Do you feel that crown falls and Manola damage the replay value and difficulty curve ?

At first, i loved crown falls and Manola, so much space and freedom!

But after playing multiple games, i noticed that i was falling in the same routine over and over : get to artisan then settle manola and crown falls with all the other islands being secondary.

You lose the optimization of space that is one of the core of the anno experience (for a normal game, if you push the nomber of inhabitants to the limit, of course it comes back when even crown falls feel cramped) and it gets repetitive because you end up knowing these islands by heart.

I looked for a mod that kept sunken treasures and new world rising mechanics without the island so that i won't feel tempted but didn't find one.

So i started a new game with sparse fertility, sparse minerals, hard island difficulty and expert mode. Kept medium islands size and medium world though because too small islands are too much of an headache.

I added the self rule that i don't settle manola and do the minimum for crown fall to finish the sunken treasure quest.

And i think it really helped my game feel different from previous playthrough.

I think it is an interesting dilemma for UbiSoft Blue Byte : some players want the freedom that comes with Manola and crown falls while others would rather have different maps each time.

Of course, people can give themselves the same rule as i did mine but it takes a few games before you get the awareness of the issue.

Bottom line, what would you like to see in the next anno title ? The option to have big landmasses in DLC like anno 1800 ? Or none in order to keep players engaged with different maps generation each time ?

Interested to hear your thoughts so i added a poll:)

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