5punk

Liking Anno so far (I could happily spend all day building towns and cities). Unfortunately I get my arse kicked every time someone declares war. I don't even know how you're supposed to build an army.

MOD EDIT: Split from Imperatore's strategy game post.

I've dabbled in a bit, had to uninstall Venice because it doesn't have a tutorial like the original does so I will install once I've got the basics.

Roman Totale wrote:Liking Anno so far (I could happily spend all day building towns and cities). Unfortunately I get my arse kicked every time someone declares war. I don't even know how you're supposed to build an army.

I played for ages without doing any sort of fighting, mostly played the scenario campaign modes, probably seems longer because I was playing 1701 right up until 1404 came out.

There was one game when I had to invade someone, which took me a great many attempts. IIRC I did it by making loads of ships with cannons and bombing the shit out of their harbour, every time I tried to send soldiers through their town they just got wasted. You need to have your city at at least the level to make cannons/weapons, whcih I think is Patricians, to do fighting. I only did it very rarely.

The Guild II is the same sort of thing, but with less fighty, more politics, unless you decide to be a thievy-type.

I've started off on Continuous games - may dabble with scenarios later. Still can't get my cities to Patrician level though. Everyone is happy is in every area, but it says I haven't reached the ascension requirements (without telling me what they are).

LEATHER JERKINS.

Fucking leather jerkins.

I'm tempted to order the Gold edition on steam, as they've stopped selling the expansion separately.
Amazon are the cheapest retailer with Gold in stock, but the convenience of having the set on Steam for an extra £6 is definitely swaying me towards that option.

It has 4 player multiplayer, anyone else got the Venice expansion?

Roman Totale wrote:I've started off on Continuous games - may dabble with scenarios later. Still can't get my cities to Patrician level though. Everyone is happy is in every area, but it says I haven't reached the ascension requirements (without telling me what they are).

It's explained in Campaign mission 4 I think. More houses should do it, possibly pubs.

I have the Venice game, but never played it - does it have campaigns, or is it just continuous, skirmish and multiplayer?

Grimmie wrote:anyone else got the Venice expansion?

I do now. Just finished downloading the gold edition. I've not played it yet though.

Apparently you need all this:

I've split this off into its own post since it seems to be turning into a discussion.

I've got the hang of things now (not helped by an atrocious tutorial) and am rather enjoying it. Feels a like The Settlers, but different. I've just finished my first game, quit so I can start again with an idea of what to do this time (also I was struggling to stay in profit). I was particularly pleased with the trade mechanic, creating some nice three-way journeys between my home town and some desert colonies. A co-op multiplayer game that took advantage of that trading could be quite entertaining.

i played the demo of this a while back and found it very much enjoyable, i might part with some monies for it at somepoint especially if theres a possibility of 5punky shenanigans

I think I'm playing this a bit too much. The game keeps chiding me for how long I've been on, and the whites of my eyes have turned a wonderful shade of crimson.

Might have to buy this then if it's good, quite fancy a city building game.

Good times, great memories.



So, are there enough people getting this to justify me buying the gold package, thusly duplicating my original game?

Is that some sort of gruesome execution tower next to the cathedral?

I've not actually installed Venice yet - I want to cut my teeth on the vanilla version first. By god a multiplayer game must take a long time though.

I think its a case of one of the players loading up a saved game each time, and continuing where you left off.
IIRC that was a courthouse, or similar, with the gallows.

I had trouble with the online profile stuff when the game first came out (logins always timed out), as well as local saves getting corrupted (had to use a default Windows account with the MyDocuments in the "normal" place). These both seem to be fixed, but see below* about profile names.

A few oddities still remain with my Steam copy (original game and expansion separately, not Gold), which I'll list in case anyone else has them. Gold probably has the same issues, as it's merely a package of the two games, it doesn't have its own ID.

1. The desktop shortcuts Steam creates both run the Venice expansion, despite having the correct IDs (33250 and 33350). The expansion is a totally separate game with an entirely new campaign and its own EXE, though it lives in the same directory, shares resources and won't run without the base game.
2. Double-clicking the shortcuts within Steam also both run the Venice expansion.
3. The only way to run the base game is to right-click the Venice expansion (!) within the Steam Library and choose Launch Anno 1404. The Steam "loading" popup that briefly appears is mislabelled as Venice.
4. The View Game CD Key option is the correct way round.
5. Once you've successfully run the base game once, both entries in the Steam Library list seem to give you a selection box for either game - they are the correct way round. (Popups are still wrong, though)
6. Clicking or shortcutting the EXEs, Anno4.exe and Addon.exe will always work, but ofc not register within Steam for playtime/friends.


To create on online profile (required for internet play):

- You'll need to make a ubi.com acccount - http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx (Sign In, Register Now)
- In-game go to Player Profile, Profile Management, Create Online Profile
- Log in with your ubi.com details (username not email address)
- Will create ANNOymous (online) which you can rename - *DON'T use the same name as your offline profile - they can't load each other's savegames and you won't know which is which by looking at them in the Load Game screen, or the top of the main menu.
- Gateway To The World and Multiplayer-Internet (Venice) will now be active on the main menu
- Selecting Multiplayer-Internet will ask for your Venice CD key, forever linking it to your ubi.com account


In-game go to Player Profile, Profile Management to switch between online/offline profiles. I'm unclear as to whether you need an online save to make/unlock elements of internet games, or if they just work like Continuous Games.

Fuck me Ubi, what a mess. Not sure I'm that interested in MP now.

Dog Pants wrote:Fuck me Ubi, what a mess. Not sure I'm that interested in MP now.

Yes. It seems almost the spearhead of what they thought was their "nice DRM".

Not actually DRM (well, a bit) but a fantastical method of having cloud-based savegames and value-add internet features but actually a bag of arse that doesn't work properly.

We can always Ham and Cheese a "LAN" game.

Roman Totale wrote:Still can't get my cities to Patrician level though. Everyone is happy is in every area, but it says I haven't reached the ascension requirements (without telling me what they are).

Just replayed campaign 4, where you first get Patricians.

You need a fairly large town, with houses stretching out about as far as they can get from a single town centre, but most importantly, all the citizens need to be happy. Click a citizen house, drag the tax so it's in the dark green, and check their requirements are all maxxed. For a town this size you'll probably need at least two producers of basic goods.

Food - Fish and spices - you only get spices by settling a Nomad (Orient) town on a desert island
Booze - Cider
Clothes - Linen
Company - Proximity to town centre
Religion - A chapel
Entertainment - A pub in range

They will also need tools and stone available (possibly wood) to build their new houses. I like to click the scroll above the town centre popout to deny building materials for ascension until I decide to release them, saves you unexpectedly running out of materials and getting stuck in a loop.

iirc chapels are proximity based too so you may need a couple to cover your whole residential area