One of the people watching my channel, asked for shorter videos. Can you imagine? Getting things done in 30 to 45 min intervals? I found the Anno 1800 game-play requires a lot of micromanagement to get somewhere. Which costs a lot of time when done right. So, I will try and build up in short bursts and move some boring stuff off screen. Just enjoy breaks for my cat ;). Also, some people ask for comment on why I do stuff. I try to think of that, but when you busy pursuing something, you don’t always think about that.
In this episode, I have setup the game as a corner game, with three AI chosen by the engine in a “normal” game. The only setting I changed was “revealed map”. Since I prefer that setting above spending time exploring a lot. All DLC’s are active and I plan extend this game session into Land of Lions in October.
On my island, I prepare for a base city, with the grid I have used in all my builds in Anno 1404 and 1800. First I put up Timber, then Fish, then start with schnapps to get happiness into my houses. From there I need more inhabitants, which I aim for by building up work clothes. Which gives me positive income for the first time.
With all farmers goods coming in, I can start expanding my city, and grow into the first workers. I put up fire safety, pubs and prepare police-station. While pursuing this, a passive buy route from Blake is bringing in steel supplies. On the island I erect the Bricks chain, which has a followup by setting up sausages, soap and bread chains relying on those Bricks. Extra bricks and wood come in from Blake too. To have a higher buffer of building materials I build my first four warehouses and some base defense against ships from Anne.
With those chains all up, my population asks for a church and a school. Which can be set up too, with the current influx of materials. After those both are up, my workers are ready for the next tier, Artisans. After my first block goes up. While admiring my city, I start passively selling stocks from production buildings. Which brings some extra money in from those passive sales. Just remember that to gain money, stopping production buildings is more effective as passively selling stocks. And with that my first 30 min are spend! I hope you can pick up from it. Enjoy!
When playing your Campaign you will run into Anne and Jean within the game. A lot of players report have issues with them sinking ships all the time and tell they have a hard time growing with them around. Ships costs resources and supply lines are broken. Which is costing you money, since your cities will have shortages, while the supply upkeep is eating away at your sparse budget.
A relationship ~ reputation points
Anne is the first pirate that you will encounter, when the game starts, you have zero reputation points. These points are the anchor point for relationships in game with all other players. At the moment you encounter her, you can let her be and defend your ships by having guns at your harbors of Ditchwater.
Defense ~ a fleet
When taking your first islands, harbor defenses and cranes will keep your trade routes alive. The travel distances will be short. while your flagship should nearby for moment Anne chooses to keep a ship in your islands area. If Anne decides to visit with several ships, a defense strategy could come in handy.
The moment you can buy a few frigates, make a fleet with them. Select a few ships by dragging a block on the see with your mouse, which will select ships as a group; a fleet. In the ships bar, you now can set the fleet on a number slot in your ships navigation bar. Then when the next attack happens, you do not have to look for your fleet, you just click the number on the ships navigation bar to select the fleet. By double clicking the number you will be taken to the fleets location.
A fleet has a few settings that you can use to manage your fleet; the stances, by clicking on the fleet portrait;
Passive defense – your ships will engage a ship that enters their view range.
All out attack – your ships will engage and pursue a ship that comes into their view range
Active defense -your ships will engage a ship in the ship-range but will not active pursue ships outside of its original control or stage area.
Besides that a fleet, has a few groupings;
Mixed – Ships in the fleet have different orders, click the image to align them to a single command.
Individual – A ship can move freely at its own speed
Grouped – A ship will adhere to the slowest ship speed of the fleet group.
Defense ~ a patrol
To defend an area between two islands, you can set up a patrol, so the area of that patrol will now be guarded against passing ships of the enemy. When setting up patrol boxes, set a patrol box that is small and between two islands, but not in the intimidate harbor area. In the image below, my flagship patrols the choke point between Ditchwater and the Island eastward of it. No enemy ships will pass this choke point now without detection.
When setting a fleet on patrol, you can still select them by clicking the number boxes on your ship navigation bar, so they can be called upon for defense actions outside their area. A single ship can be added to a number too.
