Ok, so, like someone said above, as soon as i saw the video with those ships of the line on youtube i got addicted to this game. The basic idea is great and all, but the game simply doesnt offer enough content to keep me playing.
Its basically the same thing as if u compare Crusader Kings to HOI2. While CK is a great game, the amount of options and possibilities HOI2 gives is like 100X more, which is why most of the people (to my knowledge!) spend way more time playing HOI2.
EIC has many great ideas, but like i said, the amount of stuff u can do is very limited. Basically if any average player plays even 100 years of gameplay with anyone of the companies they will have no reason whatsoever to play the game again with some other company. Its the same thing over and over again.
Now, compare EIC to HOI and whats the first thing you notice? Sure EIC has that good looking 3D engine and all, but then again, HOI, which looks ancient and uses 2D sprites still offers 100X more gameplay options. Not to mention practically endless replayability.
IMHO instead of wasting ALOT of time and money on making those good looking 3D models of ships and ports, you guys should have spent at least a slight portion of that very same time on making more content.
Ill give u simple example. Ok, so you have great looking water, great looking ships, on which u probably spent months creating them, but at the same time you have RETARDED naval battle mechanics. Anyone who is over 6 years old, and had played games like Port Royal, or Age of Sails etc, will probably only play one EIC naval battle, and decide that they had enough and most likely either quit the game for good, or simply use auto resolve. See now? Spent all that effort on 3D modeling, and everything else that should have been created to offer exciting battles got left out.
The things that got me stop playing this game after less than 1 day:
1.) Stupid, pointless port loading. For gods sake, PLEASE give us option to do basic port stuff like trading or ship building from the strategic level, much the same way you build troops or buildings in Medieval Total War games. I spend 1/3 of my gameplay time looking at stupid loading screen, its beyond frustrating...
2.) Naval combat mechanics. I mentioned something about this above, to add here, i, as company owner should be able to decide how many cannon balls of each type i want to carry. I should be able promote captains to each individual ship, even if theyre in same convoy etc. This section of the game have so much potential for interesting content, that im not really sure how you managed not to put it in...
3.) Whats up with only 5 ships per convoy?!? Im pretty sure this engine of yours could handle way more. Like someone said, im not asking for 20+ ships in BATTLE, but i should be able to have more than 5 small ships in same convoy.
4.) The captain level progress system is done so badly that im speechless. I had captain that survived 20+ 5vs5 battles on auto resolve, and guess what, i got not a SINGLE level... Skill choice is pathetic, just look at any RPG game for inspiration, this is year 2009, even Diablo 2 had better skill progress system than EIC and it is ANCIENT!
All in all, great idea, good engine, bad finished product. Lacks content, not enough options to truly put this game on the same shelf as "Paradox games". From 0 - 10 i give EIC 4 - which is the number of hours i spent playing this game. If only it had HOI-like event system or something and a slightly better combat system id give it probably 8 or 9.