Commander Conquest of the Americas (PC DVD)

Nitro games however is more than open to new ideas - their previous game, East India Company, tried to provide a deep and in-depth trading simulator set against the back-drop of the colonisation of India and the rise of the East India Companies. It wasn't perfect, but it was a nice concept and could be quite addictive and satisfying, without requiring you to think too hard. But Nitro knew their creation could have been better, but instead of pushing on forward doing what they thought the solution was, they opened it up the fans.

Through hard work, extensive player feedback, and the culmination of un-realised hopes and dreams for East India Company, Nitro have developed another maritime trading game in the form of Commander: Conquest of the Americas. Instead of India, the game world is set in 16th Century America, before the first real wave of colonisation began. As the player, you once again take the reins of one of the seven major European powers, and armed with only a small fleet and some smelly peasants, you set out to bring civilisation to the New World.

It's easy to make comparisons with Sid Meier's Colonization game, both original and the remake he did for Civ IV. Not to say that there wasn't an influence - there probably was, but just as East India Company was inexplicably linked to Empire: Total War, the linking of this game to Colonization seems a bit obvious, not to mention unnecessary. If you're looking for any game to compare it too, compare it to its predecessor East India Company. Whilst not a direct sequel, Nitro have freely admitted it's the spiritual successor, and even includes some features that they had hoped to include in EIC, but never did.

In many ways, little has changed since East India Company, and whilst it's tempting to think of that as a bad thing, one has to remember that this is part of the same concept as EIC, if not the same series. How has the game play changed between Starcraft and Starcraft 2? Hearts of Iron II to Hearts of Iron III? Granted, those games have taken larger leaps and made greater innovations than this game seems to have - but that doesn't mean it's not any good.

When approaching the development of Commander, Nitro set out to do a number of key things - streamline the interface, improve the trading system's various mechanics, and add longevity and depth, especially towards the endgame. In the one sense, they've succeeded in every one of those key areas, but in another, it may still not be quite enough.

Commander differs from EIC in several key areas. For one, there are no fixed 'ports' any more for you to conquer and manage. Instead, there are 'colony spots' - randomised locations spread out along the American east cost as well as South America. This already adds longevity to the game, as you will never start a campaign the same way (unless you choose to, of course), and each time you load a new session the colony spots are randomly generated, as well as the resources attached to them. There are only a finite number of spots however, which is designed to promote competition towards the middle and end parts of the game.

Every faction founds one colony to start with, and then after that it's pretty much a race to see who can develop fastest, expand quickest, earn the most profit etc. The early game is mainly about setting yourself up and earning some money, and here is where the improved trade mechanics come into play. Resources now have more depth to them - most (although strangely not all) of the base resources can be upgraded into a more valuable form. Auto-trading has also been vastly improved and streamlined so that it actually works, and even the basics have been streamlined out. For example, if you owned several resources in EIC, you wouldn't be able to trade with all of them all the time because they would eventually get devalued. In this game however it's less of an issue, and so there's one less thing for you to worry about - although it's never a good idea just to have one resource.

Colony management is similar to port management, but the interface has been streamlined and that extra 'mode' of gameplay from EIC has been stripped out altogether. There'smore buildings to build, whether it be garrisons, forts, theatres or production buildings (there's even a palace) but they all have a purpose. Morale is a key factor in colonies now - without it, your goods won't be harvested or constructed as fast, and new colonists from Europe will be few and far between, hampering your growth.

There's still no land-combat in the game, although since this is the Americas it is less noticeable. Naval combat, as always, is the name of the game. Little has changed in that regard either, apart from the standard tweaking and simplifying of the interface. There are some subtle changes that can take some getting used to, but other than that it's still as good as it was in East India Company. There are plenty of other little additions and elements that have been added to the game, but we wouldn't want to spoil it would we?

Commander is definitely an improvement over East India Company - it took onboard as much feedback as it could, made improvements where it counted most, and even the change of setting means that the necessary abstractions it's had to make are less noticeable. That said, there's still that slight nagging sense of repetition, that slow down where all you can do is wait and maybe fiddle for a little. It's not necessarily the game's fault, it's just what it is. This is a must have for both fans and newcomers a like, but don't expect the second coming. This is a solid and improved version of East India Company, nothing more.

