More on the Dawn of Discovery Walkthrough for the PC PS3 Wii and Nintendo DS.
Many American gamers are familiar with empire-building only through turn-based games like Civilization. Dawn of Discovery is a real-time game, so the action unfolds instantly not allowing you to waste time during gameplay, rather than pausing while you queue up orders and moves turn by turn. Yet Dawn of Discovery is unique from and more interesting than most real-time games a couple ways.
The main thing with most real-time strategy games is that eventually they simply overwhelm the player with too many small details than one wants to deal with. Send some tanks over here, respond to an enemy incursion over there, order 10 more battleships or what have you, all with very little time to respond. Most real-time strategy games degrade into a contest of who can keep the most balls in the air the longest. They can feel cheap.
Dawn of Discovery does a masterful job of allowing players to focus on the big picture of their developing empires while the scut work of moving goods around and carrying off trade routes can largely take care of itself. The player can dive into the detailed points at any time, but in general if I'm going to take a beating in a strategy game, I want it to be because of a high-level strategic misestimating, not because I didn't fine-tune my crops output to the correct minuscule measurement.
The other difference that distinguishes Dawn of Discovery is that while combat is the entire foundation of most strategy games, it is almost an second thought in Dawn of Discovery — a natural, organic, almost adjunct outgrowth of an empire's growing commercial power and appetite. The game makes it so hypnotic and enjoyable to build a settlement from huts to town houses, to build churches and bazaars and spice farms and stone quarries, that it's easy to forget about the naval encounters and clashes. Dawn of Discovery Walkthrough Strategy Game Guide
In its intricate and well-drawn story line Dawn of Discovery is anti-colonial. The player begins as a minor noble in what is called an Occidental empire and is soon tasked with establishing relations with and exploring the Orient. The Orient, with its gorgeous Middle Eastern architecture, is basically populated by the good guys. The bad guys are the zealous Crusaders from the Occident who want to exploit the Orient. Ideally the player ends up defeating the bad guys and restoring peace and justice to the Occident.
Dawn of Discovery is also available for Nintendo's Wii and DS, but this is really a game with its soul on the PC. The story-driven campaign mode is extremely well paced. We have spent full nights and weekends (not to mention cross-country plane flights) will inevitably be occupied in sandbox mode. For the a strategically intellectual gamer the passing time is hard pressed for a better way to spend it.