What fond memories I have of The Settlers, sending those cute little townsfolk around my mazelike pathways as they constructed my small island paradise into a small island empire, and then the crushing feeling of disappointment when I met an enemy culture and was forced to endure its rickety combat system. This game has nothing to do with Settlers by the way, just in case you're wondering where this rambling is going, but they both share similarities - the main difference being that Anno 1701 feels like the game The Settlers could have become had it set its sights a little higher.

As with The Settlers, Anno 1701 is a city management game in which you must build a sizable island community into something larger and more profitable in order to expand. But you begin with next to nothing, other than a ship, a fog covered map and a huge world to explore. You have to find your own island to call home, all the while racing against other explorers out on the same task. Once you've found an island and settled, it's time for the colonisation process. Resources must be gathered to build up your stockpiles of building materials and food in preparation for the arrival of your first Settlers (still nothing to do with that game remember!) and it's here that the real challenge begins. It's actually the populace that controls the growth of your island - appease their demands and once they reach a certain population capacity they evolve into one of the next four social classes, with new demands and a brand spanking new brick house to replace the cobbled together wooden shack they originally lived in.

With a new social class comes new building options, new structures to exploit, rarer resource deposits to extract and more exotic goods that can be traded or go towards triggering the next social ladder climb. But it's a delicate balance to keep your populace happy with the supplies you've gathered, all the while attempting to make a profit from taxes. Your populace are a finicky bunch and should you fail to keep up on even one of their demands then their happiness is going to plummet - and if they don't riot they'll, for some inexplicable reason, de-evolve themselves down a class!

Keeping on top of the demand of your island isn't that difficult once you discover that it's easier to just pile up the resources you need before launching in and setting your populace off on the next social evolution, but there are numerous other obstacles that hinder your progress throughout, from natural disasters that can decimate your thriving town to pirate attacks on your ships. The main problem you'll face however is the limit of your resources. One of the first things you discover is that not all of the islands in Anno's huge world are privy to all of the resources you need, and with an ever expanding population and their demands requiring you to seek out the even more desirable resource deposits that you need to make them happy, comes a rather problematic situation. An example could be that your citizens require tobacco in order for them to evolve to the next social class, but your island doesn't have any tobacco plants to exploit, so the solution is to either open up a trade agreement with the free trader who occasionally stops by at your island, an expensive and often time-consuming alternative, or bung a few tools and building materials into your ship, set sail and colonise an island that does contain the resources you need, suddenly turning your small island paradise into the building blocks of a superpower.

But even this has its own share of problems - specifically that you'll encounter the other explorers who are also expanding their own colonies and are in the same need of the items your citizens require. Should they get to colonise an island and nab its resources before you, providing there isn't another island with the same resources in supply they'll have you at a disadvantage. So a new problem - your townsfolk require chocolate to keep their fat bellies full and their mood happy, but the only cocoa beans needed to fulfil this have just been taken by one of your rivals. The solution? Either set up trade negotiations or go to war and take what you need by force.

It's with the latter option that the strongest sense of déjà vu between Anno and Settlers makes itself known, as it's not until you make an enemy of one of your opponents that you encounter the rather bland and un-involving combat system. Typically you get to train up a few various types of troops and build watchtowers to guard your settlements, but none of it is particularly compelling enough for you to go out of your way to bother with this aspect of the game, unless you absolutely need to. More disappointing is naval warfare, which could and should have been one of the highlights of the game but is instead just as tedious as land-based battles. Ships shoot at each other with little sense of direction, gliding through one another until one has either retreated out of view or been destroyed, with the type of ship to ship combat of Sid Meier's Pirates. This could have been an excellent addition to the game, but what it instead amounts to is a mildly irritating diversion. Thankfully the real fun in Anno comes from its rich, easy to grasp economics and addictive management, so the fact that the combat system is so tacked on isn't much of loss.

It looks and sounds great too; the colourful Caribbean world is brought fully to life in stupendous detail, so it's easy to get lost inspecting your town up close as your citizens cheerfully walk the streets, visit the markets and wander around in a drunken stupor when the beer wagon arrives in town dispensing free booze to all. Anno never skimps on these little details either, with each level teeming with wildlife on and off land. Only the occasional repeated one-liners spouted from your population spoil it, but for the most part such minor quibbles aren't enough to detract from the game's staggering good looks.

As for replayability, the game contains a vast sandbox mode at its heart that allows for the customisation of practically every facet of the game, from the size of the maps to the difficulty of the AI opposition - there's an impressive amount of options to play around with that all go towards building the kind of game you want to play, rather than one that has been predetermined. There are also some single player objective-based missions to complete elsewhere, but you'll often ignore these in favour of the freedom offered to you in the main game.

Added to this is a multiplayer mode that simply swaps the AI for real players, but it's a mode that suffers from one main problem - this isn't the type of game you'll want to commit to unless you've got a few spare hours or a Sunday evening free; the single player game can shave hours off your life but at least allows you to take a break every once in a while, something you'll not be privy to with the multiplayer. It's also looking a bit bare player wise at the moment, although this may change with time.

This isn't the only problem that ails Anno; aside from the disappointing combat system the game also has a bizarre and needlessly fiddly build interface. While many games allow you to place down as many building as you want, if you want to construct a line of six houses in Anno, you're going to have to go through the build interface and select those buildings in between each placement, which, considering the size of the towns you build, can be mildly frustrating.

Anno 1701 is an addictive game that's easy to lose yourself in. It's the closest a game has come to emulating the easy, fun and challenging gameplay of The Settlers games while accidentally tripping over its own feet and landing on near enough the same disappointing combat system. Had the fighting been anywhere near as good as the managing then this would have been amazing, but even without decent combat it's still difficult to put down once you've got into to the swing of things. While not perfect, out of all the recent management games Anno 1701 stands tall as one of the best. Now if you'll excuse me I've a colony to build, pirates to slay and a few more hours of my life to lose.

Reviewed by Kieron Giacopazzi for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).