1503 A.D.: The New World is a historical RTS-trade simulation game, the prequel to 1602 A.D (1999). The game take you back 100 years to the beginning era of European exploration of what they entitled the New World. Although, 1503 A.D. is a completely new, stand-alone game, it uses the main elements of 1602 A.D. So, those familiar with 1602 will immediately feel at ease with the basic interface and real-time design of the new version.

In the game, you start out with single ship looking for a suitable place to drop anchor and settle a new colony that will one day spawn into a sprawling 16th century city.You set sail equipped with but a few tools, some building materials and a scout. The first thing you have to do is to find an island offering optimal conditions, such as fertile ground and seams of ore. In order to find out just what conditions are like on an island you have to unload their scout and send them ashore to explore it. If conditions turn out to be favorable you can found their first settlement.

Naturally, the populace will demand certain goods and wares, so your first step will be to set up production chains to create the goods your colonists want, starting with food. All inhabitant demands have to be met before they can advance to the next level of civilization. This means that for a city to flourish and grow you have to ensure a supply of goods adequate to the demand. Creating a warehouse leads to the creation of markets, mines, smelters and various trades, etc. The game features over 45 resources which are divided into raw materials building materials, consumer goods, and weapons, and over 350 different buildings. The most important resources are gold, wood, iron and tools. These allow you to produce the other products such as, for example, food, clothing, armor and ships. Needless to say the production process is very complex. In terms of trading, you can either use the automatic trading option or load your own ship and set sail on a trading mission to find partners and compare prices.

In the game there are several civilizations to deal with, such as other European settlers, Native Americans, Inuits, Aztecs, Africans, Mongolians, and so on. Of course, each race has its own traits and characteristics. In addition to the different cultures, developers also added a complete set of pirates. They're a thieving lot who can sometimes make life at sea pretty difficult. However, they are quite willing to do a player's dirty work by attacking other, potentially dangerous players :)

A.D. 1503 features 12-mission (yet highly challenging) single-player campaign, several single-player scenarios. The goals set for these missions vary widely, ranging from simple rescues through the erecting of a settlement which must then grow to a flourishing city to full scale sieges. There's also an Open-Ended mode with random maps where you can create your own colony with no restrictions or deadlines and turn it into a great Empire. Sadly, the multiplayer support did not make it into the final release. They promised to release a free multiplayer patch later (at the moment, matches with up to six players are planned), however the patch is not available yet. If you are waiting for the promised patch, then I recommend you to watch this thread in the official forum.

Anyone who likes management/strategy games and have not played 1602 or 1503 yet, will probably like this one. Despite the fact, that the game is quite difficult. For those of you who remember 1602 A.D., 1503 is basically the same as the previous game, so if you have played 1602 and loved it, then I suggest you stick with it or try this playable demo (169MB).

System requirements: Pentium II 500 MHz (1GHz recommended), 128 MB RAM (256MB recommended), 930 MB HDD space, DirectX 7 compatible 3D AGP video card (16 MB)