14 DAY TRIAL // 
The most renown German series, Anno, continues its saga started in 2000 by the shy empire building simulation Anno 1602. At the time, city building fans were torn apart between the two styles adopted by the giants in this field: the SimCity and Caesar like series. Hence, little attention was given to the new game that provided the player with a little bit of both. Now, Sunflowers decided to give Related Designs the opportunity to develop the newest addition to the series. And they did an amazingly good job at it. New colonies, here I come!
Concept So you convinced the Queen to grant you with a big enough budget to get started in exploiting the riches of the newly found lands. Get a hold of one of the many islands in the world and start building. Bring in pioneers and by providing them with the necessary resources, help them evolve from settlers to civilians, merchants and finally the choosy aristocrats. Start carefully planned production chains to put the raw materials to good use and, as your new civilization shapes, add new merchandise to the flourishing market.
Every island can provide basic resources such as wood and animal breading based industries. Most of them also hold exploitable blocks of mining resources (clay and iron). As people prosper, they'll ask for more sophisticated products. Here intervene the differences between northern and southern islands. The south has a warmer climate that favors raw materials such as sugarcane, tobacco, cocoa, gems and gold. The north is characterized by a temperate climate that provides you with the ideal grounds to collect blossoms, honey, hops, marble and whales.
You are not alone in this world. Aside from the free trader that will pass by your island to check up on you and help you out with needed materials or buy the excess goods, there are other 4 foreign cultures that reside here. The Asians and Iroquois populate the north, while the Aztecs and Indians prefer the warm weather in the south. Occasionally, the presence of pirates can be felt.
Build up a fleet to engage in trading and link your islands while also having in mind some defense options for your colonies. Military options range from infantry units to horsemen as ground units and (bigger or smaller) warships for naval combat. The lush beaches can also be defended by impenetrable (well, tough to tear down) walls with towers that engage the enemy.
Story Talking up after the legendary conquistadors, you set sail full of dreams to the new islands in an attempt to secure new trading routes and prove your worth in front of the Queen. So you start building up a settlement. You attract pioneers that will ask more and more facilities of you. They'll enjoy home brew or imported alcohol, a wider and wider range of gourmet delicacies (they do tend to be nuts about sweets - chocolate to be exact) and there's the race for jewelry and perfumes - the refined products. Of course they'll also ask for some cultural buildings such as churches, educational facilities and some entertainment venues.
Your protector will set certain goals to achieve from special deliveries to dangerous goods' recoveries. You can do whatever you wish with your settlement as long as you satisfy her Majesty's requests and prove the worth of the colony. Every mission is accompanied by a lovely story. With seriously funny plots and unique characters that ask for your help, each mission will capture you on the spot. For example, one mission was about providing some posh noblemen with different delicacies. I had to seek islands with certain animals so I could hunt them down and serve the modish gentlemen with elephant meat steaks and other such "in-dangered" species. Here I was putting the foundation stones to a thriving culture and these brats didn't even want to set a foot in my flamboyant city and enjoy a conversation with my elevated aristocrats. Oh well, at least they waited for as long as I wanted on their luxurious ship.
Gameplay Above all, 1701 A.D. ("Anno 1701" as it is called in Germany) is a fun RTS. The missions (in the amount of 10) are relatively easy and allow the development as slowly as the player wants. Whether you decide to grow a 2000 city in half an hour or take 6 hours to upgrade to the maximum a handful of 500 people, it is entirely your decision. Well, the new buildings are available as your population's needs are met and as their number increases and you do get a nice revenue from them. Yet you can easily get 500 people to become citizens. Afterwards, things tend to get a little more complicated as they will ask for more sophisticated goods that may require different raw materials and you may need to set up a trade route between two islands to get them all in a place and possibly take another trip to the residential island to deliver the final product.
Everything is simple and quite intuitive with this game. First, you are to set a warehouse (big tip: you load/unload cargo from the ship's menu, you just need to be close to the warehouse) and a town center to group the houses around it. More, you'll have to set up a chain of production for the basic goods - wood for building and food. Soon, your pioneers will ask for cloth and a chapel to allow them to evolve to settlers. Each class comes with more buildings options according to their needs.
