Just played through the new DLC and wanted to share my feelings on it as someone who also really likes the atmosphere and storytelling of the Anno series.
As a campaign enjoyer, I was really looking forward to a new story quest and the new dlc one was solid. I enjoyed Caecilia's character and learning about her devotion to Vulcan. I feel like the mention of her sending someone to their death into the mines was glossed over slightly, but I understand the story aspect has to be fairly short. I hope to find out more about her as I keep playing.
The volcano eruption was fantastically done! The atmosphere was perfect and I was frantically looking around at the effects as it was happening. The buildings and forests on fire, the general panic, Caecilia's comments and pleas, I was just swapping between islands watching it all burn and trying to do the related side quests as soon as possible. The river of lava that goes under the stone bridges was such a fun touch.
The volcanic winter was haunting and the effects really had an impact, thankfully I stocked up on food but I forgot to look at other production chains and so my clothing really suffered. The ash everywhere, dirty waters and empty streets made me want to roleplay a bit so I spent some time in first person mode just walking around and assessing the damage. I avoided building marble roads which I had just unlocked because it felt "wrong" to do that right after a natural disaster. Fun fact, the avatar also gets a bit of volcanic ash on them if you walk around during the volcanic winter which I thought was a neat little detail!
Last, the music was absolutely gorgeous!! Preparing for the eruption was really stress inducing, that ticking clock motif in the background was very clever and very evil, I felt like I couldn't build shrines and vigiles fast enough. The muted tone of the music in the aftermath really also contributed to the atmosphere, I didn't want to switch to Albion at all during that time just because it felt wrong to leave at such a mournful moment.
All in all, from an immersion point of view, 10/10 it was beautiful and it all really got me in the feels and encouraged the role-player in me. I hope I can find the music somewhere.
Also can someone tell me why Caecilia sounds like Morrigan from Dragon Age 😆