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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.

Better off playing 1503

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 17 / 24
Date: August 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played the other games in the series and doubtlessly have to conclude that this is the worst part.

The graphics have received a major overhaul, yet what the developers must have missed is that graphics were not the main theme in Anno.

The gameplay has been, well, "updated", too.

For example, if you have a wealthy colony, you may have to helplessly watch rats start gnawing away on your supply of marble, iron, and perfume.
At least I believe this should be an optional "feature" in the hard gameplay, but this was one of the points of why I returned the game.

Second, even if you have a healthy economy with maximum viable taxation, there is little money left to wage war if the need arise, as you are struggling to barely make any profit. Call me lame, but I enjoyed 1503 so much because you could edit a text file of how much your inhabitants had to pay for certain goods. Not so in this new version. This was a feature I really enjoyed, as it allowed me to adjust the rate of taxation to my personal needs/skills, as I like to just build a nice colony without worrying too much about the balance sheet.

Colonial goods. This is the first part of the series where you cannot assume total autonomy as you cannot produce all required goods yourself in the Merchant and Aristocrat civilization levels. You need colonial goods. Yes, if you fraternize with a foreign culture you can get them cheaply - but not even nearly enough of them. The free trader is happy to help out for exorbitant sums of money, making having aristocrats almost impracticable. Even worse, if your Merchants or Aristocrats don't have enough tobacco, perfume, or chocolate, they start revolting and burn down your city, even if their other needs are 100% satisfied. This is true for the colonial goods also, and especially problemsome as you may not be able to supply enough of them at times because their production/delivery is outside your jurisdiction.

Islands. Not only are the islands much smaller than in 1503 (even in continuos mode with "large" enabled), but there is also no way to choose what island to settle on because the computer chooses the island for you. Yes, no more sailing to your preferred island, so you better pray you get settled on the right one. Very, very annoying.
Also, the "fog-of-war" mode as some others have complained about is also very annoying.

Overall, this is the worst of the series and extremely disappointing.
I cannot give the game more than one star due to the - in my opinion - serious shortcomings that have extinguished the fun that made playing the other two parts worthwile.
Personally I believe you are better off purchasing a copy of 1602 or 1503.

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!

Less than Fantastic

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: March 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I felt the game was very misconceived in its description. I was expecting more of a Civilization type interface to it, especially in game play, i.e. turns. Overall gameplay is confusing and the manual was unhelpful. It took me forever to figure out how to expand my colony. Over the hours of game play while hoping for it to become fun, I found it instead slow and boring. But this is just my opinion. I also bought Europa Universalis with this game, and I found it much more enjoyable but perhaps that is just more my taste. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS GAME BUT THAT'S ME.

Dissapointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 11
Date: February 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have spent hours upon hours playing 1602AD and really looked forward to playing this new game.With 1602 everything was easy to use and clean cut.I was really let down with 1701AD.Altho the graphics are awesome it was very different and not at all as easy to do all the things you need to do to have an enjoyable game.They have you in a fog-of-war mode from the start unlike 1601.Plus smaller maps and just not as much fun to play.The fog-of war should have been an option and not just the state of things.My advice is do not waste your money.A total let-down for me.

Another disappointing sequel

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: August 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Having immensely enjoyed the other two games in this series, and having been overinundated with positive reviews for it, I made it a point to add it to my wishlist.

I was sorely disappointed.

While the graphics were updated nicel, and some new intriguing elements to gameplay were added, like the ability to actually interact with nomadic tribes, I have added this into my category of sorely disappointing sequels.

I've spent about 16 hours of gameplay, and I've unlocked almost all of the secrets the game has to offer using the exact same strategies as the previous two titles in the series. The replayability factor is low for me simply because of the fact that I had long since worn out the previous two titles.

While someone new to this series might be enchanted with the way this game is presented, anyone who has spent time on the previous two titles would be better off spending one's money elsewhere. Even at $24.95, I feel I overpayed.

.

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.

Engrossing Gameplay

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 83 / 84
Date: November 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Having enjoyed the previous two games in the series, I was surprised and pleased to find a third just released. I immediately scooped it up. What a shame it hasn't been better promoted, at least in North America. Like the first two, it's another classic in the making.

The graphics are high quality and enchanting. A large brilliant color palette was used in everything from the buildings to the stunning landscaping.

There is a large variety of buildings available with some carry-over in style from the previous games. Meticulous detail has always been the hallmark of Sunflower games. They absolutely lived up to that here. Also there is much more emphasis on production than providing services. The amount of goods available for production or purchase is staggering.

The interface is relatively minimal and quite intuitive. I found the setting of trade routes easy to organize. There was some "green/red" confusion as to which goods were indicated as in demand or for sale, or to be loaded or unloaded. With some help on the forums that was clarified and the rest was fairly simple.

The construction menu was well-organized and easy to access. I would have liked to see road construction be a separate option. There was no undo button, although you could set the option for demolish to return the entire construction cost.

I found the Free Trader and his VERY lucrative assignments a bit unbalancing, but he would be very helpful in getting past the learning curve without having to restart your city or cheating. This option can be turned off or ignored later.

The research trees were quite comprehensive, with separate trees for the school and university. It was not always clear how to apply research benefits and upgrades to your mines or production facilities. Thankfully there was not too much micromanagement required as the game itself can move at quite a fast pace.

Combat can be largely avoided in the continous play mode, although not the scenarios. Although be prepared, there's nothing like coming home to riots because everyone ran out of booze. Or chocolates. But, if you want to build up huge fortifications and take everyone on, by all means. You have the option at the beginning to choose which opponents, if any, you will be sharing the map with. You may request a specific map, or let the game randomly generate.

There is a 40-page manual included in the box, as well as some very good in-game tutorials that will help you master the basics. This is a somewhat exacting economic simulation. While thoroughly enjoyable, it can get complicated quickly. Some experience with these types of games would be very helpful, but there is enough provided to get anyone started building their very own medieval empire. The core gameplay is solid with consistent logic applied throughout. With the mouth-watering graphics, attention to detail, and depth of the customizable gameplay this is a game you will want to play again and again.

This game (U.K. version) installed and ran (25+ hrs) on a midline gaming system, meeting system requirements, with no crashes to desktop, graphical errors or other technical difficulties noted.

Bug Free and Not for Casual Gamers

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: March 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

After about 25 hours of playing:

Bugs/Stability 10 (out of 10): This game has been perfectly stable for me. It has never crashed or slowed down or had any glitch of any kind. My computer barely meets the minimum requirements and my microprocessor is only an Athlon 3000, which is not quite the minimum requirement of Athlon 3200. It was very easy to install.

Challenge 8: I'm a very experienced gamer and this game has been quite difficult to master, though easy to learn, thanks, in part to a nice tutorial. I think it's too difficult to master (though easy to learn) for casual gamers.

Graphics 7: This game has beautiful graphics, even on my $800, 2 1/2 year old computer, when zoomed in, but I find myself zoomed out most of the time.

Gameplay 9: This game is simply fun to play and try to master. With each game, you learn and do a little better next game. I have never played a city-builder or economic game before (unless you count games like Civilization or Age of Empires for instance) and I've had so much fun so far, I plan to play more of them.

Replayability 8: This game is fun to play over as long as you can keep seeing improvements that you can make to your gameplay.

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