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 Welcome to the 1800’s! A revolutionary time full of philosophical, technological and societal advances. Where the ideas of mechanization from wind and watermills were expanded via phlognostication engines turning water into steam! Where men rode in on horses and carriages then rode out on penny farthings and automobiles! Rails, airships and great steam powered vessels carried settlers, merchants, explorers and tourists further and further across the world. A century where the world became smaller as travel and communication grew faster and more reliable. Where skies over cities developed a wonderful, healthy smog of coal smoke powering ever more inventive gizmos and gadgets. A century that would build the roots of what would become the Anthropocene Era in the mid 1900’s, followed by the climate change crisis that would lead to the ecological crisis in the 21st centuries and beyond In short, a wonderful century to be alive for the most part! At least from a euro-centric point of view! What is Anno? Anno is a series of logistics based city builders dating back to the 1998 release of Anno 1602 (Or 1602 AD). Not only does one build a city, one has to build the logistics network of supply chains and transports to feed said city, or cities plural. Anno 1800 is the 7th game of the series, returning to its historical-ish roots after a pair of futuristic jaunts into 2070 and 2205. The game studio Blue Byte took everything they’d learned from the future and went forward into the past once more with aplomb: delivering what is, if not the best Anno experience to date, then certainly the most complex, in-depth and ambitious Anno title. If it wasn’t that at release, it is now after a whopping 10 (yes, ten) content DLCs not even counting the cosmetic ones. What will this LP be? This LP will be a screenshot tour through every single one of the DLCs. All quests, all story content, until at least 15,000 investors (maybe further). Why all story content? Two reasons. First of all: unlike the earlier games, such as 2070 (which Cythereal is currently LPing at the time of writing this intro) the campaign is not a disjointed series of mission maps but in reality builds up and opens out into a proper sandbox map. Secondly: I couldn’t really turn off all of the story if I wanted to. All of the DLC maps open up into their own quest lines unless I play a single player game in multiplayer mode. Even if I did that the season 3 DLCs will launch into their own quest lines when I unlock and start them. So why fight them and why not cover the game in its entirety? Convenient Links:
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Alkydere fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jan 16, 2022 |
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Aug 28, 2021 23:59
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Name Reservation List
Alkydere fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Oct 9, 2021 |
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Aug 29, 2021 00:00
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Let us Begin Welcome to Anno 1800: A celebration of the innovation, creativity and progress of the 19th century! Well then again, maybe I’m overblowing it a bit. What Anno 1800 is most certainly: an excellent logistics based city builder.  As stated in the OP, I’ll be going for all storylines and quests, as well as the goal of reaching a minimum of 15K investors, which are the top tier population of your European maps.       For those who care, here are the world settings.  And finally our character! I’ll be playing as Bente Jorgenson playing the role of Bente Goode-Jorgenson! Eldest daughter of the Good family! You can also see here all the active DLCs. There are only two missing icons: -The Anarchist: Added a new AI player but with unique mechanics woo! Dr. Hugo Mercier is one of the two AI players I activated up above, so he’s in the game -The High Life. The 10th and final DLC* has not been released yet. It’s entirely end-game stuff so we’ll be exploring it later once it’s released. *As far as we know: Land of Lions was supposed to be the last DLC then a week after their "Well that was fun, thanks for the love! Onwards to our next project!" post on their blog Blue Byte announced “On second thought we’ve been convinced to make a Season 3!” at which point the entire community released a confused sound midway between delight and suffering. They could do it again with a Season 4! Who knows!   A thousand letters from your father go unopened, yet one scribble from your sister changes everything? I didn’t even know you had a sister! We are broke old pal! We can’t afford a passage back to your old world, back to your family! Not unless you’ve suddenly remembered what work is. Well excuse me for not dragging out my family drama. I didn’t think you’d care. Besides, who said anything about work? We’re not coming back here, so might as well go fishing! After all it would be a shame to let that old dynamite go to waste! We start the game in the New world. Well, in this little tutorial zone in the New World. If you look back you can see the big, wide river the intro cinematic was in.  First thing’s first is to head over to the lighthouse where we stashed the dynamite! Light-houses are generally where the game sends players to interact with character-owned islands.  Pick up the dynamite and…   Boom! There’s a bit of travel time and those fish really move so it can take a couple tries. But once it’s done we get some stunned fish to pull out of the water...and an angry ticket agent!  Yum! Toss it in a pot of soup, no one will ever notice if it’s a bit...pulverized...  Deliver the fish....  And get our tickets! Old World, here we go!  We’re off! To the actual game and out of this tutorial bay! Aarharnt, we have a fishing boat we’re leaving behind. Why didn’t we sell that? Um, erm, because dynamite?  