Off the Shelf Media

The Anno series is known for its focus on establishing civilizations that span islands and regions, expanding your empire. Previous games have explored periods from the 1400s to the distant future. 

Anno 1800 revisits the Industrial Revolution, integrating the best concepts from its predecessors to deliver a multifaceted and enjoyable game. It is a fast-paced blend of real-time strategy, city-building, and factory management games, combining standout features from other titles and previous Anno series iterations, culminating in a highly replayable and enjoyable experience

Gameplay: 2 

For fans of city builders like SimCity or Cities: Skylines, I’d recommend turning off pirates or other AI competitors and treating this as a relaxing game where your focus is on creating the most beautiful and efficient city and expanding it across the world. There is also a “creative” mode where resources do not matter, allowing you to build the most beautiful capital city you can dream up. 

If you enjoy the strategic depth of games like Age of Empires or Starcraft, optimize your opening build order to establish your warship fleet and sail the high seas looking to decimate anyone in your way, and conquer islands. It is a much slower version of these games, but a lot of the core concepts are there, and the combat is fun and varied, especially late game with a wide selection of boats to choose from. 

For those who love Min/Maxing and efficiency-based games like Factorio or Satisfactory, this game is for you. There are countless guides and efficiency calculators online to help you optimize game inputs and strategize cross-island production chains. Once you gain access to the new world, you’ll need to optimize resources from another region across the high seas to your production islands.

The gameplay loop is satisfying as someone who is a fan of this genre, and the customization and replayability keep me starting up new games all the time. 

Story: 1 

There is a “story” and “campaign” mode that is okay, but it’s perfectly possible to avoid this altogether in the sandbox mode, where I have spent most of my time playing this game. 

My biggest gripe with this game is the competitiveness. While this is entirely optional, whenever going against medium difficulty AI or higher, it can feel a bit overwhelming. For example, when against a three-star opponent, you can’t afford to stop and beautify your cities, especially early game. If you are not speeding towards weapon factories, they will have a fleet of warships at your door and remove the islands from your control. It will speed you through production chains and progress you through the “story” of your world. It feels a bit rushed and you can’t stop to smell the roses. 

On the difficulty, something I do appreciate is the customization and flexibility. You can face off against up to three AI opponents in single-player, as well as customize two different pirate factions (old and new world) and four neutral traders. As for the world, you can determine the size of islands, the plentifulness of resources, and the commonness of unique crop fertilities you will need to advance in the game. You can also customize your starting money, the cost of moving existing buildings, and many other factors that will impact the difficulty scale. There are “Easy, Medium, Hard” settings that are built in, but with the customization, you can create the scenario that fits best for you, and the scale will show you how the selections you have made will impact the difficulty. 

Atmosphere: 2

The graphics and art direction are top-notch. Each island is unique and handcrafted, offering intricate challenges to your production chain. Rivers sprawling over the land, the location of critical late-game resources like oil fields, and the types of crops that can grow on each island will shape how each city is designed and how far you need to expand to satisfy your citizens’ needs. This creates an addictive replay loop that will keep you coming back for “one more game” over and over again.

While you can zoom out to see the beauty of several islands at once, there’s also a hidden feature where you can walk around your cities at street level. The sounds and sights immerse you in the world you’ve built. From the sound of factories churning out steel beams to the farm animals walking around near the crop fields. 

The beauty of the art design on the islands and high seas is picturesque. Each island feels individual and provides its own challenges before it’s colonized. After you have created a roaring metropolis, it is full of life and individuality. The sounds and sights will immerse you so much, you might forget what you were going to do next. 

Value: 2

The BIG caveat here is on the DLC. In my opinion, the main game is worth the price tag if you are a fan of these types of games. There are endless hours of content and replayability. Several of the DLCs are great and add new maps and interesting mechanics, especially late game. However, some of them are pricy, and others are just cosmetic packs and not worth it. I will write another review on my top DLCs and recommend waiting for one of their frequent sales to pick them up. Don’t fall for the predatory pricing for cosmetic packs! 

While the DLC is lacking, the modding community on PC is incredible. They are fully integrated into the game from the main menu, so there is no need for complicated mod launchers or fiddling with file locations. There are hundreds of mods ranging from quality-of-life improvements to cosmetics, cheats, maps, and even brand-new resources and goods your citizens will need. They are optimized well, and even if you have 40+ mods on (like I do), the only downside will be a slightly longer load time on launch. You can fiddle with the difficulty here. While some mods are absolute cheats, some just make pieces slightly easier like doubling the production of your buildings. There are also complete overhauls of the AI difficulty and combat that can make the game even more challenging for experienced players. Mods add a large amount of content into the game, and I appreciate Ubisoft making them accessible and integrated on their end. 

Duration: 2

If we are going off of the “I should get 1 hour of good gameplay for every $ spent” mantra, this is 100% worth it. At the time of writing, I have over 170 hours in Steam on this game and have probably played well over a dozen unique games and scenarios. I have put well over 20 hours into individual saves. 

Total Score: 9/10

In conclusion, I would say that Anno 1800 is a well-crafted game that will entertain for hours on end. While it may be a bit daunting for those new to the genre, the difficulty customization and flexibility of gameplay really allows anyone to dive headfirst into this world and enjoy themselves. I would highly recommend giving this game a shot, especially with the frequency at which it goes on sale on Steam and in the Ubisoft shop.