ANNO 1800

[imtoooldforthis]

How does multiplayer work? Is it a case of joining a lobby, creating a game and having 4 players start from scratch? What about the time frame, does the game pause if the host goes to bed or does it carry on and players can drop in and out as they please?

The game is saved locally on the hosts computer and can be reloaded by the host at any point with or without players present.

I can’t remember if the host transfers on their disconnect though.

Me and another two mates did coop where we were all in charge of the same economy, each working on separate parts of the world. It was a great and very unique experience.

May have to reinstall tbh

 

[kdd]

Enjoyed this game so far, 3rd time was the charm for getting a profitable economy going. Really deep game.

 

[loftie]

How does multiplayer work? Is it a case of joining a lobby, creating a game and having 4 players start from scratch? What about the time frame, does the game pause if the host goes to bed or does it carry on and players can drop in and out as they please?

Iirc, it's saved on everyone's PC. I can't remember what happens when someone disconnects - it has happened to us but not frequently. I think it warns you and then continues.
I also believe people can join at any point. The older Anno's you'd see it uploading the save to the other players when they joined the lobby.

So off the top of my head, I suspect the others can play on without you of they choose, then one of them can host and it'll load you in with their save. We normally do co-op on one team. Makes for a slower start, but then you all can concentrate on different islands.

 

[Droolinggimp]

After starting many times, I have finally settled. My current save has just got to Artisans, just enough to unlock a couple of things. I am not rushing with them as I am trying to settle a few more islands and use them to produce and send the goods to the main island. I have currently moved my Schnapps and work clothes to the second island and ferrying the goods to my main island. I am really wanting to get infront with productions of the farmers and workers needs before advancing Artisans more. Last time I played this game, the game ran away from me, advancing too fast, falling behind with various productions, a mess with trades routes etc. This time I am truly taking me time.

 

[loftie]

The stats page can help. If you rapidly expand on an island, check the stats of the items you are giving the population class you've just increased. It'll tell you how much demand there is for the goods you're looking at, and if you have the production on the island it'll tell you if you've got a net positive or negative production. If you're stuff is on a different island, e.g. your schnapps, look at your main island and see the demand figure, then go to the second island and see the production figure and increase on the production island until you have enough. The ship will add its own bottleneck, but I can't see you struggling on throughput for goods delivery on even the basic boat at the beginning, as a single cargo slot i'd imagine will do you at the moment.
Bear in mind you can always sell excess from your harbours, or sail a ship to a neutral third party and sell it there. Some items are worth an alright amount (look at the prison ).

 

[Droolinggimp]

The stats page can help. If you rapidly expand on an island, check the stats of the items you are giving the population class you've just increased. It'll tell you how much demand there is for the goods you're looking at, and if you have the production on the island it'll tell you if you've got a net positive or negative production. If you're stuff is on a different island, e.g. your schnapps, look at your main island and see the demand figure, then go to the second island and see the production figure and increase on the production island until you have enough. The ship will add its own bottleneck, but I can't see you struggling on throughput for goods delivery on even the basic boat at the beginning, as a single cargo slot i'd imagine will do you at the moment.
Bear in mind you can always sell excess from your harbours, or sail a ship to a neutral third party and sell it there. Some items are worth an alright amount (look at the prison ).

Yeah I check the production page and compare the demand and production etc. I also know of the trade thing, where I can set the stock amount to keep and sell excess, whats the best way to work out how many tons I am needing to keep? is that whats on the graph on the production page. I havent delved that deep into that bit yet?

 

[loftie]

Yeah I check the production page and compare the demand and production etc. I also know of the trade thing, where I can set the stock amount to keep and sell excess, whats the best way to work out how many tons I am needing to keep? is that whats on the graph on the production page. I havent delved that deep into that bit yet?

I don't think there's something to tell you how much stock to keep (I go by my max capacity tbh, I think early game I normally set it to 20 tons, later on with a bigger capactiy I think I go up to 100). At least with the harbour trading, as I don't know if they the neutral ships turn up with any sort of consistency. Same with shipping routes to neutral ports, though that will be consistent, I CBA to attempt to figure out how long it takes and how much it works out per minute, when I can just set a minimum stock limit on the island and the trade ships won't take it below that.

If you have the Docklands DLC, that introduces a different trading mechanic, which IIRC the guy turns up every 20 minutes. So you can work out how much extra production you need, though again, he won't take your stock below your minimum values.

 

[gjbf1]

Enjoyed this game so far, 3rd time was the charm for getting a profitable economy going. Really deep game.