I would ignore the 5 star review given earlier by someone that looks like a PR exercise by one of the makers of the game, I would also ignore the "steam" complaints that add nothing to the overall rating of the actual game.

If you have played games of this genre in the past (i.e. corsairs {in the mid 90s}, Port Royale 1 & 2, Anno 1404, the Patrician series) then you will find yourself making comparisons to to what they were and why you are not having fun with this one.

The upper most star rating is given to naval battles, with great graphics, easy interface and an interesting strategic play.
A diverse range of ships with the possibility of different upgrades made when purchased will give you certain amount of naval strategic tools (i.e. have your Carrack built with strength on its hull or a caravel with extra cargo hold).
The AI seems intelligent enough to hold its ground even when you think you have the upper hand, and non combat/damaged/cargo ships will flee at the first sight of battle , making it hard for you to get rich by catching the weakest boats

The lowest points are given to trade, despite having a large amount of goods for you to trade, there seems to be little for you to do with them apart from selling them to the only good customer in the game (your home port in Europe), colonies from other countries can not buy or sell you goods, nor is there any incentive for you to sell them to your other colonies as their price is no more than a tiny percentage of the original value (compare to home port where is almost double).
the other Nations from time to time will make you an offer to sell you a certain variety of goods for a specific price, but this has not relevance in the game play, since you can't do anything with the goods purchased, unless there is a mission that requires you to provide them, nor there is a relative price of comparison given a the time of the offer to see if what you are getting is good value for money, I guess the makers of the game expect you to remember all of the prices at all times.
Also the he price of goods does not appear to change much through the years, since there is not demand by any colony, supply and demand does not exist as such.

A large selection of buildings are available for you to construct in your colonies, some give you an upgrade upon the goods sourced on site, some provide morale to your colonies, (morale being the only necessity that this people crave, apparently) and some serve as defensive bonuses to avoid losing your colonies during an attack. All of these building create extra cost of maintenance, making it impractical to implement in every colony.

As a representative of the government your job is simply to purchase and transport those goods from point A to B, you don't have the option of having your own factories or your own town, though you have a warehouse in every port, this simply can be used as holding cargo for the non automatic trade ships.
Also you are allowed to declare war, make pacts (allows you to make pit stops at other countries colonies to automatically repair damage ships) and form alliances (useful when at war)

You can attack colonies belonging to other countries, but you do not participate in the battle and its outcome is no more the result of greater numbers against lesser (no strategy involved), you can not raid it, only automatically annex it (if you win) and you don't get extra cash for doing it, just one more colony for you to manage.

The micromanagement of the colonies can become intense, even after just 2, specially if you play in the general campaign normal mode (not the sandbox), where 4 advisors (who advice very little, but nag a great deal) can overwhelmingly increase your level of stress and frustration, think yourself of married 4 times (at once) to get a better picture ;)

At this point I would not recommend this game, unless you are very experience in playing strategy games and want to get a flavour of the naval battles, which can be done without playing the general campaign.
on the other hand the price is so low to be more than a bargain (I paid less than £4.00 in Nov/2011), so if you can spare the cash, go for it.

With so much scope for improvement I would welcome a sequel that can improve upon not so much what has been achieved in this title and its predecessor (The east india company), which I did not purchase due to bad reviews, but also, what has been done in previous games of the the type, in particular Port Royale 2 (well dated by now), which is the nearest in comparison in style.

The true rating I would give is 2.5 stars out of 5

I encountered no problems whatsoever with steam in relation to this title

When I first clicked on this game, I was surprised by its low rating; but then I noticed that several people have problems with Steam. I have bought all of my games through Steam for the last couple of years and never had any problems. So this review is about the game and not Steam.
The game itself might indeed be called old school because of the setting and manner you develop things. You start out with one colony and several ships. The idea is of course to colonise the american continent while the CPU controls the other nations.
At the beginning it seemed repetitive because you produce some basic goods that have to be shipped back to Europe to be sold and in the meantime you pick up colonists and soldiers.
Meanwhile you upgrade your colony with buildings that give you access to other buildings/units so you can colonise the continent further and engage your enemies at sea and land.
So nothing ground-breaking here regarding gameplay. The graphics are well done but don't expect cutting edge 3D maps or units.
I've given the game only 3 stars for fun because of its repetitive character, otherwise it's worth 4 stars.