In both games, in order to get more tools, you had to get a large enough population at a certain level, then build 3 buildings, and heaven help you if you didn’t have mine locations in range. And tools are the life’s blood of your city, since everything requires them to be built. In 1602, you had the ability to purchase resources from other players, but the one thing they never sold was tools. It also is interesting in itself, in that it is talking about different ways to live in the future – whether focus on technology, ecology, or economy is the best way to preserve humanity and the planet – but that’s a conversation for a whole ‘nother article.įinally, the third, and in my opinion, most important change is the ability to buy resources from your ARK – the ship you initially start with. This differentiation leads to a great deal of replayability, especially since the player can have different population groups depending on their actions and their place the storyline. The second change is that of the different groups – in 1602, every player is identical, while in 2070 there are multiple different groups: Tech, Eco, and Tycoon, each with different tastes, buildings, units, and specialties. In 2070, these buildings are revealed, meaning that the player always knows exactly the number of required people, something that is immensely useful, especially considering that this is a strategy game. To compound that, the amount is different for each affluence level, meaning that while 120 settlers might have unlocked all the buildings at that level, it might take 200+ citizens for all the citizen level buildings. However, in 1602, those buildings are hidden until you get to that level, leaving the player guessing as to when they will be able to unlock new buildings. The first one is that of opacity – in both games, the only way to access more buildings is to get to a certain population level of a certain affluence level. In fact, a majority of the changes have nothing to do with gameplay, but are actually changes to UI and design. Overall, there are very few gameplay changes that make 2070 a much different game than 1602, however, the few that are there make the game a much better game. Both games start you off with a ship and a bunch of islands, and while in 2070 you are assigned an island (which has the added benefit of keeping the AI from getting all the best ones), both games progress relatively the same at the beginning. As you progress, your citizens get richer, demand more and better goods, and the cycle continues. From there, you build houses to get people who perform as workers and give you money, but also consume certain resources and demand certain services.
For those of you who don’t know, both games involve building cities on islands from scratch, starting with a ship that constructs a coastal warehouse.