Video Games Encyclopedia

Anno 1800 is a city-building real-time strategy video game, developed by Ubisoft Blue Byte and published by Ubisoft, and launched on April 16, 2019. It is the seventh game in the Anno series, and returns to the use of a historical setting, following the previous futuristic titles Anno 2070 and Anno 2205, taking place during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Following the previous installment, the game returns to the series’ traditional city-building and ocean combat mechanics, but introduces new aspects of gameplay, such as tourism, blueprinting, and the effects of industrialisation influences on island inhabitants.

Anno 1800 takes place in the 19th century at the dawn of the Industrial Age. Like other Anno games, Anno 1800 is a city-building and strategy game. While it is set in the context of colonial trade, the featured architecture is Victorian era and the economic engine is factory labour. The core gameplay of Anno 1800 takes place in the Old World, where the needs of the citizens, workers and artisans are central to the management of production and supply chains. A parallel New World city exists, which produces products that laborers in the Old World want to purchase, thus trade routes need to be established. Unlike its colonial 18th century predecessor Anno 1701, the game has a blueprint feature that helps the player to plan out the city.

The game also features a story campaign, a sandbox mode, and multiplayer mode. Like Anno 2205, the game features multisession gameplay, though unlike its predecessor, combat and city-building sessions are not separated. Anno 1800 integrates into a classic city-building game featuring randomly generated maps and trade routes, artificial intelligence (AI) opponents that build on the same map as the player, and naval warfare.

The attractiveness rating of Anno 1800 grapples with the impact of industrialization on the population. With every factory the city’s attractiveness rating falls and the rating of the area around an emerging industrial zone is also affected.[5] Tourists contribute to the city’s income and will flock to natural land, local festivities, and various decorative ornaments, but dislike pollution, local unrest, and noisy or smelly industry.

The blueprint mode of Anno 1800 is one of the new additions to the series. It helps the player by allowing them to plan out their city with silhouetted blueprint buildings, without immediately spending valuable resources on actually constructing them. If a player has insufficient resources the blueprint building can be placed on the city map for later construction. Once planning is done and the necessary resources are gathered, each blueprint building can be built with a single click.