Tired of always having to connect the different roads in your cities? Now you can rest assure that once a good reaches any of your storage facilities (warehouse set on the beach or inland marketplaces) it becomes available island wide. Of course you still need to set up trading routes between different islands to provide a greater variety of merchandise. The delivery to the population is also as quick and easy as possible. Once the goods are available in the markets, the inhabitants will be aware of them immediately. Each building has an area of influence. You don't need to worry about what route your people will choose to attend to their needs. As long as it's in the area, they'll get to it. The only buildings that require road access are the final production facilities. These are able to gather their needed materials from any raw materials distributor in their surroundings (as you build it, you'll notice the buildings that it can interact with highlighted in green). If you decide to store raw materials, you can just drag a road to the necessary buildings. Keep in mind that there is only one cart that will go around gathering the goods so don't exhaust the poor worker as he may not get in time to collect all of them and your facilities may halt their production due to insufficient storage space. You can't see what the laborer is thinking, but for sure he'd advise you to plan everything so that he's freights would be as short as possible.
Everybody has some down moments, so you may find yourself in the situation of running out on something. A very calm voice lets you know of the small problem in paradise. Well, it should have been a bright red light and an extremely loud alert sound, because if there is a discontinuity in the provision of a certain good, your people turn red with anger and display a significant lighting bolt on top of their houses. If you just ignore them, they'll riot and I'm sure you wouldn't want your beautiful city to go out in flames (pyromaniacs). So be sure to get the job done as quickly as possible and they will calm down instantly and get back to praising your statue and smooth talk every time you click it.
The islands of this savage world may offer small surprises. There may have been shipwrecks so precious cargo could just float around or the islands may provide hidden treasures (big chest floating over the spot - just extend your influence to that place and somebody will collect it). There are also natural phenomena going on in this world so be prepared to have a nearby volcano erupt, get a hold for a shaking earthquake, watch incapable of doing anything as a tornado ravages your island or stand by to enjoy some rainy days (enjoy if it's not you who caused it by upsetting a god in the first place).
Education is not just to please the people's needs so take a look at the options there as at least a fire station and a surgery could prove useful. There's even a building that can boost your production for a selected finished good and different other things to discover. Now, wouldn't it be wonderful to speed up the making of chocolate or alcohol or the tobacco products? The city would be such a quiet, relaxing place without all the rioting for all these unhealthy commodities.
If any of your neighbors gives you a hard time, you can always concentrate on training a fighting force (the maximum number of units is determined by your population). While warships can engage foreign fleets and near the shore buildings, the ground forces can defeat and then even take control of enemy buildings. You can also choose to spy on your enemies and, with the appropriate research, even steal from them.
Video Only three levels of zoom and an all rotating around options are available, but fortunately, the perspectives offered are of the highest quality. While the bird view zoom level allows you to notice the major characteristics of the area (usually accompanied by snow white clouds crossing the blue skies), the close up will please the player with animations of your grateful population and playful animals wandering the lands.
It's not cut of the edge graphics, yet the visual aspect of the game is amazing. With a great care for details, the German company makes quite a wonderful impression. Colorful, vivid and detailed, the city feels like a miniature of an actual 18th century town. Just like in the previous series of the game, you can notice murals on the houses and the overall feeling of the population is presented with the aid of explicit facial expressions.
The thing that knocked me off my feet with amazement was the rain in the game. So it rains. Ok, we've all seen rain in games. Yes, but did you ever notice raindrops going down your screen from time to time, distorting the image just a little, creating the actual feeling that you're there watching over your loyal subjects? You haven't, have you? Now it's your chance. Give it a little time, pay a little attention and the show will soon begin.
Sound Easy going background music, good voice acting (wonderfully funny voices that don't usually just read the short messages you receive during the game) and occasional effects that simulate weapons, fires, ships going under in hundreds of pieces. The sound is an inspired addition to the calm gameplay. Not even the alert messages produce much noise, told you, if it wasn't for the small side icon that appears, you'd think it's nothing more than info.
Multiplayer Yeap, any respectable modern RTS game comes with a multiplayer option. So does 1701 A.D.. You'll be invited to venture into a conquest adventure to build up the biggest city, raise a fortune, annihilate all other players or dominate the newly found lands in terms of territory or resources. Aside from being a catchy single-player game, it also allows an entertaining multiplayer experience. Gather up to three other friends and start growing your unstoppable colony (even gain your independence if you feel like it).
Conclusion Don't get fooled by the relatively easy learning curve or the easy assignments, this game has everything it needs to keep your interest up for hours even on the most trivial mission. Big maps and a big amount of possibilities to get your way with the goals set are just some major assets. If you also add the detailed graphics and the funny voice acting along with hilarious riots for chocolates and beer, you realize you are presented with an old school fabulous builder with few well implemented military options. It's definitely a game worth playing for every conquistador heart out there.
