East India Company: Collection review
East India Company Collection is a collection of strategy games, developed by Nitro Games and published by Paradox, taking place during the European conquest of south and south-east Asia. East India Company Collection includes the expansions ‘Pirate Bay’, ‘Privateer’ and ‘The Battle of Trafalgar’, so if you enjoyed the base game, the expansions can give you a different take on the strategic experience. East India Company is a nice balance between maritime trading and naval combat, giving more interesting ways to take down your opponents.
East India Company takes place in a time when Europe was attempting to establish an empire in the Far East, and because of this there are many different factions you can choose from including Britain, Spain, France, Holland, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark. Pirates also become a playable faction as it is included in the ‘Pirates Bay’ expansion, allowing players to cause chaos as opposed to establishing an empire. Regardless of the faction, the advantages and disadvantages to opponents are all fairly equal.
East India Company Collection’s tutorials are a real help for anyone new to this type of game, and go over the basics in a clear manner which really helped me when I first started to play. However I was thrown because my copy had the first tutorial labelled as the second, and the second as the third. This made me think the first tutorial was absent, with one containing all of the basics. But it appeared there were only 2 tutorials after all so beware.
The main mode of the game is ‘Grand Campaign’ where you start off with a few tutorial missions. These missions help get you a boat and some money, so you can start off the main game which consists of campaign goals. These goals include things like importing a specific amount of a spice or tea, or some sort of fabric. There are other goals such as sinking ships, where you play until the in-game timer reaches 1800, although it is possible for you to stop the timer earlier if you manage to gain power over all of the other companies. If all the goals are obtained, then you’ve won.
There’s another mode called ‘Free Campaign’. In this mode there are no campaign goals like in the ‘Grand Campaign’, the only way to win is a complete domination of the map. This mode has a few different scenarios and you can choose your starting port and starting dates.
The multiplayer mode available is only for ship vs. ship combat for up to 10 people. There are no available campaigns for people to play against each other, which is quite strange as it seems like the type of game that would be perfect to have a versus campaign mode. The ship vs. ship combat in the game is historically accurate, although because of this it is quite slow and tedious, not only against other people, but also against the AI. Even though it can become quite tricky, it’s still rather boring.
There are two modes of control for the ship combat. Direct command where you control the ship, aim it and fire it which is all done manually. There’s also a strategic command mode, with the ships all controlled through micromanagement or automatically, depending on how you’ve got it set up.
Though the modes are enjoyable, they really lack customisation. To be able to select your starting money, ships and other options would add a level of personalisation to the strategy. It doesn’t make the game any less enjoyable, just not as personal.
The expansions add specific options to the main game play. My only issue is that in order to play those changes, you must be playing that specific expansion. The main game itself remains unchanged, and instead of adding all the expansions into the main game, they are loaded separately.
The ‘Pirates’ expansion lets you play as a pirate from the games’ era. This allows you to attack and steal loot from cargo ships or commandeer any type of ship. You can even raid the ports, but the goal is to earn as much money as possible within 20 years. If you feel like you were a very successful pirate, you can upload your score to compare to others.
The ‘Privateer’ expansion is pretty much a bigger version of the ‘Pirates’ expansion. It also adds more specialists to the game such as surgeons, marine officers, cooks and constables, which allows you to make more diverse fleets. It also plays similar to the ‘Pirates’ expansion as you have to make as much money as possible. It is more mission oriented than ‘Pirates’ and the base East India Company campaign. Players can smuggle, blockade or track and destroy specific ships as part of the missions.
Finally the ‘Battle of Trafalgar’ expansion adds more content for ship combat, which is expected as it’s a re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar. This expansion adds content such as historically accurate ships and real life fleet commanders. The battle AI are also boosted, making for more challenging battles.
Graphically the game looks good. The ships are detailed in the combat mode, and the world map view is also full of detail, utilising a full colour palette. The sounds in the game are very well presented, adding to the realism with noises such as waves bashing off the ships, and other oceanic sounds you’d expect.
The game overall is a really good experience. Sadly though it does get boring fairly quickly. Enthusiasts of these types of game, or people who enjoy things relating to that era of time will get their money’s worth. And it is really worth the value, considering the amount of content.
