Historical accuracy

[palex]

There the Portuguese nation in this game?
If not this game loses the opportunity to be an excellent game.

Makes any sense to have Dutch in Luanda?
Spanish in India?
Will they trade/bring football players to europe?

Just to say that were the portugueses that made possible to make this game today, because they were the first to make this jorneys.
There weren't any spanish in india.
That's because one of the most famouse treatys in the world - Treaty of Tordesillas - was signed between the portugueses and the spanish that divided the colonizeble world between them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas

Spanish in South America (except Brazil) - Portugueses in Africa and India

The most strange thing about this is that this game is made possible thanks to Paradox that publish europa universalis and they use this (and much, much more) information to make the game that everyone knows.

It's possible to make a game were barcelona and real madrid plays in the english championship. But because of that you think that there will be more spanish to play the game? Don't think so... (football analogy)

If the game don't sell the expected maybe this could be a reason.

[JohnMarshall12]

You should never expect entertainment movies or games to be that historically accurate. Think about movies like Braveheart for instance. Their objective is to entertain first and foremost. Historically accurate is nice, but it doesn't normally get Oscars or create best selling games.

[Palisadoes]

Relax. The Portuguese EIC is included. The playable companies are as follows:

• Britain
• Denmark
• France
• Spain
• Sweden
• Holy Roman Empire (Germany)
• The Netherlands
• Portugal

It's also worth noting that these are companies and NOT nations. I think Nitro have gone the direction of including the historical EIC's as well as those that *could* have had EIC's. Furthermore, they have allowed for this game to be less deterministic and more open-ended by taking this direction with this game.

[Ginko]

This is great... the excellence of the game will depend on whether the Portugese are included or not. Or maybe just to you kind sir.

Nah but as Palisadoes said, they are included, so no worries, you will be able to kick some spanish arse with your portugese cor... i means ships.

[Rogue Trader]

The Portuguese didn't discover India, or even the first route around Africa. That was the Phoenicians, according to Herodotus, and was 2000 years earlier during the reign of Necho II. The trade routes were more direct across the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea, and then across land or canals (there were two historically before Suez, to a now dried up branch of the Nile in the delta).

The Muslims simply weren't very cooperative in trade with the infidel West. It was to get around them, for the rich trade routes to the East that the Portuguese circumnavigated Africa.

The Spanish most certainly were involved in the trade to the Orient. You forgot the Phillipines. Andrés de Urdaneta discovered the route to the north, sailing towards Japan in order to link up with the Kuro-Shivo current. He then proceeded east towards California and Acapulco. Four months later he had completed the first tornaviaje or round trip between the Philippines and America.

Shortly after the discovery of the tornaviaje, Phillip II gave instructions to establish a permanent bi-oceanic route between Seville and the Philippines via New Spain. This was accomplished via Mexico City, and through to Manila, where the exchange of silver for silk, porcelain and other oriental (mainly Chinese) luxuries took place. Finally, the galleons would return across the Pacific following Urdaneta’s route.

Contrary to the alleged success of the English and Dutch sea-dogs in plundering the Spanish fleets, the historic truth is that throughout the 250 years of its existence, only four Manila Galleons were captured by the enemy. The first was the “Santa Ana” in 1587 and the last was the “Santísima Trinidad” in 1762.

In 1762, the British East India Company seized Manila with a force of 13 ships and 6830 men, easily taking the Spanish garrison of 600, but made little effort to extend their control beyond the port city. By 1764 the Treaty of Paris (1763) had returned Manila to Spain.

But not to put too fine an edge to it, Spain gobbled up Portugal in 1580. The Spanish tightened control of the market to which they now had exclusive access, cut the Dutch out of the picture and raised prices across the continent.

It is only a game, after all. But, yes, the Spanish do belong in the competition. In the long run, the Portugues after regaining independence, couldn't compete, because they never moderized their ships, a fine study in corporate inertia. The Dutch beat them out first. Of course, the Dutch made mistakes too. After all, they were so interested in mace that to secure the tiny island of Run, they traded away their rights to another colony in a different part of the world that they believed didn't have a lot of potential, New Holland. New Amsterdam wasn't really worth as much in comparison in the long run, was it ...

[Ginko]

Sumer traded with Sarasvati-Sindhu civilizations circa 2500B.C.

Rogue Trader could you define "discover"? Cause depending on the definition the mesopotamians could have been the first to "discover" India... or the Chinese.

[Digby_Chinless]

Wow, you guys do like to have fun over the small details, eh

I think in this context we can discount ancient civilizations and just need to look at the earliest western Christian explorers to do whatever it was they did to open trans- (or circum-) African trade.