While the steamer makes its way across the Atlantic (or...whatever they call it in Anno 1800) we’re treated to some excerpts from our Sister’s letter that set everything in motion. If the Steamer looks perhaps a bit small for a trans-Atlantic journey, there’s a reason: Anno 1800 loves recycling models and that’s the tugboat used for commuter docks later in the game. You’re going to see a lot of re-used character models as well.   As soon as we’re off the boat we meet our sister, Hannah, and get to see the family seat of Bright Sands: a massive, bustling metropolis. It’s only a brief respite for we learn our father passed before we could arrive.  Complete with a smog-filled industrial harbor!   So I left a few things out. Like, oh, everything. I am noticing that, yes. Trust me, there’s a few things that made it not worth everything. Mainly: the family that came along with it.  Speaking of family...  No matter so few are here, when they are the few he loved most. Nobody likes a traitor, let alone his tainted offspring. Better make yourselves scarce. I think I’m starting to understand why you were happier away from this place. And why she’ll be off again soon I imagine. Nonsense. With father gone, and you doing your best to clear the Goode name, uncle dearest will be doing his best to get your share of his fortune. He’ll probably start plotting for you to have an ‘accident’ within the month if he hasn’t already. I’ve run away for too long, and a big sister should protect the youngest. Well we are sisters! Raised together! Of course we’re much alike! The scandal didn’t happen until after father tried to marry Bente off. It’s a subject I’d like to avoid, thank you? Suffice to say there’s a reason I go by my mother’s name, and not my father’s. It’s… Speaking of depressing subjects. Why are you still here? Establishing a rival company? On that disheveled island?! It was the best I could do. Most of the money left to me went to paying off lawyers. First trying to free Father from Wormways, and much of the rest went to fighting uncle Edvard for every penny Father left me in the will. It’s perfect! We’re close enough to Brightwater to get under Uncle Edvard’s skin while we repay the debt and then start doing our level best to run Brightwater out of business! Even better, we’re close enough to High Clarence Hall to better curry royal favor! And with that we finally get to play the game proper! There’s still a bit of handholding and story, but it’s a tolerable amount. From this point on the game opens up more and more into a sandbox.  Hannah charges us, the player, to start building. We need houses for our initial farmers. This isn’t hard as we start off with 50 lumber, with each house costing 2 per.  We do need to save some lumber for the marketplace which is a Farmer’s first Need. Without it our houses will quickly wither and die to ruins that need to be torn down and replaced. Not ideal. With it, each house in range will support up to 5 Farmers. One of the most wonderful features 1800 adds to the Anno series is planning mode, as can be seen here with the ghost structures. They cost nothing to place and when I’m happy with their location or when I finally have the resources to build them I can simply use the Upgrade tool to turn them from ghosts to real structures.   Next I build a lumberjack’s hut and sawmill. We need wood and we need it ASAP. Unfortunately I don’t have the resources to build another warehouse to move it further away from the start. The lumberjack’s hut will harvest the wood I need to turn into lumber (and other products later), while also tending to and replacing the trees cut down. However since where I placed it was barren of trees to start there’s a lag time before the lumberjack has enough trees to start chopping. I could have placed the lumberjack and sawmill first, but I wanted to make sure I had the labor force to actually staff the production chain. Yes, you actually need to keep track of your workers in 1800! This was a feature that originally started in 2205, but 1800 expanded it by making it so that you have to keep track of what kind of workers you have in your labor force. So gone is the artificial limit of only being able to upgrade a certain, arbitrary percentage of houses to the next tier and now you’re totally able to upgrade every house on an island to the next tier. You just won’t have any farmers to manage your farms!  Everything is coming along just fine, but Edvard isn’t content to just let the Goode Daughters sit back and work. He’s already starting to scheme!   Samuel’s child is it? Thank heaven! I am ashamed of every single word your uncle had me print! He twists every article in his favor, at our and Father’s expense! I’ll care when I have the time to do so Hannah. Right now I’m more worried about making our new home liveable to care about what foolishness Edvard is spreading.  Perfect! These old ruins should provide plenty of second-hand material to accelerate our construction! Exactly as I surmised. Much of these ruins aren’t good for much more than firewood but there’s more than enough good lumber to get more houses up right away! Now that shelter, community and fresh supplies for repairs and expansion are secured it’s time to secure some food! The fish will grow our population further: another 3 farmers/house once it starts bringing in food. Makes hitting the next breakpoint of 100 farmers oh so much easier.  Which doesn’t take long. 100 farmers unlocks the basic need of work clothes and luxury need of Schnapps. Another of 1800’s refinements. Basic needs will provide workforce and a moderate amount of cash. Luxury needs provide happiness and often (but not always) come with a hefty increase in cashflow.  While schnapps aren’t my favorite drink...they should be cheap enough to produce and I’m sure our town’s citizens are just as thirsty!I set up the Schnapps first because our farmers’ moods are in the absolute dump. You can see it from the face the farmer is making down in the bottom. The red drama mask at the top confirms this: Ditchwater’s overall satisfaction is in the, well, ditch! This is because many luxury goods actually inflict a negative malus if you completely run out. Another thing to notice is that I’m not playing Farm Tetris! In 1800 all farm modules are 1x1 tiles, letting you set them however you want! The more advanced farms will generally have larger field requirements but this makes it super easy to create farms that fill all sorts of odd shaped terrain.  