by purchasing the designs.  Once the boats are built, up to five per fleet and something that usually can take a few months to complete (don’t worry, East India Company allows the player to accelerate the pace of the game during the slow times), a commander will be appointed to the fleet.  Commanders are interesting fellows as they earn unique traits that give them special skills, such as getting discounts on trade goods, and others which helps during a battle.   In fact, I found the commanders add a nice RPG element to the whole fleet composition problem as a natural born sailor will quickly gain the attention of the player and find himself put in charge of big and better ships…well, that’s what I did, anyway.

With a fleet in place, the trading can begin.  Each port specializes in supplying certain goods - ‘Main Trading Items’, in the game’s parlance.  Naturally, the best bet is to load up on these readily available items and bring them to a port where they are in demand.  The entire trading process is elegant.  Clicking on the Trading Post menu opens up a screen where all the local commodities are listed, along with the amount available and the price per kilogram (such as for jewels) or per ton (as for most other bulk item, such as tea).  To make a transaction, the play need only select one of his fleets from the Docks menu, select a boat and click and drag the commodity from the Trading Post to the ship’s cargo hold.  It’s doesn’t get much easier than that! 

With full holds, the player can get to work.  The campaign game will assign a set of increasingly difficult objectives that need to be met for the player to progress.  Usually, these involve meeting one major objective, such as importing 1000 tons of Silk, and two minor objectives from a choice of five or so, such as sinking X amount of ships or importing some other trade good.  With these objectives in mind, the player can dispatch his ships around the world, looking to get the required amount of goods before he runs out of time and disappoints his superiors.  Of course, competitor nations will be doing the same thing, so before too long the strategic map will be filled with little ships sailing hither and yon. 

Once a fleet makes port in a distant land, the player can offload his goods for a profit and then fill his holds once again with other commodities, using the same click and drag process from before.  Of course, despite the ease of the process, performing this task, especially with multiple fleets, gets old fast.  Fortunately, the game includes an automated function where a fleet will automatically purchase main trade items at a port and bring it home, repeating the process over and over until the player intervenes.

When you have a bunch of fleets sailing the high seas in search of profit, the player’s wealth can start to amass quickly.  Of course, the more fleets and ports he controls, the more his overhead. Inevitably, the player will start to move from fleet micromanager to more of a bookkeeper.   Using a number of screens that allow the player to track his business activity in detail, the player must always keep an eye on his balance sheet and try to find ways to squeeze that last bit of profit out of the pottery market, for example, while also staying on track to meet his primary and secondary objectives.   In short order, the player can find himself with quite a full profit and loss plate.

 On top of the challenge of running a successful mercantilist empire, the player will also need to be a competent admiral as getting these commodities at a good price all revolve around port control – control not just for establishing a monopoly over certain items, but also to give your fleets a safe harbor where they can resupply for their voyages that can take months to complete.  It is only inevitable that at some point, competition for these ports will erupt…and violently.  Of course, you could always access EIC’s diplomacy screen and try to strike a deal to gain access to a needed port, but what fun is that?  Perhaps a better option is to call in the marines and launch a seaborne invasion. 

Of course, hostilities on land usually lead to hostilities on the waves, so….

I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight!

The naval battles in EIC add a nice amount of…er, spice to the game.  After a short loading screen, the ocean is brought to life with some spiffy graphics.  Waves undulate across the surface, causing your ships to move about in a fashion that is almost realistic enough to induce seasickness.  Wind speed and direction is noted on the bottom left mini-map, with your available vessels listed along the bottom. 

Ordering your vessels about is conducted in the standard RTS fashion: left click to select a particular ship and right click to set a destination or an attack order; or lasso the bunch for a group move with a left drag click.  Right clicks select a destination and/or target and the mouse wheel controls zoom.  All things considered, EIC makes it as easy as possible to manage your fleet, even to the point of a button that automatically places all vessels in line formation. 

What is not simple is the actual combat.  Even on lesser difficultly levels, the player must use care in plotting his movements as the AI is pretty sharp and will take advantage of every mistake.  Sailing with the wind is paramount, as the player will quickly find his ships to be sitting ducks – quite literally ‘dead in the water’ – if he tries to ignore the wind gauge.  Add to that different sea states that can play havoc with the aiming of cannons and you have a game that really takes Poseidon’s moods into account. 

