Anno 1800 review: A postcard from the 19th century

The 19th century was a milestone era of human civilization. On the one hand, the Industrial revolution represented by the United States, Britain and France contributed to the great progress of world economy and technology and gradually formed various natural disciplines. On the other hand, the art world moved from classical art to romanticism and realism, such as Delacroix's Freedom Leads the People and Monet's Sunrise and Impression. Van Gogh's "Sunflower", "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" by the "Bronte Three Sisters", these great works were born in the 19th century, and the best summary of this miraculous age is the British writer Charles. Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Because of a difficult early life and later work experience in law and journalism, Dickens eventually became a critical reality writer. In addition to "A Tale of Two Cities", he wrote "David Copperfield" and "Oliver Twist" and other masterpieces, if you want to understand 19th century Britain, then Dickens's novels are not to be missed. For example, Anno 1800, the protagonist of this review, although set in the miraculous 19th century, opens at a funeral, like a crying Oliver.

Roads and trees

The main plot is the prince's revenge, many years outside the main character of the fish suddenly received a letter from his sister, so he began to return home to save the family business and beat the real murderer behind the family's grievances, in the story at the end of the satire of the British king's "why not eat mince", typical British family drama style, and the corresponding game content is novice teaching.

Business simulation games have a few very obvious characteristics, the first is the descending difficulty curve, the beginning and start is difficult, but the latter is easier; The second is poor gameplay and rich creativity, it is easy to overcome difficulties after being familiar with the system, so the fun of this kind of game is to create after accumulating resources and appreciate the fruits of their labor. That's also the fun of Anno 1800, which minimises the possibility of a crash, because players don't want to see their town, which they've spent dozens of hours building, in ruins.

Like other construction games, even after opening the new world, the emphasis is always on the ability to rationally allocate resources and make long-term plans, obtain productivity and funds by meeting class needs, and then build cities and towns. Special attention should be paid to the imbalance between supply and demand during the transition period, and large-scale population transformation under the condition of insufficient productivity is more likely to lead to economic collapse. In order to reduce the difficulty, the game has added a demotion mechanism to redistribute supply and demand, which undoubtedly gives the player special consideration. At present, the factor that may cause players to enter a dead end game early is diplomacy, and accidentally forming an alliance will involve players in unnecessary wars.

"Different difficulty levels for competitors"

The diplomatic system does add a lot of color to the game, in the custom mode, players can freely choose their own competitors, they have different personalities, such as philanthropists, cowards, generals and princess of the Manchu Dynasty, each of them has their own style of conduct, diplomacy and backstory, which affect their development strategy, and players' behavior against their values will degrade the relationship. Princess Kiyoho, for example, does not like to publish false media reports, and instead can form alliances and accept story missions when the relationship reaches a certain level, helping the player understand each character's story. In the game, the difficulty is divided according to different characters' personalities. High-difficulty opponents mean more expansion and ambition, and there is no option for common development in front of them. Low-difficulty opponents are more easygoing.

"Different character plots will relate to contemporary world Settings."

In addition to diplomacy, the game also adds other gameplay, such as expeditions and missions, expeditions take the form of text adventure, players make choices and affect the results through probability, the success of the expedition can obtain some special items, such as experts and special equipment, these items can be equipped in the city such as the union and city hall such as the core buildings, thereby providing enhanced properties. Of course, players can resell cultural relics and animals to build their own zoos and museums to gain more attraction and increase tourism income.

"Options will show the revenue and success rate provided by the ship's equipment"

Task is a relatively important part of the game. On the one hand, it can obtain item rewards, on the other hand, it can alleviate economic pressure well, and at the same time, it is related to diplomatic results. Therefore, the option of "task frequency" is added to the difficulty adjustment. Therefore, this part of the content once again reduces the difficulty of the players' early management, so that the players can smoothly transition to the creation stage.

"Players can create their own zoo"

It is not difficult to see that the above content and system construction are to retain the characteristics of the simulation business game at the same time to leave the player back, as long as you do not die, "Anno 1800" knows that the main fun of the simulation business game is to create, so to a great extent to leave the ordinary players back, on the one hand, because the failure of this type of game is too high, a failure may directly discourage. On the other hand, in order to let the players can successfully experience the core fun of the game, the more resources you accumulate in the early stage, the more possibilities you create in the later stage, too simple white will make the players feel that all this is meaningless, too difficult and will dissuade the players, so the final strategy is to let the players as much as possible to think that their current achievements are hard-won.

Fountain garden

On how to let players "better appreciate the fruits of labor", the strategy taken by Anno 1800 is more details and simulations, to make the city as exquisite as possible, to meet the player's sense of accomplishment as a "God".

You can see the residents picking apples under the apple tree, you can see the young girl walking with the old man in the park, you can see the passers-by chatting in the countryside, you can see the ladies sitting in the park drinking afternoon tea, you can see the sailors beside the embankment, you can see the children interacting with the orangutans in the zoo, you can see the photographers taking pictures on the roadside, You can see the painter sketching in the garden, of course, the fish swimming in the sea, the deer scared away by the enclosure or the birds in the sky, all of these are displayed in the game, and more importantly, all of these are in accordance with the rules of the game.

"In fact, from the art, I can see where the general direction of this game is."

No matter what kind of game players are asking for positive feedback, they are concerned about whether their expectations are realized or not. Anno 1800 has well transformed such expectations and positive feedback into the processing of details in the game. With the development of productivity brought by the industrial revolution, human activities and thoughts have been continuously expanded, and the same is true in the game, from fishing villages to investors. With the development of the economy, the activities of the citizens in the game become more and more abundant, which is not only reflected in the more and more complex game system, but also in the details of these streets and alleys.

On the one hand, players want to get feedback on the gameplay when they put down the building, on the other hand, they want to see more detailed feedback, such as whether there will be actors in the city when I put down the theater, whether there will be students when I put down the university, etc., the feedback on the game mechanics is a cold value, and the feedback on these details is the fun of simulation management games. When you build a park, you want people to sit on benches, when you build a statue, when you build a maze, you want people to challenge you. Anno 1800 is the most successful place to deal with this part of the feedback, more positive feedback, more details to satisfy the player's desire to create and motivate the player to do better. It also deepens the game's appeal.

In fact, the development of simulation business games today, especially for the "Anno" such as the old game, the core system of this type of game has always been around resources and distribution, many players have long been tired of this completely unexciting way of playing, so what is it that attracts players to continue to run their own city and business? And how to broaden that appeal? Anno 1800 produced a satisfactory answer.

lute

Although Anno 1800 as a whole still has some flaws in the details, such as the ship's enemy system and the late frequent switching between the old and new worlds. However, for a simulation business game that is difficult to master and easy to master, Anno 1800 does not use a complex and huge business system to frustrate players, but constantly gives players a way out, reduces the possibility of player failure as much as possible, and foveds all previous efforts to the final creation of feedback fun. It can be said that Anno 1800 knows where the fun of simulation business players is, and finds a way to radiate its own unique charm to make it the best in the series.

She was so beautiful, and watching the inhabitants of the city walk along the boulevards, watching them interact with the city they had built, for a moment I wished times would stand still, a sense of accomplishment that would never be satisfied in any other game, but when I saw the fleets of other countries on the sea level, I remembered a sentence: No one wants to become an adult, but there is no way to continue to be a child, just like the nineteenth century in the course of human history, perhaps one day "Anno" game entries will change from simulated business to simulated creation, then that day must be from the nineteenth century. As shown in the in-game postcard mode.

Anno 1800: A postcard from the 19th century.