Anno 1404 A.D. screenshots of realtime 3D > 2D tilesets

Minsc

Gold Member
Some of these may be old, but damn if they aren't nice to look at.

Anno1404-2a.jpg

Anno1404-2b.jpg

Anno1404-2c.jpg

Anno1404-2d.jpg

Anno1404-2e.jpg

Anno1404-2f.jpg

Anno1404-2g.jpg

Anno1404-1a.jpg

Anno1404-1b.jpg


Amazing stuff. Can't wait to build some cities!

There's a new Q&A over here, where these screens are from.

Some excerpts (sorry the forum doesn't wrap text at a smaller, fixed width):

3dzone: What kind of game is Anno 1404?
Damien Guillotin: Anno is a building strategy game based in a big and beautiful island world in the middle ages. You set sail in your world to master the tricks of trade, diplomacy and economy, building up your own monumental cities. You need to plan very carefully and elaborately to fulfil your citizen’s needs. With the fulfilment of each new demand your city will grow and prosper.

For the first time a new faction was implemented – the Orient. With your diplomatic skills you will earn the trust of this nation, which will in return provide you with valuable technologies and goods, letting your empire grow and your cities become mighty metropolises. At a later stage the player will even be able to build his own oriental settlements. This way the player will have a lot of new room to express his vision and shape the character of his cities.

3dz: Overall what are the improvements that we are going to see from the previous version of the game?
DG: We have listened to all feedbacks from the community and press and improved 1404 in many aspects like:
- Improved long time motivation
- Larger world size
- New military system
- New trade route system
- New community features
- Of course improved and state of the art graphics
- And many more…!

3dz: In Anno 1701 a key part from the endgame content was the construction of one main building: the palace. In the trailer that was released for Anno 1404 we saw a very detailed animation which showed the construction process of a cathedral. Does this mean that we will see some special buildings like the ones in similar titles like Zeus and Pharaoh, whose construction needs lots of different resources and game play time?
DG: The next big feature beside the Orient is more than just erecting monuments. In Anno 1404 the aim is to build up huge and gorgeous metropolises – bigger than ever before! Monuments therefore play a very important role! The emperor’s dome will not be the only monument – that’s for sure! We promise there will be several new and impressive buildings. We can say this much: Monuments such as the emperor’s dome are an important aspect of long-time motivation for the player, which will offer many new challenges in the later stages of the game.

Such a huge monument of course is very expensive and complex to build – only the most experienced master builders and richest players will be able to build a monument with such epic degree. The consequences of erecting this building structure are of course enormous for the player.

3dz: All three previous games have been released in German first and after six months or more have been translated to English. Is 27th March the release date of the English version of the game?
DG: The game will be released this year simultaneously in all countries.

3dz: Can we expect a new game of the series set in present days like Anno 2012, or maybe even a game with a futuristic setting called Anno 2505?
DG: No comment... :)
 
Looks amazing, yet another reason why I need this upgrade asap!

Whats this game closest to in terms of gameplay? Sim City, Civ 4, Pharaoh/Caesar 3?

Minsc said:

Whats with the heat effect on the horizon?
 
The Anno games are absolutely amazing, its such a shame so many people haven't heard of them and experienced them. Even the DS game is fantastic and well worth checking out.
 
This is going to be one of those games I get immersed in for hours and hours a time.
So looking forward to it.
 
Darklord said:
Whats this game closest to in terms of gameplay? Sim City, Civ 4, Pharaoh/Caesar 3?

Out of those, Pharoah/C3 would be the closest approximation but Anno really is its own beast entirely.

Definitely one of my most wanted games of 2009. I heard that some UK people got into a closed beta of it a couple of weeks ago, glad to see that it's only about a month out now. :)
 
Fragamemnon said:
Out of those, Pharaoh/C3 would be the closest approximation but Anno really is its own beast entirely.

Oh man, I love those games. That's awesome. Pharaoh was so fun and looked awesome(still does, the art design is amazing).

Can you skip combat in it? The OP info says "New military system" but I never want to fight in these type of games, just build awesome cities.
 
Darklord said:
Can you skip combat in it? The OP info says "New military system" but I never want to fight in these type of games, just build awesome cities.
Yes, you can. You can just play a free game without opponents.
 
Fragamemnon said:
Out of those, Pharoah/C3 would be the closest approximation but Anno really is its own beast entirely.