Is it a steep learning curve then?

 

[Droolinggimp]

Is it a steep learning curve then?

Not really. theres a little math involved but once you see that, it stands out like a sore thumb and you will pretty much know what to do. eg, you need 1 of x and 1 of y to produce 1 of z or 2 of x and 2 of y and 1 of z to produce 1 of meh!, keep checking demand and supply of said production and youre golden. A pretty, take your time, game.

 

[gjbf1]

Not really. theres a little math involved but once you see that, it stands out like a sore thumb and you will pretty much know what to do. eg, you need 1 of x and 1 of y to produce 1 of z or 2 of x and 2 of y and 1 of z to produce 1 of meh!, keep checking demand and supply of said production and youre golden. A pretty, take your time, game.

Perfect, thank you.

 

[potatolord]

I git this in the steam sale.

I'm quite enjoying it so far (like civ with more depth), but am finding it fiddly to manage.

Any tips on managing the trade routes? It seems fiddly to transport resources and wonder if I'm missing something here.

 

[loftie]

I git this in the steam sale.

I'm quite enjoying it so far (like civ with more depth), but am finding it fiddly to manage.

Any tips on managing the trade routes? It seems fiddly to transport resources and wonder if I'm missing something here.

How are you assigning trade routes? IIRC you just need to go to the trade route screen, select new trade route, select locations/items and add 1 or more ships then it's off. There are Charter Routes which IIRC are a one shot delivery and you pay money and it might use a bit of influence, but you don't require a ship and they don't get attacked. You'd have to repeat the order every time you want a delivery though.

Anno, 1800 more so, is pretty fiddly. But that's the game tbh. If you've bought all the DLC then you've definitely dived in at the deep end! That said, the DLC is worth it IMHO, and buying it later you normally get shafted (ta Ubi). I can't remember if there's a way to disable DLCs, but if there is I'd suggest running the base game first to get used to the mechanics before adding more in later - as well as the extra regions.

 

[potatolord]

How are you assigning trade routes? IIRC you just need to go to the trade route screen, select new trade route, select locations/items and add 1 or more ships then it's off. There are Charter Routes which IIRC are a one shot delivery and you pay money and it might use a bit of influence, but you don't require a ship and they don't get attacked. You'd have to repeat the order every time you want a delivery though.

Anno, 1800 more so, is pretty fiddly. But that's the game tbh. If you've bought all the DLC then you've definitely dived in at the deep end! That said, the DLC is worth it IMHO, and buying it later you normally get shafted (ta Ubi). I can't remember if there's a way to disable DLCs, but if there is I'd suggest running the base game first to get used to the mechanics before adding more in later - as well as the extra regions.

Ta! I am slightly enjoying the fiddling, but just wondered if I was missing something. I didn't get the dlc, as I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it

Trade routes are per ship, picking up e.g. 10 hops and dropping it back to main island. I found if I assign 50, they seem to wait for pick up.

I need an awful lot of schooners. Is that normal?

Also, is it better to do all my manufacturing on main island, and ship resources there?

 

[Jim99]

Ta! I am slightly enjoying the fiddling, but just wondered if I was missing something. I didn't get the dlc, as I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it

Trade routes are per ship, picking up e.g. 10 hops and dropping it back to main island. I found if I assign 50, they seem to wait for pick up.

I need an awful lot of schooners. Is that normal?

Also, is it better to do all my manufacturing on main island, and ship resources there?

In the late game I have a huge number of clippers and cargo ships, so yeah it's not that odd to build schooners although I'd aim to move to clippers asap. You should be able to tweak whether they're waiting for a full load / empty cargo hold before moving on.

In the early game I tend to do all my manufacturing on a main island, as I move on a bit and I've got more money I tend to separate islands into ones that focus on producing raw resources and shipping it to a manufacturing island, then one that manufactures all of the unpleasant stuff (polluting factories, pigs and soap etc), and then one that's nice where all of the end-game people live i.e. engineers and investors, and that final island tends to import most of what it needs - though it's completely reasonable to do non-polluting manufacturing there as well.

 

[loftie]

Ta! I am slightly enjoying the fiddling, but just wondered if I was missing something. I didn't get the dlc, as I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it

Trade routes are per ship, picking up e.g. 10 hops and dropping it back to main island. I found if I assign 50, they seem to wait for pick up.

I need an awful lot of schooners. Is that normal?

Also, is it better to do all my manufacturing on main island, and ship resources there?