The work clothes line goes up next. Animal farms still have module tetris, but sheep pens are easy since they’re all 3x3. You can also see what’s killing my farmer’s happiness: the first schnapps haven’t been made so instead of getting +8 happiness I’m getting -8 for running out, so I’m running a total of -16 happiness due to lacking any schnapps. I’ve also used some of the lumber to build a Pub which is our first Luxury Need building, providing +12 happiness and another +1 coin per affected farmer house.  Oh of course you’ll get your blood-booze dear Uncle! At least once my workers are satisfied. I...what!? How dare you child! You...you...you better have some wool clothes as well if that’s all you have you can produce! As much as I loathe the smell of lanolin... 4 tons of work clothes, with extra lanolin? Coming up dear uncle! Anything for a cretin like you! Expansion continues as Hannah informs us that all is not well in Bright Sands! Some of you might have noticed how I’m setting my roads. Those who have played this game before will know precisely what I’m doing and planning. Please don’t ruin the surprise for those that haven’t gotten there yet! Brush tailed butterflies! A riot under Uncle Edvard’s nose! Are they throwing bricks! Starting fires! I can’t wait to see this!  And here’s the riot being led by the cousin in question! Remember what I said earlier about model re-use? We haven’t seen the workers yet, our tier 2 population for the Old World, but dear “Cousin” here is basically a worker in different clothing. You can’t even use this model as an avatar when setting up your account so there’s no real point in me even making an avatar for him. Oh goodness you organized a work stoppage at Uncle Edvard’s World’s Fair site? He’s already three months behind and the delays are costing him dearly already! Oh he must be livid! I love it! He’s not the only one, listen! There are other workers striking all over the city!  There’s five more strikes running around Bright Sands near the World's Fair. Grab the leader at the front of each strike to collect them. That’s all the dissatisfied workers we could grab, but where shall we put them? How do we get them off of Bright Sands?  The newspaper editor!? I was not lying when I said I was ashamed of every word. Please, take me with you! All I ask if that you allow me to set up a new publishing house on Ditchwater, far away from your uncle’s reach! A ship, a bunch of angry factory workers chomping at the bit to compete with their old rear end in a top hat boss, and our own newspaper? Can’t say no to that, can we?  Of course no sooner do we cast off then Edvard finds out and starts crying foul.   And he called in the big guns! Meet Sir Archibald “Archie” Blake! Confidante of the Queen, caretaker of High Clarence Hall, and owner of one of the most delicate digestive systems in the entire realm! Rumor has it that when he was a younger man Archibald was quite the man of action.  Aaaaand...deflected! Pencil polishing poppinjay! I should have been rid of you long ago! Well you’re rid of me now, and I’m rid of you.  And as for you, I have quite forgotten my manners. Sir Archibald Blake, ambassador and confidant to the Queen. Despite the circumstances, Her Majesty and I were pleased to hear of your return. Your father’s death was a tragedy; we regret he never had the chance of a fair trial. The real tragedy here is the vast funeral bill that goes unpaid, while this brat is living the life of O’Reilly! Excuse you!? Edvard registered the debt officially!? So that’s his plan. He’s going to do everything he can to prevent us from gaining a shipping license! Indeed! Once my letterpress is up and running, the truth will come back to haunt Edvard! For your hospitality, please, use my ship howsoever you may wish! Now that sounds like good news. And lookie there, our first bote! And with it the minimap in the bottom left is unlocked as well! We can now go exploring the map and planning further expansion. If I weren’t playing with a revealed map this would be when we would start sending our ship out to find various islands. I’ve played enough 1404 and 2070 to be utterly tired of doing that. Especially after 2070 where you’d have to go exploring a second time to find the undewater island ridges. It would quickly become intensely tedious in 1800 considering that with all the DLCs the player has not one but five maps to explore.   We also have our very first random quest! One of our farmers has a son who’d love to grow up to be a firefighter! Why not encourage him?  I apparently failed to get a screenshot of it, but Photography Quests are new to 1800. Every now and then someone calls the boss and their camera to take a picture of something. Just center the camera on the item in question and click: super easy. For our trouble the farmer gave us a Bosun, which is an item we can slot into our flagship. It doesn’t do much right now, but those Expedition Bonuses aren’t half bad. They’re not half good either, but it’s early days! Well that was fun, back to work! With that, we upgrade a swath of houses to workers. This moves us up to the next tier of the game’s progression and allows us to clear out some of the more stubborn abandoned areas now that we have factory workers with heavier equipment.  I think this is a good stopping point. Here’s a good overview of Ditchwater so far. Edvard has come and gone to pick up not only the schnapps he wanted but a delivery of work clothes under the guise of “paying off our debt”. Next time we’ll continue to expand our settlement, truly start to rise from the ashes like a phoenix while also uncovering more of Edvard’s dastardly plans. Oh and we’ll run in to every single impediment Edvard and the universe itself can put between us and our ability to build ships!
