It probably comes as little surprise that the trading companies in this game don’t all get along; so, from time to time, differences must be sorted out with fire, cannon, and malice in your heart. This is where the game’s visually detailed Tactical mode comes into play. There aren’t a lot of games that handle age of sail combat very well. In fact, most die-hards of the genre will probably tell you that no game does it well, but given that this is only one of three core gameplay components in EiC (and one that you can skip over entirely, at that), you do have to measure your expectations. If you can do that, you should find that the combat model offers enough detail and tactical options to be engaging.

Ships are all modeled according to their hull strength, speed, size of the crew (and marines, during boarding actions), number and type of cannon, etc. Taking a schooner up against a galleon will not get it done, but that doesn’t mean a savvy captain can’t overcome reasonable odds with sound tactics and using the environment (wind) to his advantage. (For those worried about unwieldy fleet management, you’ll be glad to know fleets are limited to five ships each.) The only real problem I had with this mode is that you have to be very careful when directing a fleet of ships. Just selecting three ships and telling them to head “that-away” is a sure recipe for disaster because inevitably two ships end up crossing paths, doing substantial damage to crew and hull. It could be that the designers just want players to take such things into consideration when issuing orders to their ships, but at best this requires needless babysitting on the part of the player and at worst it makes me think my little virtual captains are rejects from the Exxon School of Naval Seamanship.

A bigger issue is that players who prefer to focus on trade are harshly penalized for auto-resolving the real-time naval combat, which not only presents a much greater risk to your forces but also prevents you from capturing ships or goods. The latter is really the bigger issue because it ties you to handling every single combat action yourself if you want to reap the rewards of your victories. This is something that could be addressed by letting players set AI priorities or goals before simulating combat; telling it to go out of its way to capture ships or salvage goods even if it means more risk to your own forces, for example.

The biggest hurdle players must overcome, however, is just figuring out how all this works in practice. The included manual and three tutorials get you familiar with the most basic concepts and the interface, but they’re woefully inadequate at educating you on how to successfully put it all to use. The best course of action for new players may be to pick one of the shorter of the included campaigns and play on the Easy difficulty. This mode gives you a wide margin for error until you can learn how to juggle fleets, finances, diplomacy, etc.

Ultimately, East India Company is a wonderful idea with a lot of great gameplay, but there’s a lot of missteps; too many, really. On the other hand, if you can get past the initial growing pains and put up with some of the UI foibles, it’s a lot of fun plotting out your company’s future. Is it time to buy access to frigates? Is it worth leaving a fleet at sea an extra couple of months to pick up goods from a more distant, but higher profit main trade item? Do I focus on capturing a port from a competitor or should I just bribe it entering into a pact or alliance? It’s enough to make putting up with some of the problems worthwhile and to hope that Nitro Games keeps at it as they ready their upcoming expansion, Privateer.

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