Anno Online

[luckton]

http://us.anno-online.com/en/play

Anno 1404, now in a browser 

Seriously, it's like playing a low-res, pre-rendered graphic version of everyone's favorite economy/city manager.  Right down to having to build roads, place farm plots for the farmhouses, etc.

Got my beta invite last night, and they shipped me an extra key.  First person to PM get it.  I'm on as Luckton.

[luckton]

Rendakor is the winner of the code 

Anyone else playing?

[Rendakor]

Thanks, starting it up now.

[Ghambit]

Holy shit.  How'd this miss my radar?
Please let this not suck.  Im in as "Ghambit"

hint: u can get a key if you follow their facebook page, click the key giveaway link, and either like or share the game.

[Rendakor]

I'm in as Rendakor.

The "Get 100 Vassals" quest seems to be the first major cockblock. After having something to do every few minutes for a while, I let the game run all night to farm wood for housing upgrades but at 60 per and a 300 wood cap that still wasn't enough to get me to 100.

[luckton]

Hmm...haven't had too much trouble myself.  Just been following the tutorials/quests to a T.  My problem right now is reconfiguring my town to support a "medium" sized marketplace to make the vassals happy.  Other than that, the three woodcutters, two dairies, and two clothing chains have been enough to keep me afloat and then some.  Been logging in maybe once or twice a day to find all of my production facilities freaking out that they don't have enough room to stow shit, even with a warehouse online.

You did build a warehouse, yes?

[Rendakor]

Built and upgraded it, yea. Capacity is still only 400; the game works well if you log in once or twice a day and play for a few minutes, but I had been playing it a bit more actively in the beginning and that stops being viable later.

Currently running 5 lumber mills, 3 goat farms, 4 sheep farms/2 spinners, 2 wheat farms/1 mill/1 bakery, 3 fisheries, and 1 mason's shop. Lumber mill fun fact: if you build near un-explored terrain, your lumber mills can use trees that you can't see yet and thus increase efficiency.

[luckton]

lol, and a week after getting in they go open beta.

Everyone come on down.  BURN TRADE WITH ME!   

[Cadaverine]

Trying to get 300 vassals has been a laugh riot.

[luckton]

I've managed to adapt many of the Anno 1404 layout plans I used here.  Just broke through the 900 Vassal barrier.   

[luckton]

Jesus, they're actually making me use the firehouse?  Fuck, there goes all my plans.   

For the first time in a while, I'm actually pretty ok with the pace of this game.  It's not unlike other browser game cash grabs, but I guess my  for Anno and how they're implemented the same building systems here is allowing me to override my general ho-hum with said cash grabs. 

[luckton]

1500 Vassals!   

[luckton]

Ah, I have hit the next wall.

See, when you get 1500 vassals, you get access to ship building via the Shipyard, so you gotta build one of those. 

The ships, of course, take materials that can only be built at a Ship Engineer, so you gotta build one of those too.

Each ship takes three separate widgets, each of which can only be built at the Engi shop.  You need five of each widget to start the ship building process.  Just for the first 5 of widget one takes 120 wood, 50k coin, and 30 minutes of time.

...and boom goes the dynamite 

Eh, at least I'm making decent bank with 1500 vassals. 

[Rendakor]

I thought the vassal grind was pretty shitty and mostly stopped playing.

[luckton]

Vassal grind was no different than the standard grind in regular Anno, and nothing compared to the ship building/trading grind.

Still, I'm committed to seeing the rabbit hole go down a little further.