Anno 1404

One of those changes that’s happened at home now that Hannah’s joined the family is that I have to be at home on evenings. It’s not just to feed Ling, but it’s also to lend a helping hand to her e.g. when Ling is preparing her feeds and she needs me to sayang Hannah who’d typically be fussing.

So it’s video rentals at home + games that are reasonably hands free. I’ve been spending a bit of time on Anno 1404, one such game.

Anno 1404 is a city construction and building game, set in the 15th century where intrepid explorers from Spain and England were exploring the new continents. What you do is to build cities that comprise residential, production, manufacturing, agricultural, and aesthetic areas and reach one of several final game objectives, e.g. economic (your treasury grows to a certain size), and populace size.

Matters are not so simple as demarking tracts of land for each of these area and constructing buildings on them though. For starters, your residents have needs. In order for them to advance from entry level standards of living i.e. ‘peasants’ to ‘noblemen’, they’ll ask for more things. In the beginning, your civilians will be happy with just cider for drink, fish for food and an attap roof over their heads. At the end, they’ll want books, beer, access to significant religious establishments, leather clothing, fur clothing, spices to juice up their food etc.

Getting those luxury items isn’t just about buying them from suppliers either too as you’ll quickly run out of money with voluminous purchasing. You’re far better off manufacturing them within your borders. You have to find the raw materials – different locations have different minerals – set up a production pipeline, then work out a distribution channel.

So, in order to bring carpets to my oriental residents, I’ll need indigo farms, silk farms, and a carpet manufacturing plant somewhere. Then transportation has to be designated to bring the manufactured items to warehouses located near major residential areas. Distance, frequency, storage capacities, loading times, speed all have to be considered in the design of a distribution channel.

To make things interesting too, you have other players to contend with. Some of them are simpletons and buffoons that you can intimidate for tributes. Others aren’t pushovers. Threaten them, or even just merely upset them by refusing them assistance on a matter or another, and they’ll be bringing warships into your harbor soon.

There’s a lot of money management too. Your income comes from two sources: taxation (the more higher class citizens, the better), and trade with other players. But it takes a lot of tweaking to setup a profitable balance between income and expenses. It’s all too easy to spend huge sums on construction and suddenly find yourself sunk in red ink.

The game comprises a campaign, and a sandbox mode with customization options. I prefer the latter though I’d get to the campaign scenarios at some point. A sandbox scenario can take hours to complete – one that I’m on I’ve been going at it for half a dozen hours already and I’m just barely halfway through.

So who’d enjoy this strategy game? If your concept of strategy game involves collecting wood and stone, then building up an army of peons and rushing an enemy city, this game isn’t for you. This game is for players who appreciate and enjoy setting up complex production chains, and lots of tweaking to obtain that perfect balance of expenditure and income to set up a perfect city of happy inhabitants.

Personally, I enjoy it.:)