Planing on Getting... Please help!

If you like the Port Royale or Patrician series, there is a high probability you will like this game, they all have the same play style.
The expansions are not that great, and you may feel the game is too easy.

I recommend that you try the demo (http://www.eic-game.com/?page=demo), and draw your own conclusions.

Fr8monkey said:

I have been going through the demo now. Like the graphics. I'm liking it so far; but I haven't gotten into the campaign yet.

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Take a look on amazon because it is available for little cost there.

EDIT: I always check out the Reviews on Gamersgate for every game. Can save you buying and regretting very quickly afterwards.

Note that the expansions are add new campaigns/scenarios, rather than enhancing the original campaign. Depending on what prices you are finding on the full collection versus the original game alone (for which you can get the Director's Cut enhancement for a free extra download), it is something to keep in mind.

I have been going through the demo now. Like the graphics. I'm liking it so far; but I haven't gotten into the campaign yet.

Fr8monkey said:

I have been going through the demo now. Like the graphics. I'm liking it so far; but I haven't gotten into the campaign yet.

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FWIW I found the campaign to be hard to get in to initially, possibly because you have to sail around for some time before much of anything happens. Once it gets rolling it's fun though.

Is there a 'free play' mode? I own Patrician II and III and also Port Royale 2, and I never play the scenarios or campaigns. I prefer to just build my trading empire at my own pace.

Also, what commodities do you trade in EIC? I always wanted to play a trading game that features Asian commodities like silk, rice, exotic woods, etc.

Antonin said:

Is there a 'free play' mode?

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Yes, I believe there is a free play mode. I haven't tried it, however.

If you get the collection version with all the add-ons, there's also a pirate campaign where you simply attack and plunder all the other nations, and a privateer campaign in which you can align with or attack any faction you like, and you can select from a bunch of different missions.

Antonin said:

Also, what commodities do you trade in EIC? I always wanted to play a trading game that features Asian commodities like silk, rice, exotic woods, etc.

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Porcelain, silk, tea, coffee, exotic furs, gold, gems, and a bunch of other stuff.

How does EIC compare to Patrician III? Or to Port Royale 2? I noticed that there is a demo of EIC, but you have to register at Gamersgate [I think that's what it's called] to download it. I'm reluctant to register someplace and get more spam in my email box.

I play Patrician and Port Royale 2 almost entirely as trading sims. I'm not interested in sea battles at all.

GamersGate doesn't spam your mailbox. If it does, you have forgotten to tick off the box in front of the newsletter message.
So it's safe to register there.

As for the game itself; trading is very simple compared to the Patrician and Port Royale series. Basicly you order a captain to auto-buy goods at a port without setting the kind of good, the quantity and the price.
Both EIC and C:CotA are more focused at naval domination - in which battles are the majority - as trading.

Personally I'd go with Patrician IV and Port Royale 3 if you're looking to something similar to what you play now. And even those two games are dumbed down versions of the older ones.

Thorin

If Patrician IV and Port Royale 3 are dumbed down versions of the older titles, that's not good at all. But they are both 3D games, aren't they? Sad. I don't know why developers are choosing good looks over better, deeper gameplay. It makes no sense to me. But it makes me think there is no point in buying a new computer for another year or two.

I did buy EIC Collection today and maybe that was a mistake. The version of EIC Director's Cut is 1.12. Is that the latest version?

The specs of my elderly computer exceed what EIC requires, but the cursor is 'mushy'--i.e., it's hard to place the cursor on one point without some wobbling around. I have the graphics turned down to 'low,' but it seems that clicking on anything is taking more trouble than it should. I wish it were possible to turn off the water effects and somehow get the game to run more smoothly. I don't want to auto-trade; but it seems that manual trading requires more clicking than it should.

I always wanted a trading game where I could trade various commodities around the coast of Africa and the Indian Ocean. So, I bought EIC even though so many people seem to dislike it. I have no interest at all in sea battles. I don't want to sink ships and blow stuff up. I'm an older gamer who likes to come hom from a difficult day at work and run a business empire on my computer.

I wish there was a Patrician-like game featuring Africa and Asia. Give me crisp, pretty 2D graphics that don't bog down my computer, and a game with enough depth to create the fantasy that I am actually running a trading empire.

EDIT: Thank you, Thorin and UniversalWolf, for answering my questions.