Defense ~ Ceasefire
When your game progresses into a game with trade-routes that are long distance, it can be costly to have a lot of patrol up over the full distance of this trade route. At this moment, it can be more cost efficient to make ask the pirate for a Ceasefire. Do not accept “offered” ceasefires from pirates, since the “offered” quote will be much higher as “requested” quote. A ceasefire in an easy game, will gain you 8 reputation points.
A strategy ~ about Peace
When your reputation points increase to I think about 30, a peace option becomes available. This sounds like a good plan, but with the pirates, I advice against it. Since it is costly to maintain; you have to pay a lot of upkeep for keeping the peace, or drop back in a war now and then, which will loose you all buildup reputation.
With every new ceasefire in war time, you accumulate new reputation points, without it costing you boatloads of money or the risk of dropping back to zero. Aim for 50 point before brokering a peace with a pirate. My next blog will focus on the way to get there.
One of the base levers in the game to promote a diverse city tier mix, is Royal Taxes. The most important, no easy mastered, cost driver of the game.
The game makers created Royal Taxes as a mechanic to punish you for big cities on one island and promote to build on several islands after reaching a 1000 to 2000 people of a tier on an island. In a new game setup without AI, I explain this mechanic. While I also stipulated this in the last video session.
In the non-AI map, I will show a buildup with 3 islands up-to artisans and in a second video up-to the first investors, this video will be put up on the happiness blog. A forth city is added after the video for demonstrative purposes.
Base block
To have a base in building an island, and every island after, for me, exists of about 200 houses, in a 20 * 40 block. Minus a few buildings it ends up with 182 houses. Or, if you build the edges too, 230 houses. Where I targeted to build under a 1000 people to inflict no royal taxes in the first session, I am now aiming for a more realistic city, which will cap at 2000 people or 17% royal taxes per tier. All these houses are serviced from 1 market, 2 pubs, 1 church, theater, university, hospital and theater.
A base block can be easily maintained and be self-supporting with 9 knitters and 6 fisheries, plus 6 schnapps.
Island buildup
As you can see, my current block supports about 1500 people for each tier (13% tax, 177 gold currently.) and has coverage for a Town-Hall, Hospital, Fire-services and Police-station (scaled for Hard city Incidents setting). Resulting in an income of 1100 gold, while the university and theater are not needed yet, so, could be deducted, which would end you up at plus 1500 gold for this city setup.
Population buildup of the 230 houses
Financial overview.
Multi-block buildup
With a multiple blocks, the royal taxes will go up, which in turn will slow down income-leveling by just adding houses on the same island. The common income method in Anno 1404. Let us take the table to see where the percentiles come from;
The double block you see here, is my Bread island, supporting three other islands for bread production.
Bread Island
The Bread island is supported by two tiers just under the 2000 limit.
My industry island is supported buy a heavy leaning towards more workers to work in the steal industry. This is putting the island hard in the red. The 1.000 gold for royal taxes combined with the 5.000 gold for industries make the island hitting the red at 1500 gold per tick. But results in happy people on the other islands, since they do not have to take the burden of pollution, which will be addressed in my next blog about happiness.
My capitol has the first tier 3 houses, which I provided with Rum only atm and exists of four blocks and is providing schnapps, stone, wood and windows to the rest of the empire, which makes it a farmer heavy island for now. The moment commuter piers come in, Schnapps will be moved out, same for Pigs and Steal at the first two block island above.
Notice that Artisans make back their own Royal taxes easily. Just keep in mind that when upgrading more blocks into Artisan houses, they house a 30 people per house, which will cause the pressure from Royal Taxes to go up fast from that moment forward.
In the total overview, you can see why I am opening with the Royal Taxes as first mechanic about the economy of making money. In my simple four island game, Royal Taxes make up 20% of my expenditures! Which is just surpassed by production, but is not possible to scale down when your liquids are going down the drain. Which makes it the most important expense category to watch.
In my Tutorials I have been aiming for investors with a decent setup, everything supplied, in an empty world, without AI around. While posting these videos, commenters asked the same question over and over; “How to make money in Anno 1800?”.
Especially in a game were there are AI around, there are a lot of dual paths to walk, to keep up with your surroundings. Like in the Campaign for example. However, my current game is set a sandbox game, after describing the expert campaign in the last few blogs, I looked forward to an open ended game-play.
