This is the best Anno game that has ever been produced. It perfectly satisfies that itch in my brain that yearns for optimized production lines and thorough city planning. It's definitely the most complex Anno game but it has a really nice learning curve. The game starts of simple enough and gradually gives you more and more options as the scope of your playground starts to exceed the bounds of your imagination, forcing you to adept and come up with creative solutions to new emerging challenges. The jump to engineers though can be quite the challenge the first time around, as the introduction of electricity completely revamps your entire production layout. By this point in the game I was quite overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new things and opportunities presented to me. That combines with things like tractors from the 'Bright Harvest' DLC really sells the magnitude of the industrial revolutions impact on production.

Some parts can be quite tedious, like the airship exploration of the Arctic in the 'The Passage' DLC. I also feel like the late-game can easily become somewhat of a slog as the overall progression starts to slow down quite a bit by the sheer volume of things to do. I don't know how much time I've spent trying to balance specific production lines or optimize certain shipping routes to appease my citizens ever-increasing demands. But I do know that I have loved every second of it.