After having acquired the famous Anno series, a blend of real-time strategy and city building elements, and its german development studio Related Designs, Ubisoft has now seen fit to announce the fourth installment of the franchise on the Games Convention in Leipzig. The new game will run under the name Anno 1404.

In it you will still mainly search for an island that you want to build your new settlement on and then begin to build a little town, which ideally flourishes more and more with time, providing you with new challenges that you have to face; for example a townsfolk that demands the latest technology and fashion or neighbours that suddenly declare a war.

The catch in the newest title will however be that at some point during the gameplay you won't have a chance to develop further on your own anymore. Which is why you will then have to establish good relations with the Orient, thereby learning about their culture and technology as well as about their tricks of local trade and then using the knowledge about all this to modernize your own hometown with an oriental touch. One of these technologies is for example the Noria, which allows you to water desert landscapes and thereby erecting almand plantations there.

The graphics are going to improve as well (although Anno 1701 already looked really impressive): the waves will now be three-dimensional, so if you plan to sail in stormy weather, this might turn into a problem for your ship. There will also be many more citizens living in your town. The building site of the cathedral that you can see in the header picture will for example employ more people than a whole full-grown town had in Anno 1701.

The Anno series is extremely popular in Germany, but not so well-known in other countries.

By March 2009 we will see if the new publisher Ubisoft can change this.