Lately I have been getting is 'East India Company' itch again, after watching a fine documentary about the more technical aspects of the creation and operation of a pretty famous Dutch EIC vessel called the Batavia.
I wonder if you guys know games where these vessels play a big part in gameplay in this era.
For example; Europa Universalis is a game which features the era, but as its Grand Strategy, the ships are just icons, and a 'tool' if you know what I mean.
I am looking for a game where there is much more interaction with these massive ships of old.
So either a simulator-like game where you command such a vessel and its crew, or more a wargame-like experience is fine.
Have you played the East India Company game? It didn't quite live up to expectations but it isn't terrible either.
Did you take a look at Patrician 4 or Port Royal 3?
http://www.patrician4.com/en/index.php
You might also want to take a look at Age of Pirates 2. It's a sort of RPG/trade/ship combat simulator. The ship combat, trading, and crew management portions of the game are all pretty good (and the water and weather effects during ship combat are great) but the RPG portions (especially hand to hand combat) are tedious and difficult. The UI is somewhat cumbersome at times and, as the dev team were Russian, there are some issues with translations and a fair number of bugs.
I have never played EIC, Gus. Didn't even know it existed! :) Thanks.
After reading some reviews I don't get particularly warm for it, though. :S It seems like the game had some great ideas, but was hampered by some nasty bugs. Also, there seem to be several different versions and expansions around. Could you elaborate on which package I should aim to get if I want to play it?
I have Patrician IV with the expansion. It's nice, but doesn really give you the 'sailing nation' feeling.
Age of Pirates 2.. isn't that a sequel to the older games called Seadogs? The vessel simulation was always very nice, but in Seadogs most other elements of the game were severely broken.
I might try to find this somewhere.
Port Royale 3 (same basic engine as Patrician, both are ultra-detailed spiritual sequels to Sid Meir's Pirates) definitely has more of a sailing nation feel than Patrician.
While I haven't played PR3 yet, I've heard decent things about it; PR2 wasn't especially broken (any more than Pat3 was), and was DEFINITELY MILES BETTER than Sid's own remake of Pirates (which in a way it probably inspired him to remake since for the longest time PR was the modern version of Pirates. Still is I guess. :) )
I enjoyed East India Company more than most people did. Since you are interested in the subject matter like me, I would suggest getting the complete pack if you can...it's available new on Amazon for as low as four dollars! IIRC the complete edition includes patches that fix some of the bugs too.
I did think the campaign part of the game was weak, but this was countered by the solid naval combat and may have been beefed up with patches.
Port Royale 3, as others have said, it really the best way to go. It is not perfect and the piracy aspect feels a little tacked on in comparison to the trade portion. There are several DLC packs that added on some stuff, so you might try to get a bundle. IIRC, Port Royale 3 was part of the Spring Sale over at Gamersgate. You might check it out.
Is there a complete version oc Port Royale 3 available somewhere with all the DLC?
Quote from: Yskonyn on May 01, 2013, 09:21:04 AM
Age of Pirates 2.. isn't that a sequel to the older games called Seadogs? The vessel simulation was always very nice, but in Seadogs most other elements of the game were severely broken.
I might try to find this somewhere.
It was a continuation of the series. I think after Seadogs came Pirates of the Caribbean (originally to be Ssadogs 2 but then Disney bought the rights and renamed it to tie in with the movie). Then came Pirates of the Caribbean 2, then Age of Pirates and finally Age of Pirates 2.
Age of Pirates 2 removed the central narrative RPG elements from the previous games and opted for an open world sandbox style with AOP2. You select a profession (merchant, naval officer, or adventurer) and then a nationality (British, French, Spanish, or Dutch) and then you're pretty much free to do as you like. You can build a trading fleet and try to manage an empire. You can sack a town and set yourself up as governor. You can get a letter of Marque and go be a privateer.
