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 Anno 2070 is a 2011 game developed by Ubisoft Blue Byte and Related Designs, and published by Ubisoft, and is the fifth game in the Anno series (the others being Anno 1602, 1503, 1404, and 1701). It's remarkably serene, at times surprisingly gorgeous, and extremely fun. It's also got a terrible reputation for being tied into Ubisoft's Uplay DRM system, requiring one to be online at all times. Assuming one has a stable internet connection, though (a stretch sometimes), it's a must-play. And with the new game, Anno 2205, coming out this November, there's no better time to play this game! Especially with the risk of multiplayer dying out at some point. In the year 2070, climate change has melted the polar ice caps, causing the global sea level to rise. This has led to devastating knock-on effects, with entire cities sinking under the waves, bread-basket regions losing their arable land, huge displacements of climate refugees, and the failure of nation-states worldwide. It's in the hands of Ark captains - individuals commanding huge submersible bases capable of storing many tons of goods - to explore the old world in search of land masses able to support homes or industry, with the goal of creating new population centers to rival the cities of old. These days, it's not countries or blocs, religious affiliations or ethnic groups that drive policy - but rather, global organizations and corporations that differ mainly in their philosophies for energy production, goods manufacturing, and standards for living. They are:  Global Trust, Incorporated. is a megacorporation with subsidiaries worldwide, and the inheritor to the industry giants of the old world. Their raison d'etre is expansion at all costs - strip-mine the mountains, plunder the seas, tear free the bounty of the earth and build a gleaming city in the pattern of the old world. They are most efficient at that; however, their old-world approach is tarnished with the same old-world pollution that has put the Earth into the situation it is now in. Their citizens (called Tycoons) place great emphasis on a frenetic work life and maximal productivity, and respond quickly (and poorly) to shortages; their Goods are very strongly associated with conspicuous consumption and compensation for their demanding lives.  The Eden Initiative is their counterpart, a global organization dedicated to preserving what remains of the natural world, restoring the most devastated regions to their former splendor, and advancing human civilization along sustainable paths. Their industrial processes are designed to produce the minimum environmental impact possible, but the exchange for such a low-impact industry is low productivity and output of Goods. Their citizens (called Ecos) place great emphasis on quality of life, pristine surroundings and labor-saving devices, and are very sensitive to any degradation of their local environment; their Goods enable their sustainable practices, healthy living and practical gadgets.  The Scientific Academy for Advanced Technology, or S.A.A.T., is an ancillary faction that answers to neither Global Trust nor the Eden Initiative; their motivation is the advancement of science and technology above all else. They enable this by providing special tools for the settlement and harvesting of resources on underwater plateaus, which proves vital for satisfying the ultimate needs of both Tycoon and Eco citizens at the upper echelons of their respective organizations. S.A.A.T. also enables the development of upgrade modules that makes buildings of a certain type function more effectively, and the blueprints of buildings that provide some of the most potent benefits (and drawbacks) in the game. Their citizens (called Techs) may also be settled on your islands, and their lifestyle revolves almost exclusively towards the furthering of their individual research; their Goods are both sophisticated and practical, enabling them to devote themselves fully to research with minimal consideration of their personal lives, but are either complex or ravenous of real estate. 2070 is a layer cake of a game, with slices of city-builder, business sim, 4X strategy and RTS making up the various components of the game. At its basic level, your goal is to build cities and support the population therein, meeting their various needs and allowing them to attain higher levels of achievement. To achieve that, you must harvest resources to produce goods for them to consume. However, with dry land (or, later, underwater plateaus) scarce, you must compete fiercely with your neighbors to settle islands with the right resources before they can, gobble up as much space on them as you can to devote to housing or production, secure your supply chain against attack, purchase shares in settlements to earn income and potentially buy out whole islands, or build a fleet and airforce to go directly to war with one another. What is this LP's goal? At the very least, I would like to cover the central campaign of the game, "The Virus". This will be a series of subtitled videos, to show off the scripted events, voice acting and music of the game. I would also like to show off some of the other features of the game, such as a Continuous Game (a sandbox mode of sorts), some of the Single Missions, the Global Events, and the campaign added by the Deep Ocean expansion, "Miracle in Danger"; these will likely be posted through screenshot updates. Potenially, I could also play, record and post multiplayer games, to demonstrate the fun collaborative city building and competitive development that this game allows. We can discuss the scheduling thereof in the thread. How often will it update? I will aim for once a week, probably Wednesdays, but with my work impinging that may not be possible.  