I love both aforementioned games dearly and play them every so often.
Debating whether to get EIC or not. Any pros/cons would be appreciated, thanks.
Debating whether to get EIC or not. Any pros/cons would be appreciated, thanks.
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If your getting EIC because you want it to be like PR2 or PAT3 then your going to be dissapointed. They both had a very in depth trading system at the expense of other action type sea warfare, EIC tries to sit on the fence covering both trading and action.
For what it's worth I loved both PR2 and Pat3, but I didn't think much of EIC. The people I have seen that do like EIC I don't think came from those games (I may be wrong about that though) so they didn't have any expectation about what EIC should and shouldn't have in it.
I should also point out that apparently the Designers Cut has improved the game considerably, I have had it uninstalled for a while now so I have not tried it.
There is a demo out though - http://www.eic-game.com/?page=demo
For what it's worth I loved both PR2 and Pat3, but I didn't think much of EIC. The people I have seen that do like EIC I don't think came from those games (I may be wrong about that though) so they didn't have any expectation about what EIC should and shouldn't have in it.
I should also point out that apparently the Designers Cut has improved the game considerably, I have had it uninstalled for a while now so I have not tried it.
There is a demo out though - http://www.eic-game.com/?page=demo
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I think it will be better if EIC have some features like PR2.
One is governmental actions of concerned nations as NPC.
They fight each other or against pirates and their Governers or Viceroys give player several missions in PR2.
But their activity is so low that they may not capture any towns by themselves in PR2, so this should be improved.
Another is detailed town managements with visual landscapes.
And for both EIC and PR2, especially for EIC,
Conflicts against native powers are necessary for feeling atmosphere of the age.
One is governmental actions of concerned nations as NPC.
They fight each other or against pirates and their Governers or Viceroys give player several missions in PR2.
But their activity is so low that they may not capture any towns by themselves in PR2, so this should be improved.
Another is detailed town managements with visual landscapes.
And for both EIC and PR2, especially for EIC,
Conflicts against native powers are necessary for feeling atmosphere of the age.
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Read the early interviews. The whole idea for EIC was to create a game more accessible to people and easier to play than Pat3 or PR2. So (to my big disappointment), Nitro were never going to complicate the thing more to make it a bigger challenge for us old-school Patrician fans for whom having whole trading empire written down in Excel along with normal gaming isn't something strange. This game as much as it was fun to toy with for a while (and I have spent a great deal of my time playing EIC while waiting for HoI3 patches), especially in naval battle department (which I still am custom-battling time to time if I need to kill some time), economically and mathematically was never a challenge I expected and wanted. But I understood as early as my first playthrough that EIC wasn't meant as Pat4 or PR4 and will never become a substitute for those so I didn't have hopes very high for a bigger map, more goods and so on.
There's a new Nitro game coming sometime soon, this time more about Pirates than trading, I have high hopes for it and I won't be disappointed for it not being complicated enough. Also next Patrician is scheduled for Summer 2010 since someone else bought the name from Ascaron upon their bankruptcy, we'll see how that works out, it will either ruin Patrician name forever (far more likely option) or will create another legendary game we will be talking about even years after it becomes obsolete.
Still, I am thankful to Nitro that they dared to resurrect the genre by creating a new game for it even despite how much I am disappointed with mini-campaign direction they chose for the game later. Being a long-time Total War games fan I developed a strong dislike to mini-campaign but I hope it worked out financially and allows them to continue their work. They already have a solid engine and great naval battles system at hand, they also have a ton of experience, maybe if Patrician 4 fails, Nitro will deliver us EIC2 and it will be the game we're waiting for since Port Royal 2.
There's a new Nitro game coming sometime soon, this time more about Pirates than trading, I have high hopes for it and I won't be disappointed for it not being complicated enough. Also next Patrician is scheduled for Summer 2010 since someone else bought the name from Ascaron upon their bankruptcy, we'll see how that works out, it will either ruin Patrician name forever (far more likely option) or will create another legendary game we will be talking about even years after it becomes obsolete.
