![]() About the closest it comes, mechanically, to some sort of accountancy is the decoupling of a population’s happiness from its productivity. ![]() For better and worse, Anno 1800 opts to tackle basically none of that, presenting an idealized, sanitized version of labor relations of that era. For all we talk about how it was the core of advancement for much of modern society, that same advancement was built on the back of vicious, violent exploitation, be it through institutions like slavery or the whole enterprise of western colonization and imperialism itself. As one astute commenter pointed out in my Review in Progress, the 1800s carried a lot of historical baggage, to understate things quite horribly. ![]() Oddly enough, where I feel it falls shortest isn’t in the “ Anno” part of the title so much as the “ 1800” part. These return brief choose-your-own-adventure-style story vignettes, with outcomes that are influenced by the quality of the expedition’s equipment and crew, generating rewards like unique gear, or interesting finds for the settlement’s Museum or Zoo buildings. NPCs generate mini-quests to undertake, usually simple combat or fetch missions, in return for infusions of cash or resources. Outside these core mechanics, other considerations pop up. But with the addition of considerations like tourism and “attractiveness,” players working at scale may end up specializing their production over several islands, in order to keep things efficient (and keep at least some territories from getting polluted by heavy industry). Each tier of laborers (for example, the Old World’s Farmers, Workers, Artisans, Engineers, and Investors) can only be used to populate specific categories of building, so maintaining a balance of every type of laborer is paramount. One of the unique things about Anno 1800 is that every tier of population proves necessary to the health of a settlement. Eventually, colonies can supply the homeland, and vice-versa, with exclusive products, like rum, furs, and advanced machinery. Settlements in the New World are established and maintained much like they are in the Old World, though colonies have their own unique production chains, aesthetic style, architecture, and worker tiers, all with unique needs. One can’t have a colonial game set in 1800 without actually having colonies, so the Latin American-inspired environs of the New World are it. If anything, having to make a fight of it feels like a failure in Anno 1800.Īnd then there’s the New World. And when all else fails, there’s always war, though the combat is pretty simplistic and not at all interesting. To that end, players can settle unoccupied islands, trade for what they need, buy shares in occupied territories with a bit of diplomacy, assemble happy economic coalitions or even organize a hostile takeover. Variations in soil fertility and available resources will ensure that most players won’t be able to build everything they can without expanding outward to other islands – islands that may be occupied by other players or factions. Things get even wilder once you expand out past your initial settlement. ![]() And if it takes me the whole weekend or a few riots from the proles to do it, that’s just what it takes, right?Īnno 1800, more baldly than a SimCity or Civilization, channels the joys of optimization, the same engaging feeling you might get conducting a productive time-and-motion study at work, or when you finally understand that Six Sigma Yellow Belt junk you took at work just to make it look like you cared about being promoted. I want to kaizen the shit out of my little colonial outpost, make the queen proud, and rake in a ton of money. I want to make sure my schnapps distilleries, weapons factories, windowpane manufacturers, and residences have just the right amount of coverage from the local fire station that they don’t go up in smoke the next time someone drops a lantern. ![]() I want to find the perfect geometric arrangement for a series of lumberjack huts in my island’s forest, so that they can be served by just one timber-processing plant. I mean that, unlike many games of its type, where I’m content to just blunder through and let things lie as they will, I want to optimize my Anno 1800 settlement. Mind, when I say that, I don’t mean that Anno 1800 is particularly heavy on manual calculation, though you could really get into the weeds with that stuff if you feel like it. ![]()
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