Anno 1701 A.D.

First of all the Anno series is amazing and each game in it is worth playing, in my opinion. 1701 is more similar to 1602 than 1503 and keeps a lot more of the classic gameplay than 1404. For example I enjoy the way military units work more in 1701, as they are individually controllable (compared to 1404, where you can only place a unit's camp and have less control) Keep in mind that like the rest of the series its more about building and managing the economy than warfare which is kind of basic, compared to other RTS games. There is GameRanger and the Annoverse Discord, where you have good chances of finding people to play multiplayer even now. I would recommend getting the GOG version, only if you care about it being DRM-Free. For anyone else who wants to play the best version of this game, currently I sadly have to recommend the Anno: History Collection (A:HC) from the Ubisoft store which includes 1602, 1503, 1701 and 1404 with many worthwhile updates: - Support for up to 4K resolution with UI that works -64-bit support for support of modern systems (feels smoother, less janky than the original, higher memory limit, so less crashing with big cities) - Working friend system for easily creating and joining games (much easier than using GameRanger, Radmin VPN, Hamachi, etc.) and a low chance of finding public games - The people on AnnoVerse usully play the History Collection version of the older Anno Games, good luck finding people elsewhere (it did work once over gameranger) I am disappointed that Ubisoft didn't release the History Collection as an update to GOG and split the already small player base, but if you want to play the best old Anno games, you can get A:HC from a cheap game key website for ~10€. I will definitely wait for a deep discount on Anno 1800.

Anno 1707 added to wishlist and almost immediately went on 45% off sale. Huzzah for Good old Games and so say all of us! Marvellous. As for the game itself, it forms part of the Old World series of Annos and is in itself a fine romp. Nothing much to add to the other reviews for it; it's a fine waste of anyone's time with a few small nitpicks which still confuse even now: 1. -That- narrator. Seems to crop up in all German games, and you know the one I mean. He's in some of the Annos and Knights of Honour (not available here on GoG) and many more. In 1701 he gets to try to do an Indigenous South American accent and with barely any effort fails in the most dreadful way possible. And you can't escape him. Ever. 2. Old World Annos are set in a parallel world but without horses. Carts exist, but are pushed around by Anno dogs-bodies and hobos. Horses wouldn't have been that difficult to have modelled surely? 3. Grid blocks. No curving or gently bending roads in 1701 or 1503 or 1404 for that matter. The end result is a too urban modern day Manhattan look, quite ugly to look at from any distance. 4. Each island is as flat as a pancake. No gradation anywhere except for impassable mountains. Topography students look elsewhere for your kicks. All in all, though, its Anno and a good romp to tide you over for a few dozen hours.

Anno 1701 has many Campaigns both easy and difficult but even though I enjoyed them, they are not my favourite part. The best part is the Continuous Play option that lets you keep playing for as long as you want, and you can set the difficulty level through all the many many choices you can pick among :) For example, you can choose the Computer Players you want to play against, some are easy, others are difficult, and you can even turn off all of them if you want. The easy ones are friendly and really don't want to have any wars so you can pick them if you want to have neighbours but still have serene gameplay :) There are pirates too but you can turn them off if you want a more relaxed game, or set how weak/strong they will be if you want to keep them. You can set the island world size and difficulty, what size you want the islands to be, if resources should be few or plenty, if you want to start with a revealed map or "fog of war", how much money you want to start with, etc etc. And there seem to be a box to enter a map seed though I haven't looked into that. Fire/Plague/Disasters can be turned off separately or all of them. You can also set conditions for victory (like largest wealth/settlement, build a castle, reach independence, etc) if you want to have a clear goal to reach, otherwise you can just play freely for as long as you want :) The graphics are really nice, colourful and pretty, and the music and sound effects are lovely. I've spent many many happy hours playing this game :)

Great game! I ported it to Mac using Wineskin. Installation error at the end, but everything seems to work fine. Have been playing for hours now! (I've set screen options to override in Wineskin. In Anno I first set the correct resolution and everything else was already on (very) high, I changed the texture to medium after some crashes and left the rest of the settings the way they where. No crashes so far.)

Best economic style RTS builder of all time