East India Company Tips and Tactics

Want to trade?

Below are some helpful tips and tactics for East India Company, focusing mostly on the trade elements of the game but also how to prepare for battles and think ahead strategically. I noticed a few things in the game that were not mentioned in the tutorials, or are at least easily missed!

If you have any of your own, don't hesitate to let me know via the contact form!

How do I make money? And lots of it?

Woah, not wasting any time eh?

Well, it's not that difficult to make oodles of cash in East India Company, but it is difficult to describe any one single trick for this. The game itself offers some specific advice which is worth noting (including typos such as proces instead of prices - watch for it!) They made the game after all!

However I have come up with some of my own methods for this so the next few sections will focus on cash building.

Warehouse, warehouse, warehouse!

I can't stress this point enough - drop things off in your warehouse first! For instance, if you have 5 sloops carring 40 tonnes of coffee each, move all of that coffee into your warehouse first and sell it in one lump. It makes a small but noticable difference, as every time you sell an item it's price reduces slightly so by the time you might be selling the 5th ship load of coffee the price may have reduced by up to 30 per tonne!

Fast Ships First!

When starting a game, especially the campaigns where no one is very much established, make sure you don't fall into the trap of buying big ships with lots of cannons straight away.

If you want to make money early on you're going to need the slightly cheaper faster vessels. I recommend building full fleets of Sloops which are quick and carry 20 tonnes of cargo each. That means you can shift 100 tonnes per fleet at a very appreciable speed.

Don't rely on Auto trade routes

It's quite tempting to build a few fleets and get them automatically running trade routes between major commodity producers and your home port. This sounds like a great idea until that port's main commodity becomes too cheap at your home port and your profits drop like an anchor.

The other reason to hold from using these is that the AI isn't quite clever enough to realise it should wait until you have enough money to purchase a decent quantity of cargo before setting off.

I far prefer to do a bit of micro management here until I'm very flush. This is the time to use auto-trading, and it's best to do it with larger, slower ships to the Indian ports and back for either Spices, Tea, Silk, etc... This way the price of these items will have time to recover while the ships travel back and forth with huge quantities of this expensive cargo.

Even so, I prefer to micro-manage all the way! More tips on this later!

Always check the cargo prices

Every time you are about to send a fleet off to pick something up from a foreign port, check on the prices first using the trade information screen.

If it's going to be a long journey, look for the price trend to see if the price may recover when your fleet returns. Make sure you keep a mental note of the cargo your other fleets may be carrying back to your home port. For instance, if a fleet is carrying a few hundred tonnes of tea back to your home port it's probably best to send the next fleet out for some spices as Tea will have a lower selling point once the returning fleet has made it's profit.

If the price is too low at your home port...

If you've brought 200 tonnes of silk back to your home port and just before you sell it you realise that you might actually make a loss due to having sold a lot of silk there recently, keep it in the warehouse!

That's one of the reasons it's there after all, Sometimes it's a good idea to stockpile lots of cargo there (if you can afford it!) and sell once the price reaches a nice high. When receiving goods as part of a pact from another east india company I'll often keep it in my warehouse until I either really need the cash or the price reaches an all time high. Remember, it's always good to have a fallback stash!

Watch out for that "year end" report!

End of year reports are nasty things. Mainly because that's when Port upkeep costs get deducted from your bank account. It's also when marines have their salaries paid.

So when the calander says it's the 12th month of the year it's time to start thinking about stuff you don't need anymore. Is that fleet redundant? Does that commander get paid too much for what he contributes? Do I really need a Level 3 fort on that island?

If you do need all these things then be prepared for the large deduction from your funds. Don't go and spend hundreds and thousands on silk just before it goes out otherwise you'll be in debt.

Other Useful Hints

Well, aside from the trading and battle sides of the game there are a few strategic and micro management pointers I think are useful. Some of it they don't tell you, some if it they do (kind of) so you'll probably be aware of some of it. Lets start with something less obvious!

How can I keep track of what my fleets are doing?

This is the big problem I had once I'd decided not to set auto-trading routes. When you start using more than 2 fleets it's impossible to keep double clicking on each to make sure they hadn't landed at a port yet.

I found, however that the game does tell you by changing the border colour around the commander's picture in the fleet selection window at the bottom of the screen. Green means they're en route, White means they're in Port. I found this incredibly useful, and would reduce the game speed to Zero so I could double click on that commander and deal with what that fleet should do next.

You can also keep track of cargo this way by clicking on a commander and then clicking on the ships in their fleet.

Stepping stones to the Indies...

Make sure you secure a series of ports to supply your ships on their way to the Indian ports. If you don't and you're also at war with most of the AI players you could end up with depressingly slow fleets. Fleets need to call in on ports to resupply, which doesn't cost anything but keeps fleets moving at the right speed.

If you're worried about attacks pick ports with generic items, they're less likely to get picked on in the earlier stages of the game than the ports holding ivory or gold. This tactic certainly paid off for me in later stages of campaigns.

Fleets travel slow, but don't try to rush the trading

Basically sometimes you'll want them to pick up and move on asap - not always the best idea especially if you're low on funds and can't afford a full cargo load. Check to see if you've got some stock to sell back home, or if another fleet is just about to make a nice profit.

Don't neglect diplomatic channels

Keep an eye out for who the more powerfull East India Company is, after all you want to stay in their good books and they're likely to have the more useful ports. Having an alliance with another company means that you can enter their port and sell/buy items as usual. This is going to be a necessity at times in order to fulfill campaign goals.

Be careful when accepting offers from other companies, this is why you need to keep the current political situation in mind: Would making peace with one company ruin my alliance with another for instance. Who would you rather be mates with?

End of Guide

Thanks for reading, this may get updated as I play more, I'd like to cover more of the battles side of things. But lets face it, if you're manually fighting battles you're probably confident enough of your strategic skills there!

If you need more indepth help then you might consider getting the East India Company online Guidebook from GamersGate Click here to visit the GamersGate East India Company guide page - this also helps support this site!

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