Posted by Sir Cucumber at on Monday, October 26, 2009









A public servant's work is never done...

President Jimmy Carter envisioned government as the "contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants," and said that that people had a right to expect those wants to be provided for by that wisdom.



And in the spirit of this lofty yet pragmatic vision, the Dawn of Discovery series is to be commended for its message of man’s endless striving to improve himself and his situation.



In Anno 1701: Dawn of Discovery and it's simplified sequel, simply-named Dawn of Discovery, you set out upon the New World to improve people's lives through mass-production and the exploitation of natural resources. Ism's and Schism's are tossed to the wind in this brave new hemisphere, where everything is business and nothing is personal.



When your primary course of action is transaction, even the recourse to piracy is bribery. Use of ungentlemanly force is truly a last resort, and only exercised with such cold asymmetry as a mortgage in foreclosure.



Eschewing this distasteful combat, most of the game focuses on providing for your people so that they might better themselves. After meeting their physiological needs with shelter, food, and clothing are met, you tend to your flock’s intellectual cultivation with religion. Others seek study in schools, and companionship in taverns. Soon they are a civilized people, sipping tea with sugar and attending the theatre with their university-educated children.



Like any level-headed European populace, your colonists are happy to pay their share for the government services you provide, enhancing their quality of life with crime prevention, sanitation, and universal healthcare.



Living in such an elevated age, with their stomachs full and senses stimulated, your people may finally turn to the higher pursuits of inflating real estate values and the endless accumulation of jewelry and chocolate.



And inexplicably, at this apex of their evolution, your people become unhappy. As a class, they are inconsolably dissatisfied and preoccupied with lowering their tax rates…