It's mostly historically based but they obviously wanted to keep some of the Pirates of the Caribbean influence in there because there are side missions involving cursed treasure, the undead, the Flying Dutchman, and so on but you can ignore all of this if you wish.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on May 01, 2013, 10:30:25 AM
Port Royale 3, as others have said, it really the best way to go. It is not perfect and the piracy aspect feels a little tacked on in comparison to the trade portion. There are several DLC packs that added on some stuff, so you might try to get a bundle. IIRC, Port Royale 3 was part of the Spring Sale over at Gamersgate. You might check it out.
To be fair, EIC's pirate & privateer expansions were also pretty "tacked on".
PR3's business/trade side of things is more detailed than EIC, too. The only pro for EIC is the better ship combat graphics but I also have complaints about it's ship combat - namely the ridiculously low ammo amounts. If it's gonna be somewhat arcadey, as they both are, I'd rather it have the Pirates-style ship combat that PR3 has.
Age of Pirates 2 does interest me. I've had some good moments with the original Seadogs, as that title really gave you a feeling you commanded a powerful vessel. If AoP 2 is effectively the 5th title in the series, its bound to be a lot more solid now. I'll have a look, thanks for pointing it out!
As for PR3, isn't Pat 4 regarded as the more in-depth game (both are similar, save for the area of operations)?
PR3/PAT4 is really more the flavor you want. Overall the game mechanics are the same. PR3 has a few newer options as it's the newer of the two games.
Quote from: Yskonyn on May 01, 2013, 12:25:46 PM
As for PR3, isn't Pat 4 regarded as the more in-depth game (both are similar, save for the area of operations)?
I may look into AoP2, too. To. You know.
Between Pat3 and PR2, I would have said PR2 was by far more in-depth; the piracy aspects of Pat3 (and Pat2, the sequel being a light update basically) were quite clunky, although I was willing to overlook that as inadvertent flavor of the time and place. Pat2 had more of everything, especially pirates, being a more direct remake of SM's Pirates.
Having not played the new two iterations, I can't compare. I know Ascalon tried hard to polish the ship combat by virtue of at least two games before Pat4/PR3 where the action piracy aspect was practically the whole game.
Quote from: Yskonyn on May 01, 2013, 12:25:46 PM
Age of Pirates 2 does interest me. I've had some good moments with the original Seadogs, as that title really gave you a feeling you commanded a powerful vessel. If AoP 2 is effectively the 5th title in the series, its bound to be a lot more solid now. I'll have a look, thanks for pointing it out!
As for PR3, isn't Pat 4 regarded as the more in-depth game (both are similar, save for the area of operations)?
The ship combat is quite good as is the trading and the crew management. Unfortunately, you have to wander around the towns in 3rd person mode and that is where the game really suffers. The graphics are rather dated, the controls are clunky, and the game forces a lot of combat on you and the combat is very unwieldy and very unforgiving.
There is a very good mod group called Pirates Ahoy! and they put out a couple of massive mods that added a tonne of new ships, new textures, and features as well as expanding items that you can trade and cleaning up a lot of bugs.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/gentlemen-of-fortune (http://www.moddb.com/mods/gentlemen-of-fortune)
I did find a multi-part video (23 parts, i think) of a guy playing AOP2 with the mod on YouTube. The guy is incredibly annoying and his PC runs the game quite poorly but it does give you an idea of what the gameplay is like. (I linked to the first video in the series but you can probably skip ahead 1 as it's just the host gobbing off like an idiot and taking forever to select his character).
I didn't even know Age of Pirates 2 existed, and now I may get it. I'll send the receipt to Yskonyn :)
I think the dev went bankrupt so it may be hard to find now. I bought my copy through Gamersgate but it looks like only the UK site still has it for sale now.
It's not on Steam, GameFly, Greeman, Desura, GOG, or Greenman though.
It certainly isn't on US Gamersgate. (I didn't even know there were world-region distinctions. All the games I buy seem to have their original European titles when they arrive, not the US titles I bought them under.)
Does it have an alternate title perhaps? Age of Pirates 2 I mean.
Note: Amazon (US) has new and used copies, including a (purportedly) new copy for just under $9, although the more official resellers are asking a bit under $14 (plus shipping).