Climate change is a hoax! CO2 has no impact on the climate! We're undergoing global cooling! Only God can change the world! Yeah yeah yeah. Listen. Anno is a series about building cities on island clusters and has been from the very start. All the prior games have been set in the past, and the conceit that enabled that style of gameplay was that you were exploring and settling the Mediterranean, or the Carribean, or the South China Sea, or some other remote archipelago. With a game set in the future, they couldn't exactly use that excuse, so they used a facet of modern scientific consensus to build their new game around without changing the formula too much. If it really makes you feel better, their excuse for keeping the game the same - that rising sea levels makes new areas fertile - is kind of bullshit anyway, because you won't get snowy lone mountaintops, fertile plateaus, and verdant forests in the 55 years of global warming left to go before this game ostensibly takes place, and the acute pollution caused within the game can be fixed by magic vacuum houses and whaleblimps. This isn't the place for debating the real-world science behind this game's vision of the future. It's cool if you want to talk poo poo about the way things work within the game; it is a game, after all. But no lovely slapfights about climate change in the thread. 2070 adds up to 9 if you add all the digits together. Yes it does. For that matter, so do 1602, 1503, 1404, 1701 and 2205, all the years of the other Anno titles. If there's a reason for doing it that way, aside from some development easter egg, I don't know what it is. Table of Contents Anno 2070 Introduction Campaign: The Virus Mission 1-1: The Two-Year Plan Mission 1-2: State of Emergency Mission 1-3: Black Sea Mission 1-4: Secrets of the Deep Mission 2-1: Finding the Truth Mission 2-2: Unforeseen Consequences Mission 2-3: Solidarity Mission 3-1: On Hostile Terrain Mission 3-2: Challenge, Part 1 Part 2 Mission 3-3: Triumph of Technology Cast  E.V.E - Extensive Virtual Entity. Artificial intelligence within our Ark. Implicitly trustworthy. Global Trust  Rufus Thorne - CEO and chairman of the board of Global Trust. Pragmatic, efficient, yet recognizing of worthy talent. Currently under investigation for insurance fraud.  Thor Strindberg - President of Strindberg Inc., a contractor to Global Trust, former Site 13 administrator, and saboteur. Cowardly, vindictive, backbiting and blames others for his failings. Not very good at sneaking missions.  Walter - Tycoon Worker. Needs: Fish, Liquor, Casinos. Likes: menial labor. Dislikes: saving for the future.  Lester - Tycoon Employee. Needs: Fish, Convenience Food, Liquor, Plastic, Casinos, Television (Ministry of Information). Likes: stealing Tools. Dislikes: working weekends.  Richard - Tycoon Engineer. Needs: Fish, Convenience Food, Luxury Food, Liquor, Champagne, Plastics, Casino, Financial Center, Television (Ministry of Information). Likes: balling like a boss. Dislikes: financial crises.  Russel - Tycoon Executive. Needs: Fish, Luxury Food, Liquor, Champagne, Plastic, Jewelry, Pharmaceuticals, Casino, Financial Center, Television (Ministry of Information). Likes: trickle-down economics and economic migrants. Dislikes: himself, when he secretly wishes he could have been a rapper instead. Eden Initiative  Yana Rodriguez - Operations manager and spokeswoman for the Eden Initiative. Compassionate, environmentally-thoughtful, crunchy. Poor sense of priorities in the face of crisis.  Josh - Eco Worker. Needs: Fish, Tea, Concert Halls. Likes: Fresh air. Dislikes: litterbugs.  Steve - Eco Employee. Needs: Fish, Health Food, Tea,  Ryan - Eco Engineer. Needs: Fish, Health Food, Pasta Dishes, Tea, Bio Drinks, Communicators, Concert Halls, Television (Education Network), Congress Hall. Likes: getting the strawberry milk in the lunch line. Dislikes: the horrors and lingering decay of life in a nuclear wasteland. Scientific Academy for Advanced Technologies (S.A.A.T.)  F.A.T.H.E.R. - Super AI. Head of S.A.A.T. Superior intellect. Potential candidate for World Council.  Professor Dr. Salman Devi - Scientific director of S.A.A.T. and president of the Science Council. Researching the loss of the Virago Ark prototype. Can hold his breath for ten minutes.  Dr. Tori Bartok - Assistant to Professor Devi and leader of the Scientific Program for Interdisciplinary Research, Innovation and Technology (S.P.I.R.I.T.). Helping Prof. Devi and F.A.T.H.E.R. decode the Virago's data log. Desperately searching for more periods. TyrantSabre fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 03:41
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I really liked this game. Can't wait to see what you build!
