I was not really into the Anno Series. But once I got this for cheap I also bought Anno 1701 and Anno 2070 too. I like 1701 a bit better than 1404. If you're into city builder this game is highly recommended.

This was my first experience in the 'Anno' series and I really enjoyed it. You can tell that it's a veteran franchise by how well layed the intrerface and the gameplay is. The gameplay experience is smooth and enrichening, the campaign helps you familiarize with the mechanics and the challenges that the game offers. The concept and plot of the campaign is itself quite imaginative, and you feel you're following a story, something uncommon in a management game. I was at first detracted from immersion due to the 'squaredness' of the cities and facilities. Some effort should be made by the artists so that its not that visually noticeable that everything is based on tiles. Still, the game looks good on top of feeling good.

Just didn't find this one as fun as previous Annos (with the exception of 1701, this one is superior to that one in every respect). It's technically better in every way, but it just doesn't have the Anno feel any more.

For all Anno Players, you do nothing wrong if you buy this Game. There is a Main Campaign, with a really nice Story. And yeah, with the Campaign you can learn a little bit about History and refresh you Anno Mind. 5 Stars.

Wonderful graphics, even at the lowest settings. The GUI is very intuitive. That said, I think game-play makes or brakes a game. In this case; almost brakes the game. Game-play actually prohibits the emergence of a 'flow' that sucks the player into the game. Let me explain.

Macro- and micro management conflict and take up so much of the player's time; almost as if they should be managed by one player apart. Therefor, a single player has no time left to enjoy the game once it's 'rolling'. If you do you'll soon find you forgot some of your ships exploring the seas. Or, you were supposed to fulfill a task -quest- but you forgot or, don't know how (a flaw in the tutorial I will address later). In the beginning of a game there is only one ship to explore the seas; do trading; fulfill tasks and settle on other islands, since there are not yet enough resources and money to build new ships. So, no automation - these are single tasks. Just managing the ship sailing around the world is using up lots of the player's attention.

The tutorial is in-game, so you'll learn playing the game by playing the campaign, or you are supposed to. I didn't. I thought it was vague and it left me baffled on some of the resources and how to acquire/make use of them. A tutorial aside from the game simply teaching the gamer the basics of the game would have been much better.

To me, as a city-builder/RTS fan, it is a game with a lot of unfulfilled promises, a lot of potential. I regret I am not a gamer with a fast learning-curve, or detailed advanced knowledge of the game, thus being prevented from enjoying the full potential the game seems to offer.

This is a great game to play with friends if you the time. Although the games can be quite long they're very competitive and they keep you interested right the way through. The singleplayer is also very rewarding with numerous scenarios and achievements to play and try for.

So far this is the only city building game that i have spent playing more than 100 hours. Great replayability and dynamic economy system. If you kinda like Port royale game style combining with city building mechanics, wait no further cause this is the perfect game for you.

Best to buy it in this Gold bundle as it comes with expansion that you wanted to play more in future.

It's the best city builder and trading game. It has beautiful graphic and great re-playability value. In Anno 1404, you must manage a city of the Middle Age, with a very deep game play. You'll spend many hours to find the best way to manage your city.

Very good game !

Anno 1404 is a nice change to other strategy games. Rather than having to worry about building up powerful armies you can focus more on the economic side - and I love the fact that trade etc is completed on ships. I've always found ships in other games to be less useful than on-land trade routes, well not any more!

A word on the graphics - they're lovely! Considering the amount of time you spend looking at water, the water effects had to be done well, and they don't disappoint. I actually also prefer the medieval architecture of cathedrals and so on to the more sci-fi approach of Anno 2070.

Definitely would recommend picking this up. I'd go this before 2070 and see if you like the style because as I say, it IS different. If you prefer medieval, well...I'd just stick here!

Nice relaxing city builder and trading game.

