Captivating and charming, with gorgeous visuals to boot, Dawn of Discovery is the best city-builder game in a long time.
(Note: To avoid repeating a vast chunk of the main gamespot review, I shall instead focus on the things that strike me about the game, what that I particularly like or dislike)
Campaign mode consists of 8 scenarios and are surprisingly varied. In general the 8 scenarios do not feel tedious or repetitive at all, and for so many times, I found myself surprisingly sticking to the next campaign scenario despite the thought of taking a break from the campagin to check out continuous play as I completed the previous campaign scenario.
While obviously the stuff of fiction (as well as containing a few illogical elements, such as how (without going into any specifics to avoid revealing the story plot) surprisingly close the Orient is in the last mission in a manner that makes the main storyline plot kind of weird, you'll find yourself engaging in large sea battles, preparing and mustering the defences of a fortified city to defend against an incoming siege, as well as a "Wonder Rush" style of gameplay in one of the scenarios. In general though, the campaign is generally never overwhelming (even in the scenarios involving military forces) and takes a fairly leisurely pace.
My main complaint if any about the campaign, is that it is quite easy to miss some of the optional quests. Additionally, some quests are simply not very interesting and just require you to gather and then send X number of resources off to different parts of the map. Fortunately, you can speed up the game for these dull moments.
Continuous play is a pleasant surprise. The starting exploration and rush feels almost like a RTS game, and interaction with fellow AI players to be engaging and charming. The thing about the campaign though, is that you never will realise just how much MORE continuous play adds, be it in gameplay elements or items. Players may hence be surprised at the number of unfamiliar resources (like Bees, Gold, Copper, Sugarcane, etc.) that they will never encounter in the course of the campaign (nor for that matter, do any Buildings capable of exploiting these resources appear to even exist).
Diplomacy is simple, but works. Unfortunately, it is still uncertain to me what the point of an Alliance in the game is, as your allies do not seem to join you in war, though they do helpfully tribute gold to you once every so often (and at other times, demand tribute to sustain the alliance. Personally my ally gave me much more gold than was demanded so I was happy to acceed to the request).
The military/warfare aspects of the game is confusing, particularly the land warfare aspects. In particular, it is never exactly clear how one would go about invading and decimating an opponent (since most units are incapable of attacking most of the buildings in the game). One eventually figures out that you generally capture territory instead of destroying buildings directly (though you can with cannons or trebuchets) but the system is still awkward and unnatural.
Military units are controlled by their camps, and unhelpfully all the units begin in No Assistance/Defensive mode. Aditionally, maneuverability is a problem especially in highly built up islands (and technically it is possible to make your island impervious to enemy land invasion by just occupying all the available space on the island, and having a strong navy to guard your shore from naval bombardment) particularly with the Occident Large Military Camp.
Still, it does kind of work though once you have the system figured out but this is definitely one of the weaker/weakest aspect of the game.
Visuals are stunning, and the music score is rousing and memorable (without being notably repetitive).
The game never crashed once, but I did encounter a few lock ups during continuous play (that has since gone away).
The game lacks multiplayer, but has an achievement systems that can be used to unlock in-game vanity items/buildings as well as boasting it on the online community website.
Overall, the best game of the city-building genre.