Running 1503 A.D. on the Acer Aspire One netbook

I've just recently installed another fun "city builder" strategy game on my Acer Aspire One netbook, 1503 A.D., aka Anno 1503. This game was released for the PC back in mid-2003. It was the follow-up game to the awesome 1602 A.D., and the predecessor to 1701 A.D., which was really good in it's own right.

As typical, the game installed just fine over my network DVD drive. Also, as it seems with every game, I did have to use a no-cd fix to play without a local CD/DVD drive, but that went easily as well.

I believe there is a patch available now that adds the originally promised-with-the-game multiplayer functionality, but I haven't tried it, and likely won't bother.

1503 AD on the AAO #1

1503 AD on the AAO #2

1503 AD on the AAO #3

1503 AD on the AAO #4

1503 AD on the AAO #5

1503 AD on the AAO #6

1503 AD on the AAO #7

1503 AD on the AAO #8

Once installed, I started it up and it loads quickly and plays superbly @ 800x600. The only problem I noted was a lack of screen real estate when running @ 800x600, but this is a common ailment when running many games on these 1024x600 netbook screens.

I only played a little while, and from the video you'll be able to easily tell it's been years since I've played :), as I'm fumbling around quite a bit... I had forgotten about the need to "scout" the entire island for salt/iron/etc deposits.