Lets you build up a medieval city through acquiring raw materials, making production plants and trading with other islands. Its a fun process as you have to meet the requirements of your inhabitants to advance in size, cultural and construction options. This provides a good sense of progression in the game while you balance their needs with minimising costs and making sure you are getting a proper income.

The only negatives ive found is the small scale nature of the game (the largest map is still small compared to simcity. It also lacks variety in replay value as you essentially have a single progress tree to work through. The exotic city is a must have to build your European kingdom so its not a pick between the two.

Anno 1404 is a brilliant game, and i can highly recommend it to those that love city building games. The campaign manages to walk you through the steps of constructing a proper economy, while keeping you interested in the story line.

The graphics are excellent, especially for a city building game. From the waves of the water, and the swaying trees, you can tell that quite a bit of effort was spent in developing the game. The soundtrack also manages to add further character to the game, without getting annoying.

Overall, i have to admit that this is one of my favourite games of all time. I've spent many hours playing this with no regrets. :)

Great management game, the true heir of Caesar and Pharoah. This game is graphically acceptable, mechanically deep and the campaign is worthwhile. Venice is a good expansion, if not an astounding one.

Very good game.

It is a bit challenging to follow tutorial (campaign), but I strongly recommend to do that.

Understanding the principles is a key to the most difficult games.

I've spent many hours playing... could not stop...

If you like strategic games, this would be the best.

The most funny thing is, that all the time I am playing on the slowest speed... to be able to react properly ;)

Absolutely one of the best games I've bought on GamersGate (and I've bought many).

The graphics are gorgeous (I can't even explain just HOW beautiful this game is), gameplay is easy, average or difficult (depending on which setting you choose), the music is stirring and perfectly suited for the time period, voice over acting is outstanding, there are huge numbers of building types to build as well as campaigns and quests to do, and controls and interface are easy to learn.

If you enjoy city building and RTS, this is the best game on the market. Previous to this, I was obsessed with Caesar 3 but Annon 1404 beats that by a mile (and Caesar 3 is a phenomenal game!)

Just be warned -- you will lose hours of your life on Anno 1404, but.....you couldn't spend your life doing anything better, in my opinion. I bought it on sale, but it's the best $8.99 I've ever spent on GamersGate.

Buy this game. You will not regret it.

Great game! Finally got it Gold. It's advanced settlers with great graphics. Economy is system is really great and addictive. Various resources, free-roam (you can create colonies on one map), diplomacy, trade and much more makes this game so great you will spend tens of hours without notice.

You can establish great cities and distant orient colonies and watch your cities grow. Recommended for any RTS builder player (Zeus,...)

Anno 1404 is a solid game in the series, and the Venice expansion adds some nice extra's.

In Anno 1404 you start with a ship in an archipel and need to colonize multiple islands. Some islands allow other products to be grown than other islands, so in order to forfill the ever growing needs of your population you need to trade, and later expand. But some products must be manufactured, so you need to set up complete industries. And of course you need to protect you cities and ships against pirates and hostile other factions.

This sequel to the series is well worth it, with good gameplay, neat graphics and wonderful music. It is well balanced. And since in this gold edition both the original and the Venice expansion are included, you can't go wrong with this one.

This is a fun entry in the Anno series.

If you are a fan of the series or just the city building genre in general, you can't go wrong with this one. The tutorials guide you along nicely without becoming annoying, and it's a very pretty game. This one will have to keep me going until they release the inevitable DRM-removing patch from Anno 2070.

An amazing game which allows you to create a whole city from its very beginning. Loads of buildings available, amazing graphics grant you the sights on every citizen, a bit of naval warfare, 4 factions on each map which u gain influence with and gain rewards for it, single gameplay can take all day depending on your playstyle. If you love sim game then its for you. Best city builder so far for me. It lacks though a little bit more warfare, still its compensated by the game. And Gold version grants you a good product at fair price.

Truly a Gem of a Game! Amazingly beautiful and so well thought out.