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Aug 29, 2021 00:04
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I didn't realize there was that much DLC.  Best of luck with one hell of an ambitious undertaking!
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Aug 29, 2021 00:36
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DLCs like a Paradox production.
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Aug 29, 2021 14:14
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And all of it is worth it. Anno 1800's DLC has been fantastic pretty much every time. Anno is one of my favorite series and is just infinitely chill, if you organize it that way. Each game also has a surprisingly good cast of characters, though I sorely miss the ridiculous amount of customization Anno 2070 had.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:42
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And therein lies the rub: every single DLC besides maybe the The Anarchist which was admittedly a "Oh yeah we just tossed this together while the game was in it's last couple of pre-release cleanup" pack were solid. Every single one adds solid content and new, interesting mechanics. 3 of them add new maps (yes the game has multiple zones like Anno 2205) so you're doing your best to balance your time between 2 Old World/Europe maps, 1 New World/Amazon map, 1 Arctic and 1 East Africa map, each offering new goods and mechanics. That's not including stuff like the story content barren yet mechanics redefining Bright Harvest or Palace DLCs. You can turn any of them off but the content is good enough that you don't want to. There's a reason why the community's response was "Please sir, may I have less?" when Blue Byte did an abrupt 180 about a week after Land of Lion's release (which was supposed to be the ultimate DLC) and announced "Good news! ...Also I cannot believe I forgot to put the name of the game in the thread title. 
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Aug 30, 2021 02:29
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Incidentally, since we won't be meeting her: Bente Jorgensen is the latest in an Anno tradition -- an NPC leader who is the easiest to get along with and least threatening, with the name "Jorgensen". Since Anno 2070 they've also all had a certain ecological bent; 2070 was Tilda the eco-commune leader, and here Bente Jorgensen uses her massive Jorgensen Trust to pursue the extremely Victorian ends of ecology, botany, biology, and the natural sciences in general. Bente loves the natural world (especially involving mechanics we have not remotely seen yet) and is, inversely, saddened by pollution and excessive destruction of an island's habitats. She also likes it when you take good care of your citizens, get along well with other people, and just generally be a good neighbor and a good person. Bente's great. She also manages to not be naive in the process of all that, though she's a LITTLE cloud-headed, and will happily dump money into your pockets and cool items into your hands if she's your friend (and it's really hard to not become her friend).
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Aug 30, 2021 06:09
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Well we won't be meeting the canonical version of her. My version is a little more hard-headed and pragmatic under that cheerful exterior. Leading expeditions, saving Aarhant's life, going where various peoples probably didn't want her to go while studying nature in the New World between the split with her Father's side of the family and the start of the game. Doing all of that while she was basically broke means she's seen and done a lot of things that she likely doesn't want "civilized" society to know about. Now that she's back in the Old World and is building an industrial empire to bank the Jorgenson Trust/Jorgensonian Society she's not likely to have to get her own hands dirty again. And yes, canonically Bente has been known to go on many an adventure. According to the Anno Union blog It's actually canonical that through her adventures Bente herself is one of the biggest role models of the Tourist spokeswoman in the Tourist Season DLC. Bente is probably my favorite Jorgenson, though Ville in 2205 is a close second for having the strongest spine of any Jorgenson and actively working behind his own boss's back to fix things. I wasn't exactly impressed with either 1404's Jorgenson (Let me play a song for you!) or 2070's Jorgenson ("My ancestor survived the crusades you know!"x1,000). Anyways, next update should be up within an hour or two.
