Showing which buildings are necessary to form each production chain is useful however, and there is some merit to the flow-chart layout and fairly comprehensive bar charts explaining population density. The new pseudo-StarCraft-inspired menu system takes an age to become familiar with, and isn't always particularly intuitive in the heat of crisis. Where the real changes have occurred, Related Designs hasn't always managed to improve on the fairly slick presentation of 1404. And again, as with 1404, goods can only be grown on particular islands, or islands that have been colonised then specifically modified to produce that particular good by way of socketing seeds into the main warehouse. Each progression is accompanied by a surge of demand for resources to facilitate house building. Those that do progress require ever increasing quantities of goods. Concepts such as ascension rights have been retained, and operate much in the same way they did before - not everyone in the population will advance to the next level, and a certain level of poverty is necessary to make the system work. The campaign isn't the only sign that developers Related Designs are treading familiar ground. Once the requirements have been met, the mission will end and a new one will push the player to achieve even more complexity. Again, as with previous releases, the goal is to build to a particular level of citizenry, unlock additional goods and buildings, set up production chains and attempt to balance it all together without crashing and burning. The early missions act very much as a tutorial, gently holding the player's hand and issuing instructions through the persistent AI narrator, "Eve". Much like Anno 1404 before it, 2070 crosses both factions over in the campaign, with a heavy reliance to serve each group in the largely Fed-Ex inspired missions. Tying these groups together is the mysterious S.A.A.T (Scientific Academy for Advanced Technologies), a robot AI NPC that is largely responsible for the technology on display, and can be interacted with to unlock further advancements. Reasonably enough, their colour scheme is more reminiscent of a Victorian rail yard.
![games like anno 2070 games like anno 2070](https://www.games-guide.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Anno-2070_4.jpg)
They're less reliant on farming to support large populations, and are more likely to run with a surplus of energy to power their industrial machine. This faction thinks nothing of mining each island for their own commercial interests, and as such requires most of their population to live in a perpetually polluted landscape. The Global Trust however are more concerned with progress through industrial means. This translates over to their appearance as well, with buildings and units cut from a warm palette of colours that sit well with the environmental theme of the faction. They're geared up to use largely pollution-free energy generation, require sustainable farmland to encourage population growth, and are highly susceptible to swings in the environmental state the islands they've colonised. The Eden Initiative are about as left wing as can be expected in 2070. The Anno franchise is about as hardcore as mainstream real-time strategy titles get in this regard - no mere city simulator, most interaction will be between the player and the economy, with a side-serving of war for those sufficiently cashed up to partake.Īnno 2070 does away with the creaky charm of a world lit only by candlelight, and skips forward several centuries to a world affected by rising sea levels, a scarcity of resources and two political factions attempting to fix everything using their own ideology. Such is the case with Anno 2070 all four earlier entries in this franchise have based every aspect of gameplay around a single premise the constant need to maintain supply and demand for a burgeoning population in a historical setting.
![games like anno 2070 games like anno 2070](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ba4b2c03d37be514aaac44999a6b8a92.jpg)
The only real problem with this is when the entire theme of the game is usurped in the interests of reinvention.
![games like anno 2070 games like anno 2070](https://v1cdn.destructoid.com/216180_2-620x.jpg)
It's always encouraging to see developers try new things, particularly when so many games recently seem to follow the "tried and tested" mantra. 21ST CENTURY BOY: Screenshot from Ubisoft's latest real-time strategy game, Anno 2070.