I hardly think an argument over Portuguese vs Spanish traders is significant when we have an HRE-based company in the game. The German northern coast city-states were hardly that big a player in the African and Indian trades.

[Rogue Trader]

The Ostend East India Company, a group of private merchants, was chartered by the Austrian ruler Charles VI, who was the Holy Roman Emperor, in December 1722. The private merchants were from Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend. The trade from Ostend in the Austrian Netherlands to Mocha, India, Bengal and China started in 1715. Austrian enterprises were set up in the 1720s on the vicinity of Surat in modern-day southeastern Gujarat. As with the other non-British enterprises, the Danish and Austrian enclaves were taken over by the British between 1765 and 1815. The Ostend East-India Company did very well while it lasted, especially with the tea trade. Between 1724 and 1732, 21 company vessels were sent out, mainly to Canton in China and to Bengal. In May 1727 the charter of the company was suspended for seven years by the Emperor, and in March 1731 the second treaty of Vienna ordered the definitive abolition of he Ostend East India Company .

The Austrian Empire formed a monarchic union with the Kingdom of Hungary in 1867—creating Austria–Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire—which ended in 1918 with the closure of World War I. Before that it was of course the HRE. Austria was before that always a part of the Holy Roman Empire, which finally met its end in 1806.

And, of course, back in 1322, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville was one of the most popular books of the later Middle Ages, which described the circumnavigation of an English knight through Africa to India and the Middle East.

@Ginko: I freely admit I am Western in outlook and philosophy. What the definition means to me is that knowledge was contributed to the Western Civilization, which went on to dominate the entire world. If the Chinese made first civilized landfall in North America, it simply doesn't matter, because they did not communicate the information to the rest of the world. The only really important Mesopotamian is Abraham of Ur Kasdim, who was quite important to the history of the West.

[Khalep]

Rogue Trader, just out of interest, you do seem to know a lot about this, but to be quite honest I disagree with most of your statements concerning the Dutch.

Firstly, the point you made about 'the alleged success of the English and Dutch sea-dogs in plundering the Spanish fleets', it should really be added that Dutch raiding operations were mainly part of the WIC (West-Indische Compagnie), in the Americas.
Secondly, when it comes to the trade of Nieuw Holland, it wasn't quite as simple as that. Wars with the English had basically led to a situation in which we had little control over Nieuw Holland, if I recall correctly, and at the same time we had seized the British colony in Suriname. The treaty then signed mainly concerned Nieuw-Holland and Suriname (a size-able and resource-rich colony) by the way, I never even heard of this island of Run before.

Heh, also, do you really think we would've been able to hold on to Nieuw-Amsterdam and the region in the long run? Nah.

[Rogue Trader]

It is one of the Banda Islands, the only source at the time of nutmeg and mace. The outlying island of Run was harder for the VOC to control and they finally exterminated all nutmeg trees there. The production and export of nutmeg was a VOC monopoly for almost two hundred years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_(island)

Could they have held out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Breda_(1667) Probably. We'll never really know. The British had taken Havana, but they did return it to Spain. No real reason to suppose that they wouldn't have done the same with New Holland. Their real interest wasn't New England, but the southern colonies. Tobacco and cotton.

History is a hobby. Ever read of the failed attempt by the Dutch to take Cuba? But for a hurricane ...

[Khalep]

Interesting about that Island.

I'm not convinced we would've held Nieuw Holland though, no. For some time perhaps, yes, but not in the long run given the enmity between the British and the Republic. Still, it's always hard to say what the consequences of changing a particular bit of history would have been though, there's simply so many possibilities.

History's my hobby as well and always has been, the Americas are certainly not my field of expertise though, and it's been some time since I actively read into the East Indies either so you've got me quite outgunned there I'm afraid.

Hadn't heard about that attempt at Cuba either by the way. Sounds like something the WIC might have attempted though given their style of operating, certainly in their early years. When did that happen?

[Rogue Trader]

In the year 1640.

[Digby_Chinless]

The Ostend East India Company, a group of private merchants, was chartered by the Austrian ruler Charles VI, who was the Holy Roman Emperor, in December 1722. The private merchants were from Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend. The trade from Ostend in the Austrian Netherlands to Mocha, India, Bengal and China started in 1715. Austrian enterprises were set up in the 1720s on the vicinity of Surat in modern-day southeastern Gujarat. As with the other non-British enterprises, the Danish and Austrian enclaves were taken over by the British between 1765 and 1815. The Ostend East-India Company did very well while it lasted, especially with the tea trade. Between 1724 and 1732, 21 company vessels were sent out, mainly to Canton in China and to Bengal. In May 1727 the charter of the company was suspended for seven years by the Emperor, and in March 1731 the second treaty of Vienna ordered the definitive abolition of he Ostend East India Company .

