"Little People": A Detailed Review of the Game + Something Interesting

Anno - a “award-winning” series. Most serious publications rated 1701 and 1503 quite highly. The developers do not initiate revolutions; each new game builds upon the ideas of the previous ones. This is how traditions have formed — from century to century, we live on islands and try to please our vassals.

In the fourth Anno — 1404, the world is still very young; even America hasn't been discovered. The oceans and seas are pristinely clean and uninhabited, and the maps are empty. Explore to your heart's content, just don’t forget about traditions: we live on an island, transport goods, gather various resources, and please the townsfolk.

Stop. This was even in the first series, so what’s new in 1404? Let’s figure it out (and for those who haven’t played any at all — let’s see what this game is about).

If you want the super-short version of the review, scroll to the very bottom and peek under the spoiler.

Paradise Island

The main goal of the game is simple — we need to ensure the prosperity of our state (this goal is invariably pursued by all “building” strategies). Citizens should be happy to the extent possible, and workers, also to the extent possible, should produce all sorts of goods. Just like in Anno 1701, the population has almost nothing to do with the process of creating anything: craftsmen create products, and townsfolk just pay taxes (from which a portion is taken for the maintenance of all non-residential buildings). This sharply distinguishes the game from the “Caesar-like” series, where you have to settle people close to workplaces, creating camps of eternally hungry and thirsty folks somewhere far away in the desert so that they can build those darn pyramids.

Initially, only the simplest folk settle on our fresh little island — the peasants. The pioneers are very undemanding. They live in small houses, eat exclusively fish, and are always happy (the minimum needs are very easy to meet). They are the first and primary estate of the colonial community. Peasants produce basic resources: they catch fish, chop wood, and distill alcohol.

If you meet their modest needs, the settlers will immediately want improved living conditions (this costs a bit of wood and tools). After building a new house, the peasants will rename themselves to townsfolk, become more demanding (well, you quickly get used to good things), but will also pay significantly more taxes. In addition, new productions will open that were inaccessible to the pioneers due to their simple minds. The townsfolk mine coal, grow hemp (only for ropes and clothing, which is strange), go down into mines, and build ships.

Needs increase in a chain. Even the noble residents (the last stage) eat fish, although it is the minimum of their diet.

At this stage, our state is still completely self-sufficient. Some resources (iron, stone, and others) may not be available on our island, but they can definitely be found on a neighboring one. There we will establish another settlement. Responsibilities can be divided: the first city mines forest and coal, and the second — exclusively iron and stone. This way, resources will not lie idle, and without duplicating factories, there will be more space on small patches of land.

This is the beginning of the main idea of Anno. There are no islands where you have everything you need. You’ll have to explore new lands, set up production, and establish supply chains. For now, everything is simple — just load goods in one port and unload them in another.

City

The next stage of development is the patricians. They “grow” from townsfolk when fresh fish is supplemented with spices, and dreary days are lightened with entertainment — in our case, drinking, though no longer at home, but in a tavern. Also, townsfolk cannot walk around naked, so we need to set up clothing production.

As soon as all requirements are met, the little houses can be upgraded, and we can populate them with stout patricians… Wait! Where are we going to get the spices? We don’t know how to produce them… But the Eastern countries are famous for them.

On one of the islands, somewhere under the fog of war, we will find a representative of some sultan. We’ll win their trust — learn to build Eastern buildings. But for that, we need special islands — deserts. Trees don’t grow there (wood will have to be transported by hand), but the nomads produce spices, and without them we won’t be able to “grow” patricians.

The game forces us to build another colony. We’ll have to complicate the supply schemes — we need to export spices and supply the nomads with wood and tools. For this, we will need to build a ship, and we need ropes, wood, tools, and a shipyard to construct it…

This is the second stage of the main idea of Anno 1404 — an even greater division of resources across islands. The pyramid gradually grows. To maintain the patricians, we need to establish a transport network (which, thank goodness, can be easily automated in the corresponding menu). New productions demand not only wood but also stone, cost more, and take up more and more money.

Trade gradually comes into play. For now, this is just small deals: the words “import” and “export” are not yet known in our regions… for now.

By the way, this is the first fundamental difference from Anno 1701. There, the entire population improved in a chain. Pioneers to settlers, those to townsfolk, and so on. Each island builds not just a similar but an identical structure. We mindlessly transport resources from port to port, as everyone has the same demands. In this regard, Anno 1404 is more interesting and much more diverse.

Capital

The cheeks of the townsfolk thicken, wooden houses become adorned with stone, and spiced fish no longer brings joy. The patricians can do a lot, but they also want a lot. They pay even more taxes (each new housing level, besides the collection rate, gives an additional increase in “seating places”: a peasant hut houses 8 people, a town house accommodates 15, and a patrician house already fits 25), but to achieve this, they need leather clothing, bread, a spacious church, to quench their thirst for property — distribute books, and we also need to ensure legality! That’s quite a list, isn’t it?