Antonin said:

...
The specs of my elderly computer exceed what EIC requires,

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Exceeds the MINIMUM requirements? Or the recommended requirements? If only the minimum then it´s no wonder that the game or mouse seem to run choppy sometimes.

but the cursor is 'mushy'--i.e., it's hard to place the cursor on one point without some wobbling around. I have the graphics turned down to 'low,' but it seems that clicking on anything is taking more trouble than it should. I wish it were possible to turn off the water effects and somehow get the game to run more smoothly.

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In the games menu chose "Options". Then "Graphics" and then you can decide how much detail you want. If you want to only lower the water quality go to "Advanced" in the graphics options.

My computer exceeds the requirements as listed on the box, and as listed on the Paradox website. That is why, in another thread for the game "Rome," I asked about the "actual" system requirements of that game. In my experience, the requirements shown on the box of some games do not really give you an idea of whether or not the game will perform well enough to be fun.

Thank you for the advice on choosing graphics options. I did that already, however. It's unfortunate that you can't choose even more detail to turn off or turn down in order to improve performance. I can see why people who want to play EIC as a naval combat game would like lots of beautiful detail. But for me, I would prefer less detail if that would improve performance. I don't play games just to watch and admire them--I play for the gameplay.

From reading this forum it seems that many people who bought EIC want to play it as a battle game. I bought it hoping that there was enough trading game there to make it fun.

Anyway, thank you again for your reply. The EIC forum seems to be very quiet.

Well, it's a bit of an older game, and it already has a sequel (Commander: Conquest of the Americas). I can't really speak to your troubles with the graphics, except to say that the game doesn't seem to be a resource hog of any kind on my machine (admittedly, I have a nice computer, but it's five years old now). In fact it's buttery smooth with all the options maxed out. The typical first suggestion would be to make sure your graphics card drivers are updated to the latest versions. If you've done that, you might try tinkering with the graphics card settings via the driver's control app. And if you haven't done so, try turning the settings up instead of down. Newer games are intended to be run with various kinds of graphics processing, and in some cases they run better with those processes active rather than inactive.

What kind of computer and graphics card do you have? That would tell us a lot about what you should expect.

I have a Compaq Presario with:

AMD Athlon 64 processor 3400+
1.8 GHz
1.5 GB of RAM

My video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 6200.

I thought I had a GeForce 6600, but unfortunately it's only as 6200.

I tried turning the graphic options up, as you adviced, but performance is even worse. Oh well. I look at the EIC map and would love to be sailing from port to port, trading exotic commodities, but it does not look like that's going to happen any time soon.

Yeah, that's a little lean, I suppose. Frustrating, but you'll have to upgrade that system sooner or later. When you do I have little doubt EIC will run much better. I don't know whether it's worth it for you to go pumping any money into what you have already, but I'd look for more RAM and a new graphics card. Probably saving up for a new machine is the best idea though.

Maybe somebody else has better advice. Sorry.

Antonin said:

I have a Compaq Presario with:
AMD Athlon 64 processor 3400+
1.8 GHz
1.5 GB of RAM
My video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 6200.

I thought I had a GeForce 6600, but unfortunately it's only as 6200.
...

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There are a lot of different Geforce 6200.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_6_Series#GeForce_6200
If you have one that uses "TurboCache" - those have very low own memory and use part of your computers precious main memory instead which is already low with 1,5 GB.

I´m using a Geforce 6200 with 512 MB memory myself, 2 GB of main memory and a CPU slower than yours (AMD Athlon XP 3000+) and that is playable on medium graphics setting.

Thanks for the replies. I'm thinking now that maybe the issue for me is/was memory. Just to see what would happen, I loaded EIC onto our 2 year old laptop, a Dell Inspiron 5030 with 4GB of memory. It uses some type of integrated graphics. Strangely enough, EIC runs great on the laptop. It's not choppy at all. I still think the 3D graphics are just useless fluff, but the game does run smoothly.

I also loaded EU3 onto the laptop, and it too runs fine. On our desktop PC EU3 takes about 15 minutes to load and is really slow and choppy.

Victoria 2 also works well on the laptop.

I vaguely remember the guy at the store telling me, when we got the laptop, to just buy the one a step down from what we were looking at, and then just buy some additional memory and add it, which would basically give us the same machine as what we were looking at, but for less money.

Up until now I have been playing Victoria and CK1 on the laptop.

Maybe now I'll buy CK2....