German urban planning series Anno includes already six parts, and in its homeland (that is, in Germany) it is considered one of the best strategies of all time, second only to the series Settlers.
The secret of success is, of course, clear. With each release, the developers, firstly, raise the bar for graphics quality higher and higher, and secondly, constantly modernize and improve the gameplay. And new Anno 1404 was no exception. This game, by God, you can just admire. Neat boats ply the dazzlingly beautiful sea, where real life is in full swing: huge sharks swim by, seagulls fly in the sky, waves lazily roll onto the shore, the sun is shining. There is also something to see on land. Residents of the city are rushing about their business; you can see workers in the fields mowing wheat, and a woodcutter chopping down the forest by the sweat of his brow. The picture here is so lively and cozy that sometimes you regret that you are on the wrong side of the screen.
The economy must be economical
But in all its glory Anno 1404 does not appear immediately. After all, the traditions and rules of city-planning entertainment have not changed for years, so at the beginning of the game you are greeted by a dull, empty land and several far from the happiest inhabitants. Each mission starts, as a rule, from a wretched village where two and a half grandmothers live, but our task does not always boil down to turning a godforsaken outback into a huge city. Often the process of evolution happens somehow by itself, while we are working hard to carry out numerous tasks from our superiors.
The fact is that at each level there is a certain number of story characters who constantly need something from you. One demands to send wheat, give another stones and iron, the third has to collect tons of weapons. In addition to one global task (with its completion the mission ends), there are dozens of such secondary tasks.
The thing is that while you are moving towards your goal, the entrusted settlement has to be developed in every possible way. According to a familiar, though true, pattern. First, we invite ordinary peasants to the city, building houses for them and providing them with some basic provisions: at first, for example, all citizens eat tons of fish and don’t show off. Then the residents of the capital need to be given water, provided with access to the church, organized a market, and so on. Only when the lower strata of society are more or less satisfied with life can jobs be created – some can be sent to the mines, others can pick cotton, others sew clothes.
However, it quickly turns out that maintaining even a small village requires serious financial expenses, so the city treasury is rapidly emptying. The main way to earn money in the game is through taxes. Moreover, the richer your townspeople, the more contributions to the city treasury come from their wallets. Therefore, the most important task becomes, let’s say, the constant upgrade of the entrusted settlement. In order for citizens to turn from unwashed pigs into the middle class, all their desires must first be satisfied, which is why the mood of the inhabitants improves accordingly, so that after a few minutes they move on to the next stage of development. The only problem is that rich residents have higher demands. They no longer want to eat only fish and begin to demand (horror, horror!) bread, clothes, circuses and so on. Accordingly, the game develops according to the classic pyramid scheme: the more residents we have, and the richer they are, the more goods and buildings are needed. The city is growing rapidly, there are more and more inhabitants, the one pub that was once built is no longer enough for everyone, we are building another drinking establishment, and for it we need more hops, so we are building a couple more farms, and we must not forget to build roads… Gradually the village turns into a village, and that into a city.
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Here are, so to speak, chains of enterprises. To bake a loaf of bread, it is not enough to build a beautiful bakery. Please, first organize wheat farms, sow the fields, then build a mill where the grain will turn into flour, only after that you can build a bakery.
In order for all goods to quickly reach their intended destination, it is vital to either build well-thought-out networks of roads, preferably stone ones (they significantly increase the speed of movement of loaders), or build a city in such a way that one building is within the coverage area of another. A simple example: to produce weapons you need metal and coal, which means it is best to build a forge next to the mines that extract these resources. In this case, the blacksmith will personally pick up the materials he needs, without standing idle for a minute.
As the city grows, however, more problems arise. Some buildings create fire hazards, so fire stations have to be built, there are regularly shortages of warehouses, markets are overcrowded, and citizens are also trying to start a riot. Solving problem after problem, building house after house, you simply don’t notice how you fall out of real life. While building a successful village and solving numerous problems, time flies by at some cosmic speed, so you come to your senses at the moment when your relatives hit you on the head with a frying pan, and it’s dawn outside the window.
We should not forget that in Anno 1404 two settlement development schemes. We control mainly European cities, but since the plot takes us to the Middle East, we constantly have to take control of Arab villages. But they live and develop according to completely different laws. Their main problem is the almost complete absence of water, because eastern people live only in deserts. To start, for example, growing dates, you will first have to build some kind of irrigation post that will turn part of the land into green and fertile fields. Over time, the water, however, runs out, but no one forbids installing exactly the same irrigation in the same place and starting all over again.
