Shall we discuss Anno 2070

[DigitalSignalX]

Sort of a continuation of the derailed Anno DRM thread (http://forum.famouswhy.com/index.php?showtopic=20617):

This game is pretty damn fun like it's predecessors, only a bit more complicated under the hood and pretty on the front end. Have been really enjoying the campaign so far, but the meat of the game is the "continuous play" side of things, and it's a bit daunting.

The whole bit with licenses and researching buffs is a bit confusing, but it makes for some interesting games. My first exploratory open ended game lasted about 12 hours before my 4 island + underwater base economy just irreversibly tanked. Turns out I should have been researching cost saving items instead of military stuff as I figured it was inevitable the AI would get bored and attack me. Streamlining trade routes and immediately recognizing when you have an excess of something to sell seems critical - something that isn't touched on at all in the campaign.

There are also a myriad of UI things to make life easier, like a dropper to replicate buildings, using various hotkeys and stuff that is not explained. The issue where buildings are square but influence range is a radius (circle) is difficult to master. Most of my cities end up starting as an "H" shape to make room for later buildings in the center, but I've learned to not be afraid to tear shit down and start from scratch once something becomes available to make room for it.

Anyone have some tips for a budding city builder? Plus I want to see your screens :P

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/3682/anno52011122401494103.jpg

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/6654/anno52011122322474981.jpg

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/3320/anno52011122312364264.jpg

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/320/anno52011122307462682.jpg

[Althea]

I've not played it much, but really, I think it's an interesting take on the franchise - but like The Settlers 7, the menu seems to be overly complex and unintuitive for the sake of it.

It's good to see that Related Designs didn't decide to go all LOL GRAFFIX with it, too. It's not much above 1404, which is fine.

[Caleb367]

No screens, but a couple of lessons learned the hard way:
Wiki is your friend. I've found myself with a huge surplus of rice and despite that, my over-enthusiastic city dwellers were starving / thirsting. That incredibly annoying AI called E.V.E. warning me every couple of minutes that rice farm #whatever stopped working, check on it, storage full.
That's because - you guessed it - I had way too many rice farms and way too few vegetable ones, which were also supplying the burger and pasta industry.
No food leads to unhappiness, that in turn leads to emigration, which leads to economic collapse as a good deal of income comes from taxes, at least until you get a steady industry of export goods.
So I decide to build more houses in hopes of getting enough taxes to afford a reorganization of the food chain.
Big damn mistake.
More people = more taxpayers, but also = more needs.
Long story short, my economy tanked - stuff I had a healthy surplus of got gobbled up like a starving mice by a tiger.
I had to tear down an entire island to fix that. So, lesson learned: never overextend.

[DigitalSignalX]

I found this yesterday, it's really been helping some: a list of production chains and what's ideal for "100%" potential of each building - for eco side at least.

http://anno2070.wikia.com/wiki/Production_Chains

Also when you have a production facility that says say "3/3" for fields or ancillary type structures, you can NOT add more fields to increase productivity (if space allows) to compensate for poor soil factors or pollution.

[DigitalSignalX]

Today's Anno tip of the day is to ignore yesterday's tip. My bad about the farms, was mis-informed by Reddit.

A 100% legit tip though is to go into game options -> interface and select "Right Click Menu" to ON. That lets you right click to bring up a interface with the most used buttons, including the pipette, destroy, and house builds.

Also in the graphics options, you may find (I did) turning Post Process down to low actually makes the game look better - less bloom and blur during scrolling around.

I've also found that on maps with pirates, you can drop a repair crane near your harbors and pretty much ignore their attacks on your shipping lanes as the freighters heal up to 100% during each exchange.

[Caleb367]

I'll have to try that post-processing trick. 'sides, I suspect placing more than the standard allowance of farms leads to increased productivity but diminishing returns - and increased mainteinance costs, obviously.
Let's just imagine a farm with 4/4 fields, one accounts for 25% production, but adding a fifth raises productivity to 120% instead of 125%. I'm not completely sure about that however, just a nagging feeling... and can't go experiment, Batman Arkham City and Saints Row 3 got me by the throat lately. XD

[DigitalSignalX]

I want to build missiles now. Badly.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUsgn2ZEY_A