Customer Reviews

1701 A. D.: Gold Edition

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First off, it plays like Age of Empires, as far as the town building goes. Only it is much more intricate. As you Progress, and your cities advance, you are required to gather more and more DIFFERENT types of resources, and refine the resources in various ways. It becomes a real effort to balance your people's needs, lest they revolt, but to simply build a massive harvesting infrastructure will strap your cash due to upkeep costs. Further, no matter where you begin, you will not have the resources all nearby for you to simply wall around and build. You will have to search and build on various islands to properly supply your evolving economy. Setting up distribution routes, setting their pace properly (to not overflow your warehouses) is time consuming and one of the focal points of the game, and it actually is alot more fun than it sounds. Again the key is balance.

However, Age of Empires type warfare is definitely not in this game. The focus stays on economics, not war. While you can build a fleet of warships and an army, the variety is very limited, and useful only as a cap off in your conquest of a map, and not the main tool to do so.

This game is alot of fun, but as I said, if you are looking for a war-type RTS, this game isn't really it. The learning curve is quite steep, and requires a bit of patience to realize why your empire is not working when you first play the game. This game isn't a brain scorcher, but is a much more delicate process than alot of other RTS games out there, not too challenging, but engrossing and now prefer this game over my old RTS games like Age of Mythology, Age of Empires, and is on par with Rise of Nations, which RoN too, is a great game.

EDIT: It seems something was updated with windows Vista, and it has indeed broken the game. Vista is not supported officially and may or likely cause the game to crash. :(

I am so glad that the Germans are in love with this type of game, otherwise we in the US would be totally deprived of some of the most engrossing, rewarding, and FUN gameplay I have ever experienced. I have not stayed up until 5 am playing a game in 8 years, and indeed I was wondering if I was even the type of gamer who could get into a game that much anymore. I was wrong. For a person like me, who's not interested in the combat aspect of most strategy games, and who is much more interested in turtling a base to their exact preference, this game is a boon.

I've enjoyed learning this game. Its not simple that I get bored but not so hard I can't play it to relax. I like that each island has its own strengths and weaknesses and items it can't produce which forces you to colonize other islands. I like the diplomacy and the items you can research in the school. It reminds me a little Masters of Orion II which I also love, so maybe I'm biased. I do have one complaint that I can't seem to get the trade function to work. I'm either misinterpreting the instructions or I'm just plain wrong, but manually sending my ships around is very annoying. The graphics are good for a strategy type game, and I enjoy the different characters of the other computer players. I've played for two days straight.

Tages copy protection used in this game is not compatible with windows 7 64 bit. PC gaming will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs because of extreme copy protections. As usual Amazon is great!

If you have played 1503 & 1602 than you know what to expect in 1701.
There isn't much difference in this game really. It's still pain to have your ships keep trade routes ( "A trade route is no longer..") flowing.
The people still complain & riot (One of your establishments is out off . . "), wanting everything.
You never know which side of the shop or building to place the road (but I will say that some don't need that, or sometimes [cows, wool] you don't).

Visually it's amazing. Tornadoes, storm & things like that. You can zoom in on the peeps, but it doesn't offer much help, expect to see them walk, or to look for animals.

You can customize the game to be super easy or hard (with the exception of the peeps needing everything & the constant warnings that something has halted). Having as few AI players as you like. You can select from 24 (I believe) maps, large or small islands etc.. Much like before, but you can make it harder for the computer to play.

Sandbox mode is nothing like map editor was. You can set up islands, nor make them. That's kinda lame. You can just plunk down houses, shops & buildings. I haven't played long in that, as it was annoying.

You can set up a profile, there are abounding preference settings & you can do it (during play) on the fly.

I haven't played the Sunken Dragon expansion as yet, so will update this when I do.

Overall, the game is cute as ever, but if you played the previous versions, not much else has changed, with the exception of updating a few things. If you haven't played 1503 or 1602, & you like being in control of your own colony, than I suggest buying it. If you're not a fan of needing to constantly babysit (And be told that you need to), stay far away from this. The "advice" is quite annoying.

This game is one of the most unique ones I've ever played. You basically colonize an island, collect resources from it, make things, and ship them out. You can also trade resources between your different outposts. It sounds simple but it's actually extremely hard to pull off. All the while, you're trying to build up your colony, but it's only possible to do if you have the necessary resources. On top of that, you're racing against the AI to get everything.

I wouldn't say the game is impossible, but it does take some getting used to. I enjoy it and it seems to accomplish everything it sets out to do. The graphics are nice to look at and the game is snappy. There's no real downside to this game unless you don't like economic simulators, then you'll probably find the entire thing frustrating. But overall, I think this is worth trying out.

This is an enjoyable game that focuses on shipping and colony/town building. There are several ways to play and varying difficulties. The basic premise is that one starts with a very basic colony and advances it to the highest level of civilization, all the while trading and competing with other colonies, fighting pirates and trying to stay in good with the Queen.

It is not as hands on as some building games, and certainly not hands on with the battles, but it is a very engaging management game and well worth playing.

Love this game. Very realistic graphics and scenes... better than most out there I seen so far. The missions are entertaining and interesting. I am very happy I got this game and was hoping for newer versions. What I love the most from the game is that it really trasnports me into the time period something I look for in strategy games. Yes, it is time consuming but thrilling and worth the while.

Great city builder with some simple battle functionality thrown in. Not to hard to pick up but challenging enough to keep your interest. Also works find on Vista (at least for me).

I think the older version was better. I got bored with this one but only because its a little harder to do. I just didnt have the patience for it.