The main advantage of Arab settlements is that they can produce unique goods. For example, especially wealthy Europeans without a twinge of conscience demand that they be provided with spices and glass. They themselves don’t do such overseas miracles, but their eastern friends have no problem. As a result, as you understand, we have to actively develop two large settlements, while simultaneously organizing the transportation of goods by sea.
All cards Anno 1404 consist of small islands scattered across vast expanses of sea. There are ownerless lands that must be captured in order to gain access to resources, and there are also those where neighbors already live. By the way, they will pull you out of a financial hole more than once, since trading is the second most effective way to make money. And quickly too: by throwing off a couple of tons of iron or rope, you can immediately make a good profit and use it for the development of settlements.
At first, of course, you can engage in trade manually – by personally driving the boat, loading and unloading goods. Then, however, there will be many routes, so you will have to organize delivery routes. Thanks to the developers for the convenient interface, so creating tasks for merchant ships is very simple: indicate the port of loading and unloading, the number of goods transported, and that’s it – the money goes to the treasury. The same thing needs to be done when, say, spices need to be transported from Arab colonies to your European cities. Here, after all, constant replenishment of the rapidly emptying warehouse is required, so a regular flight is vital.
However, not every settlement you have will turn into a big city. Some islands will remain exclusively production villages that extract valuable resources. The fact is that not all resources can be obtained on each island. For example, in one place it is possible to build wheat farms, in another coffee grows well, etc.d. So, by the end of a particularly large mission, at least a couple of large cities and several industrial villages are under your control, and at this moment, frankly speaking, your head is spinning from the mayor’s difficult affairs.
But don’t focus only on urban development. After all, each location hides many different secrets. At first, a good part of the map is hidden by fog, in which you can find anything. And a new island with valuable resources, and a settlement with which you can establish mutually beneficial trade, and even treasures.
In addition, do not forget about the numerous tasks that we mentioned. They must be completed not only in order to pass the next level, but also for the sake of rewards. By receiving unique experience points, you unlock a variety of pleasant bonuses: new buildings, coats of arms, flags. Also, exploring the sea allows you to find secret things. They are also given out as gratitude for completing missions: you can get hold of a magic hammer that reduces the cost of building buildings, find a hook that increases the combat effectiveness of ships, and the like.
But lovers of hot military action will be seriously disappointed. IN Anno 1404 there are no battles as such, and what remains is greatly simplified. For example, to organize a ground battle, you just need to demolish the castle, then build a tent for the knights, and then they themselves will go into battle. If it is too far from the front line, you will have to move the tent. You don’t have to worry about producing weapons either. All swords, bows and other chain mail are combined into some kind of schematic “weapons”, which are forged in the forge. On the one hand, life has become easier, on the other, there is no former sharpness.
Sea battles also cannot be called particularly spectacular. To arrange a naval battle, it is enough to build a ship at the shipyard and then send it towards the enemy. Somewhere the ships will meet and stupidly begin exchanging cannon salvos until one of them goes to the bottom. There are no ship upgrades provided, and the one who has an advantage in quantity rather than quality wins. The enemy is not distinguished by a particularly sophisticated military mind, so he is happy to expose his army to your mighty blows. True, outwardly the battles look good: bluish smoke envelops the ships after a salvo; after catching a particularly powerful salvo, the ship begins to glow beautifully – in general, not bad. The only pity is that all ships are equipped with a vulgar health scale, so they go to the bottom only at the moment when it drops to zero.
Anno 1404 turned out to be a real gift to all connoisseurs of leisurely urban planning strategies. This game has the main thing – purely German charm. It seems that only the Germans know how to create such cozy, pleasant and easy-to-use strategies. It’s incredibly exciting to build settlements, develop, explore the map, find treasures and complete various tasks. But there is also a quite good plot, which, although naive, is interesting to follow. Well, besides, Anno 1404 it turned out to be a game, as they say, for everyone. Even if a person has never seen such projects, he will still be able to get used to Anno 1404 literally in an hour or two. In general, we highly recommend. Games like this rarely appear these days.
Pros: excellent graphics; enjoyable and addictive gameplay; player friendliness.
Cons: the battles could have been more spectacular.