Edited to add: the most updated version of Gentlemen of Fortune appears to be here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/gentlemen-of-fortune/downloads/gentelmen-of-fortune-v12-full-release
Then also the latest (and only) patch for v1.2 of GoF: http://www.moddb.com/mods/gentlemen-of-fortune/downloads/gof-12-full-release-patch
So the install order is AgeofPirates2, Gof1.2, Gof1.2patch
Looks like it's no longer available in N. America.
http://www.gamersgate.com/gametutor?issue=236042 (http://www.gamersgate.com/gametutor?issue=236042)
Here's the UK page.
http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-AOP2CAS/age-of-pirates-2-city-of-abandoned-ships (http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-AOP2CAS/age-of-pirates-2-city-of-abandoned-ships)
Age of Pirates 2 was on Gamersgate's US site as of about 2 years ago.
I remember because I put it on my discount notification list at the time.
Yes, it was. I bought my copy there. It's still in my games list and the download link still works. (Checked today.) I hadn't realized earlier that it was so hard to come by now or I wouldn't have posted about it.
One less available on Amazon now than before... ;)
If you have John Tiller's Battleground Napoleonic Wars, you can install Age of Sails too.
The UK Gamersgate link does indeed point towards the gamepage, but it's not available there anymore either.
Eventhough it lists for 20 pounds, there is no BUY button to be found, just a tickbox showing "Alert me on release".
So this title is going to be darn hard to find... To bad as I was interested in getting it. Especially for a low price.
It's not on Steam either.
If you can proxy buy through amazon US then there are still some copies of Age of Pirates 2 available.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AK6U8E/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Maybe SDR could give us a runthrough on how to set that proxy thing up.
I don't think it'll work if you're trying to ship to a non US address but you can give it a shot.
The program is called TunnerBear. Just install it, run it and use the proxy selector to choose what country you wish to appear to be in.
http://www.tunnelbear.com/ (http://www.tunnelbear.com/)
Quote from: Gusington on May 01, 2013, 10:40:47 AM
Is there a complete version oc Port Royale 3 available somewhere with all the DLC?
I think Gamersgate were selling it as a Gold bundle, also Patrician 4 a couple of weeks ago. I didn't bother with Patrician 4, since I have Patrician 3 and I couldn't see that many new features other than 3-d as a motivator to buy it. If I'm wrong someone correct me, as I really like Patrician 3.
The UK/EU branch of Gamersgate only seems to have the expansions for PR3.
Their description mentions you need to have the base game and it links to its catalogue page on Gamersgate, but like Age of Pirates 2 it seems to be unavailable to buy... :S
Steam has it as well, but at full price.
Which game did Steam have, PR3 or AoP?
PR3.
They go on sale every once in a while; wait a few weeks. (Or look up PR3 on Amazon, see if you can find a cheap indie seller.)
My nieces are jusssst finally getting old enough to make playing computer games with them feasible (or one of them is anyway, and she's studying history and foreign countries), so I've been stocking up on relatively non-violent historical games. Thus I picked up PR3 and Pat4 during their most recent sale, since for her graphics will have to look interesting.
Steam has PR3, Gus. Sorry.
AoP 2 is nowhere to be found.
Amazon US (possibly other branches) still has some AoP2 copies by indie sellers.
Or did before I and some others made a run on them. :)
Thanks guys. FYI I have a copy of AoP2 - City of Abandoned Ships in my Amazon cart right now. Haven't looked on Steam yet for Port Royale 3. I liked the remake of Pirates and these games sound much deeper.
Hmz.. Amazon US will cost me too much for shipping I am afraid.
I'm also checking out Patrician IV on Steam right now. I played the first game but it flummoxed me. Is the newest one more accessible?
Pat3 was (somewhat) more accessible; my guess from what (little) I've heard is that Pat4 is more accessible again.
Is there a demo on Steam?
