Topic: Dawn of Discovery - A PC sim builder

[PyroMenace]

I saw this advertised on Steam and on a whim and downloaded the demo. I absolutely love it. In Europe its titled Anno 1404, hence the year it takes place in. You build an empire upon the orient. The demo provides 2 or 3 campaign missions or you can play a continuous map and build all you like for about an hour. What grips me so much about it is the amazing visuals and an extremely well designed intuitive interface. Everything is so easy to read and understand without really needing that much of a tutorial, and the aesthetic look of it is just jaw dropping. The water looks amazing, all the little details of your populace doing all sorts of activity is so fun to watch. Its been so long since I played a sim builder and this is such a warm welcome, I already plan to grab this on Steam as soon as I can.

[Quemaqua]

You know, I had no idea what you guys were talking about in IRC, but now that you give me the Euro name, I totally know it.  When I was on a city-builder kick a while back I was heavily looking at this and really wanted it.  I even looked at it on Steam (though I would swear it had that Euro name on there at that point), and was nearly ready to buy it, but... well, Steam.  So I didn't, tried to find a hard copy somewhere, couldn't, ended up buying Settlers VI via hard copy at a store instead.  Never did get a chance to try it.

Now I really have to.

[idolminds]

GoGamer has the import for $29.90 right now.

[Quemaqua]

Damn you people and your making me buy things.

[PyroMenace]

Yea shit, thats a good deal, I may just spring on it.

[PyroMenace]

I bought it through Steam last week and put in like 4 hours last night and totally haven't regretted the purchase. Its even more deep than I thought it was. When first messing with the demo the game holds your hand through those first 2 campaign levels but going into the third you have to start being careful. It still shows you what to do but you really learn the delicate balance of your economy and creating shipping and trading routes. I ended up repeating the level 3 times, but I really wasn't frustrated at all and more over felt I was learning with each attempt. Another thing thats cool is that the levels are their main objectives to complete but you to do exploring and looking around on the map you can receive optional objectives from different neighboring cities. In one such case, I complete one and got a special item which allowed me to create trading ships for half the resources. Its such a fun little reward system which turns addictive as you want to try to find and do all of them hence I had a hard time quitting last night.

And again, I can't get over how pretty the game looks. Everything looks kind of miniature, like the way the ships move through the water, but at the same time totally feeling alive. I need to post some screens.

[Quemaqua]

Stop.... you're.... hurting me...... and my wallet.........

[Xessive]

Have you guys seen the Collector's Edition?

I saw it at Virgin over here and wow.. It's called Anno 1404 here, as Pyro mentioned in the first post. I'm generally not into the genre (could not wrap my head around any of the Civ games) but this might tempt me to try again.

P.S. Sorry Que!

[Quemaqua]

You freakin' bastard.  That's... so..... awesomey looking........

[Xessive]

You freakin' bastard.  That's... so..... awesomey looking........

Oh it is! I saw it up close and it looks worthy! It doesn't feel like a cheap novelty or anything. I'm telling you, even I was enticed!

[idolminds]

Oh fuck a compass? WANT!

[Xessive]

I just played it. Wow. I am impressed. Visuals, tech, gameplay, everything.

The game does have a learning curve but it's not as steep as all the reviews make it seem. You pick up everything you need to know within the first hour and a half or so. Well, pre-military stuff anyway. I couldn't get into many other sim builders (Civ, Pharaoh, etc.) but I could get into ANNO 1404.

The only complaints I have so far are saving/loading times and how heavy the game can feel at times. I had to scale it down to get it running smoothly. Loading a save can take from 1-2½ minutes, depending on how big the map is, same with loading a new stage. It's not a huge issue, just requires a bit of patience. Autosave was scheduled for every 30 mins and it takes about 15 secs, it can be a bit intrusive since the game just halts while it's saving, so I rescheduled it for every 60 mins.

Other than that I highly recommend it for fans of the genre and anyone new to it, like me!

P.S. Once again, I am REALLY sorry, Que!

[Quemaqua]

 

[PyroMenace]

Impulse has this on sale for $24.99, totally worth it.

Go buy it!

[Quemaqua]

I have been debating this for 2 days.