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Aug 30, 2021 07:13
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Brick Reinforcement So we have a ship and a map of the local area...and a debt to pay off. How much is that debt? Um the paperwork just says quote: “Hahahaha.” end quote. Dearest Uncle was always such a charmer. All the personality of a slime mold, but more annoying. First thing we should do is look down at the minimap in the bottom corner. Down here you can see the name of the nearest island. Below that you can see the fertilities. We can harvest potatoes, wheat and furs here on Ditchwater. The first two are guaranteed on any island Anno 1800 means for a “starter” island: potatoes are needed for Schnapps and wheat is needed for bread and both unlock before you get boats naturally. While the furs are...okay-ish. I’d honestly prefer Niter, but it’s a good long while until I get to the point where it matters. Below the fertilities Ditchwater comes with:
Which is juicy, and makes sense for a hand-crafted tutorial island. On the map itself there’s the wind indicator (3 arrows) that shows which way the wind is currently blowing. Sailing ships are actually affected by the wind, which slowly rotates around 360 degrees. If you click on the N for North, it will reset the camera into a default angle/zoom level pointing straight north. The little pin or fluid funnel looking icon on the right lets you set map options. The more interesting options at the bottom are the World Map option (yes, we zoom out to an even bigger map!), diplomacy menu and shipping menu. I’ll show off the first two in later updates, for now let’s look at the shipping/route menu:  We’re up here in the north of the map. There’s a few nearby islands but they’re mostly too small to really settle and develop on.To the left we see Charter and Trade routes. Charter are a new kind of routes that you don’t need your own ship. They work a lot like 2205’s routes where they’re more or less automatic. I’ll go into them in the next udpate.  The brown blob to our Southwest is Bright Sands. You can see it across the way To our southeast is High Clarence Hall. Of the many estates owned by the Crown it’s one of the Queen’s favorites. If she’s there it’s best to avoid her. She goes there to avoid courtiers. Don’t talk to her until she talks to you. Don’t worry about it too much, just trust Archibald to take care of those details.Archibald sells lumber, bricks and steel which means he’s great for getting started and jumpstarting your growth. We’ll likely be making several trips to his harbor in the early game. He also sells equipment for your ships. You can sell coal at an inflated price to Archie but...whyyyy!? You have so much better things to do with coal than sell it, and so much more valuable things to sell!  Wormways Prison is to its east. It’s the horrible prison they kept Father in before he died.Storywise Eli Bleakworth is an rear end, as to be expected from a prison warden. Mechanically: HE’S MY BEST BUDDY!  As far as I know every single specialist (i.e. person) item can be potentially for sale at Wormway’s prison. He also buys potatoes and soap at an inflated price. Potatoes are meh, Soap’s where the money is at. And further to the south is Madame Kahina’s Emporium Exotique! She sells the most wonderful things!Madame Kahina is more late game. She’s great for getting items for your museums, zoos and botanical gardens. Earlier in the game she’s also a reasonable source for Old World seeds. Fur Coats are her unique item that she buys at an increased price.  Recently a group of Anarchists have set up shop to the far south extents of the region. Doctor Hugo Mercier leads them there from their “free” city of...Free. ”Free?” Just Free. They’re big on throwing off the yoke of the oppressors and such, not so big on creativity.Dr. Mercier was the first DLC released and is basically just another medium AI opponent with a few quirks. He’s honestly just a handful of steps above “Horse Armor” level, but considering 1800 launched promising 2 DLC seasons no one really minded.  I challenge you to oversee your own transformation. Don’t wait for your people to make it for you. And off to the east...is that who I think it is? Indeed. Carl Leonard von Malching himself. In the greasy flesh.I added von Malching as sort of a counterbalance for Dr. Mercier. He’s a greedy, money-obsessed industrialist who’s so tight fisted and obsessed with coin that there’s an actual achievement for making him trust you so much that he offers the player a monetary gift.  My business is other people’s money. Specifically your money. Anyways if you highlight an island that’s unowned you can also see its resources. And their names like Schoongraven, Dragsborg or Haftbrink here. Since these names mean absolutely nothing to me I am open to suggestions for names. In fact: At any point feel free to suggest names for islands and ships. I’ll gladly add them to a list/pool in the OP to be used later.  So here’s how we left Ditchwater at the end of last update. It’s a good start but there is a lot to do.  One of the very first things I do is check my production and consumption by pressing CTRL+Q. That’s right, Anno 1800 comes with a super nifty set of statistics menus including a production/consumption page that is 100% accurate. It does round values to the nearest whole numbers, but the bars are accurate. Again, since the game does not tell you, you can bring up these statistics screens that let you check all of your islands stats at the touch of a button by pressing CTRL+Q,W,E,R or T  Now that we have workers we can clear the rest of the ruins away for lumber and bricks.  Workers unlock not one but two new construction materials. The first of which is bricks. We’ll work on the second material in the next update. Bricks are made from these clay patches here. I don’t have the workforce or the income to support brick factories yet, but since I know I’m going to be building in this area I start by slapping down a warehouse next to the clay pit. A pig farm and a slaughterhouse soon follow. In the bottom right corner you’ll notice that in addition to the maintenance cost (40 coins/minute) and labor cost (30 farmers) the pig farm has a value of -3 harps.  