Graphics are top notch and the game is a true balance act of resource management

very enjoyable and will truly suck up all your time.

Personally played 60+ hours not even reaching into campaign just tinkering with a continuous game. A must buy.

Simply charming sequel of the Anno series. Both the gameplay and graphic are well polished. This empire management sim will glue you to your seat as you manage your trades and colonies to keep production flow and city flourishing! Army and battle are quite straighforward with rock, scissor and paper mechanic as this game is mainly focused on city building. Worth the money for management fans!

Probably the best of its genre. Endless replayability, awesome graphics, deep and fun gameplay.

It is perfectly polished, I did not encountered a single bug so far. The care the producers have performed towards this game and its customers is a lesson for every software house. 5 stars for pure gold.

Anno 1404 Gold is a fantastic game.

The gameplay is deep and rewarding, requiring you to set up trade routes within islands you own or with trade partners that you gain via the diplomacy options. Trading is very important to Anno 1404 because you need various items to make your citizens happy, but no island can grow all the required ingredients to make them. In general, you will have to have multiple islands like in previous Anno games, but new to 1404 are the arabic-styled Southern islands which have their own build-tree so you have to basically build up two societies, it's not just European anymore.

Thankfully it is very easy to set up these trade routes. You can click on a map icon that shows you all explored islands, cities and ships. Setting up a trade route is as easy as clicking on the appropriate cities, selecting which goods to load and unload at which location, and assigning a ship to the route, and off it goes!

The graphics are top notch in the game. The visual style is very appealing and colourful, and the world is filled with details like dolphins racing ahead of the bow of your ships, orca's and whales swimming in the oceans, deers prancing in the woods while small rivers meander through the landscape. The cities are filled with activity. Citizens are walking about, serfs are carrying supplies from buildings to storages, people roll barrels of beer down the street, children are playing. They are very active indeed. And it's heartwarming to see your citizens rush to the town square with waterbuckets when fire breaks out in the city somewhere. If you are lucky they get to it before the fire spreads to surrounding buildings. If not, you should have built a fire barracks!

The music and sound is also very high quality, with some music that will get stuck in your head without being annoying, and quality voice-work all around.

Playing in multiplayer with a friend is a blast too. In general, the game is very easy to set up, not at all hard to master, but very challenging to balance your income based on taxes.

Citizens need goods to be happy, but the buildings that produce them all require upkeep costs, making it a fine line to tread indeed.

Rating: 5/5. Excellent game that is well worth your money!

Ever had that dream about building a house which grows into a village then grows into a small town later a town then a big town which becomes a city state which transforms into an empire ? this will help you realize your dreams never played anything as beautyfull as this could spent hours upon hours playing it it also has great modding tools tho its mostly in german its easy translated and theres help around it

5/5 Get it and you wont regret it ;)

ANNO 1404 Gold edition is a great game to add to your library because it contains the original hit RTS ANNO 1404 and the expansion pack ANNO 1404 Venice which adds a large number of scenarios and expands the game quite a bit. ANNO 1404 looks great, sounds great and is a blast to play...you won't be disappointed with this game.

Anno 1404 (Dawn of Discovery in North America) is probably the best trading/city builder game I have played so far!

The campaign is fun, teaching you the ropes while surprisingly delivers a decent story as well. The gameplay is really good, you have to manage the needs of your population while making a profit by trading or conquering your neighbors/enemy. While it's not too overwhelming but it's certainly a challenge and the smoothness of the core gameplay will hook you for hours. The only flaw in my opinion is the combat system, which is quite simple and boils down to who have the most ship and troops.

The graphics is still one of the best in this genre, towns filled with people living their daily lives, lumberjacks cut trees to make wood, everything is fully detailed and the water effecs is just gorgeus. The game comes with full options you expected from a PC game like anti aliasing, anisotropic and complete control of every graphics settings.

