It takes a long time to sail from Europe to India. Like, a year. You want to stock up before you leave. Make sure everyone's gone to the bathroom. Doublecheck that you turned off the coffee maker. That sort of thing. But back then, ships were small. There wasn't really room in 17th Century naval fridges for a year's worth of supplies. You could only get by for so long on the catch of the day before the crew got cranky and went all Fletcher Christian on your ass. So you had to put in to ports along the way, where you stocked up on salted pork, hard tack, lembas bread, and Slim Jims.

East India Company models this pretty well. When you give your fleet a distant destination, a dotted line appears showing the fleet's course. Along that green line are little flags where the ships will put in to resupply. This happens automatically. You don't really have to pay attention to it. Just click and let your ships go.

At least that's how it works for the first fifty years or so.

All the foreign ports in East India Company start out neutral. Any ship from any country can drop in to stock up on supplies. But as countries start capturing ports, that changes. You must have a pact with another country to use its ports for resupply. Still, this is no big deal for about thirty or forty years. If the surly French, who don't like you, take Mozambique, just sail on to Zanzibar instead. It's like boycotting one particular type of gas station. It's no big deal when there's a gas station on every block. Who cares if the surly French don't like you? There are plenty of ports to go around.

But that gradually changes. Within about fifty years, most of the ports are taken. Within about a hundred, many of them start to consolidate into the hands of the leading countries. And here's where diplomacy or hardcore warfare comes into play. If you're going to sail around in a timely manner, you'll need regular ports for your ships.

So in my game, when the Spanish captured Cape Town from the Dutch, it mattered. I'd been friendly with the Dutch. Cape Town was a regular port of call as I rounded the southern tip of Africa. But the Spanish didn't like me. So when my ships were rounding the Cape of Good Hope, they couldn't stop at Cape Town any more. Natal was out as well, since it was controlled by Portugal, with whom I'd never bothered to establish a pact. I'm mean, seriously, Portugal? Pfft.

Suddenly, Mozambique on Africa's east coast and Saint Helen on Africa's west coast acquired a new strategic significance. If either of these fell into unfriendly hands, my trips to and from India were going to take a lot longer, which was going to take a substantial bite out of my income, which was going to impact my ability to build new fleets, which yadda yadda yadda.

At this point, East India Company becomes an interesting game for presenting me with the following choice: 1) Do I make nice with Portugal and thereby insure that Natal is available? Or, 2) do I makes sure to seize a crucial port to secure my passage to India?

Fortunately, everyone is still being civil with each other, so I don't have to worry so much about warships and repairs at foreign shipyards and seeding fleets with escorts. This means I've got enough money to pay off the Portuguese for a pact. I do so. I then explain to everyone that, sorry, we're not stopping at Cape Town anymore. We're just going a little ways up the road to this place called Natal. You'll love it.

But then the Spanish declare war on me and everything changes.

Up next: a critical miss
(Click here for the previous East India Company game diary.)