Anno 1800 Review. Factories for Workers! (Topic)

It just so happens that today various strategies are in decline. Military strategists give off their last gasp, while economic strategists more or less cling to life. However, this does not apply to the Anno series. Whatever happens to the genre there, every few years another part of the series is steadily released, telling us about a new time era. And recently Anno 1800 visited us, and we will arrange a review of it today.

Consuming for Consuming

Anno 1800 uses the classic principles of the series that we saw decades ago. The player begins to build a colony on one or more islands [though now they have been replaced on two continents]. As it develops, new residents arrive, whose needs must be met.

We create different production chains that provide both the needs of the residents and the city with building materials for future development. With the rise in living standards, residents begin to rise in status, and their needs will grow. If you give the peasant only a full belly and a house for happiness, then the townspeople should already be given luxurious clothes, better entertainment, etc.

And this is the main feature of any part of the series. The more you develop your settlement, the more chances that people will start hating you if you do not satisfy their need for some elite date bread, for which you need to sail to the other end of the map, breaking through the pirates. The game punishes with the fact that residents will riot or leave, depriving you of labor and taxes, without which the city will not exist.

The new part has five estates:

• Peasants - as I said, they have enough fish for lunch, and most importantly, they can get some food in the local tavern.
• Workers are already finicky, give them soap, sausages with bread, school for the child and singing. And as you understand, it is already necessary to create several separate industries.
• Artisans - they need canned food with several types of meat, bell peppers, which grows anywhere, but not on your island ...
• Engineers they need funny bicycles [you know, the ones with huge wheels], and the factory for their production is so difficult to build.
• A investors ... Let me just say without detailing that it is very difficult to provide for these finicky assholes, ok?

Each production must be built in an integrated manner and provided with warehouses that have the peculiarity of being clogged, because of which the work can "become". In Anno 1800, just like in Anno 1404, you need movers to pick up the goods and take them to the warehouse. By the way, they can be overloaded or get stuck in traffic jams.

Do not sculpt residential buildings at random. The point is not even that they should be built so that residents always have access to public places, schools, markets, libraries and the like. If you put residential buildings close to each other, then when a fire starts in one house, it can easily spread to the next house, then to the block and the firefighters will not be able to cope.

Also, do not forget that any production requires content. In addition to the one-time devouring of your budget funds during construction, you constantly need to allocate money further to maintain it. Overall, if you're not familiar with the series, I hope you now see all the great complexity of the gameplay.

Old New World

As for me, the era that we are shown in the game - the industrial revolution, is the best fit for the series, as it reflects its main ideas and it is also more atmospheric than what we saw in Anno 2070 and Anno 2205. Although from a gameplay point of view, this is the same Anno 1404, which was returned to what was taken from us in the last two games.

For example, in 2070 the sandbox and multiplayer were taken away from us, and in 2205 militarization was completely removed, which was then added again, which gave rise to sheer military madness. Also cut from this part and competitors that are developing on the neighboring island.

In 1800, all this was returned, so the work on the errors was performed at the highest level. At the same time, everything good that was in 2205 was introduced into the game, such as the simultaneous development of several colonies. Here we need to develop the Old World - an analogue of Europe and the New World - an analogue of America.

In the New World, everything works the same as in the Old World, only in it you will find only two classes of inhabitants. The better they live on the old land, the more goods need to be transported from the new land. Moreover, transportation is different from what we saw in the same Anno 1404. Here you need to correctly calculate it, because the journey between continents takes a long time, and production and consumption continues continuously. Carelessly organizing supplies can lead to a drop in income.

Over time, even the loss of one oil tanker, which Anno 1800 needs to generate electricity, can lead to economic collapse and impoverishment of your population. It is not so difficult with other resources, and their absence is more likely to generate only discontent among the population.

You can go on for a long time, but the easiest way is to simply say that, alas, it will not be possible to build a utopia.

Fields for peasants, factories for workers!

There is also a new restriction that we have not seen before. Each production needs certain classes of inhabitants: peasants work in the fields, engineers and artisans in factories, and workers in construction. Investors at this time are simply wiping their pants, demanding from you another outlandish product from abroad.

It is not worth raising the social status of each citizen for the sake of increasing tax revenues, because this can lead to a shortage or excess of specialists and, as you already understood, the collapse of the economy.

Another new element is expeditions. We assemble a team, prepare a ship and set off on a long voyage, presented in the form of a text quest. For example, you sailed to a settlement of natives and you need to choose: try to mend relations or, as the pilgrims did in their time, arrange a massacre in the name of European values. And the outcome of each choice depends on what characteristics your team has. You will receive special rewards for successful expeditions. Everything is like in a full-fledged text RPG and a plus for that.

If the expedition was successful, then they will write about it in the newspaper, which will increase the level of happiness of the population. They can also write about something bad, but they give you the possibility to censor the information. But keep in mind that many of your allies won't like this.

Standing still

And it would seem - a complex, good economic strategy that we need so badly, does it have problems? Yes, Anno 1800 still strikes a balance between enjoyable gameplay and the headache of city management, but it's a really good addicting game. I just wouldn't call Anno 1800 something new. This is rather a good work on bugs, which, alas, did not introduce new experimental "chips".

For example, in 2070 it was necessary to keep a balance between workers who would turn the city into one mega factory and conservationists fighting for the environment. In 2205 it was necessary to erect shields from the solar wind on the moon, and in 1404 it was also necessary to develop a desert settlement in the east. But in 1800 it doesn't. We just have two similar settlements, simplified trade and a military component. Yes, it has a semblance of "chips" with oil and electricity, but they affect the gameplay not so significantly compared to the previous "chips" that were in the series.

But I repeat, Anno 1800 is an excellent economic strategy game with interesting gameplay, pictures and atmosphere. She just does not expand the series and does not experiment, carefully giving us all the best that was in the past games of the series. Therefore, if you give Anno 1800 points, then somewhere 7 out of 10.

The Topic of Article: Anno 1800 Review. Factories for Workers!.
Author: Jake Pinkman