Historical East India Companies

[unmerged(141022)]

In the reviews thread there was a discussion going on about the 'real' factions but the admins requested it be taken off that thread as it was cluttering it up.

I think its an interesting enough discussion to have a thread of it's own:

HRE and Italy are not very good picks for colonial powers. Italy was formed in 1861 and as long as I know, it never had its own East India company. Italian colonialist attempts became (in-)famous later in the modern times.

HRE was a medieval structure and its political significance vaporized in the course of 18th century (the "shadow" of HRE was abolished in 1806 by Napoleon).

Most important East India companies were established in modern-style nation states. Multinational, conservative empires failed at this. Austria was always trying to create an unitary, centralised state but never succeeded (even the name "Austria" is not correct label for that conglomerate).

Austrian East India company (Ostender Kompanie-German, Oostendse Compagnie-Dutch) was founded in 1717 in Austrian Netherlands (today Belgium) and lasted till 1731. It was closed due to British pressure on Austria during Treaty of Wien negotiations (forming an Anglo-Austrian alliance against French-Spanish colonial superpower which emerged from Spanish succesion wars).

Italy is not represented in the game. As you correctly say, it didn't exist as a political entity until the mid 19th century.

While the Holy Roman Empire was a stagnating failing creature throughout this period and it's suffering was brought to a merciful end by Napoleon after the battle of Austerlitz, as a trading power in the 1700s various German states were significant players, particularly the north German cities of Hamburg, Bremen, Hannovr and so on. Having one of the games' factions being based on generic German interests seems reasonable and I think I read somewhere that the faction was named the 'Imperial Kreis' at one point.

Denmark, Netherlands, France, Portugal, Spain, Britain - no problem, all were vigorous colonial expansionists though the Danes seemed to concentrate their efforts more on the West Indies where they claimed island colonies.

I'm unsure if Sweden had any colonial aspirations or distant mercantile interests in this period? Anyone got any info on them?

 

[Grosshaus]

Danes did focus on India as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_India

And Sweden did have an East India Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_East_India_Company

 

[unmerged(137986)]

I think the Swedes went for the West Indies too, and some African trading posts (mainly slave trade I believe).


edit: Ah thank you Grosshaus

 

[unmerged(141022)]

As I thought, the Swedish presence out there was very minor, with no actual ports/colonies set up but of course a game can change that

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Is Courland in the game?

 

[unmerged(131989)]

Is Courland in the game?

My favourite! Trinidad and the Gambia were both colonised by Courland (albeit ultimately unsuccessfully) IIRC.

 

[unmerged(141022)]

An expansion pack? The West Indies maybe? Darien anybody?

 

[Niptium]

I'm just too excited this game exists ! Wow what a discovery !

 

[Mammut]

Well Brandenburg was involved in trading projects in Africa and then we have Courland in the west indies and since both where part of the HRE I think you can stretch it a bit and allow in HRE in the game. I think the game developers wishes to give gamers some choices, just Dutch, English, French, Portuguese and Danes can be a bit limited.

 

[unmerged(141022)]

Yup, yup. I think I said above that the HRE faction is probably in there because a lot of minor German states established foreign trade and gathering these together under one banner isn't too much of a historicaal stretch plus it gives another faction and Germany is a big computer gaming market as well, so it makes ecenomic sense to have a German faction.

 

[Maladict]

Italy is not represented in the game.

Players will fight, manage and rule their trading empires from Europe to the Far East with eight nationalities to choose from: British, Dutch, French, Danish, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian or Spanish.

If you look at the screenshots some ships are flying the Venetian flag.

 

[Wezqu]

If you look at the screenshots some ships are flying the Venetian flag.

Also you can see from the world maps that Venice is a port in Europe. So Italy is most likely presented as Venice in the game.

 

[unmerged(141022)]

I understand there are eight factions. It seems these are Sweden, Denmark, Holy Roman Empire, Netherlands, Britain, Portugal, Spain, France.

As per the map of Europe screenshot I posted. The place that is 'Venice' could be the Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste.

Perhaps an early version included Venice and it was replaced by HRE/Kreis?

Or maybe HRE has been replaced by Venice?

 

[Niptium]

HRE is already a stretch, why Venice?

 

[Polar Mongoose]

Previously Italy was listed as a playable company, it appears to have been dropped (confusingly the website alternates between HRE and Italy as the 8th faction), perhaps the screens are old or the map hasn't had Italian ports taken off yet.

 

[Niptium]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFtGPBOUQtk

This video is quite informative

 

[Niptium]

The wave system looks better than in Total War

 

[briny_norman]

Nice video - I like the realtime combat footage, although the damage effects look a bit arcadish.
Big, uniform, clumsy puffs of smoke and debris when scoring a hit. Even to the masts/rigging.
That really didn't look very good.
But the rest was quite impressive.
And they have plenty of time to adjust small things like the damage effects.

Still not crazy about the WOW-skills, though (shudders).
Would be really nice to be able to mod such things...
Would be really nice to be able to mod EVERYTHING, actually!

 

[unmerged(141022)]

Nice video Nipitium, but trying to keep this thread on topic, the game demonstrated there has no Italian faction but it does have a German one based on Bremen.

 

[unmerged(137986)]

Just got a copy of a book on Jacob Eilbracht, my gran gran gran etc dad.
The book was called A lifetime in the service of the VOC. It covers his career from shipsboy to being the last real governor and opperkoopman (chief merchant) of the Dutch post at Coromandel (Bengals). He was also the last Grand Master of the Dutch Free masons on the East coast of India.
His son in law was actually the last governor, but at that time the entire operation in this area was already given up by the Dutch. The 4th Anglo Dutch war stripped most of the Dutch posts at the East coast of India. In the first years of the 19th century the last post was given up and handed to the English.

I still have letters written by Jacob.

A very interesting read about the final era of the VOC.

His son was sent back to the Republic when he was young and never saw his father again. He enlisted in the navy and became a lieutenant captain. As he did not want to serve the pro French government he and his family left for London. He joined the Dutch community there and was a deacon at the parish of Austin Friars in London (it's stil there in the heart of The City). After the Napoleonic wars he left for Batavia. My grandmother was an Eilbracht and she maried a Verhoeven. Son of a Dutch plantation owner and a Prussian mother, on East Java. Colonization of Indonesia started only after Napoleon.

It is only logical I am looking forward to this game, given my own history.

Here is map of the Dutch trading posts at Coromandel: The main/regional head post was Negapatnam, due to its good harbour and defensive position.

http://www.vocsite.nl/images/kaarten/coromandel.gif