As an ant farm game, though, Dawn of Discovery is a bit of a surprise. Though still fussier than its American cousins, it is much more approachable than the other games in this series. The variety of quests and opportunities for advancement give you new diversion when dock work gets boring. The cities look alive and the varying geography means that a false start on one map doesn’t necessarily spoil the game or give you a dramatic edge on a restart. Since you need to explore the map to find out which islands hold what resources, you will never reach a maximum efficiency in your sailing routes – you will always have one warehouse on the coast opposite where it should be.

Though the hoarding of resources and construction of production queues can get tedious, when things are running smoothly, Dawn of Discovery becomes one of those Zen games where the treasury slowly rises and falls, goods come in and out and your citizens and royal masters sing your praises. Then, as everything threatens to come crashing down around you, dramatic intervention is needed and you generally have enough information to turn things around.

So Dawn of Discovery’s leisurely pace ultimately works in its favor. It doles out the treats on a semi-regular schedule, and you can count on the alerts to keep you apprised of most troubles in town. It could be more specific – I once accidentally turned off the food supply to my peasants and didn’t really figure out why they were angry until they had torched the chapel. A little “Are you sure you want to do this, dummy?” would have been appreciated.

Once you get a continuous game going to the point you are bored with it, there isn’t much incentive to being a new continuous game, even on a higher difficulty level. It will take you tens of hours to see all the content available to you, and once you do there’s not a lot of reason to go back and see it again. The maps change, but the challenges really don’t. Tens of hours is still a lot of gameplay, and well worth the time spent. As far as sandbox city building goes, you would be hard pressed to find a better option.

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