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Jul 15, 2015 03:53
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Oh good I'm looking forward to this! This game always interested me, and I finally picked it up and installed it, but haven't gotten around to playing it yet, maybe this'll inspire me to finally start the game up! Can't wait for more.
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Jul 15, 2015 04:56
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I'm with 64bitrobot in that the game has interested me, but I never got around to picking it up or anything like that. I will be watching this LP with due diligence to see what I missed. On a side note for the video, big company big wigs have always been assholes and our good buddy Mr. S is no different. Just look at the ending. Blaming a lowly dude for simple saying 'I told you this would happen!'. Then again, businesses men never like being told, let alone showed, they are wrong.
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Jul 15, 2015 05:40
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I really enjoy this one - this is a "relaxing night" game for Mzbundifund n' myself. Ask him about the time a hurricane did a right turn, avoiding his plastic and oil hell of an island to plow directly through my wind-powered utopia. Actually, don't. I don't need that smugness. 
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Jul 15, 2015 06:07
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I promised I'd watch, and so, here I am! Let's see the fallout from that first mission if such is the way the tutorial campaign is set.
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Jul 15, 2015 06:32
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The one thing I really wish this game had covered/focused more on is the impacts on society as a whole. ie have some export/crisis missions through the campaign.z
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Jul 15, 2015 08:14
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Good timing to make this LP now that 2205 will come out later this year. I'M definitely going to watch it.
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Jul 15, 2015 12:40
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So, does
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Jul 15, 2015 14:20
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Looks pretty; and it's basically like a combination of sim city and a RTS war game?
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Jul 15, 2015 16:20
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I think maybe off memory Hippies Inc also has a terrible strawman leader. But I forget, it has been a while.
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Jul 16, 2015 02:03
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Let's just say that character depth is not a hallmark of this game. Rendering Mission 1-2 for posting tonight. Assuming I haven't made any egregious mistakes, it should be up either sometime this evening or overnight.
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Jul 16, 2015 02:19
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TyrantSabre posted:Let's just say that character depth is not a hallmark of this game. I haven't played this before, so I'm crossing my fingers you get to blow up Douchbag McMiddle Manager, if not now then at some point. Seriously, that was a ridiculously stupid move on his part, and he's probably going to pin the blame on you, somehow.
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Jul 16, 2015 02:58
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 Mission 1-2: State of Emergency is live. PS: Despite my personal opposition to advertising and monetization on SA-based Let's Plays, the composer of the Anno 2070 soundtrack has monetization set for several of the tracks on this video, and likely ones released in the future. You may experience ads.
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Jul 16, 2015 03:37
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Ashsaber posted:I haven't played this before, so I'm crossing my fingers you get to blow up Douchbag McMiddle Manager, if not now then at some point. Seriously, that was a ridiculously stupid move on his part, and he's probably going to pin the blame on you, somehow. Not blow him up, but we get him arrested later. He's also a colossal warmongering douchenozzle in sandbox mode.
