f13.net

http://anno.uk.ubi.com/anno-2070/index.php

I for one can't wait to start trading in future cider  :why_so_serious:

Crap my nobles are out of Tunics.

It looks good, it's just hard to tell if it's really offering a different experience than 1404.

Agreed...it really does look like just a re-skin job at this point.  Surprised they didn't show up at E3.

Still....FUTURE CIDER  :drill:

Blue Milk.

It looks really pretty.  If it plays the same as 1404, which some of you have raved about, it seems like it'd be a good starting point into the series for some of us.

I've played every game and love them. This looks very similar to 1404, with the addition of controlling pollution and other hippy concerns. As long as it's not too activist/hippy/message-oriented, it should be a fun twist. It does look like future units glommed onto a 1404 map, though, which is a bit odd.

1404 is... complicated. The first couple hours are pretty neat - the production engine is interesting enough to optimize, but you mercilessly run into a brick wall where "getting 200 more Nobles" means placing 600 new buildings. Of course, there isn't space enough on your main island, so you have to remove all the industry from it and move it to another, setting up trade routes and juggling even more logistics... ad nauseum.

And the combat. Oh GOD, the combat. I would rather offer my ass to every frisky sailor passing through my port than deal with that again.

Looks good. Loved ANNO 1404.

I'm worried they will cock it up with DRM.

I'm impressed. Especially if there's going to be a choice between sustainability and consumerism. A topical dilemma in an economic sci-fi strategy game.

Edit: and by the looks of it, your choice will make the world will look either like a utopia or a Blade Runner cityscape. Awesome!

Aww, I was hoping there was more info out other than that one trailer.



WANT.


Also, you can completely ignore combat with the expansion. You can simply buy islands with enough time and money, thanks Giacomo Garibaldi!

Winter 2011, apparently. Should be good fun again.

I started this, guess I should keep it update  :awesome_for_real:

A third race has been announced, and for the first time in the series, you'll be able to have your civ deploy and evolve underwater.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.pcgames.de/PC-Games-Brands-19921/News/PC-Games-8-11-Brandneue-Details-zu-Anno-2070-Rennspiel-Naild-als-Vollversion-Gamescom-Guide-835297/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa4LTYmpkzU

There, underwater trailer.  Other than that, no date yet.

Looks neat.  Enjoyed the last one quite a bit, especially with the expansion pack.  Not sure I'd buy it at full price though.

Will most likely pick this up on the first Steam sale it goes on. Anno 1440 was pretty, but didn't really add anything. This seems to be taking on new elements. As well as being pretty.

Demo is out!

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/62825/The-Anno-2070-Demo-Is-Out-Go-Grab-It

Played the demo. Seems fun. Too short to tell anything besides that it's Anno with a near future skin so far.

I played through the first mission right before work.  I agree with this assessment.  The fact that we still have fucking fishermen in 2070 as a primary source of food is  :uhrr:

The near-future skin is really shiny and pretty though  :grin:

Yeah, re-skin it is. Which I might not mind, if they put in some new features and streamlined things. But I'm not seeing a lot.

Example: I just want some way to see at what rate coal is being produced vs. how much my smelter is using, or when my my future peasants are consuming future cider at a greater rate than it is being produced. That way I know whether I need more coal mines/apples rice, or if I will just be wasting the resources.

Nevertheless, if it makes it to a Steam sale, which seems unlikely as the last one was pulled from Steam, I will purchase it for a bargain price.

I wish they had a first person walkabout mode.

Total reskin. Still want.

I assumed the fisheries were giant spawn tanks, like they do with farm-raised X Y or Z fish.

It still has Ubi-Aids though.

If the combat isn't a total waste of time I'd be more interested.  Making a self sustaining set of cities was far too trivial in the last one to be entertaining for very long.

Yeah, not looking forward to Ubi-Aids. I'm seriously torn.

For those that noticed such features on the main menu of the demo, here's a video that goes into detail of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lCncPyAoxco

tl;dr - There's a meta-game in this ANNO, in which player voting on a global level impacts everyone's gameplay.

Game's out, bitches.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/48240/

3rd-party DRM: Solidshield Tages SAS
3 machine activation limit

Sweet!

In defense of this, I refer to the meta-game stuff above.  You really miss out on a bit of stuff by just doing the single-player stuffs.

That said, I'm sure it's not going to change anyone's mind about Ubi and their draconian DRM issues.  Since this isn't some bad-ass AAA title, I doubt there will be enough angst to get things changed, a la how protesting got DRM removed from some other Ubi games.

TAGES is a step below their UBIaids shit they still have on Settlers 7 for some reason, despite a 300 reply Steam thread petition stating they would buy the game when it was removed.

If developers did something any time there was a 300 page thread with people claiming they want it, we'd be in for all KINDS of retarded shit.

You're just being contrarian. It's not like you are in favor of the Ubi DRM.

But he's right.  I'm against that horrible DRM system, but I don't think a 300 reply thread is valid in any way as proof it should be changed (there are many better reasons you can list).  Games in development get giant threads requesting some of the dumbest shit ever.  I'm fine with them being ignored.

I'm not going to defend threads as a means of social change. We all disagree it's a stupid DRM policy and that the people were using a means of voicing their displeasure. It's certainly not the only time they have heard it, either.

Well, I'd have bought it already if not for that. Hard to say if they care or not. Probably not.

Maybe they'll chop some bones off it for the Holiday Steam sale  :awesome_for_real:

Well, something fucked up. Apparently the steam version is unplayable and is giving errors (possibly due to still being encrypted).

People who got it for D2D are reporting that the ubisoft authentication servers (for your first time install cd-key shit) are flapping up and down as well.

All in all, a good release. Nice job, Ubisoft!

Keeping people from playing the game means the DRM is working, duh.

