Tips for beginners?

[Lahoo Eckbert]

I tried to play the campaign but I went bankrupt pretty easily, since the game doesn't tell you much about economy or the progression route. Now I'm playing the sandbox but expanding the way game told me to kinda put me on negative balance again. I know some people don't like being hand held but since I seldom play these kind of games I honestly don't know the ins and outs it so do need some spoon feeding as I'm playing the game. So I'm wondering if there is a decent guide about the basics of the game, how to progress etc.
I'm also wondering if there is a way to turn off fires(or at least reduce the frequency of them).

[watcherzero]

It can be hard but the basic way is to provide luxuries for the population, if you hover over the resources with the house selected you will see some add extra population and some have coins. Also a house tier with all its needs being satisfied will generate more income than a house of the next tier with only a few needs being satisfied so dont feel like you have to upgrade them all straight away until you have the next tiers supply chains up and running, just upgrade enough to provide enough workers. Sell excess resources that you dont need as otherwise the production is going to waste (e.g. set a minimum store amount and a sell quantity in excess of your requirements so you can earn a little extra cash from visiting traders).
You can turn off buildings to save operating costs if your experiencing an economic crash but its fiddly and time consuming.

The main money sinks that cost a lot to maintain are Turrets/ships and buildings from a higher tier than the islands general development level (e.g. advanced factories). Fires are manageable by building fire station coverage and then when a fire breaks out click on the ones in range and select the option to mobilise extra firefighters. Also you dont need to replicate every supply chain on every island, use ships to move the goods around from production centres to islands with a large population and offer another chance to sell the excess to passing traders while small resource islands should be developed simply to produce a resource and not to worry about levelling up/satisfying their population, just build the bare minimum of workers.

As there is 4 years of expansions which add new supply chains, mechanics and Biomes from the start its overwhelming for a new player, e.g. you dont need to worry about museums/zoo/tourists, steel ships or air vehicles for a long, long time but the construction options are sitting there teasing you. The docklands buildings though are useful mid game when you have steel as you can trade in bulk resources you have an excess of for luxuries you dont produce which provides a nice temporary tax boost, though keep an eye on it as it will happily trade away all your resources leaving you with a shortage in something you were previously flush with.

[Ikigai Blitz]

If you can launch the game, you're already a veteran, I still can't get to the start menu.

[Tankfriend]

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

I tried to play the campaign but I went bankrupt pretty easily, since the game doesn't tell you much about economy or the progression route.

Aggressively expanding your population and providing luxury needs is what nets you the most income.
There's also an element that's never explained, and that's the royal tax. Basically, the more people you have, the more tax you pay. However, the first 1000 people of every population level on every island are tax-free, so there's an incentive (at least early on) to increase and improve your population on every island to a certain degree. Wouldn't recommend going beyond population level 3 for this, though, since from then on, it's more profitable to concentrate on a regional capital island that will get all the goodies for maximum population. Population level 4 onwards you also unlock the commuter pier, which lets you share workers between islands with a pier.

If you have access to Cape Trelawney, then Crown Falls will become your capital island by default (since it's so large anything else would be a waste), and the old world will take a backseat.

[georgeAM]

just sell what you producess on excess.
you have too much potato soup?
SELL
you have too much steel bars?
SELL
pig soap?
HECK sell everything to the prison guy

[Kozzy]

Campaign is more like a tutorial in these games, Sandbox mode is where its at

[vkobe]

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

I tried to play the campaign but I went bankrupt pretty easily, since the game doesn't tell you much about economy or the progression route. Now I'm playing the sandbox but expanding the way game told me to kinda put me on negative balance again. I know some people don't like being hand held but since I seldom play these kind of games I honestly don't know the ins and outs it so do need some spoon feeding as I'm playing the game. So I'm wondering if there is a decent guide about the basics of the game, how to progress etc.
I'm also wondering if there is a way to turn off fires(or at least reduce the frequency of them).

alway be sure your worker need is satisfated, invest only in ship you use and need, you can delay some stuffs for example engineer and investissor, you only need to unlock until steel to be able to colonize island in old world and new world

[Eekhoorn]

New to 1800 but veteran Anno player.

Build a soap industry and produce boatloads of it. Then sell it to the prison using a trade route. On normal difficulty they buy it for a ridiculous price (300+ per ton). Feels a bit like an exploit...

This doesn't help you learning how to play the game. But you can figure that out while money is poring in from the soap business.

[Darth Alpharius]

You need to Trade alot if you always have a ton of excess Supplies sell them, Don't rush through the Citizen levels while it will give you more money their demands will increase, Every Building and has a maintenance cost so keep a eye on that and having Factories and Resources built close to a Union as there a bonuses you can get that increase production limiting how many you need or Lower Maintenance costs allowing you to build more.

Larger you City's become the more Royal Tax you have to Pay which can send you into negative fast so build across multiple islands with cargo ships picking up resources from each island sending it to the main (Though thats more for endgame).

[Theutus]

This guy's videos are helping me... I am in the same boat OP.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL62qv03TjhLsdVEzH_INbioOPm8BN54JJ

[Hundinger]

Originally posted by Theutus:

This guy's videos are helping me... I am in the same boat OP.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL62qv03TjhLsdVEzH_INbioOPm8BN54JJ

Yes, they are great.