I bought this on a whim two days ago and I am basically addicted
I haven’t played an Anno game since 1404 and I have to say it took me a few hours to get the basics but the in-game tutorial is really good at guiding you through all the steps.
I simply started an endless game on default easy difficulty and I am having a blast building Roman settlements and cities as well as settling the British isles. There’s always one more production chain and trade route to set up and even with the constant reminders from the game to take a break it’s very hard to not just settle one more island or set up another trade route to get another resource into your empire.
I have made a ton of mistakes and I will start another game once I finish the Colosseum with better city layouts and production chains but I have an absolute blast. It also looks absolutely stunning.
I haven’t played Anno since 1701 (and to be honest, I sucked at both 1602 and 1701), but I have been watching a streamer I like playing it on YT.
I prefer medieval/renaissance settings for this kind of game, but man it looks pretty and it seems that the economic system is reasonably deep that it could be fun to balance around.
I played 1503, 1701 and 1404. This one feels much more fleshed out than those. There’s so much stuff that I haven’t even touched yet. When I first heard that it’s in Roman times I was sceptical but I enjoy the setting much more than I expected. It’s really good
I started building without much thought so my main island is an absolute mess with massive happiness penalties. I do have it under control but it needs constant attention so that I don’t slip into the negative…
Once the Colosseum is done I will simply start over and build the first Island with big infrastructure buildings like aqueducts, theatres, baths, the Forum Romanum and of course the Colosseum in mind. I will also offload production chains with massive happiness penalties to multiple islands so I don’t have to worry about happiness all the time.
My favourite part is Albion though. The mix of Roman and Celtic culture and production is really cool and the Islands look incredible.
Wait… now I am unsure which ones I played.
Might have been 1602 and 1503. I think it was the first two.
Anyway, yeah, they are complex games, it is quite hard to keep the different classes of people all happy. Especially when they rely on resources that you cannot produce on your current island, but your neighbors are unwilling to trade with you.
I am playing on a pretty easy difficulty so it’s not too bad, especially considering how many production chains I have on my main island that have negative happiness. Basically I produce any raw materials that the main island doesn’t offer on other islands, ship the raw materials and then have the rest of the production chain on the main island. There are industries that are good for that because for example olive presses provide health benefits and others give you net income in its influence radius but others like for example dye production come with heavy happiness penalties. The game offers enough tools to offset that on the default normal difficulty however it needs constant attention.
I am very tempted to just start over tonight the more I think about it, although I really want to see the Colosseum finished. Getting there will take a lot of effort for the last step though because I am constantly fighting happiness penalties and you need a lot of materials and workers for the last step of the building.
After a while you can also rely on passive trade to cover a lot of your basic needs as long as you make enough money (which isn’t too difficult) and only do passive trade on your main island so it isn’t split up between different islands.
Please elaborate, it’s been many years since I last played an Anno game.
Well I have no direct comparison but it’s kinda city building, resource management, empire management, diplomacy and of course economy/trade. My favourite part is definitely the city building and empire management. Anno has always been great at that but Anno 117 is fantastic. I really like the setting, especially Albion with the Celts.
There are of course raiders and you can fight other NPCs or players but that’s never been Anno’s strong suit imho although hunting raiders with your own ships is kinda fun and they often drop loot when you sink them
This time I’m planning it oput properly and it’s way better. I get much more done in less time and with less wasted space.
I’m following the game on Steam but the aggregate reviews score right now is “mixed” so I’ll hold offf for now. I’m guessing the game probably needs to be patched a lot as is the case with almost all newly released games.
Most reviews I read were about performance and that it’s not as fleshed out as the previews Anno which I think is a bit disengenous but I haven’t played an Anno game in a very long time so it’s something I can’t comment on.
That performance problems are annoying I get, some design desicions I find questionable (like does Anno really need ray tracing?) but if you do have a good PC it’s a non-issue.
My second city is so much better, it’s not even funny. More progress in a lot less time with infinitely less wasted space. currently planing out the city around the Colosseum:
This is going to be really cool but I need more than 350 worker before I can start construction otherwise the whole economy will go to ■■■■ which happened last time and then you have to deal with massive penalties etc.
Okay so I’ve finally run into some hugely annoyxing bugs messing wioth my aqueducts. You can build roads under and around them and build farm fields beneath which looks really cool but if for some reason you need to add road infrastructure next to it later it might be blocked if you want to connect the road to another section that runs under the aqueduct. and then the game tends to crash while fiddling with the aqueducts themselves with the game paused because of course it does …
other than that though my roman city is coming along nicely!
I am taking form over function. I build i to be pretty which is sometimes not the most efficient but that’s what I enjoy. Making it work while not looking completely organized.
I needed to rearrange some production to be more efficient because my island has grown so much I can’t really expand anymore and I thought to myself that the apiaries which do need quite a lot of space for the bees to gather pollen should theoretically synergize well with my lavender fields and guess what? It works! I now have space again to build more homes and more production
I can literally smell the Lavender!
I spent a lot of time ( and did my military service too ) in an area of Friuli renown for the specific strain of Lavender and it’s just imprinted in me.
Absolutely lovely.
Yeah there is combat, quite a lot of it if you desire, or non at all. If you ■■■■ off the emperor he will come with huge fleets to wreck you. If you’re not prepared, that’s it, you’re done
Here’s the pirate in Latium after I finished him (Syracuse). It took me quite a while to get through his defenses, unfortunately no pictures of the fight, I was so focused on not losing ships that I forgot to pause the game to take screenshots during the fight
Sorry to derail the thread, but every time someone mentions lavender, I think of this.
I worked with a guy, literally a rocket scientist (i.e. brain the size of a planet but totally clueless), who was on cooking duty at home while his wife was working a late shift. They had both lavender and rosemary in the garden.
Seeking clarification over the phone for the recipe (a leg of lamb that was roasting in the oven), his wife told him to collect some rosemary sprigs and when he asked ‘what’s that’, the reply was ‘you know the one, the plant with the purple flowers’… As you can guess. Worst roast lamb ever.