 :uhrr:

Oh well. Lemme know if they get their heads out of their asses.

Christ, it has a new version of Tages.

Won't be buying that. Back to Skyrim!

So the game joins the exclusive club of releases that can only be played by pirates.   :awesome_for_real:

It's funny.  I've never had the urge to even consider playing a "cracked" version of a game until this shit.  What a bunch of idiots.  

Edit:  Steam now has the game to where it at least decrypts.  We'll see if it actually works.

Got it this evening and so far no problems.

Finally got to play this.  While a lot of review sites do rave about the game, I'm not really that impressed.  It really is just 1404 with a fresh coat of paint and many of the nuances removed/fixed. 

Like 1404, you start off building a base colony and start meeting needs.  There's two main factions (Corporates and Tree-Huggers), with the same number of requirements to tech up, just different named things.  Corps, for example want coffee while the Tree-huggers want Tea.  Corps want fast-food, Tree-Huggers want sushi.  The third 'tech' faction is the Orients from 1404, in which they have their own unique set of needs independent from your faction's. 

So let's talk about the new stuff and improvements.

A big plus for me was the logistics improvements.  When you build multiple ship ports on an island, you no longer have to declare the port in your trade routes.  The game will automatically find the closest port between the two islands it's trading.

The underwater sea is mostly for getting underwater resources, like algae-farms, oil and stuff.  You navigate underwater just like above land.

The Techs actually do shit, unlike their Oriental cousins.  By building laboratories, you can build your own ship/island upgrades instead of playing Honor roulette with your trade partners.

That's about it.  The single-player campaign was overtly short (more like an overly long tutorial that ends and then dumps you into multiplayer. 

Is it worth $50?  If you never played 1404 and want a great sim/strategy experience, and you have nothing else you want/need to play, yeah, $50 could be justified.  For everyone else, hell no.  I'd pay $20 for a copy that allows legit multiplayer gaming, if that.  There's nothing really 'revolutionary' when compared to it's predecessor, just modest improvements and upgrades.  Feels almost like an expansion.

These two also have some sort of performance/cost thing going. The corporate stuff is high performance but has negative impact on the environment quality, and that starts affecting outputs/attitudes and whatnot negatively if left unchecked. THe tree-hugger stuff has less impact on environment, but gives quite less bang for the spent buck, in some cases drastically so.

I find the factions to not mirror at all beyond the first five minutes or so. I actually think the Tycoons have it harder due to the sheer pain in the ass that Oil rigs are to progress from tier 2->3 compared to the Eco copper desire.

I'm enjoying this game far more than I should be. But it's best played mutli or in it's open ended mode. The campaign is not only short, but randomly bugs out due to trying to carry over your island from the prior mission. I started one where I could no longer use Fish for food because all the fisheries were bugged from an event in the prior mission. That ended my game right quick.

I would be ALL up in this games shit if they'd dump that copy protection.

Been playing a lot over the past few days and really enjoying it. Getting to the late game resources is a bit overwhelming since you have no idea which islands will be valuable early on, but overall I'm loving it as much as 1404. Only played some of the campaign and one peaceful scenarios so time will tell if the competitive maps are frustrating. The community voting stuff is a bit meaningless from what I can tell, but it has enough charm to make me pay attention to it. Not a fan of the DRM but I haven't had any issues so far.

Yeah, this game is pretty much the designated time sink for my winter break.

The World Event was rather badass. Can't wait to see how often they run those.

Didn't realize the World Event would end so fast. Got caught up in the first scenario and never even got a chance to check it out.  :heartbreak:

They apparently also have regular "quests" from the main UI where you get a goal from a faction and can complete it in any game mode. Mine was given 30t of electronics to a ship for +50 points with that faction.

I kind of like the metagame carry over stuff.

Yeah, basically they have dailies and you can choose which faction to which you apply the points.

Sometimes it's "just" delivery (not so easy if you don't have the faction that makes those items built up in a game).

Also, don't forget to vote  :awesome_for_real:

I want to see metrics on what percentage of the playerbase votes. Does direct democracy only work in videogames? ;)

Also, Keto is a huge bitch. I tried that achievement. DEAR GOD.

Oh, yeah, Keto has quite the vicious rep. I haven't even tried that one.

Hell, I fired up Hector on Hard and he is just awful. I had my ARK upgraded specifically to enhance commando ships and he could still almost take me one-on-one. And his ships never stop following mine. :(

New patch is up. Quay walls and decorative elements added :)

Anyone else feel like they're spending half their time fighting the damned "smart" placement algorithm? Sure wish I could turn that feature off. Also, I don't know about anyone else but I usually make a lot of money off trade but unfortunately the game doesn't track trade profits so I get the ridiculous situation where the tychoon populous were threatening to strike if I didn't get my tax income up to 75 a turn. I make enough money off trade that I can make my net gain at -2000 or so but had to scramble around to up my taxable income positive. grr.
 

Are you talking about placing buildings outright or the production fields for production buildings?  If it's the latter, and you're being lazy  by clicking the auto-plant button, you're doing it wrong.

No, I do much tighter placement than the game is capable of so I guess I meant the placing buildings smart placement. You know where the building tries to help you by rotating randomly just before you place the building.

Click the mouse wheel,orient the building the way you like and it should stop that auto rotate long enough to put the building the way you want.

Yeah their smart placement algo is always awful.

btw you can use , and . to rotate.

Hence the fighting feeling. Heh.

DRM with prevent reinstalls if you change your graphics card. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/16/ubisofts-activations-monitor-hardware-changes/)

 :uhrr: :uhrr: :uhrr:

They apparently kicked out a patch that addresses this.  You can now have unlimited activations, but you cannot deactivate any previous activations  :uhrr: :uhrr: :uhrr: