I even managed to play 1701 with only a small mining city on one island and simply sell goods to all players.Īll the other Anno Games dont allow you to just play a neutral trader role that way and make it actually viable. In that way 1701 had much more freedom in terms of gameplay, where 1404 forced you to build an oriental City or otherwise you couldnt progress.Īnno 1800 at least leaves some of that optional by allowing to buy certain products from traders.īut all of the new regions still feel like lesser substitutes. Or you mix both together, try to get a monopoly on one or whatever. You can decide to only settle in southern areas with lots of ore or in the northern areas with lots of food. How cool would it have been to be able to completely focus on the Orient in 1404 or the New World in 1800 and declare the other parts as substitutes, in other words, turn it around?Īnno 1701 though, doesnt do that and instead has different regions where you can build as much without any limitation but it allows a lot of experimentation. In my eyes they never reached the potential of that idea. To me all those side areas in the newer games felt like placeholders or gimmicks because they never turn out to be as complex and just end up being 'deliverers' to the mainland. I ever felt like that was the more elegant solution, because it doesnt force me to build a fake civilization like the Orient or the areas in 1800, which only receive a very limited amount of goods, buildings and complexity. You have two regions (southern and northern) but they dont have separate buildings and citizen levels such like Anno 1404 or 1800, but their difference lays in the Island layouts, their properties and their resources. Yes its content isnt as much as in the later Annos, but it embraces gameplay freedom much more than any of the later ones.

I also recommend 1701, its actually the best Anno in my eyes for a specific reason.

Anno 1701 layout guide