A final twist to gameplay comes in the form of the aforementioned special skills that your fleet commanders acquire.  I have been in more than a few battles where having an experienced captain with the right range of abilities made all the difference in the world.  For example, one of my captains was a master of scoring hits with long range shots.  Unfortunately, it was an ‘active’ ability that could only be triggered for a set amount of time, so it was only beneficial in brief periods chosen by me.  Still, while in effect, it was helpful, as are many of these skills, and added a nice sense of ‘commander’s skill’ to the battle.

Naval battles are nicely brought to life, with broadsides roaring out to strike enemy vessels, wreaking havoc on their hulls, sails, or crew, depending on the type of ammo selected.  As a battle rages, ships will become visibly damaged, even to the point of collapsing masts and fiery decks.  However, for a real visual treat, I recommend taking advantage of EIC’s Direct Command mode which places the game in a sort of FPS mode.  That is, instead of hovering over all your ships in the disembodied fashion of the default RTS Mode, Direct Command allows you to stand on the deck of any of your ships and watch the battle unfold from a swabbie’s perspective.  Unfortunately, while the player cannot move about freely but are limited to a number of preset positions (such as a view from the bow, stern, port and starboard), he can swivel the point of view in any direction.  What is more, he can even give orders to the ship, such as change direction, raise or lower the sails for greater speed, and fire a broadside.  All in all, I found this Direct Command mode to add a great deal of excitement to the already enjoyable tactical battles as nothing beats watching cannonballs roar out to strike a ship just off your port bow! 

Adding a bit more chrome to the battles is the possibility of boarding actions, which involve the not so easy task of maneuvering close to an enemy ship and fighting it out.  Finally, lest you think you need to kill every last crewman for victory, vessels will sometimes surrender if you can break their morale; something I found adds a nice extra dimension to combat. 

So What’s Not to Like?

Unfortunately, I found the all-important strategic level of the game to be too shallow.  Initially, all the international trading is interesting and it can be fun to build your first few fleets and watch them sail the seven seas (well, not all seven), but after awhile it just becomes a grind.  I mean, once you’ve loaded the first few thousand pounds of tea, the rest is just more of the same.  While the campaign missions seem to be nicely designed to add an ever-increasing challenge to the gameplay, I just didn’t find it all that interesting after the first hour or two; simply, the core gameplay needs much more variety.  They game does attempt to move things along by generating random events, such as offering the player a mission to hunt down a pirate, or by adding the wrinkle of a port closing due to plague, but there weren’t enough of these events to keep my attention engaged with the game.  I was gratified to see that Nitro recently released some DLC that involved a pirate campaign – good idea! – but I question the wisdom of charging for it when it is precisely this type of content that should have been included with the basic game from the get-go.  EIC has the potential to offer some interesting open sandbox gameplay, but right now it is just that…potential.   

Another problem I have is the superficial way port attacks are resolved.   Considering the visually attractive and exciting naval battles, seizing a port is handled in a surprisingly superficial manner.   Basically, the game calculates the attacking factors for each side, taking in account such factors as the number of men, cannon and the presence of a fort, and gives the player an estimate of the odds and a choice to abandon the attack or proceed.  If the player proceeds, he either wins and captures the fort, or loses…his entire fleet.  Huh?!?  I just don’t understand how any failed attack would decimate an entire fleet, including the loss of its commander, no less!  I just find this silly.  What is more, I wish Nitro Games found a way of including some sort of graphical component to the battle.  While the player will have a chance to fight it out on the ocean if an enemy fleet is present at the port, the actual attack on the port itself is entirely abstracted.  When a game has as pretty and engaging battle engine as this one does, that is a tragedy.  Couldn’t we at least have a chance to direct the shelling of the port and watch the marines go in? 

Lately, while it is the best part of EIC, the naval battle engine could use a little tweaking.  For example, even though a ship might take a pounding, I have noticed that the actual number of functioning cannons never seems to decrease.  It is an odd thing that you can decimate a crew and still have the ship maintain its firepower.  Also, I would like the ability to topple individual masts.  As it functions right now, you can whittle the sails down to nothing, at which point all three masts topple simultaneously.  That’s a bit unrealistic to say the least.  I also think the order system in direct command mode needs to tweaked as well.  Currently, you can steer a ship using the ‘W’, ‘A’, ‘S’, and ‘D’ keys – which is a bit odd.  I would much rather give orders to come to port, starboard, etc. than actually feel like I’m the one ‘driving’ the vessel.  Finally, I would like to be able to remove the five ship cap on fleets.  This isn’t a terrible design decision, but one that limits gameplay a bit.  If I can produce more ships than my opponent, why shouldn’t I be able to show it on the high seas?