Some quick Pat4 accessibility notes; there are two versions of the game, regular Pat4 and the expansion (Rise of a Dynasty) which appears to require Pat4. I don't know why someone would play Pat4 if they had the expansion, or just how important the expansion is to the experience. (I happen to own both from a gold edition or something.) I do know that the two editions are patched completely separately, and activated completely separately -- in fact the main version of the game has a whole other level of activation that the expansion doesn't have, yet the expansion can be played without having activated the main game! (I did this sort-of-by-accident.) There is off-site DRM of some sort; I had already registered some kind of account somewhere with a password, although I don't know when or where. Possibly this is not a separate issue with Steam; my version came from Gamersgate, and does not use Steam activation.
Regardless, either version of the game features a campaign as well as freeplay and (for the expansion) scenarios. The campaign acts as a tutorial with advice in various forms.
Pat4-Rise of A Dynasty was just an expansion. You still need the original Patrician 4 to use it, unless you get the Patrician 4 Gold edition which includes both.
Port Royale 3 has the base game and something like 3 expansions. The expansions for either of these base games aren't anything huge so if you don't feel like splurging a bit extra for the DLC, it's not a big loss.
Pat4 is probably cheaper since it's a bit older. But when I think of wooden ships, I think of the 17th & 18th century stuff portrayed in PR3 - not the older Hanseatic League stuff in the Patrician series. Caribbean or bust!
Of course I don't know which to pick now...Port Royale 3...Patrician 4...or Age of Pirates 2...
How about East India Company Collection? http://www.gamersgate.com/DDB-EICC/east-india-company-collection
Quote from: Ashcloud on May 04, 2013, 04:29:30 AM
How about East India Company Collection? http://www.gamersgate.com/DDB-EICC/east-india-company-collection
LOL!
Did you read the earlier posts, AC? ;D
Quote from: Nefaro on May 04, 2013, 04:40:32 AM
Quote from: Ashcloud on May 04, 2013, 04:29:30 AM
How about East India Company Collection? http://www.gamersgate.com/DDB-EICC/east-india-company-collection
LOL!
Did you read the earlier posts, AC? ;D
Dang, how embarrassing. I should remember to read a bit more before I start typing - anyway reason I asked is I have a copy to trade/gift on Gamersgate if anyone is interested.
I would be interested, but I have nothing to trade other than funds I am afraid. ;)
Quote from: Yskonyn on May 04, 2013, 06:45:33 AM
I would be interested, but I have nothing to trade other than funds I am afraid. ;)
Are you a gamersgate member? PM me your username so we can connect in GG
You may be pleasantly surprised with EiC, Yskonyn. If you get it please post an impression or two!
I am a GG member indeed; Same handle: Yskonyn
Let me know for how much you want to give it to me.
Yes Gus, will do! ;)
^Thank you. Whatever you get, post impressions...my finger is dangling over the buy button for Partrician IV but my experience with the first one is keeping me from purchasing.
Sorry for the thread necromancy, but there seem to be some glaring omissions here. Sailing games are a fairly sad little segment of the gaming industry, and there are some real stinkers out there. If your boat can reverse like a car, you should consider that the coders may not have ever seen an actual boat. I also have to say that I don't consider cannons to be optional, so there may be other games I haven't considered.
Here are the ones that I have found to have glimmers of brilliance.
Sid Meier's Pirates! - Pretty simplistic, but loads of fun. Get it.
East india company - Yes your inner accountant might be required to get going in this game, but eventually you can just rampage across the seas plundering other nations until .. their economy crashes and they have no more ships. Damn. Also note the Pirate Bay expansion removes the need for inner accountants. The sea battles are really good. It's on steam.
Age of Sail 2 - fairly old, crashes a fair amount, and perhaps too 'realistic' for the casual player. You may have trouble finding a copy. I liked it a lot.
Age of Pirates 1&2 - Not as old as Age of sail, but you will struggle to find a copy, and even worse I am still trying to get a copy of either myself. However this sounds like it might be cool. Really install one of the community bugfix mods, as the basic game is riddled with bugs and pretty unstable.
Port Royale 2&3 - Really not much of a sailing game, this is one for the inner accountant. It's on steam, but perhaps don't bother.