Definitely one of my most wanted games of 2009. I heard that some UK people got into a closed beta of it a couple of weeks ago, glad to see that it's only about a month out now. :)

I have yet to jump into the Anno series for whatever reason, but this year will change that!
 
This is just an expansion right? The previous Anno game looked exactly like those shots...

Also, peal necklace lol

(And, the DS Anno game is fucking amazing, and everyone should buy it)
 
Kabouter said:
Yes, you can. You can just play a free game without opponents.

You can play with opponents and just ignore the military side. There's only one specific NPC who will attack you without provocation, and the pirates but they can be turned off.

What's this about March 27th? Where did they get that date?
 
FlyinJ said:
This is just an expansion right? The previous Anno game looked exactly like those shots...

Also, peal necklace lol

(And, the DS Anno game is fucking amazing, and everyone should buy it)

This is a whole new game. The previous titles looked good, but there are actually a lot of improvements graphically to this one.

3dz: Can we expect a full DirectX 10 support or some special effects like a weather system to be included in the new title?
DG: Our engine supports both DirectX9 and DirectX10. We have put in a lot of work into our multi-core support. Several of our modules (physics, animation, effects, streaming) can be calculated on multiple CPU cores. The system scales to the number of cores without a problem.
We are very proud of our balancing tool (ToolOne). Our designers can adjust all values very comfortably according to the run-time. This way the balancing can be optimized considerably for each step of the iteration. Furthermore we developed a new terrain system, which offers the designers a lot more creative freedom. The water simulation is completely new. It includes real geometric waves and objects, which adapt dynamically to the swell. The lighting model has been renewed completely with HDR and atmospheric diffusion. Also the wind simulation is new – it simulates local and global winds as well as gusts and storms respectively. DirectX10 supports the autofocus of a camera in our postcard mode. Objects, which you focus on in the game world, become sharp, whereas objects in the background or very close to the “camera” obtain a slight blur. It looks pretty cool.
The 3D engine has been secluded to work as an independent unit next to the game engine. This way it is possible to exchange the 3D engine completely or to convert other games/products based on our render technology.
We could go on forever about the things that have been improved – we can definitely assure the player will encounter a much more authentic and dynamic game world.

So a lot more stuff going on in the game world, for a much more authentic simulation. In other words, the game should look even more amazing in motion than it does in these screens.

3dz: We know from previous interviews that you have developed a completely new graphics engine for Anno 1404. How these visual improvements will affect the gameplay?
DG: The engine is a complete new proprietary development. We developed all components and tools from scratch. Our aim was to optimize the entire production pipeline and to form a sustainable technology, which all our future projects can build upon. After all, it’s not just about the 3D engine, but the entire production pipeline. The tools we have developed play an important role in dictating the workflow. We claim that our technology is the non plus ultra within the strategy game genre, other games will have to match with.

Runs on a whole new engine as well.
 
So March 27th? Cant wait.

can someone rehost the pics, for some reason the barracuda doesnt like the links.
 
Any word on System Specs? I have a halfway decent Gaming PC (nothing amazing, but I've never tried to run Farcry 2 or anything top end on it), wondering if I'm going to need to upgrade to play this. All the Q&A mentions is "One of the main aims of our R&D team that developed and implemented the new technologies was to keep the graphics engine scalable in order to keep the game playable on older computers."
 
Oh yeah I love Anno! The first one I've played was 1701 on PC and then I bought the DS version to take with me on vacation and played that every night. Excellent games.
 
~Kinggi~ said:
Whoa, ill definitely consider this game. Is it like Sim City? Never played this series before.
Sort of. You start out with your citizens at the lowest class level. In 1701 they were settlers, and once you gave them enough food and wool they start upgrading and then at that level they want cloth and alcohol and tobacco then all the way up to aristocrats who want high end items like jewels, ivory and perfume.

You have to build the city then provide the products your people want. And each product requires something different so you have to micromanage things like iron creation and lumber and food, alcohol, tobacco, etc.
You can also build and army and a navy. Which you can imagine requires cloth for the sails and lumber, and cannons and guns.
 
