This section provides a guide for the main campaign included with the game. If it has a name, I missed it. The story is based around Katherine von Breitenstein and a mysterious amulet.
In this section:
- 6.1 Nova Fora
- 6.2 Barbarrossas' Throne
- 6.3 Helter-Skelter
- 6.4 Infernal Triad
- 6.5 Pack-Ice
- 6.6 Toguldur's Stone
- 6.7 New Acquaintances
- 6.8 Resistance
- 6.9 Genesis
- 6.10 Revenge
- 6.11 Quentin's Reef
- 6.12 Justice
- 6.13 Good or Bad
These walkthroughs assume basic competence when building colonies. If you are struggling with the basics of colony building, or find yourself going bankrupt in normal conditions, please review the Getting Started section. These walkthroughs primarily cover the things that make a specific scenario difficult - they don't hold your hand and walk you through every last detail. On a similar note, although it is possible to play the campaigns and scenarios through as your first game, I'd only recommend that for anyone with experience of Anno 1602, or who regards themselves as a veteran of these sorts of games. Unlike 1602, the first part of the campaign is not an extended tutorial - it has a very steep learning curve. If you are entirely new, break off after the tutorials and play a "Citizen" endless game and develop a profitable colony to Merchant level civilization. This will give you experience of colony building on a map with plentiful resources and no threats.
In order, the campaigns are: Nova Fora, Barbarrossas' Throne, Helter-Skelter, Infernal Triad, Pack-Ice, Toguldur's Stone, New Acquaintances, Resistance, Genesis, Revenge, Quentin's Reef, Justice, and bonus scenario Good or Bad (or "Bonus aut Malus"). Translations of campaign and scenario names by LadyH are available here: http://www.ladygames.de/glossar/ . Campaign missions must be played one at a time - once you have completed one, the next mission will be available. In the case of Barbarrossas' Throne, this mission follows on directly from the previous mission, Nova Fora (you start the mission with whatever ships you took from the previous mission).
Some illustrated walkthroughs for campaign scenarios can be found at http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/ , including translations of German Gamestar guides.
Where relevant, I have included simple ASCII representations of maps. Maps are always aligned with North towards the top of the page.
Objectives are numbered in the order in which they appear. Normally the lowest numbered objectives need to be completed before others are shown. Where several objectives are given at the same time, they are shown with letters, for example 1a, 1b. If you do not know how to read the objectives as you play, see Can I see the current objectives in-game? above.
The in-game rating for each mission is shown as 1-4 stars, where 1 star is easy, 4 hardest.
Since many do not enjoy the war aspects of the game, I have added a "war-o-meter" rating to each scenario, to give an indication of how important the war aspects are. The scale is as follows:
- * = Entirely city/economy building. No other hostile players to fight, even if you wanted to (I exclude natives from the list of possible hostile players here).
- ** = Objectives can be completed without warfare, and you are unlikely to need to go to war.
- *** = Warfare is needed to complete the scenario, but city building/economy is what makes this scenario difficult.
- **** = War is a major objective, with city building/economy secondary.
- ***** = War is the only objective.
Here is a summary of ratings and war-o-meters:
| Campaign | Rating | War-o-meter |
|---|---|---|
| Nova Fora | ** | * |
| Barbarrossas' Throne | ** (?) | ***/**** |
| Helter-Skelter | ** | * |
| Infernal Triad | *** | *** |
| Pack-Ice | *** | * |
| Toguldur's Stone | *** | ***** |
| New Acquaintances | *** | **** |
| Resistance | *** | ***** |
| Genesis | *** | **/**** |
| Revenge | *** | *** |
| Quentin's Reef | *** | ***** |
| Justice | **** | *** |
| Good or Bad | *** | ** |