Here’s the slaughterhouse zoomed in. More expensive than the pig farm, it requires level two workforce (as shown with a hammer instead of a pitchfork) and costs 5 harps. What are the harps?   The harps are the icon for Attractiveness Points. Right now our islands’ beauty doesn’t do very much besides add a slight happiness modifier. Later on this value, and the bonuses it gives, can become utterly huge. Currently we have a decent score just because untouched land provides a small, passive bonus. Meanwhile anything pig-related will add to the “vulgarity” option, as well as any ruins we haven’t finished tearing down.  And now to show off one of the best features from Anno 2205, which Anno 1800 kept in full, the RELOCATE BUILDING FEATURE! While 2205 had some issues with the direction they took it, Blue Byte’s experimentation meant they came up with some really good ideas to use in future games and this is one of them. As you can see my mouse is hovering over the “Relocate” option on the toolbar at the bottom.   Clicking this icon (or pressing the hotkey ‘M’) lets me pick up this little lumberjack’s hut down by the coast and put it up here by this other clay pit. This area is heavily wooded so the lumberjack’s hut can go to work right away, and is out of the way. Just some mines and a clay pit.  I built another couple of lumberjacks and sawmills so I can really get the lumber production going. Lumber is needed in everything. Most importantly: it’s needed in ships.   Now let’s have a look at the Worker’s needs. As you can see the workers require everything the Farmers do. By the time they’re done workers are also going to need bread, soap, beer and access to both a church and a school. It’s not as obvious but they also consume all of the Farmer consumables at double the rate. Considering that the farmers only give 8 coins/house the workers are worth a good deal more value as well. Every house upgrade will increase the maximum population a house can hold by 10.  The latest milestone of 150 workers means I can finally start ship-building! Or I could if I wasn’t in the campaign. Yeah that shipping license that’s being withheld? It’s actually a ship building license! And Edvard is going to take full advantage of it. Your worthless rags have barely covered anything. Now bring me sails...it’s not like you have any use for them! Why yes Uncle Edvard, anything you say! Four tons of sails? Not a problem! W...what? You’re supposed to be upset! Why are you smiling like that? Why Uncle Edvard, whatever do you mean? Do you mean to say you don’t plan to release the debt and I should invest in a nice, sturdy hatchet to plant between your eyes? Y-You wouldn’t! It’s easy enough to plonk down a factory for some sails. They still use wool at the same speed a pasture produces it. The only difference between a sailmakers and the framework knitters is the building is larger, more expensive and takes workers. Oh and it produces sails for boats.  Anyways, growth has gotten to the point that the framework knitters making work clothes can’t quite keep up. So I take a moment to show off a mechanic.  If you mouse over the the workforce icons at the top of the screen you’ll get a quick balance indicator of what’s available on the current island.   If you click on the indicator suddenly you’re greeted with a list of every resource that population class is used to produce on the island. You can then set an island-wide production modifier from -50% to +50%. Increasing production obviously pisses off your workers. The harder you have them work, and the more workers are engaged in that industry, the more anger it produces.  Squeezing out an extra 20% from the knitter, and 10% from the two pastures lets me satisfy my population’s work clothing production for just a bit longer without building (and paying for) more pastures and knitters.  I was in the middle of building my initial brick production setup when sailmaker finishes making the sails Edvard wanted. The bricks are the first production chain that aren’t 1:1 as each clay pit can support 2 brick factories. Nothing you do will lift the cloud. W-wait, what are you doing over there? Oh nothing, just sharpening my machete. After the last several years studying wildlife in the Amazon I’ve learned that a nice, sharp, heavy blade is a woman’s best friend. Erm...riiiight. Haven’t seen a prison transport of mine have you? If you do, be sure to return any salvage to me. That’s one of the worst deflections I’ve ever heard. No, I mean, there was an actual shipwreck against the shores of your island. Please rescue the survivors before they drown. Oh! Sure enough there’s a shipwreck between Ditchwater and High Clarence Hall. So we send the   Oh hello there, investors already! No sadly, that’s just them using the top tier Old World population as a stand-in. Shame, I could have used that utterly ridiculous money vomit. In the meantime Aarhant focuses on the important stuff: rummaging through the supplies we also secured for anything valuable. A letter. It bears Edvard’s seal! Don’t even think about sheltering Samuel’s co-conspirators! Deliver them to prison at once and I might lift your debt. Open the letter, he’s clearly up to no good! However much we despise uncle Edvard, it’s criminal to go opening his private correspondence! Already opened it while you were talking. What! How could y- Oh look, Elias Noble was given life imprisonment for ‘writing a threatening letter'! You can’t be serious! It cannot be...these names are those father trusted most: barristers, doctors, academics. Even I am astonished he could be this corrupted. We must put their case before the highest authority and hope for a retrial. He certainly knows how to silence his critics. We’re given a choice: Deliver the castaways to the prison or deliver the letter to Archie to get the prisoner’s sentences overturned. Both have the same result, Edvard either writes off the debt because we kept our mouths shut or Archie declares it null and void because everything Edvard says is suspicious. It’s pretty obvious which option feels better. Besides, High Clarence Hall is a far shorter trip than Wormways Prison. That was none of your business! And what right has the crown to meddle in my accounts? What right!?! We are, all of us, quite moved by your selfless actions. Your father would be quite proud. I am so relieved our legitimacy is no longer in question.  