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Jul 16, 2015 03:41
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I am a big fan of city builders, namely Pharaoh/Zeus-Poseidon and the way you built your Tools + Iron Smelter reminded me of how I'd build my main city districts of tons of houses designed around the walker system then just plant one house next to industrial grids and have like 10 material gatherers and 15 of the producers requiring said materials and end up manufacturing tons and tons of stuff. Are you limited by the mines you build in how fast you can gain resources?
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Jul 16, 2015 04:03
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Lunethex posted:I am a big fan of city builders, namely Pharaoh/Zeus-Poseidon and the way you built your Tools + Iron Smelter reminded me of how I'd build my main city districts of tons of houses designed around the walker system then just plant one house next to industrial grids and have like 10 material gatherers and 15 of the producers requiring said materials and end up manufacturing tons and tons of stuff. Are you limited by the mines you build in how fast you can gain resources? Kind of-there are ways to boost mine production rates (which will probably be covered soon-ish) and you can trade for some resources, but for the most part you are limited to mines for resource gathering. I've put a lot of hours into this game-there aren't any particularly complex mechanics in it, but there's a lot of different challenges in it that make it an interesting game to play.
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Jul 16, 2015 04:17
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Lunethex posted:I am a big fan of city builders, namely Pharaoh/Zeus-Poseidon and the way you built your Tools + Iron Smelter reminded me of how I'd build my main city districts of tons of houses designed around the walker system then just plant one house next to industrial grids and have like 10 material gatherers and 15 of the producers requiring said materials and end up manufacturing tons and tons of stuff. Are you limited by the mines you build in how fast you can gain resources? Yes - sort of. And I didn't really leave myself time to explain the mechanic there in Mission 1-2, but suffice it to say, the number of mines you have allow you a certain amount of output. Each Iron Smelter has a certain amount of throughput, and you can have a certain number of Tool Workshops for every Iron Smelter you have. Because this is a game, and assuming normal roads and distances from the depot, the ratios are neatly: one Coal Mine and two Iron Mines, feeding two Iron Smelters, feeding four Tools Workshops. Tycoons' Coal Extractor - the big diggy thing I laid down in Mission 1-1 - is real nice for Iron production, just because you can plop them anywhere on the map instead of specifically on a mine site. If I'd had my druthers, I would have put down two Extractors and two Iron Mines for the same output for four Toolshops. And, of course, if you have Iron Mines on another island, that can fuel greater Tool manufacture.
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Jul 16, 2015 04:30
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I'm hardly an expert at this game (I play it solely on super-easy to relax and make sushi), but I think there was a pretty huge inefficency in the way you built your foundries there. Essentially, you never want to go through the depot if you can at all help it. Buildings can request supplies directly from other buildings, and when they do so they use their own trucks. By contrast, the depot only has one truck until you upgrade it. So if you had built a road directly from the iron/coal to the foundry, and another road directly from the foundry to the factories you'd have three times as many trucks running around and everything would get done much faster. Or at least that's been my experience. I mean, you need to build a depot anyway, but you shouldn't be putting anything into it unless it's either a finished product or you need to teleport stuff across the island for whatever reason. Clarste fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 04:59
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Easiest way for efficient supply lines is have production buildings right next to their downstream users. ie Iron mine | Iron Foundry | Tool shoppe | Stores. ........................____________ .........................Coal Mine | = road. Though with the Tutorial demanded setup, and only one type of resource anyhow, it isn't a huge issue. Just might come up later. (this is a city builder, expect endless whining about ~efficiency~ from the stands). But, as this episode also demonstrates, Thorne is much less of an idiot than Strinburg. I'm sure Strinburg trying to blame THORNE for his failure didn't help matters, though. Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 05:33
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Yeah, don't... don't mess with Thorne. That's actually one thing I like. There's certainly the idea that Tycoons are heartless captain planet villains (and sure, most of them are) but the one you interact with the MOST, Thorne, is actually just a super efficient and savvy businessman. He doesn't want UNDUE (i.e. unprofitable) harm done to the environment, and he works for good relations with other players. The Eco contact likewise is at least usually tolerable - they seem like people you could work for. The higher-ups are all basically power-hungry monsters, but hey, points for realism! 
