saldana
07-30-2006, 05:21 PM
i didnt even know this was out yet, but lo and behold as i was wandering through Target this afternoon, there was a single copy sitting on the shelf....after some moderate grovelling to get me wife to let me buy it, and a slight delay of playing with my daughter for awhile, i got it installed and have it up and running....
initial impressions....the load time from the executable to the main menu is extremely long...probably almost 2 minutes...i dont know yet if this was the load up time since it was the first time i was playing or if it will be that long everytime i start the game...more on that to come
a nice interface..all the build options are grouped logically on the side of the screen, and each of the different progress meters for the "mission" you are currently on are displayed across the top.
despite what the box says, i am playing on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, Intel 1.5 GHz, with 512Mb of RAM and its built in ATI Radeon Mobility X300 video card, and with all the graphic options maxed out, the game runs at about 95% smoothness...a little hiccup here and there, but nothing too major in terms of graphic glitching, and the audio track runs smoothly
the gameplay is pretty straighforward...it is very much like 1536 AD or any of the other Anno Domani (sp) games....every resource has a collection building, then a refinery, which needs to be in close proximity to a warehouse, and all the houses need to be in proximity to a supplied warehouse in order for the people that live there to get the resources stored in it.
biggest complaint so far is the zoom....you cannot go out nearly far enough...playing the first couple stages of the tutorial, i had 2 farms for flax, two for goats a granary, 2 warehouses, my town center, and a bunch of houses, and couldnt zoom out far enough to see the whole town
the tutorial is ok...the explanations are pretty good, and the prompting of what to do next is decent...the only thing that is not explained in the manual or the tutorial (i didnt check the civilopaedia) is how you need to position your buildings in relation to the roads. here was where the familiarity with the AD games helped as it made the concepts of entrances pretty easy to figure out when laying things out.
more to follow after i neglect my family a bit more.....
initial impressions....the load time from the executable to the main menu is extremely long...probably almost 2 minutes...i dont know yet if this was the load up time since it was the first time i was playing or if it will be that long everytime i start the game...more on that to come
a nice interface..all the build options are grouped logically on the side of the screen, and each of the different progress meters for the "mission" you are currently on are displayed across the top.
despite what the box says, i am playing on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, Intel 1.5 GHz, with 512Mb of RAM and its built in ATI Radeon Mobility X300 video card, and with all the graphic options maxed out, the game runs at about 95% smoothness...a little hiccup here and there, but nothing too major in terms of graphic glitching, and the audio track runs smoothly
the gameplay is pretty straighforward...it is very much like 1536 AD or any of the other Anno Domani (sp) games....every resource has a collection building, then a refinery, which needs to be in close proximity to a warehouse, and all the houses need to be in proximity to a supplied warehouse in order for the people that live there to get the resources stored in it.
biggest complaint so far is the zoom....you cannot go out nearly far enough...playing the first couple stages of the tutorial, i had 2 farms for flax, two for goats a granary, 2 warehouses, my town center, and a bunch of houses, and couldnt zoom out far enough to see the whole town
the tutorial is ok...the explanations are pretty good, and the prompting of what to do next is decent...the only thing that is not explained in the manual or the tutorial (i didnt check the civilopaedia) is how you need to position your buildings in relation to the roads. here was where the familiarity with the AD games helped as it made the concepts of entrances pretty easy to figure out when laying things out.
more to follow after i neglect my family a bit more.....