Friedens Erfahrungsbericht: Friedens Report:
March 31. Easter is knocking at the door.

Finally, I managed to get  another week of holidays (the first days of 22 ones left from the last  year ) … 
… and what does Jogi? He starts a contest! – Okay, fine, fine. 

And he announces an “easy” one. Super fine.

It’s even supposed to be a sooo easy Easter Egg Search contest that the kids of Nerle and Budgie will take part in it, too.  

Okay, a kid’s story like this won’t be too difficult for me neither, I told me and downloaded the scenario … 

Work was well prepared and I relaxed: English wine gums and apple schorle were ready for a quiet afternoon. Starting 1602AD. The yellow suns approach. Right click. Another right click. Single player. The first wine gum enters my mouth, still smiling. Own scenarios … starting … yellow flag … and here we go. 

The scen starts. I just notice the yellow color all around the map when I’m cruelly torn out of my dreams: Pirates!!! – Okay, white flag. All’s going well again. Ship is called “Jogibär”. Nice gag, Jogi, I’m thinking.  

The green wine gum is followed by a red one. And I’ve got 50.000 gold coins. Much more than ever in the beginning. Okay, will be quickly finished, I’m thinking.  

But … the pirates got cannons and me not … I didn’t like that a lot. But first I had to look around. Cause the balance of –256 coins doesn’t please me at all. Clicking island no. 1: a cannon foundry. Thank heaven. Quickly planting some wood and sending all ships up. If it will continue easily like this I’ll soon have finished … am a quick one, I’m thinking. Even the balance is improving (for the moment). A blue wine gum follows. Everything’s going fine. I’m okay. Relaxed.
Time for a savegame … “saaaved”. 

I won’t insist too much on the following. Sure, clicked on this island and that one, tore down something here to save costs. Tore down something there to save costs. And what happened? My citizen or pioneers or settlers or merchants or whatever are crying for this and that. I remembered the assignment: “Population may not decrease”. So … quickly install some trading routes … time gets short … so build ships … oh, fine, there’s one left in the large shipyard … nice … another one then … but what did I hear: YOU HAVE ENOUGH SHIPS. Sorry, what???!!! “Enough ships”?
“NO – I haven’t got enough ships”, I’m thinking!!! Always these computer errors *swear* 

Reloading the savegame. Again: “YOUR FLEET IS LARGE ENOUGH” 

And my people on island no. I-don’t-know is starving, and my people on island no. don’t-know-neither wants to get drunk in a civilized manner. I won’t go far with those few ships. The balance is changing slowly, too. So tear down some more things. Discovered a mistake again. But not the fortress. There I had some doubt about ;). And tear down another thing. Video popping up: pirates! White flag. Charge lost. *reswear* Got large shipyards but can’t build large ships. And slowly, slowly everything is getting topsy-turvy. And the farmers on island no. how-should-I-know-that-now still haven’t got cloths. Is it this what they call stress? 

What about the shipyard on island no. 1? Doesn’t like to work neither … so let’s tear it down … got nothing to do there anyway, this stupid thing … and my thirst for an apple schorle is growing more and more but no way to drink with all that clicking around. And my wine gums, too, have changed into a simple decoration of my desk.
An “easy scen”, I thought while still clicking savagely here and there.
Jogi won’t like my thoughts now.
But being positive I esteemed myself still lucky that he hadn’t taken one of his difficult scens.
Yet, all my positive thoughts didn’t help. The moment came that I heard that hollow sound and perceived the Jesus freak with his crown of thorns in the debtor’s dungeon! I stared at him in despair. Since four years I hadn’t seen this video anymore and now this … *disconcerted*  

One thing was clear … a second approach was out of the question.
But then, what?
Suddenly I remembered those management controlling principles which they wanted to teach me at work some years ago.  

Okay: a sheet of paper. Four columns. 

Column 1: island number
Column 2: population desired (for example, 315 citizens)
Column 3: mistakes at this island
Column 4: what is to do here first?

I put it in an order, by starting and restarting the game and filling up the columns thoroughly. Like this it should work, I thought. 

What else do I need? Ah, right, - very important: the manual …… called also the Forum.

That’s where I met ‘Nerle’. I explained her my unsolved problems with the pirates.
Like that, I got the tip to try the editor.
But, darn: what is an editor?
I had heard about it already but how could I use it here, then?
Anyway, the pirates were supposed (?) not to be too strong.

And indeed, later on they turned out to have only one cannon aboard … easy … thanks, Jogi. 

Speaking of “thanks, Jogi”: All the time I was already meditating on what was meant to be a “mistake”.
But soon a definition accepted by the majority showed up in the Forum.
Fine. The Forum and some mails to Jogi (whom I spammed without scruples) slowly enlightened me finally.
Especially, since the evening of March 31 when Jogi explained clearly in the Gamesweb Forum what was a mistake and what not.
Immediately I corrected my script.

Some more questions to the “S.C.A.”  concerning the merchants house at island no. 1, and once more I was relieved.

My script comprised four pages now. Next Saturday, I’ll make it! 
Only at island no. 3 I could by no means discover any mistake. I didn’t even know when a cattle farm and a butcher could be built.

So I surfed to “Charlies-Website” – found!
Had also to look for the palisades at island no. 8. –  … did I ever build them?? 
April 4 showed up then with ‘annophil’s’  remark in the Forum: “well, an attentive reader of these texts won’t need a manual anymore”. Right!!!
This evening I met ‘annophil’  also in the chatroom.
I imagined many equal scores, but ‘annophil’  had a different opinion which should turn out as the right one later on.

But we were lucky that Jogibär  decided to admit multiple first places in case of equal scores and didn’t oblige us to produce endlessly monuments. *relieved* 

I was sure: Saturday morning (April 6) I would sit down and solve the scenario.

Friday arrived with a nice talk with Günter in the Forum (of course during the lunch break ). Additionally, Sir Henry had provided an important tool with his Treasure Analyzer. – Fine.

Saturday arrived and I looked for my script:
“The ticket for the match of my Dortmund Borussia versus Munich remained pinned at the wall”.
I heard the news about the BVB who was successful while I tried the same with Jogi’s scenario and … I succeeded as well.
Even the pirates didn’t be a problem anymore.
Okay … had still to find the treasures: I ploughed up every island, built bridges and docks for 26 treasures.
Nice – Sir Henry’s proggie  confirmed: found all of them!!! *glad* …
Only vaguely I recall those countless quarries which scratched the mountains for nothing

I had discovered all treasures. I had defeated every pirate. What else was to do? I was bored.
Since I certainly had never received so many monuments before, I also found a reasonable use for them (-> cf. FRIEDEN’s screenshot).
I took the time to check my listing of mistakes once more and discovered another one: the places and the ornamental plants *sweating*. 

Absolutely convicted by my success *grinning* I mailed my savegame to Jochen.
Just to see a little bit later that his site looked like an Anno adventure world.
Even three overseas members had shown up.
Remarked that this was the first time and was pleased about it, too. 

What was it that Jogibär had said about it?
An “easy scenario” to relax and to be solved in “peace”?
Yep – sensational … Jogi … that’s what is was! 

And today (May 8) there was mail by Sunflowers in my mailbox:  

A 1503 stein, a 1503 pen and some matches (which still won’t make me a smoker, though).

But this is the occasion for a BT (Big Thank you) not only to the S.C.A. and the “SIR”,
but also to Sonja S. and Nadine K. from Sunflowers ! 

… hope you enjoyed reading?! 

Thomas (aka FRIEDEN)