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Jul 16, 2015 06:04
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I love that Strindberg's theme music is called Grinding Teeth.
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Jul 16, 2015 06:40
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I'm sure having those crops growing next to a coal refinery will have absolutely no health ramifications on the alcohol produced!
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Jul 16, 2015 08:58
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It's fine! Charcoal is healthy for you anyhow!
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Jul 16, 2015 11:36
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Samovar posted:I'm sure having those crops growing next to a coal refinery will have absolutely no health ramifications on the alcohol produced! It's fine! Everything is going according to plan. As you'll see when the tech tree spreads out for tycoons, their whole thing is based on forming a heinous underclass of incredibly unhealthy and distracted manual laborers for the administrators to lord over. e: god dammit I'm going to lose another weekend to this game, aren't I? 
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Jul 16, 2015 13:14
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Shame about old Strindberg. Now there was a man who knew the value of delegating!  Is this game basically Caesar with better controls? It looks fun.
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Jul 16, 2015 14:32
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Welp. Strindberg got what was coming to him, though it is painfully obvious that he'll be back to haunt us later down the line. Also, am I guessing correctly in thinking that the missions all just kind of flow into each other? Cause that is the feeling I got going from Mission 1 to Mission 2. Or are some connected while there are times you'll get either kicked back to the main menu to select the next or at the least a fade to black as you change maps? This game looks rather fun though so I might look into picking it up at some point. Are any of the other Anno games as fun or is this one kind of a one-of-a-kind?
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Jul 16, 2015 16:21
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Ben Kasack posted:Welp. Strindberg got what was coming to him, though it is painfully obvious that he'll be back to haunt us later down the line. I'm trying to keep the videos fairly slick and seamless, but there's a discrete results screen for each mission end and it kicks you back to the mission select menu every time.
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Jul 16, 2015 16:45
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Starting to wish I'd picked this up during the Steam sale. Always thought the game looked gorgeous, but every video I found was really overwhelming. Looks like the campaign eases you into things pretty well, though.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:33
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to be honest I found the campaign far too short. Unless they changed it there were only a handful of missions total, with the remaining content in challenge maps and sandbox.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:01
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This game's sweet as hell. I'm not particularly proficient at it, but it's just the right depth to hold my interest without being so deep that I screw ten things up and feel compelled to restart every five minutes. If you do end up moving on the multiplayer stuff, I'd definitely be interested in tagging along.
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Jul 16, 2015 20:05
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Cythereal posted:Starting to wish I'd picked this up during the Steam sale. Always thought the game looked gorgeous, but every video I found was really overwhelming. Looks like the campaign eases you into things pretty well, though. It does, but the sandbox is the real fun. Honestly, combat isn't a huge part of the game (at least in sandbox mode - challenges are more combat heavy), but this DID supply one of the best tension moments in a game I can remember. I was playing a co-op with bundifund, and we had a bunch of hostile nasties, Keto, Strindberg, and Sokow. The frantic race to get ready for keto was followed up by a relatively calm, peaceful minute or two before they showed up. Ticking down the seconds, getting every ship into a protected harbor, going over the battle plans, checking ships, and eventually just waiting. It was pretty great!
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Jul 16, 2015 20:30
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Bacter posted:It does, but the sandbox is the real fun. Eh, I'm not a big fan of sandbox gameplay. I prefer clearly defined goals to work towards for victory.
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Jul 16, 2015 20:42
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When you set up your continuous game, there's a wide array of victory conditions you can set, including reaching a certain city size, defeating all competitors and hostiles on the map, constructing the biggest most expensive thing, reaching a certain amount of income per second, etc. There's also a bunch of custom scenario maps and of course the campaign as well if you want set objectives. TyrantSabre are you planning to beat Power Games?
