Commander: Conquest of the Americas announced

[Sonarman]

Nitro Games the team that brought us East India Company has announced it's second age of sail title "Commander: Conquest of the Americas" In which on the 3d naval battles of EOC are merged with a Colonisation style strategy game. A video interview with lead designer Kim Soares (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVDBZRYd2-E&feature=related) is now up on Youtube.

[CaptainHaplo]

Great news! Thanks for sharing it! I just put EIC and Trafalgar back on my machine. Might have to give privateer another go as well, though Pirate Bay really sucked since they never patched it like they did the rest of the game.

[tater]

Does EIC have a proper sailing model, or are they motorboats?

[CaptainHaplo]

Tater - that depends. The sailing model has 3 modes, Arcade, Normal and Simulation. On Simulation - you do actually have to pay attention to the wind alot. Unfortunately, you can head directly into the wind and still progress extremely slowly, no tacking is required. So if this is your meaning of motorboating then yes I guess they do. However, if you head into the wind in a Galleon, it says your moving - but you won't know it. 1 knot ain't getting you anywhere fast.....

The turn rates as well as speed are controlled by the sailing model, and the best thing about the game is that it is easily moddable in these areas. So you can make the turn rate and wind efficiency whatever you want.

Some of the "special" abilities are a bit of a stretch while others are realistic - but you control which ones your captains get, so any you feel are "too gamey" you can just not choose.

The biggest problem with EIC is the "strategic" AI at the moment, but there are a few ways around that. Overall - I have to recommend it if only for the tactical fun. The Battle of Trafalgar addon also was a nice change of pace since it is historical.

If you do get it - make sure you patch to the Directors cut p1 version (1.12 exe) as the gui was refined and some major fixes added.

[tater]

Yeah, that's motor boating, IMO.

Other than warping out of a port, I don;t want to move into the eye of the wind, period, nor do I want the AI to do so. If they can, they will, and any semblance of reality goes out the window, sadly.

Man, a real sailing model and AI that deals with it would be so very cool.