The game places you in the role of one of a King's two sons. Your sibling seems intent on using his sword to expand his father's empire, while your character is more of a fan of furthering your society through invention and progression, as boring as that sounds.
In terms of gameplay, this basically means taking over barren islands and developing them so that they're fit to join your kingdom.
This initially means building basic houses for your adventurers to live in, but as play moves forward your goals become a little more complex, the idea being to up the class of the population and tempt natives into joining your fold.
Fight for this love
There are two ways of tackling this challenge, each one dependent on just how much hand holding you either need, or can endure. Story mode simply plonks you on your first island and talks you through your goals, with tips as to how to move things forward weaved into play.
As well as building lumberjack yards to provide wood and bakeries to feed your folk, for instance, your civilisation also thrives on culture. Churches and theatres become essential staples of your society, making your population happy and enabling you to leach more taxes from them.
But whether you take on this guided tour or play the Free Play mode, which comes with the same long-term goals but lets you play as you please, ANNO: Create a New World comes with a very strict rule-set that focuses on keeping a balance.
That's not unusual for a strategy sim, but this is a game particularly unwilling to let you throw out the rule book.
God hand
In this respect, the ability to hold back your desire to get ahead of yourself is crucial to any success you might have.
This is less of an issue in Story mode, which restricts just what you can build until its determined that you're ready, but in free play, even demolishing the offending amenities or halting their production can fail to reset the balance.
Taxing your population too highly to try and recoup your finances halts your progression and essentially puts the whole game on pause.
ANNO: Create a New World also doesn't make it clear just what you should be doing when its 'events' - mini calamities that almost act as plot points breaking up play - start to hit. It's at this point that ANNObecomes even less forgiving, one false move essentially making your society bankrupt.This doesn't make it a poor game by any stretch, but it does make it the sole province of those who have tackled many a God sim before. ANNO'sSim City-meets-Civilization gameplay provides few sweet spots for newcomers or casual gamers, but lays on a stern challenge for any celestial beings in the making.
