00.30 AM: i'm thinking, 30 minutes than I will go to sleep. two and a half hour later i'm still playing.
Another way to annoy your competitors is by using sabotage. You can now carry out different acts of sabotage depending on the level of your henchman's "safe house" (enemy house which your henchman infiltrates). You can set buildings on fire, start an revolt, poison the wells in the city which will spread the plague. In the orient you can sent out belly dancers which steal some money for you or false prophets which will make sure that your opponent does not get any tax money from the people in that settlement. So sabotage is (obviously) a great way to weaken your opponent, without waging war.
In the original anno 1404 you had 2 neutral trade partners, Al Zahir and Richard Northburgh. In this expansion we will have the pleasure of Giacomo Garibaldi's company. Giacomo Garibaldi is the master of sabotage and trade. Even though he will not carry out any acts of sabotage, Giacomo will trade you some item which enhances your ships, your sabotage centers( base of operation) and he can also be of some use if you plan to take over an competitors city. Like Al Zahir and Lord Northburgh Giacomo also offers you quests.
One of the thing that did bother me about Anno 1404 was the lack of multiplayer. In the previous versions of Anno I could play this game with my friends but the lack of multiplayer in Anno was a huge disappointment. Now I know that it takes a lot of time to play anno and that some people consider it to be to long for multiplayer but I did enjoy it. With the Venice expansion I can now once again build and trade with my friends. One of the interesting things in this expansion is the option to have 2 or more people in one team. You both use the same warehouse and you can both control the same ships. Usually if you have 2 people you have two players, now we had 2 people and 1 "player" this may sound difficult since it requires some good coordination but it does add some great options. I played one game with an friend in which he concentrated on expanding the northern islands while I started colonies in the Orient.
So this expansion might not add to much in the line of buildings and stuff but it adds some great game play elements. These game play elements provide a substitute to the weak military aspect so that the focus is on anno's strong points: trading and city building.
And once again I found myself looking at the time at 0.30 thinking, 30 minutes than I will go to sleep. The next time I checked it was 03.00 and my school started at 10. Once again Anno can keep me locked on to my screen.