Production becomes complicated. To bake bread — flour is necessary. Flour is made in mills, and to do that, you need to grow something (farms in the game are called Crop, which means any crop suitable for food — in our case, it’s certainly millet). Only one need requires three buildings (and farms take up quite a bit of space), and one bakery and mill won’t be enough for everyone…

Creating leather clothes is even harder. You need to build a farm where animals will be bred. The hides will then be taken to the next building — a tannery. It can only be built by the river, and that’s also a kind of resource since fresh water is not found on every island. Moreover, salt is also required for production. It first needs to be extracted (mines), and then processed (coal and a special building). And it’s far from a fact that all these buildings can be erected on one island.

Relationships with the nomads’ settlements become even tighter. Besides spices, paints for the books are also needed, quartz for glass, without which most high-level buildings cannot be built.

The transport network becomes more complicated. Paints, clothing, books, glass — constant routes are formed, without which our settlement will perish. (If Anno 1404 had a multiplayer mode, that’s what I would immediately destroy. Cut off the supply — victory).

At this stage, a military aspect is also introduced. Patricians can produce weapons, and a fortress becomes available in the list of buildings to control ground troops. Large military ships can be built at shipyards. All this weighs heavily on the ruler’s wallet… taxes are no longer enough, and income barely covers expenses; soon, there will be nothing left to build (of course, wise rulers don’t let this happen, but it’s necessary to set an example) — here, trade comes to the rescue.

Besides us, there are other people in the sea — these warlike corsairs, representatives of the East, and other colonizers. All of them produce something on their own, sell something, and buy something. Trading with them can be done in two ways — manually and automatically.

The manual option is ridiculously simple — load the goods onto the ship, sail to the meeting place, sell. If we need something — we buy it there on the spot. This approach, of course, is not suitable for systematic trading, so we can set up a route where we indicate to the selected ship what to buy or sell in which port (the editor is simple but functional — it allows you to set complex multi-port routes, but veterans of Transport Tycoon know that a direct route is the key to wealth).

And if we don’t have ships (or lack free ones), and we really need money (or goods are lying around)? Then we can order the port to sell a certain resource. Now the trading fleet of other rulers will swim to us to buy or sell something.

At the stage of active money-goods exchange, the idea of Anno 1404 is fully revealed. The economic system turns into a high pyramid: here at the bottom are the peasants, who chop wood, and at the top, the nobility cast cannons. In the middle, a huge fleet circulates from port to port, providing settlements with vital resources…

The pyramid’s details seem numerous (there are several dozen factories alone), it seems complex, but it is easy to manage. There is no routine or boredom here; nothing and no one needs to be waited for (as in the East India Company) — all the monotonous and dreary elements are automated, and the player merely has to constantly overcome the challenges of management: we need to establish glass production, find fur somewhere, teach the impudent corsairs a lesson…

Joys

To diversify the already fully engaged life of the ruler, the developers introduced a quest system into the game. So each mission in the campaign consists of a main task and several mini-tasks. That is, for example, we need to take down the corsairs. But their fleet is large, and we don’t even have the means to build ships. The first assignment appears — deliver 10 units of iron to the sultan. For this, he will give us a reward: 50 “honor points” (this is a special currency used to buy some upgrades for ships and other useful things) and 20 ropes. Now we can build a ship, but if we complete another quest — [deliver something, find a person, kill someone, and so on], the sultan will gift us a real frigate.

A fixed goal appears (which, let’s be honest, isn’t unnecessary for an economic strategy), it becomes more interesting to play, and how these mini-tasks diversify the “sandbox” is immense…

Little People

The fourth series of Anno continues the evolution. Compared to the previous game, much has been added (the East, associated with the changing era), but some things have been cut. Thus, we lost the guild, and along with it, the ability to sabotage neighbors. Technologies and the university have also disappeared from the game. They were replaced by medals-upgrades that are purchased with special currency.

However, the main thing remains. These little people who rush about their business. Poor peasants gossiping in the town square, townsfolk who stroll around with satisfied looks, stout patricians who always seem happy with life. An anthill where everyone is busy with their own business… or not busy but skillfully pretending. The game hooks you with its endless pursuit of perfection (or improvement). You want to enhance houses, build new buildings, populate islands, expand colonies, become wealthy, conquer, and trade. Just as in Pharaoh we spent hours constructing pyramid complexes (without any other purpose at all), and in Stronghold, we positioned crossbowmen on the walls simply so that crafty enemies wouldn’t disturb our blacksmiths and bakers from doing regular work. Here, too, one wants to manage the economy well, just to watch these little people rush somewhere for their unknown matters. Moreover, the game is visually so appealing that the observation process sometimes stretches over several hours…

Brief Review Version


A brief version like this will now appear in every review. The images and text will change each time. What do you think of the idea?