Empire Total war - Yes it's not a sailing game, but again the sea battles are really good. If you install the Darth mod, you can play as the pirate faction, which limits the number of land battles you need to get into, but as you need such a solid grasp of the economic system in order to support a huge pirate navy, perhaps you should rather play as one of the seafairing nations, England, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, America, France, anyone with a bit of coast really. It's on steam.
Assassin's creed 4 - Again I've only played AC 3, although I will definitely get AC4. Both are on steam. AC3 has about 2 hours of sailing missions, AC4 I assume loads more. The problem with both is, you need to run around in first person a lot, stealthing, and murdering various people up close and personal. This may not be for everyone. The AC3 sea battles are quite fun, if a bit easy. I'm hoping AC4 is more tactical.
Pirates of the Burning sea (Online) - perhaps slightly better than you might expect from an online game, but still not very good. Dominated by level 50 players, and level trumps skill most of the time. If you get to level 50 yourself, it may become more fun.
Wasn't there a trading game that came out recently about Venice? You play a trader in Venice and build up your fleets and such. I believe it's in the 15th century? Possibly by the same guys that did the "Anno" series of games? Not sure
Edit: here it is: http://www.riseofvenice.com/us/
Quote from: mikeck on May 05, 2014, 08:40:24 AM
Wasn't there a trading game that came out recently about Venice? You play a trader in Venice and build up your fleets and such. I believe it's in the 15th century? Possibly by the same guys that did the "Anno" series of games? Not sure
Edit: here it is: http://www.riseofvenice.com/us/
Hey! Here it is, on our front page!
http://grogheads.com/?p=4115
Well it's pretty alright...but how does it play?
heliphino!
Ping Monty - he's the guy that sent over the screenshot :)
I just post them
Quote from: mikeck on May 05, 2014, 02:10:29 PM
Well it's pretty alright...but how does it play?
It's
Port Royale 3... in Venice, reportedly. It uses the same engine and game mechanics from the Patrician4/Port Royale 3 series.
And PR3 has already been mentioned here.
Quote from: Nefaro on May 05, 2014, 02:34:24 PM
Quote from: mikeck on May 05, 2014, 02:10:29 PM
Well it's pretty alright...but how does it play?
It's Port Royale 3... in Venice, reportedly. It uses the same engine and game mechanics from the Patrician4/Port Royale 3 series.
And PR3 has already been mentioned here.
Nuff said
Glance through the thread, didn't see any posts about it but EIC gold is $1.20 at bundles stars right now, steam key.
http://www.bundlestars.com/store/east-india-company-gold/
I could see some quality in parts of East India Company and it's sequel, Conquest of the Americas(?). But some parts of it rubbed me wrong.
One was the tactical combat. It looked great but some of it was screwy if you used the 'Realism' settings. For one, the ships would run out of cannon ammo in little time.. often without crippling an opponent in 1v1. There also seemed to be weirdness with the ship speeds IIRC.
The heart of the game, the strategic play on the map, also made it feel rather dull and uneventful to me. I tried a few times to get into EIC but it wasn't quite clicking. Definitely more oriented towards trading, as in the Port Royale series, but it didn't do that focus as well and lacked some of the historical flavor too. Neither of these series had very interesting Pirate/Privateer gameplay - they felt very tacked on.
At a couple dollars, it's probably worth checking out to see if you like it.
I definitely remember the EiC strategic game being a snoozefest, especially compared to other games like TW.
Cool, I just added Conquest of the Americas to my steam wishlist so I can grab it the next time it's on sale. I also crumbled and forked over a wad of cash to a company to import Age of Pirates 2 from Amazon America, which really seems to be the last place on the planet you can get it from.
EIC was by no means perfect, one of the main problems I had with it was the captain upgrades. I'm kinda OK with the passive upgrades, but the active upgrades really break immersion. I generally take all of the passive abilities, apart from repair hull and repair sails, which are so brokenly good that I can't resist them.
That said, if you're running out of shot, you probably need a bigger boat, or a warship rather than a merchant vessel. Frigates were my favorite, fast, with a hefty punch. I never sink anything, I always destroy the sails, decimate the crew, and then board. Every ship that surrenders drops the morale of all of the others. Eventually I'd have trading fleets composed of 4 Indiamen and a 90 gun SotL, because they had the same speed, and attack fleets composed of 46-gun SotLs & frigates, plus a Cutter or Xebec to catch any that try to run away. Attack fleets & SotLs are loaded with marines, so don't transport goods.