BobJustBob said:
You can play with opponents and just ignore the military side. There's only one specific NPC who will attack you without provocation, and the pirates but they can be turned off.
Yeah, but the opponents will take up a lot of space, eventually, you're gonna need to fight them if you want to build the biggest possible city.
 
captive said:
Sort of. You start out with your citizens at the lowest class level. In 1701 they were settlers, and once you gave them enough food and wool they start upgrading and then at that level they want cloth and alcohol and tobacco then all the way up to aristocrats who want high end items like jewels, ivory and perfume.

You have to build the city then provide the products your people want. And each product requires something different so you have to micromanage things like iron creation and lumber and food, alcohol, tobacco, etc.
You can also build and army and a navy. Which you can imagine requires cloth for the sails and lumber, and cannons and guns.
Good lord, with this and Total War my strategy world is complete! Also, ill finally get to flex my pc's muscles again after Crysis.
 
~Kinggi~ said:
Good lord, with this and Total War my strategy world is complete! Also, ill finally get to flex my pc's muscles again after Crysis.
Oh yea I forgot, the most important part, you set taxes for your citizens too, tax them too much and they become unhappy. :lol


Thanks OP for rehosting the pics, they look incredible.
 
bathala said:
i should try this building games that's what i like on Civ Revo

sux no STEAM

No Steam?!? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

At least Defense Grid: The Awakening is 25% off ($20 -> $15) on Steam until March 2nd :D
 
Pizza Luigi said:
In true RTS tradition the typography is horrible.

Apart from that is this the eye-candy from Q1 I think.
Do you mean topography? I cant imagine you would actually be taking issue with the design of the letters and words...
 
My question is, will the new Macbook Pro with XP installed via Bootcamp be able to handle this game decently.
 
Looks amazing, however I hope it runs better for me than 1701 (demo) did. It was playable but stuttered badly (3.2ghz core2 Quad/4gb/9800gtx/vista64)
 
saelz8 said:
http://www.apple.com/ca/macbookpro/specs.html

- 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed; or 2.53GHz or 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB shared L2 cache

- 2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) or 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 4GB

- NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor; 256MB of GDDR3 memory on 2.4GHz configuration; 512MB of GDDR3 memory on 2.53GHz and 2.8GHz configurations
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3
 
almokla said:
any console versions by any chance?

played the hell out of 1701, one of my favorite games
1701 for the DS is the best strategy game for any of the console platforms. I'm not sure if that's the version you played the hell out of. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a version of 1404 for it down the line, just like 1701. They haven't announced anything yet though.

My nephew owned 1701 for DS, and it's actually what got me to purchase it for PC. I played it because I was curious how that sort of strategy game would work on the DS, and ended up being converted.

NetMapel said:
http://www.apple.com/ca/macbookpro/specs.html

- 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed; or 2.53GHz or 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB shared L2 cache

- 2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) or 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 4GB

- NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor; 256MB of GDDR3 memory on 2.4GHz configuration; 512MB of GDDR3 memory on 2.53GHz and 2.8GHz configurations
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3
You won't be playing with all settings on high, but you should be fine.
 
This game is absolutely beautiful. Too bad I have no idea what this game is about or how it plays, but just from the look of it, I would love to learn. Anyone know where I can go to learn about the Anno series, and what they're all about.
 
zeloe326 said:
This game is absolutely beautiful. Too bad I have no idea what this game is about or how it plays, but just from the look of it, I would love to learn. Anyone know where I can go to learn about the Anno series, and what they're all about.
I just googled Anno 1701 and watched some gameplay video. I think I know some of the basics already just by watching those videos. Seems like a fun game indeed !

Oh, and thanks, saelz8. I expect to play the game with decent graphics, preferrably like the ones shown in those screenshots above. You think that's achievable ?
 
Screens look gorgeous, but the name is silly. Kind of like saying LPG Gas. The Anno at the start is redundant, as A.D is Anno Domini. So its Anno 1404 Anno Domini. The Year 1404 Year of the lord.
 
pseudocaesar said:
Screens look gorgeous, but the name is silly. Kind of like saying LPG Gas. The Anno at the start is redundant, as A.D is Anno Domini. So its Anno 1404 Anno Domini. The Year 1404 Year of the lord.
That's why it's called Anno 1404 in most countries, but 1404 A.D. in America :P.
 
Ahh I have been playing 1701 again on my desktop, 1900x1200 all settings high completely maxed, looks gorgeous.

These games are so much fun.
 
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