To welcome you in the Anno 1800 economy, I kick off with a short prologue, with a followup, in “Crisis”, that demonstrates the spiderweb of the Anno 1800 Economy, where one domino topples many others, which happened in my first video, found thereafter.
The final city in my example video.
Prologue
The economical result within a game session of Anno 1800, is the result of a buildup of a very interconnected world, a spiderweb. With a lot of decisions and mechanics that influence the result of the income per tick shown in your economy panel. To put all these explanations in a single blog, would result in an unending wall of words. Let’s not do that.
To showcase them all, I will upload several video shorts, put in separate blogs, with all kind of examples with relationships of game mechanics as part of this spiderweb. Since you never can see any part of the web on its own. These blogs together will give insight in the diverse interconnected aspects in Anno 1800 related to making money.
Crisis
Making money is a puzzle. It is not a guarantee. In your game you should build an economy spearheaded to an income that is resilient over time. Try not to operate on the edge of your income level, try to have a buffer. When things go wrong, you have some time left to fix your mistake.
The Crisis; Growing from Artisans into Engineers
When upgrading into Engineers, I decided to buy Fur coats by trade-route from two AI players, since I have no New World session in my current game. While doing so, I started investing in buildings for engineers; commuter piers, an oil harbor, depots, oil fields, lamps. Which are all expensive investments on their own, while they have a immediate high upkeep cost.
Due to upgrading artisan houses to create a workforce for all these buildings, and upgrading workers to keep the artisan workforce on the same level, I ran out of RUM!, while I discovered another island was running out of BEER! Of-course, with more people in the Engineers tier, my royal taxes were going up. These combined investments, extra taxation and loss of income ran my money into a negative spiral at lighting speed.
To battle this; I sold all quest ships, ordered a few new SOTL on my harbors to sell, sold Windows and Concrete, deleted all trade-routes that were doing buys from AI and then sold the ships from those trade routes, and started upgrading all houses that I could without loosing essential supply chains.
Also, I released all ‘blocked but stocked’ items from the market stocks into my population and lastly I removed all buy-orders from the harbors. To keep essential chains running smoothly, while also saving money, I paused some non essential supply chains.
By taking all these steps I saved up on “service costs” for ships and non-essential supply chains, removed instant buys from trade-routes and island depots, while generating income from the current population. This resulted in a restored healthy balance and which made it possible to start resolving the issues leading up to this crisis, while also repairing the damage from mass selling assets and disrupting supply lines.
Due to my mass-upgrades of artisans into engineers to force myself into more income, I could build a bank, which was a big relieve for my troubles, also, with lamps now coming in and electricity around, I could steamroll into investors by skipping the luxury goods required by engineers. Which made it possible to take steps to restore the situation towards the pre-crisis conditions and continue the game safely, away from bankruptcy.
In the above crisis example, you can see, the economy in the Anno 1800 is very complicated spiderweb. Meanwhile, AI are still around, the pirates are and not to forget; if you make your people unhappy, they will riot and you have less crisis response units in hospitals, fire stations and police stations. So, a cascade of events is not an utopia in a game session. Let me guide you slowly through the spiderweb to avert and be prepared for crisis like this in this mini-blog series.
A first glance ~ a video about making money
A base setup and walk-trough video, working the tiers, until the first investors are settled. A lot of decisions making is explained and the different steps will be taken up one by one in the mini-series.
With the economy established the game can go forward. To have the money to do so, I provided more and more goods with less industry over time by building up the industry island, moving industries into Trade Union circles and providing them electricity. This saves money and workforce, what makes it possible to upgrade more houses of the same city, while not loosing performance or output.
Securing the South-West
Since the Campaign will extend into the south west, to follow a smuggler, I knew I had to clear a path in that direction. The current income generated made it possible to buy out more and more islands in that direction and set the there available resources towards my industries. Due to the fact that your city has to keep growing, to provide the Influence for all islands. As a shortcut I started blueprinting all Cranes and Harbor Defenses on the secure parts of the map.
Chapter 3 ~ The ‘New World’
With the new islands established to follow a smuggler, the campaign will require you to move into the New World. To have a travel path towards this session safely, another island in the south-west was acquired. Which made it possible to bridge into the New World with ships and supplies safely.