Regarding trading, You want to let the price of a good rise in Europe for a couple of years, then load up all of your fleets with the same good, and dump the lot in one go. Repeat with the next good. If you keep supplying all goods constantly, the prices will drop and you'll lose cash. Also don't take over too many ports, and certainly none in Africa. You may have to 'liberate' it from other European powers and then 'free' it.
Watch the costs of those port defence upgrades, they get huge fast. Often it's better to defend the area with a fleet than upgrade port defences, and it may be better to get your captain the buy and sell abilities than take over the port in the first place. Trade fleet captains need to spend some time in warships so they can get at least the buy, sell, speed, and capacity upgrades. You need to start training a replacement captain as soon as one of your existing ones hits around 50 years old.
However, spending some time in Empire total war will show you that EIC is just a toy. The Darth mod reduces the chances of your ships sinking or catching fire, but with or without it, the first time you see a magazine explode ... wow.
Just FYI...I found the naval battles in Napoleon Total War to be even prettier and more fluid than empire. If naval battles are your thing, might want to check it out
The naval battles in Fall of the Samurai are my favorite. Most streamlined, most fun to play, cool technology and a lot of exploding magazines. And they look great.
The thread started with the disclaimer that I already have the TW games. I was looking for something else, that was the point. ;)
So they are not a glaring omission. :)
Nevermind, it did not. Must have been in my head when I posted it, though. :D
I like ETW modded... a lot!
If you guys are still looking for a pirate sailing trade type of game and can't find age of pirates 2, check this out. http://store.steampowered.com/app/293010
Looks like it's based on the mount and blade engine.
Quote from: Skoop on May 06, 2014, 01:35:36 PM
If you guys are still looking for a pirate sailing trade type of game and can't find age of pirates 2, check this out. http://store.steampowered.com/app/293010
Looks like it's based on the mount and blade engine.
Hrmm.. could be interesting. Will still probably just feel like an M&B mod but we don't exactly have a lot to choose from in the genre these days.
I saw another indie Alpha thing not long ago, with the same focus but what looked to be more modern gfx. I must have the link saved on my laptop because I can't find it in my bookmarks. >:(
Caribbean! looks interesting, I was tempted by Mount and blade, but resisted. I may not be able to resist this. Although perhaps they used horses as the basis of their ships, aargh, please no. Look, if I push shift I can make the ship rear up :p
I didn't try any naval battles in Napoleon, probably because my last save is near the end of the Egyptian campaign. There was one English fleet defending Cyprus, but it was huge. I think I should finish off the campaign and see what the third campaign holds. However I expect far more land than sea battles, as Napoleon cements his position in Europe. I assume I'll also have to make some sort of suicidal march on Moscow? Probably only the final campaign contains mostly sea battles. To quote Wikipedia: In the words of Admiral Jervis to the House of Lords "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea".
I don't have fall of the samurai, and given how my laptop's handling Shogun 2, I think I need an upgrade before going anywhere near it. The shogun 2 sea battles are not grabbing me so far, but given the ships resemble shoe boxes with oars, this is unsurprising.
^I am the same way with standard Shogun 2. But the naval battles in Fall of the Samurai really rock. Once you upgrade I definitely recommend it, especially since you can get FotS for like 4 dollahs now.
I loaded my last Egypt save, looked around, and started a new game in campaign 3, which is loads more fun. On land I beat up the Austrians, and am taking a bit of a drubbing from the Prussians. First off, this is on the hardest setting for both campaign and battle. Land battles behave about the same as Empire, in that with a good general and some cannon, you can wipe out an army 50% larger than yours fairly easily.
