These sparkling cities are alive with people, hovercars, cargo, industry, and robotically cultivated agriculture. But the imagination, craft, whimsy, and affection that goes into Anno 2070's sci-fi waterworld dystopia is almost magical. The previous game, Dawn of Discovery, used the same graphics engine to wonderful effect to create living dioramas of glittering 15th century archipelagos. Why hasn't developer Related Design put more work into making life a little easier for me?īut more to the point, when it comes to giving you something to admire, there is no city builder as good as Anno 2070. But would it kill the interface to grant that sometimes I'm going to load a map I haven't played in a while, and even if I've carefully grouped my tool factories, I may not remember where they are? I can easily sink 30 hours into an open-ended scenario, and it's a safe bet this won't be in one sitting (spirit willing, flesh weak, yadda yadda yadda). With practice, you'll learn efficient layouts to help more easily track your industries. And if you want to shut one down one of these - it's usually tools - you get no help from the game tracking down your tool factories. Now you have to manually pick out your iron factories and from there trace industries that use iron, figuring out that you've got iron going into tools, weapons, and steel. Suppose your steel mill isn't getting enough iron. At which point you can easily see what goods are in short supply, or what environmental effects are slowing you down. First you have to find your steel mill, with no help from the game. The most disappointing thing about Anno 2070 is that the interface hasn't improved when it comes to troubleshooting production problems.įor instance, let's say you're not making enough steel. But, as with the previous Anno games, the information isn't always easy to find. It gives you information through panels, tooltips, icons for special effects, map filters, and meticulous online documentation.
This is a very above-board system for the most part. The second issue - that you must constantly have something to admire - is a matter of information and/or graphics. But you'll always get some reward for this. You might need to find particular pedestrians or wild animals, or maybe deliver an item to a point on a map, or destroy a particular ship.
Usually this is something fundamental to the game. There will be moments of waiting, but there are almost never moments when there isn't something productive to do. Part of the genius of developer Related Design is their immaculate pacing. If you're ever hanging fire because you have nothing to do until your gold has stockpiled or your people have reproduced, a city builder has failed you. The first issue - that you must constantly have something to do - is a matter of pacing and gameplay. I can think of no other city builder that does both of these crucial things as well as Anno 2070. Any city builder needs to first do two things to be good: constantly give you something to do, and constantly give you something to admire. And it wraps it all up in a crazily addictive metagame.īut I'm getting ahead of myself. It lets you choose among different factions with unique buildings. It gives you a ridiculously detailed research tree/crafting system. It offers a set of imaginative production chains. It presents a futuristic waterworld dystopia in a global warming apocalypse. It layers on a trading and transportation game. This is standard issue city builder stuff, as old as Caesar.īut Anno 2070 does more than the average city builder. Then give them a few amenities, at which point they turn into richer houses that pay more taxes, and eventually expect more amenities. Drop a few houses and make sure they're well fed. And the longer it goes, the longer you'll want it to go." Just start it up and build your little heart out. The core of Anno 2070 is the continuous scenario, which you can set up to be as competitive, goal-oriented, and punishing as you want, or as peaceful, open-ended, and forgiving as you want. "The campaign, which has no time limits and almost no fail states, is just a primer.