As you play Dawn of Discovery, you can be offered quests by neighboring cities, powerful civilizations, or even lowly citizens. These are mostly a chance to earn some extra resources, but one of the victory settings for a randomized game is to be the first civilization to accomplish a set number of quests. That's what I'm playing now. First to 25 completed quests wins!

The above screenshot is a pair of oriental warships I've been awarded by the Grand Vizier, an oriental ruler. They're named Jasmine and Topaz. I could change their names to something less stripper-like, but once they got some history, I didn't dare.

As you play, you earn honor which you can spend in a variety of ways (the honor system is one of the coolest things about this iteration of the Anno city builder series). I cashed in all my saved honor to get these warships from the Vizier. I was in a dire situation that would have sunk my game if I didn't have all that honor saved up. Even then, I had to hastily hold a tournament at the arena to get enough honor to ask the Vizier for auxiliary fleet.

It all started with a quest. A handful of hostile ships might appear. Would I sink them? Yes_. No_. Check one. I had several trading ships running routes to haul spice, indigo, silk, carpets, and quartz (the trade route interface is excellent, making it easy to manage the latticework of goods you have to exchange to keep a civilization flourishing). But I also had my flagship, which I figured was sufficient to handle the hostile ships. So I accepted the quest.

The hostile ships promptly sank my flagship. Then they hunted down my trading ships one by one. My empire began to crumble as the flow of goods among my islands was interrupted. You haven't seen civilization collapse until you've seen a few thousand people sulk because they can't get spice for their food.

Eventually, after a dark time of much blandness, I cashed in all my honor for the oriental warships from the Vizier. They secured the seas while I rebuilt my merchant fleet. It was an enormous setback and a valuable lesson learned: don't get uppity when you have only a flagship, which is a poor substitute for a navy.

And now that I have a navy, I can accept quests like breaking the blockade around Lord Northburgh's island of Kingsport. Click on the thumbnail below to see the Jasmine and Topaz at their blockade breaking angriest.

Tomorrow: a river runs through it