However, let's talk about the sea battles. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, but Empire battles were brutal. Entering a sea fight without a hefty advantage was asking for trouble. In desperate times it was possible to attack a single big slow ship with a small fast ship, destroy their sails, decimate their crew, and board, but a fair amount of luck and lots of patience were required. So far with Napoleon, I've played 3 fights against the English, all with a 50% advantage, but it feels like they've gutted the AI. Three times I equipped grape shot, set my line of ships to board their line of ships, and pretty much watched the fight resolve like I'm doing up a zip. Perhaps I better set up an even fight and see how it goes.
On that note, my Pirate empire is stuck on a monster sea battle, although both fleets are pretty evenly matched, but I should try an immediate board of their admiral with my biggest ship.
Turns out I was playing vanilla instead of Darth Napoleon, so I restarted :idiot2:
This time I dropped difficulty to hard on both campaign & battles, and it works out pretty similar to vanilla on very hard, but with added interest, because the British have sent a full stack of troops to invade France three times so far. I find this difficulty to be the best so far.
Back to Darth Empirates on max difficulty. I eventually retreated my ships back to port, repaired the lot, gathered two full stacks led by uber admirals, and attacked again. I bet if I auto-resolved I would win, because the relative power indicator is 2/3 in my favour. Unfortunately in practice I'm still getting massacred. Anything less than double the number of troops will fail a boarding attempt. :tickedoff:
I'm continuing to try in case my tactics just suck, and it feels easier than restarting on hard difficulty. Hm, perhaps if I attack the admiral with lots of small rubbish boats first, one will catch fire and blow up. Then whatever survives can come face my main fleet :knuppel2:
I got Commander: conquest of the Americas, and it's pretty similar to EIC. Sea battles are identical, apart from an extremely nasty bug which has stopped me from boarding entirely, as this typically results in the ships colliding and both sinking.
Another peeve with both games is how easy it is to destroy a nations economy. I declared war on the French, captured every single one of their boats, then made peace and allied with them in return for about 300k worth of resources. This is ridiculous. In the civ games, or the total wars, the declaration of war changes your entire game, in my case often for the worst. Here it just means you don't have to search the sea for pirates, you can camp outside the french ports and wait for them to load up a fleet with resources. Actually, when I stole their final fleet of 8 ocean going warships, they had sneakily loaded them with 160 soldiers instead of gold, a fairly dirty trick. However, because the coastal ships are loads stronger than the ocean going ships, I managed to scrape a win with 10 coastal traders loaded with about 120 soldiers.
Now, 5 years later, France have managed to build 3 ships. This is one case where I think a small amount of AI cheating is called for. Like if a country hits rock bottom, you shut them down if they're at war with the player, or slip them an invasion force after 5 years, but if they're at peace, you slip them some cash and donate them a fleet of trade ships after a year. It's not as if the AI isn't cheating already, because both French ports have garrisons loaded with 500 soldiers. If I'd blown the cash on garrisons and then transported 1000 troops from Europe, I would probably have run out of cash and lost the game.
Anyway, its entertaining enough for now, until Age of Pirates 2 arrives :D
Is Age of Pirates 2 comng soon? While waiting you may want to try Assassins Creed Black Flag.
Quote from: Gusington on June 18, 2014, 07:59:32 AM
Is Age of Pirates 2 comng soon? While waiting you may want to try Assassins Creed Black Flag.
Isn't Ass Creed mostly oriented towars action/3D-platforming?
In Black flag players get to.control their own pirate ship in the Caribbean.
What is this talk about 'When AoP 2 comes' ?
That game has been out for ages, has it not? Or is a western re-release confirmed?
Sorry, I mean I finally crumbled and forked over the equivalent of about $40 to import AoP2 from Amazon America (which is the last place on the planet with any stock). Gimme a break, I haven't paid over $10 for a game since I bought Doom 2 in 1995 ::)
EDIT D'oh OK except for Baldur's Gate 1 in 1999.
Yup AC4:Black flag is currently top of my steam wishlist, currently $40 less 40% because of the steam summer sale. Seeing as I've played all of the PC Assassin's creeds, I WILL be getting this one in the next year or two.
Shop around for Black Flag...the prce you have above is excellent but you may be able to do slightly better. I got a physical copy of it from Amazon for about 20.00.