The audio is also good, from the sound of waves hitting your ships to the business of your city and also the voice over who does a good job portraying the characters (watch the credit rolls for a good laugh)

Don't miss this gem of a game if you're looking for a city building/trading game!

A must buy for all rts fans! The multiplayer function is stunning. The venice part I think was a bit disappointing when realized that its not possible to build venice islands. But I give it 5/5 stars.

The German games industry is still renowned by many for city builders and trading games, which stems from the domination of these genres in Germany during the 90s (Die Hanse, the Patrician series etc.) The Anno series keeps this sentiment alive to this day and Anno 1404 Gold represents a major highlight in the world of city building and management games.

All parts of the game play fit together just perfectly:

- An exploration hunt for fertile grounds in two culture zones (occidental and oriental), neutral "npc factions" of unique character and last but not least room for your people - all of this in a picturesque island world that's very nice to look at (thus the game offers you the postcard view introduced with Anno 1701 again)

- A complex, but not complicated system of production chains, challenging you to plan ahead according to what your settlement's populace wants next. Watch your people climb the ranks from peasantry to nobility when well supplied. Shortly into a sandbox game you'll even unlock a parallel society to develop from desert nomads to oriental envoys.

- A highly customizable sandbox mode, allowing you to either play completely alone in a huge area, concentrating on building the ultimate city of splendour or duking it out with aggressive AIs in an unforgiving world of limited resources. You can even choose the victory condition, be it about economy or survival - or none at all.

- AI factions with character. Some are generally friendly, others far less so. Even the AIs of medium difficulty level are fairly hard to keep up with. In that respect the balance seems to be a bit off, at least for sandbox games.

- A quest system. Fulfill many tasks from rescuing castaways and hunting for wanted people in your city to escort and attack missions. These earn you, among gold and honour,...

- ...many special items to collect. Enlarge your warehouse's stores, increase your ships' speed and/or sight range and/or repair capability, introduce new seed to an isle which normally couldn't grow it and more.

There's always something to do in this game, be it optimising your industries and logistics, running errands (even for AI factions in a sandbox game - good for your diplomatic relations) or waging war on sea, land (though with limited complexity - this is NOT an RTS!) and in the shadows as introduced with the Venice Addon. That Addon also introduced multiplayer capability in the game, though according to personal experience it is advisable to use LAN via VPN rather than the "Gate to the world" introduced by Ubisoft when playing over the Net with your buddies.

Presentation may be a bit cartoonish for some, especially in the facial animations of the different faction leaders and their speech, but it's not quite as "bad" as Anno 1701, the quality is excellent. A well developed settlement is a beautiful sight in this game - but that will have to be earned. Get this game, and you might forget to look at the clock for hours...

This is my first Anno game and i love it. The graphics still stand today how amazing it looks,every little detail you can see how your culture and people are living. The structures and landscapes also the water look amazing. Hanging back and relax to do some sandbox game is lovely. People who love RTS you should really buy this one because it will take a lot of hours to play!

Anno 1404 Gold is a really fun game but I am little disappointed that you cant build Venice cities. But multiplayer makes so the game still is worth it's money. You can play,player VS player, player VS computer and co-op -> play in the same team and share on the cities and the resources.

I love this game so much. First of all the graphic is good and it run very smooth without errors. The game world is huge and i like that you have to trade with other cultures to provide your own colonies with the supplies they need. The game always take place on a user defined map either big or small but with many islands to build your colonies on. From there you build your society with wood cutters, farms ect. and produce goods to either sell or use your self in your citys.

Not every island is big or contain the resources that your population demand and to expand and become more power full you either have to attack other island or find an empty one to colonize to gain access to needed resources.

You are also able to use politics and make trade agreements ect. and to build different military units like infantry cannons and powerfull ships, but it all depend on what resources you have.

The game is really amazing and people who are fan of city building games and strategy will find that this game have so much to offer that it will properbly become you favorite game too ;-)