Also, it opened up the possibility to buy gold from Anne. Something I needed badly, I was running out of gold and setting up the Arctic for gold is a lot of work. This due to all islands, ships and port defenses in the New World require influence too!
Chapter 4 ~ The Torch Passes.
With all quests in the New World finished, you will start the last mile of the campaign, where a confrontation will ensue due the correcting all wrongs in the world of Anno 1800. You will be appointed a courthouse, which has to build up. While you will find out that the enemy has other plans for the future. Lets stop that future from becoming a reality.
The end
Thank you for watching and reading, hope you picked up on some ideas and enjoyed the ride. Up to the next battle. See you around!
With a peace-deal with Anne, and two islands required towards the southwest, the Campaign can move on.
Two Island in the South-West
Following a transport that is suspect is the next part of the campaign, that is passing through both islands. You cannot follow it in when enemy Big-Bertha’s are protecting these islands.
Follow quest active.
Acquiring the deep south
To activate a Expedition into the New World, you need a save path in that direction. To accomplish this, I decided to acquire the island in the Southwest, between Anne and the South-West border.
Mageret was bought out.
Before acquiring the island I needed some extra influence points, with the Grain production on Ditchwater moved to the West corner and the East free of buildings with Schnapps produced on the industry island. The East corner could be build up with a new block of houses centered around a Town Hall.
Building up an empty East
With many resources coming in already, the corner could be upgraded fast to move towards Investors asap, since the Town Hall is outside of the Palace range.
While building it up, I blueprinted a lot of Big-Bertha’s all over, to free up influence points. I will buy them back when needed. Since a lot of patrols are up, all over, the game will have “save-zones”, where the enemy will not arrive without breaking though a lot of patrols first. When that happens you can upgrade them with ample time, including activation timer. Besides freeing up influence costs, it also saves on expenditures.
Upgrading the East of Ditchwater
With the South-East secured, Anne is in reach for a trade-route. Which means, it is now possible to import Gold Bars from her island. Which made it unnecessary to settle the Arctic more extensively.
Trading Gold with Anne
Since her Island is outside my heavy patrolled area’s. The trade-route is setup with a Battle-Cruiser with an active Healing (Healing in Combat mode). Lady Lu is a captain that provides this active healing, besides that I fitted captain with self repair (active outside of war-status), plus two captains providing a moving speed boost.
Peace Timer vs Island Ownership
While taking over the last island in the South, I learned something new; in the video, I had to reload to correct the issue; When taking over an Island, the peace-timer is active on Trade Post on that island, and not on the island itself!
When building up the new acquired island, my Harbor would be in range of the Big Bertha of the Island in the West, owned by Margret. I had no influence to buy that out. So, I decided to move the trading post the northeast coast. However, in Expert Mode, you have no MOVE option available, you have to DELETE the Trading Post and rebuild it. However; and IA immediately resettled my just conquered island. I even got another VICTORY screen for the island after the AI settled it. I reported it as a bug; it is weird a peace-timer is just for the Trade-Post and not for the Island.
The Big-Bertha from Margret has the coast of the island in range, so on takeover, it would start shooting my buildings, which means I had to move the Trade-Post by deleting it.
With a secure way-point in the south-east, I could finish the New World Expedition. Welcome on Prosperity!
The New World
When acquiring La-Isla, make sure to move in defense forces as soon as possible. Several people were shown a DEFEAT window when they lost La-Isla. You cannot finish the campaign without it. Since it is very logical to have several wars while in Expert mode, it can be visited very shortly after acquiring it.
Another issue of defense is; you cannot build coast defenses until you build up the Island. To forgo all this, I moved in another two battle-cruisers immediately.
Transferring ships
To move ships between the New World and the Old World, I setup another “fake” trade-route. Every ship with at least one free hold, can be put on this trade-route and will start tranfering from the New World to the Old World with as destination the island in the South West. There it will start loading Gold (what is not available). So, after assigning your ship to this route, it can be found loading nothing save and sound on the island in the Old World.
A “fake” transport” route.
To facilitate this route, I started a coast buildup that would welcome such ships. With some piers and defensive buildings.
