Good point!
Moar cosmetic dlc!
Started up a new game of this a few days ago with all gameplay DLC enabled except for Sunken Treasure. If Cape Trelawney is there I will feel compelled to use it as my main island and that kind of takes away from the whole Anno setup.
I didn’t realize the recent season 4 DLCs for the New World also added a Cape Trelawney type landmass to that region. I think I’m much more okay with that as managing a bunch of islands in the other regions becomes too much for my brain.
I have enabled the level 1 AI and disabled the Old World pirates to keep a little external pressure/pushback but I just can’t imagine enabling all of this content and having to manage aggressive opponents at the same time.
It really is just so much. My #1 wish for the next Anno game is that they figure out a way to get everything back onto a single map. I don’t care if it has to be enormous to fit different island types. All the jumping between instances is just a lot of mental load. Don’t get me wrong, I love Anno 1800, but boy does it leave me feeling scatterbrained.
As for the new content, I’m barely exploring the third pop tier in the New World right now but I’m happy it’s there. The hacienda is nice because it lets you grow/produce things you would otherwise have to import from the Old World so it’s seemingly a rare addition that actually makes the logistics a bit easier. I’m just now completing my first airship hangar so I haven’t played with those(and haven’t gone to the arctic yet either, just New World and Enbesa) but the mail system seems interesting and I like the lifestyle needs that give you extra optional ways to boost existing pop tiers.
Mostly I just love existing in this beautiful world, soaking in some of the lovely visuals and music. The water in Enbesa is just so inviting.
I feel the same way. There’s definitely an element of “out of sight, out of mind” for me with the game where I get so busy with one map and can forget about things I was intending to do in the others.
I wonder if they could just make the map huuuuuge. Not necessarily as big as if you just jammed the instances right next to each other, but something like that. (What engine do they use? I’m guessing their current engine wouldn’t handle it, but probably with some eng work they could get there for the next one.)
Yeah, I would imagine the only reason for the split is technical limitations. The “background” maps that you’re not actively in are likely simulated in a lighter/more abstract way to reduce resources (not to mention you don’t have to render anything). I could see that being really difficult to pull off if it’s on one big map where it has to stream/activate as you scroll over to it.
I’m not a game developer though, so I might be making all kinds of bad assumptions.
My unfounded hypothesis is that you could do it if you were clever about the graphics. I suspect that the actual game logic is not going to be a bottleneck, or at least it wouldn’t be if you code to the assumption that all islands will always be loaded/running. (As opposed to coding to the assumption that the number of islands that are loaded/running will be limited by the graphics.) But my guess is you’d have to figure out how to dynamically load and unload the graphics as the user scrolls around, which may or may not be doable.
I know the latest gen of consoles has made improvements with streaming faster. I don’t have one, but I know Sony marketed it hard leading up to the PS5.
Have any games on PC required a SSD? BG3 was the first one I saw that had an option to toggle of you were in a HDD. I wonder if it gets to the point where most every gaming PC has a fast SSD they could do a lot more content streaming? Of course you’d need an engine set up to do that, so yeah maybe a (pipe?) dream for whatever the next Anno is. :)
I’d be in favor of a Civ Rev-style “elegantizing” (just making up a word, don’t mind me) of the Anno model. I have a feeling, though, that a huge map with multiple building ecosystems and no loading screens is where they’re trying to go. Anno 1800 was just a step in that direction. Very hard for franchises to willingly go smaller, regardless of whether that would actually make for a better game (as it would, imo).
I’m sure the word to use is “streamlining”, though that’s a dirty word these days… ;)
The thing is, it seems to hold everything in memory for each map as you can switch between them instantaneously. That makes me think any technical limitations are nearly already addressed with their current system.
I’d also be interested in them exploring slightly bigger islands with multiple biomes possible on each. Snowy plateau in the mountains with desert on the other side of them type of thing.
I really enjoy a lot about this game, but it also stresses me out, and the map-hopping doesn’t help. I always have the nagging feeling I’m missing something horrible happening elsewhere, lol. Still a good game, though.
This is why I turn off nearly all of the external threats every time and can’t really fathom trying to play this competitively. That way as long as I keep income positive there is nothing so disastrous that can happen that can’t be undone. Yeah, I forget to add fire stations most places until there’s already a fire, but rebuilding after the fact is trivial.
I’ve only ever played in campaign mode, which has at least some threats enabled, I think? I should try starting a custom game. But every time I return, I end up resuming or restarting my campaign, because I do like the story.
I will try it again at some point now that I have a new PC, and an ultrawide monitor, to display it in all its glory.
I can only play this game when I’m in peak mental form, otherwise it is simply too overwhelming. Thus, I have not played it in a while lol.
I really want to love this game, it looks great, the time period is interesting, and in theory I like managing everything, but there is just so much going on and I’ve never really even made it that far in to the game. I wish there was a full pause where you could look at stuff and queue up orders.
I have my main island, a couple satellite islands, Africa, America, trying to keep track of what is being produced where and where it needs to go, my ships are being attacked, there are expeditions going on, my people need shirts, my city is on fire, arg!!! I’m just going to play Dig Dug and go to bed.
Actually, maybe the original Imperialism is more my speed. I’d like to see a modern remake of that.
At least at one time, there was a mod that added this. nexus would have it if it exists…
For anyone who has gotten deeper into Enbesa or the Arctic instances, how interesting are they to do? I’m starting to run out of steam on my run but have only gotten as far in those areas as I’ve been before. I get annoyed by the story bits in them because they hit you with a half dozen pop-up dialog heads in a row and expects me to be able to pay attention to them all while inevitably my explosives factory has exploded again and pirates are attacking and expeditions need my attention and I end up just yelling at the people who won’t shut up on my screen. I doubt that’s what the devs intended but it does limit my enjoyment of the story in those regions.
I’ve gotten to the point in the old and new world where everything is progressively more convoluted production chains in the various multifactories to just grind up the highest tiers. I’ve got some tier 2 skyscrapers but that all feels tedious to just build one of this factory and one of this other one. They’ve added some neat new stuff in all of these DLCs but it just doesn’t add up to a cohesive whole because of the nature of optional DLC.
But I’m trying to kind of see what there is to see interesting mechanics-wise before I call it quits.
I’ve now built the World’s Fair for the first time and completed the dam on Manola, which is lovely. Also feels like I’ve gotten through all of the interesting tourist stuff too.
Hoping they are hard at work taking all of these ideas they played around with in the expansion passes to make a really interesting base game for whatever their new project will be. I’m hoping for Anno 702 BC. Greek or Phoenician Mediterranean colonization.
Crazy this is still getting cosmetic dlc packs.
Looks like this is part of a cosmetic dlc pack, and it mentions 3 more dlc’s next year.
They know they have Cities Skylines 2 beat right now. Gotta ride that wave.
/s (mostly?)