The current GOG version of Anno 1503 A.D. (setup_anno_1503_2.0.0.5.exe) works without problems under Wine 1.6. The only tweak which is needed when you want to listen to the in-game music is: "winetricks directmusic"

Thanks for the info. I just purchased yesterday and will be trying it on Arch :-)

I already would have. But as far as I can see you cannot anymore without being registered. And I hate being forced to register on every web page.

Does 1.9.1 still require it?

A bit OT, but what did you need to do to compile 32-bit wine on Mint? I wasn't having much luck with the necessary libraries, X & others, with a fresh Mint 64-bit 17.3 install. It seemed easier to switch to compiling in a 32-bit chroot. Not completely happy with that as it's more complex than I wanted. Much simpler on my jessie based distro.

I wasn't concerned with them, but I did run a build-dep wine wine:i386. That certainly may have contributed. I know 17.3 also tries to remove half the system when you try to install libsdl2-2.0-0:i386 (actually the 2nd option, the first is to not install it). I need to run through it again on a clean install anyway. Guess I will pay closer attention this time.

I have to dig this thread out because when I start Anno 1503, I see the mouse cursor and I can hear the video and menu sound but I only can see a black screen.

OS: Arch x64
Graphics: Intel HD 3000, newest driver.
Kernel: 4.7.6-1

I am using Playonlinux and I tried wine version 1.9.16-staging and 1.9.20 but with the same result.
Did I miss a package which I had to install during the playonlinux setup?

Did you do a manual install for this game? If not start over with a manual install. Their scripts are often outdated. Otherwise with an updated winetricks, $ winetricks dsound directmusic is supposed to be sufficient. He's using Nvidia hardware/drivers.

Thank you for your reply!
I've managed to get Anno 1503 running by emulating a virtual desktop. The problem which now occurs, is that I cannot play the game in fullscreen. It does not matter which resolution I choose for the virtual desktop the game opens itself in a windowed mode, everytime I try.
My native resolution is 1366x768. I know that this resolution isn't supported by the game but it should scale the ingame resolution to actual fullscreen, that's what it does on a windows machine.
Is there a way to achieve this on Linux?

PS: I did a manual installation ;)

As I came across this thread while searching in vain for a solution, I figured it'd be worth dropping a note here for anyone else who encounters the same issue:

If your game gets stuck on the black "loading" / "progress bar" screen while running under wine - both with virtual desktop enabled, and in full screen - and you hear the game music and narrator voice just fine, but the screen just doesn't refresh anymore, then the solution is to enable CSMT (which can be done with winecfg if you run a staging build). Without I was stuck, with it enabled the game runs beautifully.