Noob to Anno 1800

[Daeromont]

Hi folks! I'm new to this game, although I've played all of the previous Anno games and liked them a lot. I'm currently playing the campaign and realized there are a lot of things I am clueless about and have not found the in-game help very well, helpful. Can anyone steer me quickly in the right direction? I like to feel things out without too much guidance, and I don't mean to be lazy, but I see a lot of DLC that may have changed the basic rules. And I don't have the DLC yet. Thanks in advance! Daer

[Hundinger]

Best guide out there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqXRULW2NSY&list=PL62qv03TjhLsdVEzH_INbioOPm8BN54JJ

Quick tips: fulfill your people's needs but don't overproduce them (not by much anyway). Other than in older Anno games when you had to consult fan made websites, this game has a very useful in game statistics center (ctrl q or the button in warehouses). The production tab shows you if you produce enough.

As for different needs: when you click on a house, you see different categories: the first tab shows basic needs, fulfilling them gives you population and some money. The second tab shows happiness needs, fulfilling them gives happiness and in most cases more money. On the bottom there are lifestyle needs, they give money and population. Don't worry about fulfilling lifestyle early on. They are very good to get more workforce, but building extra production chains for them isn't really worth it early game. If you happen to overproduce a needed product, you can allow them consumption. Later in the game that will be very powerful, because it gives a lot of workforce (and money, but that will be kind of irrelevant from a certain point on).

When all basic needs are fulfilled, you can upgrade to the next population tier. You need 10 farmers for that, 20 workers and so on. Before the lifestyle needs were introduced in season 4, it was easier to tell if you have enough population: if the house was full, you could upgrade. But now you can have more people in a house than needed for upgrades.

One very important difference to the older Annos is the workforce system. Every production building needs workforce. How many you need is shown in the building menu. Because of that system it is important to not blindly upgrade every house you can, because you will always need lower class workforce.

Other than in older Annos (except 2205) you can now see the production chain ratios. If you click on a production building, you see how fast it produces one unit. Example: woodcutters take 15 seconds for one ton of wood, carpenters take 15 seconds for one ton of timber, which means: one wood cutter, one carpenter.

Bread on the other hand works like this: a grain field takes one minute, a mill takes 30 seconds, a bakery takes one minute. That means: two fields, one mill, two bakeries.

That should cover the basics. Watch the guide, it is structured like a playthrough, starting with explaining the hud, which is more important than you think, you might not know what certain elements mean. The second episode covers farmers, the third workers etc.

And take it easy. When you unlock the new world or more sessions, don't hop between them like a rabbit. Make sure, everything is stable in one session, before working on another. That avoids the stress trap some people step into.

edit: I forgot soap, that's your lord and saviour early game. Overproduce soap and sell it to the prison guy, it will make you a lot of money.

[Edmund Greyfox]

That early in the game whether you have the DLC or not doesn't make any difference. The DLC does create some major changes in terms of adding new areas and production chains, but none of that stuff kicks in until you're to the artisan/engineer citizen tiers, and most of it makes the game easier rather than harder.

if you started the game with the default setting you might want to go back and start over, and change your AI opponents to either not exist, or to be the ones that are not aggressive and that won't expand faster than you (Willy Wibblesock, Princess Qing and Bente Jorgenson). That will allow you to take your time and not need to worry about the AI getting ahead of you (all 3 have to ask your permission to settle a new island and won't expand into other regions until after you get there).

Other than that it's just a matter of supplying your people's needs and learning the ins and out of production chains. https://anno1800.fandom.com/wiki/Production_chains is your go to spot for that info. Just don't think you need to follow it perfectly, because perfectly balance production chains for some items end up producing far more than you need until you're in the late game.

Finally, down in the bottom right corner of the menu in your trading posts is a button that will take you to the statistics page, and you want to look at the production tab on that page on a regular basis. The blue line for each item is your demand, while the green line is how much your production chains are actually producing. This will make it much easier to ensure you are always producing enough goods without seriously overbuilding and wasting money.