Anno 1404: Gold Edition

This is my first review after playing nearly 25 years of games on PC. First game I stumbled into was Total Annihilation. Took me some time to get the grips, but it was (and still is) a blast. RTS was my style, but gradually I grew more into city building, economical management... Anno series delivers the absolute best in this genre. Even the combat is well done. Simple, but fun nevertheless! In contrary to the best city builders like Emperor or Caesar IV. But we not play these games for the combat... Probably Anno 2070 is the better game of the two, but I want to give my words to 1404, because it is just wonderful: the (learning) campaign is just what you need and after that there are many scenario's in 3 difficulties, the random mode let's you define many parameters and victory conditions. The reason I bought this on GOG is because I didn't have the Venice expansion. I recommend this game to players that want to start with this series. Believe me, if you played this one, you will want to play the first 3 as well: 1602,1503,1701. If however, you want to go on, play 2070. However, always start wit ANNO 1404

This is my favorite game from the Anno series, but unfortunately it is broken. You will, sooner or later, run out of memory (it can only use 2 GB of RAM). There is no way of fixing this.

The best Anno game and one of the best city building games ever. Must be played by everyone. Anno 1800 is good but 1404 ist still better in many things. Ok also vise versa. But anyway... It works great on Windows 10 but with one little annoying bug. On game exist, it does not recover the desktop resolution and frame rate. Maybe only in my case. But the Anno History Collection is coming and I hope for a better and modern hardware and OS support. But don't be afraid. This version here also works great. Anno 1404 does not need a remaster. In many points it also looks better than the newer Anno games. TL;DR; buy it, play it, enjoy it.

A solid entry in the Anno series with plenty to do, as ever. A campaign, a sandbox and a few scenarios will keep you busy for a fair few weeks. 1404 asks some interesting political questions - fully rhetorical as part of an historical theme - and isn't ashamed to ask them. Whether you agree with any of it is your own personal decision and whether or not it gets in the way of your enjoyment. There is an element of gradual railroading here, and at times intrusive nannying "in your best interests" to visit an npc or two. This is its worst flaw and for this there's the slowdown option using a tool bar, be nannied at your own pace, so to speak. And they still hadn't managed the option of curved or circular roads; everything is to be built in a grid system whether you like it or not.

As an avid PC gamer since 1993, I am suprised I had never even heard of the Anno series until December 2019. My entrance to this series is Anno 1404 and I am enjoying it very much. I love any genre of game with a "medieval/forest/castle" sort of setting. I have been a huge fan of Banished and I would call Anno 1404: "Banished with prettier graphics and more stuff to do." Or "Age of Empires perfected." I found the Campaign tutorial to be very helpful, especially being totally new to the Anno series. Give it a shot. I bought it during the winter sale and here I am almost a month later still playing it each day and not even halfway into experiencing everything the game has to offer. I can also see this having excellent replay value. Even if I had paid full price, it would have been money well spent. I'm looking forward to trying out the other Anno games.