The centerpiece of
East India Company: Privateer is two new campaigns that find you in a completely different situation than previous campaigns. Instead of aligning your company with a European nation, you take command of a mercenary group of sailors. In other words, you're a pirate and other nations will routinely present you with missions to give them an edge in trading. Some involve simple smash and grab runs on rival ships, while others find you running escort through a dangerous area to helping a nation capture rival ships.
One of the better aspects of East India Company: Privateer is the factional favor system. Nearly all of the new campaign is mission-based. Success brings rewards and nations tend to like you (well, as much as they can officially). Failure, on the other hand, won't end the game, but instead cause them to hate you, or more importantly your company. Mishaps are going to happen, so there's some leeway in regards to how quickly nations grow to dislike you, but if you routinely botch jobs from a nation, it will affect later missions.
Privateer also offers new multiplayer maps and new skills. Your captains can now hire specialists who bring special talents to your fleet, like repairing ships or improving morale. The options aren't much different from your captain's skills, but make it possible to add new piracy abilities, such as the ability to mask your ship's identity.
Privateer also fixes a number of smaller glitches within the main game as well as some U.I. elements that take a lot of the hassle from performing simple in-game tasks. Sadly, while some issues were fixed, others popped up. I experienced at least one system lock-up and noticed a few other odd glitches. Nitro does seem on top of things, so I don't see this as a long-lasting problem.
