Unusually for a merchant ship, an Indiaman carries cargo, passengers, and a good number of guns. While automatic firing and circling options allow you simply to set a target and step back as your ships engage, you can choose to get more hands-on, such as turning off autofire to unleash a storm of cannonballs at the perfect moment. The Indiaman is an armed merchant ship, built for trade between Europe and the East. It brings to mind Sid MeierвЂ™s Pirates! as a strategy game, but with much more realism: the primary goal is to line up as many of your cannons as possible to fire at the right moment. I watch as my British fleets manage to trap the Americans between them, shredding sails and bringing down masts with chain-shot, thinning out the crew with grapeshot, and punching great dirty holes through timbers with dependable solid shot.

In an improvement to the grouping systems of previous games, ships can be set not only to group, but to maintain a formation in group. ShipsвЂ™ destinations are charted with a mouse click, with the goal of manipulating fields-of-fire to line up much-desired broadsides (directing the cannon-laden flanks of your ship toward the enemy). Be warned these lucrative trading positions are often taken up by other faction. Once there they need to be placed on one of the golden circular anchor signs.

Naval combat works and feels absolutely like a logical extension of Total WarвЂ™s maximalist mandate. How do you use Indiaman in Empire Total War East Indiamen need to be sent to вЂtrade theatresвЂ™ which are the golden balls on the world campaign map.

Empire total war indiaman