The above are the details of what I said in far less words - the HRE were hardly significant players in African-Indies trade.

In fact, in terms of meaningful amounts of trade with India a balanced game should just include companies from England, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands. Everyone else was small fry.

The game is not historially accurate, it has been adjusted for game balance so it will appeal to more markets. Please don't get too obsessed about historical accuracy here. You don't find it in Hollywood movies, you'll very rarely find it in computer games.

[Rogue Trader]

Obsessed? Not particularly.

The East Ostend Company was interesting, though. It was capitalized at six million guilders. A guilder weighed 3.4 grams of gold, or about $100 in todays money. So, the corporation was capitalized at a value of over a half billion dollars in todays money. Think cruise lines, Royal Caribbean. It returned several times that amount to its owners. As for the others: The Compagnie des Indes Orientales was 15 million livres capitalized, the British East India Company £3,200,000, all very close in absolute terms. The VOC was the most valuable initially, paid out 18% over forty years.

The East Ostend Company was killed politically, not economically. Alternative history speculation can be interesting. One wonders where the world would be if the great wealth had flowed into the HRE rather than England and Holland.

[Digby_Chinless]

Absolutely, and this semi-historical game allows you to explore that to an extent.

[Hanjeman]

Hi everyone!

I´m looking forward to play this game in the future
But the big question that i have is this: How big is the map? I saw a few screenshots and Japan is missing on the minimap?? ...so i wonder if we are abel to build for example VOC outposts in China, Batavia, Judia, Molukken and my favorite place: Nagasaki?

I know the history of a few of the east india companies and for longer periods of time there were at least spanish/portugies and afterwards dutch trading posts in Japan. So, for the VOC the trading triangle India-China-Japan was very important. For example: The VOC brought clothes, tools and other things to India, exchanged it for spice, special kinds of wood and stuff, sailed to china and got rice, silk and porcelain to get finally silver, copper and luxary goods from Japan. I hope that is makeable in the final version of EIC. Otherwise it wouldn´t kinda feel right

So, how big and historical accurate can we build up "our" future companies in the game?


-- Nec semper feriet quodcumque minabitur arcus! --

[Digby_Chinless]

No, no Japan. The game covers Europe (home ports only), all of Africa, the Middle East, all of India and in the farthest east corner Aceh and Port Blair which represents the western edge of the East Indies.

Until the 1860s there wasn't that much contact with Japan since their society was closed. Some yes, but nothing significant enough to count on a level in a trading game like this.

China trade was mostly later than the time period covered in the game, so that's not represented either.

The devs have chosen to focus on Africa and India. Other stuff was happening, sure, but the game has chosen not to represent it.

[Hanjeman]

That makes me sad, but if the devs want to concentrate on Africa and West-India...there is nothing to argue about.


If the map ends at Port Blair and Aceh there wont be a Malakka and Batavia and no Nagasaki. I just can´t imagine a VOC without an HQ on Batavia (since 1619) and a fight for Malakka (1511-1641 portugies, -1824 dutch and -1957 britisch) and the Molukken for a spice monopol between the companies. The goal for the VOC was it from the beginning to trade with India, China and Japan from a base in the Malaiic Archipelago.

And for Japan: Sure it was closed, but before 1639 portugies and dutch had nice profits from trading with Japan. And after 1639 the VOC had a monopol on the trade with Japan and they got ship loads of silver from them for a very good trading rate. Around 1690 were up to 7 ships a year heading for Dejima/Nagasaki from Batavia and despite the financial burden of the isolated outpost on Dejima, the trade with Japan was very profitable for the VOC that got profits of 50% and more. The trade declined however in the 18th century, as only two ships per year were allowed to dock at Dejima and the VOC came into financial trouble.

Japan was after 1639 only accessable for the dutch, so if the game would be historical correct...yes...it makes no sense in terms of balancing to include that part of the world. But still...it´s a game and we can change history in games. That is what makes it fun. With every new campain we try to do something different. And a battle in south-east-asia for a spice monopol would be exactly what i want for a game that makes the EICs playable. Start with a kontor in europe and get a trading network under my control as far as history would let me possibly get (Nagasaki).

Anyways, that´s just my oppinion and i still look forward to the relaese


One last question about the game´s dimensions: What is the covered time period in the game? 1600-1800?

[Stuckenschmidt]

One last question about the game´s dimensions: What is the covered time period in the game? 1600-1800?

Correct

[Hanjeman]

Correct

Wonderful