I think there's a setting to make the ship wait until full, or just to grab what it can and leave. You also need to assign the item to each slot if you want multiple slots of the same items IIRC, i.e. if you want a ship full of hops, put it in every item slot otherwise it'll just fill up the first slot.

You will need a fair few ships, schooners are the smallest ship though. They are cheap to maintain however. Manufacturing will depend really as you can get some items that give a buff to attractivness to certain production (bakery and brewery IIRC) so it's nice to have them on you main island IMO, but then some manufacturing make things unattractive (soap i think, definitely in the pig products. Probably the iron stuff too.)

You'll find early on that you'll have most stuff on your main island, and then as you begin to expand you'll have more money to get more ships to allow you to move you resource production off your island and ship them in. You'll also get passenger piers that allow you to link the populations of islands within a region together so you don't have to worry about not having enough of a certain population on an island to do any work. (I don't think this is DLC).

Just a thought to keep in mind, when you're shipping in items on boats they are vulnerable to pirates or any other players if they decide to go to war with you

 

[weeble]

Played this twice in the demo months - £12.50 seems very reasonable in current sale.

Any recommended DLC's - some look cosmetic, whilst others potentially useful...?

 

[Jim99]

That's tricky to answer. I have all of the gameplay DLCs, not the cosmetic ones. All of them bring something different, but it can be really overwhelming when you start playing to suddenly have a ton of DLC.

Personally I'd find it extremely hard to play without Sunken Treasure because Crown Falls is such a good map to have access to.

I could definitely live without the others, but they're all enjoyable in their own ways. Land of Lions and The Passage feel bigger because they add new gameworlds, but I don't find them all that engaging once you've played through the story.

I'd be inclined to start with one or two and add more if you're enjoying them rather than grab loads en masse.

 

[loftie]

Played this twice in the demo months - £12.50 seems very reasonable in current sale.

Any recommended DLC's - some look cosmetic, whilst others potentially useful...?

Similar thoughts to Jim99. But I think I'd miss all the areas tbh. I don't really play the story, I play MP with a few friends generally but I like each region and their uniqueness.

Land of Lions adds a water mechanic where you have to create irrigation from river sources for certain things like farms and animal pens (for increased efficiency) as well as fire stations. Apart from that it's got its own resources and needs but it boils down to being more of the same.

The Passage adds a heat mechanic as it's all in snow, you need to build things within range of a coal heater. Again its own resources, though it also wants stuff from the Old World IIRC. Also adds in the Hydrogen Airships IIRC (I think the helium ones come from the expanded New World in Season 4).

Crown Falls is the 'least' interesting as it's effectively Old World map 2. There is one massive island on it though which is nice for building on.

Cosmetic stuff is nice, but can be a pain IIRC. Ignoring skins for vehicles, the props you can put down block roads IIRC so you can't really design stuff with them in mind too much as it ends up handicapping you.

From memory, Ubi shafts you if you don't buy them all DLC at the same time, but things may have changed now with the Annoversary edition. I'm not even sure if they still sell the game with all the seasons only, but that's what I'd look at as it normally saves you money in the long run annoyingly. It will throw you more in at the deep end as there's more mechanics to learn, but it's not like you have to tackle everything all at the same time. For example, you'll start in the Old World and get to grips with the basic game there, then move to the New World and learn there. Then you can expand out to other regions.
I'd probably suggest playing your first game with no AI and no pirates, just so you can get used to the mechanics, then when you're comfortable start again with some AI and possibly pirates.

 

[Raggs]

Just bought this in the steam sales for £12.49 and 3 dlcs below. As they are 50% off right now.

Seeds of change
Docklands
Bright Harvests.

Add any more or leave it at that for now ? Seems it's not a good idea to have every dlc going at the start for new players, from what I've read.

 

[loftie]

Just bought this in the steam sales for £12.49 and 3 dlcs below. As they are 50% off right now.

Seeds of change
Docklands
Bright Harvests.

Add any more or leave it at that for now ? Seems it's not a good idea to have every dlc going at the start for new players, from what I've read.

I think I started on Y3 complete tbh, and I didn't have an issue. That said I've played all the Anno, so if you've never played any, then it might be easier to start off with less. However, I believe you can turn off the DLC when in the game - something you might want to look into.

To me the answer of which DLC would end up being "all of it" , though cosmetic bits are down to taste. I can see why you chose/were recommended those 3 DLCs, personally I'd be looking at the ones that add other areas assuming they can be turned off. See my post above yours for a run down of the other areas.