Some of them are already inhabited, while others are virgin territory, ripe for conquest. Neither seems quite right, not least when it's natural to take a certain amount of pride in the brick-and-timber metropolis that you've raised from the ground.ġ404's levels are set on a series of islands. Either the game resets to an approximation to what you should have built, or it places you on a new map. More annoying, perhaps, is the fact that what you've built is not carried over from one level to the next. There are some deep frustrations with the story acting as an extended tutorial: you're initially limited in what you can achieve, despite being able to see the options that lay ahead of you. As it happens, the solo campaign is probably the weakest aspect for an experienced RTS player, at least for the first couple of hours. It delivers a huge solo campaign and, unusually for an Anno game, a selection of wide-open sandbox missions. This latest title in the ongoing building and trading-focused series is - given all that preamble - probably only of the best RTS games we're going to get this year, particularly if you're looking for something which gives death-action a backseat. Despite the occasional complaint from one of the NPC characters, there's really no rush, and Anno 1404 unfolds largely at your own pace. That's okay though, because I feel like I've got plenty of time to get into the rhythm. As with the best of such games, mastery of the thing is much, much further off, however, and Anno 1404's demands on my gaming faculties languidly spiral into complexity as I try to build large cities, or more complex trade structures. Over the past few days I've been entirely consumed by the precise-yet-accessible city management, and actually feel a little spoiled by how easy to play the game is.
It's been a kind of instant underlining of how far apart the poles of PC gaming actually are. Having been immersed in the nerve-fraying battle-horror randomness of Arma II for so long, Anno 1404 is like a neutralising balm: slow, careful construction of towns, farms and armies, all under a well-kept, slightly cartoonish theme, where the UI is obvious and the 3D buildings appear hand-crafted.
Occasionally a game comes along that feels like the raw antidote to what I've previously been playing. Will it attract gaming patricians? Or could it simply be a peasant's hovel furnished with old-school resource management? Here's Wot I Think. Sea-trading city-builder Anno 1404 (or Dawn Of Discovery in North America) has sailed into our critical harbour to unload large bales of real-time medieval economics.
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