Old World fake loading area.
New World campaign quests
When following the quest line, you have to find a few fire-guys in your town. Make sure to choose a “night” setting on your daylight timer, so you can find them easier. After you have to do some pickups in the West. Do not forget to bring a decent ship to defend against aggression from AI’s.
Picking up some people in the West.
When the quests in the New World are finished, you will be rewarded with Prosperity. Be sure to protect it against AI aggression, loosing the island will end the campaign in a defeat.
Prosperity
The Final Battle
When starting out with the game, I remember spending a lot of time in the New World before moving on into the campaign. Now with a well established empire I found it no longer a challenge. So, moving onto chapter 4!
Welcome in Chapter 4!
With the New World finished, you are asked to build a monument; the courthouse, which can be completed easily with your established island. It is a nice monument.
Buildup Courthouse
With the story-line progression, a ‘Fleet of Fire’ will be setup in the front of Bright Sands. In the middle of your trade-routes and also with a patrol box in the middle of them. I did not consider to prepare for it. So moved in a lot ships in that were nearby and took them out. Maybe I should have planned it a bit more. Maybe next time.
A fleet of fire
With the fleet taken out, I was surprised to find myself already at The End!
The extra quest
After the Campaign, Hannah asks you to rebuild Bright Sands. I did for good measure.
Bright Sands up and running again.
Let me leave you with a nice overview shot of my current Ditchwater, regretfully it is always raining or snowing above the island.
As written in last blog, I visited the Arctic to open up a gold mine. That goal was phased out when I befriended Anne, while I was buying islands in the south-west to continue the campaign safely.
The Arctic I
Finally found a Costume Designer! Bought a lot of captains for all ships patrolling the map. On Ditchwater I moved a lot of buildings; wheat and paprika especially, while I kept moving off industries from Ditchwater to the industry island. This raises the attractiveness, production efficiency and creates room for more engineers. With more engineers and investors, I run out of gold and decide to open up a Goldmine in the arctic.
The Arctic II
While the arctic is setup, I started preparing for continuing the campaign, by buying shares in islands in the direction of cave, where a ship has to be intercepted to continue the campaign. The islands are then bought up and a defense is setup. In the Arctic I then I have my first interactions with AI’s, who drop gas on islands that you take over. That was something new; fun was had, an nice alternative to collect gas.
The Arctic III
After an Ubisoft crash, on with it! Still collecting gas and culture drops in the Arctic. Moving it all to Ditchwater to gain extra income. After all the moving out, I will move on with the quest of the campaign, in the next video.
With the industry island going up and my city growing, I ran out of gold. Then suddenly I took a leap into the unknown. Visiting the Arctic to supply this. Some fun was had.
Industry island
With the growth of my city continuing, more and more chains are moved of the other islands and moved to my industry island.
New in the clothing industry, is Fur Factories! After rolling about a 20 million gold, and buying 10 million in very nice items, I finally found the Costume Designer. Which means I can fulfill Fur Clothing without visiting the New World.
In the electrified zone, I added canneries, that are producing Canned Food directly from Pigs. Also the jewelers and a steam motor factory are added. Here I ran into an issue; not enough gold!
To acquire enough gold, I started the Arctic Expedition, to discover I was alone in the Arctic. What I also discovered, that ‘non story-line’ expeditions did startup after completing the arctic one. While at the Arctic I strived for an Ubisoft challenge I still had to complete.
When AI’s came over to settle the Arctic, I starting taking over their islands for fun; which learned me their island drop gas when taken over. I gathered 600 gas this way. I found it hilarious. Also, you gather all kind of legendary drops of flowers and specialists. While this were fun times, I made friends with Anne, what meant I could find a way to buy gold from Anne instead. I had to buy islands that direction anyway, to safely pursue the Campaign.
Ditchwater
Before moving on, Ditchwater has also seen some change. I booted up the World Fair, only to discover I need Rubber to complete the fourth stage. The city now has 10k investors. The east side is empty now, all schnapps is moved of island. Of-course with raising in company level, the palace is slowly growing bigger. On the east-side a new housing project is raised into engineers with its own Town Hall.