I’ll get to the shipyard eventually, it is more than just a little bit important after all. It’s also expensive at this point of the game. I’ve just started building the bricks to construct it and I only have so many workers and so much cash to spend on upkeep. Thankfully a couple of quests show up! One a random quest from our population, and one an introduction to another DLC: Bright Harvest!  One thing that 1800 does that I approve of is that during these item-hunt quests it gives more than what you actually need to find. Saves the player from the frustration of trying to fine the last flying taxi cab, or the last drunk burgomeister or whatever. On the other hand sometimes you get silly situations like this where there’s 3 “Old Harolds” wobbling down the street at once.  The end result is...not bad at all! I won’t use the Butcher yet, but he’ll definitely be welcome once I have enough Slaughterhouses to make using him worth more than the upkeep of housing him in a trade union. He’s only a white-tier item, i.e. trash tier, who’s not really seeking out by himself, but he’s definitely worth using if a quest is going to give him.  Meanwhile the Farmer’s quest is basically a tutorial for Bright Harvest. The Bright Harvest DLC added literally 3 buildings, two of which are modules/add-ons, and one of them is a production facility to make fuel for one of the add-ons. Those three buildings utterly change the balance of the entire game in a drastic fashion. However the Silo requires not only valuable bricks but for other stuff to be set up first.  And just as I get enough bricks together for a Shipyard, the Workers level up to the point they start getting grumpy about lacking a church. So ship construction is delayed to stave off any riots. Yes, unhappiness leads to riots. One of the nice things 1800 does is that there are specific reasons that cause fires, riots and disease outbreaks. In 1404/2070 “crime waves” were just a thing that happened. In 1800 riots are specifically sparked by low happiness and/or harsh work conditions. Likewise fires are caused by crowded construction and excessive production speed (some factories are especially notorious for being bombs). Diseases are triggered by ships on long journeys becoming plague ships.  Now Carl has a quest so important he actually sails a ship up into my harbor to ask me about it. Seems he needs me for some insurance fraud.   Not exactly hard. We only have one military ship (well one ship period) but the Flagship is more than a match for a pair of unarmed schooners. Shame there’s no item reward, but cash is nice.  While that’s going on it’s time to satisfy our workers’ need for bread, which will also start putting into place the wheat production needed for the grain silo.  The bread chain requires turning wheat to flour, and the full balanced ratio is 2:1:2. So one flour mill will both accept 2 wheat farm’s worth of production and feed 2 bakeries. Not only do I simply not need 2 bakeries worth of bread production, I cannot afford the full “balanced” infrastructure. Since I’m also going to need the wheat for grain silo I cut the mill’s production in half so it can only process 1 farm’s worth of wheat. Since reducing production this way neither reduces the maintenance on affected buildings nor gives a happiness bonus, this is one of the vanishingly few times I feel reducing production is worth it.  Seriously, I do not need 2 bakeries worth of production. If anything I hardly need half of a single one!   I can’t build my own steel girders but since Archie’s right here I can buy some, and a telescope which is another super nifty expedition item.  More bricks are needed!   The lion’s share of the steel is left behind in Ditchwater but some is taken as part of the price to settle a new island. It has potatoes, hopps and red peppers. The potatoes will be great as I can move Schnaps production off of Ditchwater (which means less farmers are needed so I can get more workers). The hops are needed for And unless someone speaks up it shall be named the default “Chuzzlewitch”. Which is delightfully amusing to say.  Finally!  Our city’s historic first shipyard! We must document this moment in our first edition!  Woohoo! We can start building boats!  And that shipyard means the plot officially progresses  So you build ships like your father? Well, the Queen is in the direst need of ships. We get a royal commission from Archibald to build a bunch of ships. Most of which are warships! And for warships we need weapons, which need steel!  And the island’s iron deposits are…on the far side of a rock slide! Of course they are. Nothing can ever be easy. You know, the villagers were so happy to get rid of us they never checked our baggage. We still have what’s left of the dynamite! Oooh!  The project to blow a path in the rocks starts our first monument project! A rather minor one, but still one we need to do. We need that steel for weapons and, more importantly, so we can make our own girders! Monuments are projects built in multiple stages. Each stage has a certain amount of resources, workforce and a minimum amount of construction time to finish. Place a warehouse nearby and your population will get to work! We’ll complete that monument next time and get access to the real life-blood of industrialization: steel. For now though we have something else to complete!  It’s time to finally build a silo! Now that we have enough population to unlock grain silos a new icon has appeared on the pig farm!  The grain silo is a 3x2 tile module (conveniently the same size as the pig sty modules) that must be placed adjacent to the main building of whatever animal farm it affects. It also needs to be adjacent to the road to properly work.  So what does the grain silo do? It more than doubles the output of the Pig Farm! By adding a bit of wheat to our piggie feed we’re running at 266% efficiency! And best of all the grain intake is an utter pittance: A silo only needs 1 grain every 5 minutes, and wheat farms produce 1 grain per minute. So a single wheat farm with no buffs can feed 5 silos.  