Anno 1404

Anno 1404 also known as Dawn of Discovery in the US is a strategy game in the building sub-genre. So focus lies more on keeping your people happy and maintaining production chains rather than warfare, although it is still possible.

Setting &amp; Plot
Anno 1404/DoD is set in a pseudo medieval world were Europe and the Far East are made up of several isles in various sizes with both regions being strangely close to each other and every character being modeled after a historical person. The story in the campaign revolves around the Emperor, who has fallen ill with a disease. His cousin, Lord Northburgh, wants to build a cathedral to pray to God for the Emperors health, and enlists the Player's help to build a settlement to provide additional resources. All goes well until shady Guy Forcas, on the order of Cardinal Lucius, a mix between Palpatine and Pope Benedict, shows up, demanding support from Northburgh and the Player in order to prepare for a crusade against the Orient.

From then on the story becomes utterly predictable, but the plot in the campaign is less important that learning the game mechanics from it. It's essentially the tutorial.

Gameplay
In the beginning of a game you usually either start on an island with a full warehouse and no ship or with no island and just one ship full of wood and tools and have to find an island you find suitable. Once you have found one you start building houses to attract people and erect farms and manufactures to satisfy their ever growing needs. The happier your townspeople are, the more taxes they are willing to pay without rioting and leaving your city, plus, you need them to be happy in order to upgrade them to the next level, who will give you more money, but also want more goods and buildings in return. The more people come to your town, the more buildings you will unlock. Since one island is can not have the fertility for every crop or has all resources you have to expand to other islands and the Orient, which has unique goods that are yet desired from your people, and set up trading routes with your fleet. To access orient buildings you need to give gifts to the Grand Vizier, which will raise your diplomacy level with the Orient.

While Gold is as valuable as ever, the second "currency" is just as important, which comes in form of fame. About every character in the game will give you quests every now and then, consisting of saving castaways, providing goods, finding persons in your town "Where's Waldo?" style, and giving you goods, items and fame in return. Both Northburgh and the Vizier will have islands in the game, where you can buy and sell normal goods organized by civilization levels, as well as buying and selling items for the mentioned fame. Ships and warehouses can be equipped with items for various effects, be it e.g. regeneration or increased productivity of certain manufactures. More importantly, achievements of the Occident, Orient and the Pirates can be bought, which will increase the trading fleet of the specific faction or improve the ships you can build.

Besides the Occident and Orient (and Pirates, if you haven't turned them off) who will always be in every game, you can play with up to three AI players of varying difficulty. You can give or demand money, insult or suck up to them, just as you please. If all runs well trade contracts and treaties can be established, the latter being necessary for possible victory conditions or doing the quest chain of a character, or you can just declare war.

Combat is possible naturally on sea and on land. Waging war with ships works like in every RTS: selecting and attacking. On land however, combat is building based. You have to erect camps and provide them with rations to regenerate their health, while they'll shoot everything in their radius. Of course, moving camps is possible, even on to other isles, but it takes quite some time.&#160;

Aside from the campaign there are 6 scenarios (2 for each difficulty) build around various victory conditions (reaching a certain amount of people in your settlements, gaining enough gold, building monuments etc.) as well as a continuous play mode where you can fine-tune almost everything to match your personal desire for difficulty.

For those who want a challenge or who are simply bored, there is a fuckton of Achievements ala Steam or XBLA. Ranging from easy (spending two hours in total in far up close perspective, building every harbor related building in one game) to insane stuff (playing the game 500 hours in total, harboring 10000 tons of spice).

Graphics
Every building is uniquely designed and comes with the usual nice to look at textures, shadows and lightning effects. Add to that really good looking water effects and your townspeople being lovingly detailed animated: they not only wander through town, but e.g. get drunk and start brawls, you can watch them work at the farms and manufactures as well. Hit F1 while playing a game and you can take a beautiful look in postcard view.