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Comment by chadrs | Hacker News Reader

Growing up, we always had Macs, so when my grandma got an old Windows box from a surplus auction, I went to OfficeDepot and bought Anno 1602, a game no one I knew had ever heard of, for $9.

Actually it was a pretty awesome game, despite having different controls from every other RTS; the focus was more on trade than military which was pretty cool. They ended up making a few higher budget sequels as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_(series)

Unknown Horizons is basically a clone of the original Anno 1602, and I've been sort of following the development for 6 or 7 years, always thinking "that would be the perfect open source project for me to contribute to" but sadly I haven't really spent much time playing it and haven't written any code for it.

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Just wanted to say that I loved that game as well. It's one of those games that I like for some inexplicable reason, and yet dislike the much slicker sequels.

I've never managed to get into the Anno series, but in Germany all the Anno games were huge. Like "Call of Duty"-huge, not in sales numbers, of course, but in mindshare.

Pretty fascinating how games don't necessarily cross cultural borders. "Patrician" was also huge, and there were lots and lots of similar games. Also football managers like the "Bundesliga Manager" series.

Actually, Anno 1602 sold 2 million units, which is very much for a PC-game from the 90s and on CoD-level, adjusting for market size.

But in general you're right of course. The other parts of the series sold less, and there are a bunch of other great german games that weren't even registered on the international market. Not sure that this is still a problem though, with steam and internet distribution in general those culture specific games maybe disappear.

Those football managers and most of those German economy simulations have already disappeared, precisely because the German-speaking market (D, A, CH) is considered to be too small nowadays.

They just have been replaced by games like "Farming Simulator".

This reminds me of my elem school days (which was like 2003) when I bought Anno 1503 whilst looking for any game that looked like Age of Empires on its cover.

Initially, I regretted my purchase as a kid. By the time I got the hang of the game I was in high school, and now I look back and say "Wow, I got into this series before it got any sort of following"

>> looking for any game that looked like Age of Empires on its cover.

Story of my life!

1602 AD was one of the real treasures of the bargain bin. I'm pretty sure I picked up my copy way back in the Walmart $5-$10 jewel-case section.

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