In the west of Ditchwater, I build up a bread corner centered around a Trade Union, which led to overproducing a lot at this moment. The sausages and Soap I moved from the museum quarter to the west, same as some Meat production. With the Arctic now consuming Canned food, I decided to keep the production lines on Ditchwater around.
In the museum quarter, I extended the museum a lot, since the modules are free due to a palace bonus giving 10 influence per lot. In the middle I setup the Paprika I moved from the Bread-corner.
My income is no longer an issue, security is mostly a battle with influence points. What kind of influence I put into military, islands and optimization. A lot of military points for island defense, is moved from island that are now “safe” and onto island that are on the outer edges. Culture points are mostly derived from the “palace” bonus for the Museum. Optimization is needed with all the other AI’s still around and a limited fertility on all islands.
Ditchwater is a small island, which demands a very packed buildup for all industries. When growing the numbers, this is no longer an option. Electricity and Trade Unions have to be setup to profit from the specialists gathered as specified in the last blog.
Industry island
To settle my industry, my goal was to acquire an island with Oil and a lot of room. Graves had such an island. After buying all shares I could take it over for the sum of 20 mil.
First I setup a mass clothing production corner, with sheep farms and knitters centered around a trade union. Where the aim was to move out the production from Ditchwater, to free up room.
Clothing lines set up
Another corner of the island, I reserved for setting up Schnapps chains, where I also placed a trade union for the production plants. When the production is catching up with warehouse capacity later in the game, I can choose to remove building resource production on Ditchwater too.
Schnapps setup
The oil chain was the next item on the list, with the oil chain flowing, it meant I could setup my industry area near my power plant.
Oil chain and power-plant setup.
To follow were the Heavy Industries, to start with Iron Foundries, Steal production and Cannons, based on a centered Trade Union. Also the first clay is worked into stone. With this production the pollution on crown falls will diminish sharply.
Setting up Cannons and Foundries
The next moved resource is windows, several chains I setup near the harbor, with a trade union in the center. This way they can be boosted by specialists or items and the close knit setup of my production, means carts can do the heavy lifting and not the warehouses.
Window chains setup.
With all industries mapped out, I started booting up several chains, while also adding a few Concrete Factories. While setting this up, I started adjusting trade-routes to move industry resources to this island, while still keeping Ditchwater fulfilled.
Industry zone booting up
While booting up the industry zone, the next corner was setup to produce glasses, with foundries at close range, plus a few goldsmiths for the future luxuries of investors.
Shuffling industries on Ditchwater
With the heavy steal industries moved out, it was possible to concentrate the light bulb industry on Ditchwater. The Trade Union is in reach of the palace, which gives an electricity-boost to the buildings.
Bulbs please!
With the clothing industry moved of island, they could be removed from Ditchwater, what made it possible to move in more houses later on.
No more knitters.
New people moving in.
With the glasses upgraded on the new industry island, I could wipe and reorganize that mess of a corner too, to be filled again with some other demands later in game.
Room! on Ditchwater.
Ramping up production
With knitters removed from Ditchtwater and the other islands, the production has been ramped up.
Ramping up sheep and knitter numbers.
The next chain moved, was pocket-watches. Where you can see the industry zone is also being ramped up, with more and more chains removed from Ditchwater.
Ramping up all supply chains to keep the empire running
Acquiring another few small islands
With more and more shipping lines going on auto-pilot, I had to acquire another two islands. One above my industry island, and one near Kahina’s harbor.
The one near Kahina I choose to build up with the production of pigs, since all vulgarity is then no longer present at Ditchwater. The Sausage and Soap production I kept on Ditchwater because of the palace electricity booster on trade-unions. Which saves in the required workforce to process the pigs.
Pigs ahoy!
Island acquired for security reason.
With the pigs now removed from Ditchwater, I could concentrate all production around a trade-union.
Northward of Ditchwater, a small island was also acquired a long time ago. This to farm Saltpeter. This was not needed for a long time, since pirates and AI ships kept dropping heavy weapons. I gathered around a 1000! This from taking over islands and sinking ships.
With Anne as a new trade-partner and with the industry island up and running, it seemed a good time to setup a chain anyhow, so I can produce Heavy Weapons myself.
Anno 1800 Tutorials 
