Anno 1404 (preview)

Since the dawn of time, securities management won a great success in Germany and developers such as BlueByte or Sunflowers have built their reputation on series like The Settlers or Anno. Indeed, the Leipzig Games Convention is the ideal setting to announce a new game and even more when the newcomer is the fourth series of Anno, recently fallen into the bag of Ubisoft. The publisher french did not limited solely to the announcement and go into with developers, we have also been entitled to a more complete presentation, though still too limited to our liking.

Anno 1404
http://gallery.techarena.in/data/1/m...Anno-14041.jpg

With refuge behind the "our game is still too little progress so that we can say more," Related Designs has not been very talkative during this presentation and its creators are especially focused on the technical side of things starting with the complete overhaul of the graphics engine of the game Far be it from us the idea of being mediums, but quite frankly, recast in question did not immediately jump to the eyes. It must be said that since 1701 Anno bar is set very high indeed! Anno 1404, however, will be based on a completely new engine and designed by small guys at Blue Byte. Remember the passage that the same Blue Byte and Sunflowers and Related Designs are now all part of the "big family Ubi."

Upon closer inspection, we note that improvements were primarily the level of details. Thus, textures used are much finer, more animations and more alive. Recall that the saga Anno proposes to construct and manage a medieval city of his birth until it becomes a powerful metropolis. Indeed, the level of detail and the impression of life are two important conditions for the player to feel "at home". But these are not the only elements that take advantage of new graphics engine developed by Blue Byte and our guests have also insisted on new effects related to the management of water or fire. However, it is clear that developers still have much work ahead of them as a whole lacked fluidity.

Anno 1404 Picture
http://gallery.techarena.in/data/1/medium/Anno-1404.jpg

The version presented was a "pre-alpha" according to our guests and this explains it, but we have not actually been able to see clearly what should resemble the great cities planned by the creators of Anno 1404. The cities that we could find were already impressive, but not much larger than those of Anno 1701, or for their new project, the small guys in Related Designs really want to spend a cap. If liking needs of the people should work fairly similar, they have provided a new stage of development with buildings "imperial". Several are planned, but for the moment, we have been able to see the majestic cathedral.

These special structures obviously require considerable time and resources to be built, but they give substantial bonus which alone will enable us to truly build a major metropolis. In the same vein, the cards should be significantly expanded to precisely meet the expectations of players a little limited on previous series. Furthermore, to add to the realism of the cities built, developers have devised a system that allows re-organization of the city without destroying / replace the buildings already built: a growing, houses can absorb such roads Densified adjacent to our city. We have not seen the transformation directly, but the effect before / after is already interesting.

Anno 1404 Photo
http://gallery.techarena.in/data/1/m...1404-Photo.jpg

Other major innovation, design another theme graphics in addition to the classic "Middle Ages in Europe". It is actually possible to build a city Middle East / North Africa with all that this implies as changes in the execution and gameplay. The aridity of the environment will obviously take into account while building special as the oasis will be constructed to offset the lack of rain. This new theme will also add many resources and thus increasing needs: East products are in great demand by rich people in European cities! As per fighting on the other hand virtually no information has filtered, developers are probably still in the process of seeing how to manage it.

It is, however, issue a complete overhaul of the system of ground combat while naval battles as well. Finally, multiplayer level, it was obviously much too early to speak and Related Designs merely confirm the establishment of success and a ranking system online. We will, however, the time to learn before leaving the game which is expected, at best, as for March 2009. This output should, if all goes well, be preceded by a playable demo. All in all, and even if Anno 1404 is not likely to revolutionize the genre, it seems that Related Designs is listening to the players to return all the shortcomings of previous titles in the series and it, that is necessarily a good sign!