Still, I am thankful to Nitro that they dared to resurrect the genre by creating a new game for it even despite how much I am disappointed with mini-campaign direction they chose for the game later. Being a long-time Total War games fan I developed a strong dislike to mini-campaign but I hope it worked out financially and allows them to continue their work. They already have a solid engine and great naval battles system at hand, they also have a ton of experience, maybe if Patrician 4 fails, Nitro will deliver us EIC2 and it will be the game we're waiting for since Port Royal 2.
I like that in PR2 you can automatically buy goods and put them in your warehouse, and even have your trade route ships take them from the warehouse. I really think EIC is missing out on that feature.
I loved Patrician and I hoped this game would be essentially Pat4. I was very disappointed. That doesn't mean something is wrong with EIC, but it just was not what I had hoped for and expected. It could easily have been though, had the developers wanted to go in that direction.
If you want Pat4 you shouldn't get this game.
If you want Pat4 you shouldn't get this game.
They would save themselves alot of grief if that was on the box/download page. I think it was an interesting concept to combine the trading and naval combat genres, but it didn't work out that well in practice. Not enough of a detailed trading game and too much combat for the trading gamers it was marketed to, and too much of a trading aspect for most combat enthusiasts to even consider trying it.
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Patrician4
Most of the team of Patrician4/Patrizier3 (gotta love the naming conventions...) are former members of Ascaron and have been involved in Patrician3/Patrizier2.
http://www.gamersglobal.de/interview/gc09-daniel-dumont-ueber-patrizier-3
interview with the lead developer, might wanna google translate it.
anyway, there IS hope
Most of the team of Patrician4/Patrizier3 (gotta love the naming conventions...) are former members of Ascaron and have been involved in Patrician3/Patrizier2.
http://www.gamersglobal.de/interview/gc09-daniel-dumont-ueber-patrizier-3
interview with the lead developer, might wanna google translate it.
anyway, there IS hope
delra said:
This is the new Nitro game they're working on:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=499
Primarily a colonization and trading game it seems, not sure how big of a role pirates will play.
I can't believe these reviews and I think most of them are nostalgic or short sighted. If you are expecting the depth of the Ascaron games (which I absolutely love), you're not going to get it in this game. However, this game wasn't meant to have the same kind if micromanagement as the Ascaron games. It is a very enjoyable game and I never feel like I need to break out a spreadsheet. With the Designer's Cut I don't get the same repetitive stress that I have from the Ascaron games. It is a different beast entirely - similar genre, different play style.
For instance, I'm also a long time fan of the Sid Meier Civilization series. However, I totally love Revolutions for the XBOX - it most certainly does not have the nuance and depth but it also lacks the mind bending micromanagement. So I play it for different reasons at different times. I think that this game fits well on my shelf of Sailing / Trading sims and if you are a fan of the Ascaron line up then you should give this game a whirl, it is a bit more free wheeling fun. Yes, I have Sid Meier's Pirates too. Would I put it in the same class as Pat/PR? Nope, does it have the same replayability? Nope. Did I enjoy the he77 out of playing it - oh yeah!
Coming from those games I was at first confused by some of the design decisions - for instance on using the warehouse or wanting complex trade routes, but this game is simplified to the point that the stuff that used to wrinkle my brow in Patrician doesn't even bother me - you almost can't fail in this game you're always making profit, it is just a matter of how much profit.
For instance, I'm also a long time fan of the Sid Meier Civilization series. However, I totally love Revolutions for the XBOX - it most certainly does not have the nuance and depth but it also lacks the mind bending micromanagement. So I play it for different reasons at different times. I think that this game fits well on my shelf of Sailing / Trading sims and if you are a fan of the Ascaron line up then you should give this game a whirl, it is a bit more free wheeling fun. Yes, I have Sid Meier's Pirates too. Would I put it in the same class as Pat/PR? Nope, does it have the same replayability? Nope. Did I enjoy the he77 out of playing it - oh yeah!
Coming from those games I was at first confused by some of the design decisions - for instance on using the warehouse or wanting complex trade routes, but this game is simplified to the point that the stuff that used to wrinkle my brow in Patrician doesn't even bother me - you almost can't fail in this game you're always making profit, it is just a matter of how much profit.
