Beginner Guide
- Focus on building many houses for your people. Start the gameplay by building many residences for new dwellers. Once they reach requirements of this social group, they can be promoted – however, you will lose some workers. For instance, if you promote your farmers to workers, and you will be able to assign them to your mines. Unfortunately, they will no longer be able to work in fisheries. Thus, you need many houses and dwellers who can switch between social groups.
- Create many objects generating building materials. At first, you will manage with some planks, but it won’t take long before you find yourself in need of bricks and steel. Make sure to have enough manufacturing plants, so that you will not have to wait too long to raise new buildings.
- Use the blueprint mode. Planning your buildings is one of the new features in Anno 1800. Use this option to plan your city development in advance, and purchase buildings once you obtain enough resources.
- Send out your ship to scout the area. Select your ship to scout the surrounding waters. You will discover additional islands containing e.g. new resources. In order to exploit them, you will need to build shipyards on the newly discovered islands and send enough materials from your main island.
- Establish minor colonies. This statement is directly related to the previous one. Try to put the islands surrounding your city to good use as quickly as possible – the most lucrative areas are those where you can build mines. You may also want to build factories on other lands, away from the main residential areas – this will increase the overall happiness and city attractiveness.
- Keep high productivity. Click on a building to check its productivity. Your priority should be to assign the maximal number of available employees – sometimes you will also need to make sure that there is enough free space around or a large farm field.
- Remember about trade. Excess of goods should be sold or sent to a different island. Make sure that your island has enough warehouses to store all your goods.
- Control the game speed. You can use keys + and -, to control the game speed. This option is very useful when e.g. you are waiting for bricks or steel to be produced.
- Build a large Zoo and Museum. Unlock artisans and you will be able to construct two cultural buildings on your island. Use them to increase city attractiveness significantly – focus on acquiring new species of animals and valuable artifacts. Although you will need to obtain them through expeditions most of the time, it’s possible to get them via e.g. trade.
- Don’t go too far with expansion. Keep in mind that you have limited funds, and too many buildings can lead to bankruptcy. Furthermore, more dwellers will require a lot of attention. Take your time to expand your city, and make sure that your dwellers are happy. Otherwise, they may organize protests.
