by Leon Li

Created on: August 17, 2009

East India Company is a real-time strategy game that's focused on the dawn of global trade, in the colonial era. It allows you to play as any of the eight historical factions (apart from the Holy Roman Empire, which didn't have an East India Company), and is focused on military, diplomatic, and economic domination over productive ports in Africa, the Middle East, and India. Any naval battles can be conducted in real-time, but there is an auto-resolve option as well.

Although it certainly sounds like an interesting idea, a game based on the various East India Companies and their efforts to control trade in Africa and the East Indies, it becomes unbelievably boring after your first two days with the game.

First off, there doesn't seem to be any difference between the different East India Companies, apart from the location of their home ports. It's a fundamental for any strategy game to have all the factions equal overall, but each faction should have its own strengths and weaknesses. That's not displayed in this game; apart from the British and Portuguese, who have a slight advantage with shorter distances to India and better positions to pirate ships, there are no differences between the different Companies.

You will find that it's absolutely imperative that you personally command every naval battle, else you risk losing several big ships loaded with treasure to a couple of agile, but weak, pirate ships, because the auto-resolve function will always favor the AI (apart from when you're playing in easy mode). This will become rather annoying after a certain period of time, because they take a while, and it will really impede your progress with the campaign.

The naval battle system, though has good detail and accurate technology, is unbelievably slow. Particularly when you have big ships and a strong wind, it may take a whole minute to turn your ship 90 degrees, and in that time, several small ships could have spun behind you, shot a couple of rounds, then flee.

As well, when you attack another fleet, the opponent AI almost always starts their game in ready position to shoot and flee, while your fleet is heading in a straight line for them, and it will be incredibly slow to move your ships into firing position or get close enough to board. Boarding will rarely happen; it's normally just something you do when your enemy ship is conveniently near enough to board, as trying to line your ship up with another ship will either result in: overdoing it and crushing

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