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Very fun and engrossing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing this game for 6 months (since Jan 2008), logging over 300 hours of game-play (which it tracks for you), and it is still my favorite game.

Before this game, I played SimCity 4 and CivCity: Rome. (BTW, I also tried SimCity Societies, but I don't even consider that a game, and so you will hear no more mention of it here).

The game is more fun than all other city-builder games for a few reasons:

1. It has the most interesting, exciting, varied, frenetic game-play (until you've got your city completely grown and your supply chains completely stabilized). Competing against the 3 AI players just makes everything more interesting, and you don't feel as anti-social as you might in other city-builders. Plus there are the elements of diplomacy, trade, managing your own building supplies, settling, research, and (optionally) war. There's just a lot more going on. And once you get through it all and have your city, there's actually something to do afterward. My favorite is to just keep building on my castle, making it more complex, and to just roam around the city gawking at all the cool graphics, and watching the mistril band and stuff. I also generally try to go for independence from the queen, and to finally annialiate the pirates, who annoy me throughout the game. You could also try to annihilate the foreign cultures and even annihilate your opponents and become the "last player standing". Any of those things is truly fun.

2. The game has good performance. Even in the later stages of the game, the interface is *always* responsive, never stalls, and although the game did slow down during the later stages, on my GeForce 9800GTX, there is really no slow down to speak of ever.

After playing this game, it's pretty hard to go back to SimCity 4 which, even 5 years after its release, and on the newest, highest-end hardware, sits and chugs for seconds-on-end whenever you do anything. I mean, If I really had no other responsiblities, I might spend some of my "fun-time" waiting for SimCity 4 to do its thing, but life is too short.

3. NO (significant) bugs. NO crashing. After 6 months of game play, the game has never crashed. Here's the worst that's ever happened:

a. Once, after my PC went to sleep during a game, I shut down the game and tried to load my city, and for some reason, all the housing was gone.
b. There is one particular free-trader assignment that cannot be fulfilled (he tells you to bring him wood, or something, but when you bring it to him, he doesn't seem to recognize it).

4. Graphics. If you have a high-end graphics card and want to get the most out of it, don't even bother with the other games I mentioned. While graphics are not an essential part of the game-play, they are above and beyond anything you'll find in the others. I played this for 5 months on a low-end PC with all the graphics options set to low, and always thought the gameplay was fun. I would zoom in sometimes and find it enjoyable to roam the city in detail for a few seconds. Now that I have my GeForce 9800GTX, and I have all the graphics settings set to max, the graphics are so amazing that it's almost too distracting.

I showed the game to my roommate after upgrading my card, and we both said 'wow' involuntarily. There is really no comparison to the other games.

That being said, without a high-end graphics card, the graphics are nice (especially the water), but the experience is definitely inferior.

5. I like the music. Though I suppose if you listen to any soundtrack for 5 months, it will start to grow on you.

Here are my major complaints about Anno 1701 A.D.:

1. No map-editor. If I understand correctly, even the U.K. version will only have an "world" editor with the same recycled islands.

2. Small following in the U.S. This is a constant source of disappointment. You don't have a same level activity in online forums as you might for other games. And news, about the map editor and other updates for example, takes a lot of persistence to find.

1701 A.D. ROCKS!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It took me awhile to get used to this game, as it differs a lot from 1602 A.D. but once I got the hang of the new interface, I realized how awesome this game really is. I really enjoy the graphics and the interaction with the computer players. I reccomend this game to anyone who loves 1602!

.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

1701 is about the same as the orriginal, 1603. This game in a nice mix of city building and naval warfare.

The game is simple, but difficult as well. The replayabilty factor is infinately high, too. This game is very fun, but kills time WAY too fast.

However, it lags horribly on a Vista equiped computer. Don't know why.

Needlessly complex

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: January 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My favorite games are empire building... This games had and may still have promise if the company entirely reworks it. There is a good premise behind it but the interface is overly complex and the game world is too small. The game seems to be a poor combination of Caesar 3 and Age of empires. I've enjoyed this type of game for more than ten years and haven't found a game I couldn't find an aspect that I might enjoy. This game finally hit that mark. Save your money and get Age of Empires 3.

Hours of fun.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Great fun, if you are a fan of the Anno series of games.

Same Game, Better Graphics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: May 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is not very much changed from the previous versions of the game. It does have better graphics. If you like city building games, it is worth having in your library of games.

Fun Stuff

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: May 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this product after having 1602 for so long. It's a great game and I am pleased that I purchased it.

Slowly drives you crazy...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 52
Date: March 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When you helplessly watching the rats eating your stock of steel and brick in your warehouse, and your citizens going to commit revolution because they don't have enough chocolade or tobaco or perfume, you feel like you slowly loosing your mind. This stupid game, wroten by some mentaly seek idiots, helps you to find the shortest way to mental house. I wouldn't even list all nonsenses in this game, because it's nothing but the pack of such senseless nonsenses. Besides, you gotta switch almost all video effects off (unless you have some $10000 machine with the dedicated power plant to feed it), otherwise the game will be converted to plain slideshow... Enjoy!..
...Folks, don't waste your time, money and shape on such garbage. Buy "Port Royale 2" and enjoy real beauty and smartness.

It's just building, and Destroying, and Taking Over!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: May 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

You have to like city builder games to appreciate this game. the graphics are good, I only wish it had a long senario to play and finish, but mostly this game is free play. My best game is the set up of big Islands, all People and then make it last person standing!

it's a Major time waster this game! I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I have lost to this game!

not fun for me

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: February 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I didn't enjoy this. There is little instruction included, and I could never really figure out how to get past the beginning stages. It was not interesting enough to put the effort into really learning how to play.
Blechhh!

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