I haven't tried the demo yet, but I'm looking forward to it. It's actually part of a long running series (the game is called Anno 1404 outside of America). You're right in that this is basically a city building strategy game, except it's astonishingly polished and graphically impressive for what comes out of a small German developer. Each game in the series starts in a different time period and a different setting.

I kinda burned myself out on the last game (Anno 1701), so I probably won't get this right on release, but anyone who is a fan of the Caesar games or the Tilted Mill stuff in general should check these titles out, because in my opinion they're far more well made.

I am going to download the demo once I head out to fathers day brunch, I will report back on it later.

I liked the demo but dont think I loved it. I would get it on sale but not pay full price. Oh and markets let you build more housing you have to build another warehouse for production. That took me a while to figure out.

Whats it like? I had a blast with children of the nile and similar games but I never managed to spend a lot of time digging into any one of them.

It has DRM? bleh.

The demo of this really got my city building pulse going (this is because I had a dream about Pharoah literally two nights before the demo was released, I felt like I was in futurama or something with my dreams priming me to be predisposed to buying a game, argh!) but I think I'll be waiting for a price drop or steam deal of some kind as my gaming budget has taken a pounding recently:(

That's worth seriously considering.

Twice I had talked myself out of throwing away $20 to add to my pile. Damn you, gamersgate ... and even their use of paypal, removing that last possible obstacle to increasing my pile.

I loved 1701 and this is really tempting, but I have to stop buying these strategy games that I have too little time for. I've got 1701, Europa Universalis 3, and Galactic Civilizations 2 all sitting neglected because I fear the time commitment.

This game is going to be a huge time sink (in a good way). I'm still doing the campaign. I'm probably 8-10 hours in and there is still a ton of content i haven't been exposed to. There is also an endless mode and a handful of scenarios. For completionist there are there 20 medals with 3 levels each (bronze, silver, gold) and over 200 achievements. You get gems for getting achievements which can be spent to unlock bonus content. Most of the bonus content seems to be aesthetic stuff like new skins for buildings. There is a time medal. Bronze is achieved by playing 10 hrs, silver is 100 hrs, and gold is 500 hrs. There is also a "postcard view" where it zooms in and removes the UI. Below are a few screen shots in postcard view and one in normal view.

Looks good, but I need a Steam sale to pull the trigger on this...Come on Steam!

I just need one of these guys who say that whenever they buy something, Steam puts it on sale for half-price or better the next week.

C'mon fellas, help a brother out!

I would love to get this game on PC but there's no way my laptop can handle it. The only other Anno game i've played was 1701 on the DS and I have to say it was great. I would guess that to the PC gamers on here this version was probably bound to be too shallow for your tastes but to everyone else I would highly recommend it.

I shall be buying the new game probably for the Wii (cue laughter obviously) but the reviews i've seen for it have been pretty good so far and my current experience with Little King Story is proving to me my Wii wasn't quite the waste of time I thought it was turning into. There may not be many great games for it but with my time spread over the Wii, X360, PS2 and DS, a few great games for each system is all I need.

Okay, I'll help you people out who really want to buy this game.

TAGES DRM. 3 activation limit. Installs crap in your system. Has problems with updates on other games.

I'm the anti-enabler! (disabler?)