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Jul 16, 2015 20:56
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Oh god that Tool-shop setup.  Did you mean to set it up in nearly the slowest fashion possible to trigger efficiency rants Tyrantsabre? because you're triggering me to go into a big post about logistics in 2070.Okay, like Veloxyl said the best setups let buildings grab directly from a previous step in a production chain (if they can, there are some later items that have steps that simply cannot be on the same island). Each factory has its own cargo lifter that it can zip down the line to grab from either previous factories in the chain, or from depots. This means that the tools factory can load iron ingots (pipes?) directly from the smelter, and the smelter can grab iron ore and coal directly from the the mines. So a reasonable (sane) setup would be Mines/Depot -> Smelter -> Factory -> Depot. The problem is, you set it up so that almost every step has to go through the depot. As said, having some steps go through a depot isn't bad, stuff has to be brought in from different cities and mine locations are NEVER as conveniently located adjacent to each other in the standard (sandbox) mode. Sometimes it's convenient just to set up a refinery sector for a certain item (or items) that draws from a depot. So this setup is: Mines-> Depot -> Smelter -> Depot -> Factory -> Depot So now we have a 5 transit step chain instead of a 3 transit step chain. This is exacerbated by the fact that the depot here is only a level 1 depot, which means it's got only a single truck. So you've got one overworked dude running in circles having to load every single step of the process onto his cargo truck so a cargo hauler from the next factory can grab the materials for refinement, which the overworked teamster has to go fetch...again. So a single truck is is covering three of the five transit steps. Upgrading the depot will help, but you have to unlock higher tiers to unlock level 2 (2 trucks) and 3 (3 trucks and a hover lorry), and all the while you'll be waiting for your slow as gently caress tool stamping setup to make more hammers and drills that are required for everything from this point on. In short, set up your production chains so that buildings grab from the previous building in the chain if you can or else drive the thread insane watching this madness.  I'm NOT going to even touch "optimal layouts" though, down that path lays a different flavor of madness. Also, this wasn't nearly as big a problem in 1404 (which used the same engine) where instead of cargo lifters houses sent out teamsters on foot that didn't need to follow roads (the depot teamsters still needed roads). In 1404, the setup you made would have been totally fine. Alkydere fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 23:18
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Alkydere posted:Oh god that Tool-shop setup. Why would the game even work like that, sending items to whatever happens to be next door rather than the actual next step in the chain or letting you select where each building sends its output?
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Jul 16, 2015 23:31
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Cythereal posted:Why would the game even work like that, sending items to whatever happens to be next door rather than the actual next step in the chain or letting you select where each building sends its output? Oh, the game lets you send stuff next door, the problem is entirely with Tyrantsabre's setup. As mentioned, every factory building that takes a raw or intermediary resource and processes it has its own cargo lifter. Cargo lifters have to travel along roads, the problem is the tool setup he used here has no roads linking the iron smelter to the tool factory. Likewise, the iron smelter is only connected to a single of the two mines it needs for its input.
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Jul 16, 2015 23:43
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I actually use tons of depots in my continuous games due to the beforementioned efficiency/productiviy increasing items. It turns out having your depot touch a road that directly touches your mine etc is the fastest way to get stuff into the storage. And similarly for getting it out. An infinite number of buildings can pick up from a depot. Having a depot next to each mine or other gathering site isn't bad. Mostly I discovered myself using a lot of depots for storage so why not. Now that I think of it, my industrial center for my massive game looks like a ridiculous hell of production. Alavaria fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jul 17, 2015 |
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Jul 17, 2015 00:07
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In other words, trucks can't drive through buildings, and he put a big building smack dab in the middle of everything with no road around it.
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Jul 17, 2015 00:07
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| # ? May 5, 2024 03:38 |
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Ah, makes sense. Gorgeous game, though, and lots of little details like the helicopter drones hauling mined ore out for the truck to pick up. Would have been nice if they'd use those same drones to haul goods directly to where they need to go, it seems.
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Jul 17, 2015 00:12
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