I don’t know one way or the other, but I bet it’s likely that part of the impulse behind 2205 was based on market analysis that showed players overall sink far more time into the campaigns than open mode or multiplayer. You’d be surprised how many genres this is true in–real time strategy, ostensibly multiplayer shooters…
1404 had the best Anno campaign and as a result lots of people were criticizing the 2070 campaign (the German press especially; maybe still somewhat influential back then?). That might have been the reason (with data supporting that players spent a lot of time in the (long) 1404 campaign) for the 2205-approach.
I’d guess/hope 1800 gives them different data and shifting the series in a Civ-like direction - scenarios, mini-flavor-campaigns.
A custom RTS map takes maximum 1-2 or even 3 to 4 hours (maybe in Age of Empires?) to finish. The multiplayer part of a shooter might be not your thing at all. Hence there is an audience for campaigns. But in Anno a custom map can easily entertain you for 30 hours - without being all too different from a typical campaign. Therefore I think it’s more of a marketing/communications problem that will get solved and that we won’t see a 2205 again ; )
I loved the 2070 campaign - it’s the only campaign I played all the way through in the Anno games. 1404 would probably be second, though I have yet to play the campaign properly in Anno 1800.
2070 campaign ended with the feel of a satisfactory conclusion, 2205 and 1800 had campaigns that didn’t feel as complete.
I enjoyed the 1800 campaign. It was pretty light-weight, compared to 1400 and 2070 (haven’t played 2205)–just an extended mission chain. Well, also the island sizes/shapes are fixed (at least a couple of them in the old world are). I mean, the plot was certainly nothing to write home about, but I did think it was kind a neat that you had a reason to build up a navy and go on the attack at one point, as opposed to just deciding to conquer an island or whatever.
I toot thought the guided storyline was a great mesh to the open ended gameplay. I’m going to replay the campaign on higher difficulty levels just for fun (and for Ubi points)
Yeah, I got the achievement for beating the campaign on 2-star difficulty, but I’m terrified of the 3-star AIs…
I played this a little back when I had the uplay subscription and it’s just so damned gorgeous. I finally grabbed it yesterday with my old $10 coupon from Epic’s earlier sale and with the current sale got the full thing for $44. I’m futzing around with the first campaign but based on some posts here, will probably just restart a sandbox game and play there. Again, such a gorgeous game.
That’s what I did and it’s great! Lots of fun to explore the various mechanics and learn the game. There are some UI bits that can be fiddly, but in general, they did a great job with it.
October 22. YEA!!!
But wow we know nothing about it besides the fact it’s gorgeous as always. I see irrigation and new structures that fit Africa, but other than that?
Just found this. Very nice updates coming along with the DLC.
That is a ton of useful QOL improvements, I’m really looking forward to getting back to this.
Some interesting tidbits.
I am excited, though I don’t know if I want to “spoil” the DLC for myself (if you can imagine such a thing for a city builder!).
I know what you mean.
I really hope they massively expand the museum, plant, and animal collectibles.
Very interesting, I’m particularly encouraged by the integration back into the main game map. I’m really looking forward to this.
Yep me too. I found the frozen north stuff forgettable and unneeded.
I don’t know if I can agree with you there. It definitely hits me in the gotta-catch-em-all, but in the end just sending out expedition after expedition and fair after fair doesn’t really do it for me, and I end up wondering what I’m doing it all for. I’d prefer for it to be reworked a bit so you could target sets somehow, maybe with greatly increasing costs or something.
After going through the plot points a couple times, yeah, I wish there were a way to turn that off. But I do very much like the different building challenge with the heaters, and shipping all the goods to the gas islands. The gas (and airships) are cool to bring back to your main place, I think, but I wish they increased the gold production even more for arctic mines, as I never found them quite worth it.
For an end-game with islands split between all 3 competitors and wanting to make a super massive Crown island, gas is necessary to get power everywhere it’s needed. So it does serve a purpose, but not in the competitive stance (unless you played on super hard and didn’t get an oil islands).