1701 A.D.

The Good
The game 1701 A.D. is set in the new world (not quite sure which new world their talking about here), where this new world is a group of paradise islands filled with resources to exploit for our newly ambitious explorers.

The aim of the game is like other RTS games, is to exploit the resources, advance in age, technology and weapons, and kick everyone else of the island continent. Unlike other RTS games, half of the gameplay is not on land. Naval ships play a pivotal role, to protect, defend and conduct trade for your island empire.

Economy Management
Although as an RTS game, it actually focuses more (a lot more) on resource management than on warfare. The economic system in this game is very much complex and one small mistake results a domino effect to the entire population.

[1] Each island has certain special resources, for example: Clay, Iron, Wheat, Sunflowers, etc. All resources one way or the other are essential in maintaining a happy colony. Happy colonists may evolve into a more advanced type for colonists. For example, the first type of citizens are the Pioneers. When Pioneers have their needs fulfilled (which are cloth and religion) and are currently in a happy situation, they advance to the next level of citizens, which are Colonists. Colonists advance into ….er ….. I forgot, and they advance into the Merchant citizen.

More advanced citizen types pay more taxes and taxes are the primary source of income in this game, second only to trade. However, if a particular type of citizen is unable to fulfill his needs through your governance, they become unhappy and degrade to a lower breed of citizens (which pay less taxes). The leap of taxes between one type and the other is enormous, the Pioneer may only 10 gold pierces while a Colonist pays 200 hundred. As all units, buildings and ships have maintenance costs, it is essential to advance to higher types of citizens as soon as possible.

Though technically it sounds simply, in practice its much different. Each island has only so many numerous resources. Sooner or later you will have to expand to another island with certain resources you want or trade expensively to obtain them in order to advance your citizens. The more citizens you have, the more resources they deplete, thus creating a constant growing economy just to keep you citizens happy and paying taxes.

Everything in the game costs certain resources to spend. Buildings money, wood and sometimes bricks to build. Land units costs money and weapons, which are smelted from iron ore. Ships need money, cloth and wood. If by any chance you lack or are cut off from a particular resource, you are in deep trouble.

[2] When it comes to settlement plans, you can only build buildings in an “area of influence” which are created by market buildings which act as a warehouse for you goods. It also provides transportation for goods to and from fields and workshops. If a warehouse/market is destroyed, it loses its area of influence, thus your ability to use the buildings in its effect as well as unable to build anything else there. In warfare, these warehouses become the primary target of troops.

Warfare
The concept is very simply. You have land units and you have naval units. Land units consists among others, militia, pikemen, grenadiers and cavalry (well there are also mortar artillery units, accessible only through certain technology choices). There are three type of ships, the trading vessel, the exploration ship and the warship. Only the latter two have cannons (I think). Regardless to say, anyone who has more warships is unstoppable!

Graphics
The game is graphically beautiful. From the landscape to the ocean waters. Smooth and beautiful are two keywords in this game. Especially seeing the maneuverability of the ships.

Bugs
No bugs, glitches, corrupt saved games, memory leaks, or anything else you’d normally find in “modern” PC games. Yay!

Trade, Third Parties, Diplomacy and a little bit more…
All parties in the game may trade with each other, only if you have successfully established a trade agreement with them. It’s almost impossible to have trade agreements with enemy AI at the beginning of the game, since you need some form of good relations with them in order to do so. Each AI has certain trade items he or she may be willing to buy or sell. Continuous trade will create good relations with the trading partner, which may improve into further better economic deals or military alliances.

Now this is quite interesting. Besides you and a maximum of the 3 rival opponents, you also have several other minor races in the game which play an interesting part in the game. These minor races are divided into 2 differences, first is the Major Trader AI which trades with every colony via ships, buying and selling stuff. He also provides mini-missions for a lot of gold and some trade items.

The second are various merchant groups (Chinese, Indian American, Indian, Aztec and Pirates) which also act as trading partners….except the Pirates, they attack first and trade later. Now excluding the Pirates, if you get on their good side (something like a military alliance), they have these weird magic spells that they use on the enemies of their allies. Which is neat, unless you’re the target. An interesting refreshing change these odd 3rd party groups.

The Bad
It just doesn’t work. Seriously, it really doesn’t. The economic management plan is totally disastrous on every element of your survival. There is a clear and simple way to win this game. Build a lot of warships and embargo every freaking island on the continent. There’s no way to win that.

If the ships destroy your ports. That’s it. Dead meat. You can’t build ships and you can’t trade resources to maintain the level of civilization you have. Ultimately, you run out of resources and you end up with 2nd grade colonist with meager tax income.

Another stupid thing in the game, resources like clay and iron run out. The only way for it not to run out is to advance to the 4th level of civilization, but if by per change they blow up your mines and your degraded to a level 3 civilization, you can’t build the same mine. Voila, your dead. Can’t build buildings can’t build weapons either, since they need bricks and iron ore, which you no longer have.

The ships here have enormous long range. Someone really messed up in warfare history. There’s a reason why ships don’t attack coastal fortresses, and it’s called towers. Why is that, because historically the towers have longer range than the ships. Why? Because they are a freakin tower you idiot! They stand taller, having a longer projectile range than any ship in that age. But nooo, ships have a longer range than the towers. Smart, real smart people, seems common sense of physics didn’t enlighten you on basic mathematical angles.

Eventually, in strategic warfare, this game is a nightmare. Simply because you want to focus on fighting but you can’t, because your whole economy is suddenly in a mess, the fires are spreading and your firefighters never seem to do the job right, your resources are running out, your taxes are dwindling since your settlers are whining all the time about not getting beer in the middle of a stupid war, your towers have no use against ships and they just blew up your port.

No ships, no trade, no resources.
End story. And it sucks bad.

The Bottom Line
Yep. Won't playing any series of this game period.