Ah, master, it’s no bother if the grain runs low for some reason. We’ll manage without the silo just like we did before. I suppose you might see the numbers drop off until we can use it again though…Counterpoint: It’s a huge loving problem when over half of your pig production vanishes. Ignore the farmer who’s explaining that the building will still limp along without the bonus if you run out of grain.  Anyways after all of that drama and so many diversions we’ve done it: we have built our first ship! An itty-bitty Schooner! Schooners are the first cargo ship in the game. They’re small, they’re fragile, they only have 2 50-ton cargo slots. In short they’re the “worst” cargo ship and most definitely the weakest link in any logistics train. However being the “worst” is infinitely better than having no cargo ships at all, and Schooner while small and slow it is inredibly cheap to produce and less affected by cargo weight than military ships impressed into transportation roles. It’s entirely reasonable and economical to build large swarms of schooners to satisfy short-ranged trips.   Anyways, the Crown is asking for at least one schooner to be sold to them so we sail the Steamed Bream over to High Clarence Hall and click the little “Sell” button on the top right corner of the Schooner’s pop-up. Doing so will open up a pop-up asking if you wish to sell the item. $2,500 is not a bad price considering that a schooner is made out of $1,060 of wood and sails. And with that I’m going to cut this update here! We’ve gotten well into our second tier of workers and have started to build a navy, even if it’s mainly to be sold off. Alkydere fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Aug 31, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 07:56
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I will note in Hannah's defense that when she says it's "criminal" to open private correspondence, that's not speaking morally or socially. Tampering with mail is STILL one of the most punishable crimes in any nation and back in the 1800s it would have been even more so, because mail is effectively the only means of communication and messing with it is directly threatening a nation's communications and integrity. If you weren't basically on a first-name basis with the Queen's ministers (as you are here) then even finding such outrageous crimes evidence in a sealed letter could land you in smoking hot water. Of course, you ARE on a first-name basis with the Queen's main diplomat, and there ARE outrageous crimes afoot, so fortunately that doesn't wind up being a thing. But from the position of "trying to actually run a respectable business", Hannah is trying to make the right call here. This is a pretty consistent Hannah thing, and it's really more of a strength than a flaw even in the face of the nonsense you keep running into. And having said all of that, of course you open the letter, c'mon. Anno 1800's main storyline is also, fundamentally, here to introduce you to new concepts for the game. Selling ships to NPCs is a BIG one and it's also not a bad way at all to make some fast cash, depending on which types of ships you're making and selling. The low-level ones that are just made out of wood and sails in particular, you're going to be constantly full on those resources, just bang some off now and then if you have enough workers around to staff your sail shipyards. quote:Likewise fires are caused by crowded construction and excessive production speed (some factories are especially notorious for being bombs). EheheheHEHEHEHEHE. Oh man. Oh we're gonna have a good time later. One of Anno 1800's main mechanics is one of my favorite developments in the history of the Anno series, from the position of being a historian. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 08:17
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I'm finding all the characters in this game pretty charming so far. Even the bad guys are a little over the top in that knowingly cartoonish way. As much as I prefer the sci-fi settings of 2070 and 2205, their supporting casts are pretty dull. Putting in for naming a ship the Challenger. Redeye Flight posted:EheheheHEHEHEHEHE. Oh man. Oh we're gonna have a good time later. One of Anno 1800's main mechanics is one of my favorite developments in the history of the Anno series, from the position of being a historian. Oh God, not the flour mills and bakeries? Cythereal fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 12:24
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Wooo! Big day! Today is the release of the High-Life DLC! The 10th and final* DLC for Anno 1800! Also it's the start of a free weekend (well a bit more than just a weekend) if anyone wants to try the game out. Anyways, next update might be a while. Work's giving overtime on Thurs and taking one of my nights off. *They've said Land of Lions was their last DLC previously. This one better be their last because oh god why.
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Aug 31, 2021 21:38
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Alkydere posted:Wooo! Big day! Today is the release of the High-Life DLC! The 10th and final* DLC for Anno 1800! Also it's the start of a free weekend (well a bit more than just a weekend) if anyone wants to try the game out. Thanks for the heads-up on the free weekend. I've been eyeing up Anno and this is exactly what I was hoping for! The Standard Edition is also currently $24.00 USD on the Ubisoft store, compared to $60 on Epic.
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Sep 1, 2021 03:30
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Just buy it on Ubisoft anyways. No matter what you'll need the Ubisoft launcher running. I have it on Steam but that's because I'm something of a ravening Anno fanatic and pre-ordered.
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Sep 1, 2021 11:48
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Naval Starter Pack Welcome back! It’s time to get cracking in Anno! We’ve got a few projects to get working on. Mainly: gaining the access to iron to make steel, making beer to make $$$, and unlocking our next tiers of population!  But before that, the next (final?) DLC for Anno 1800 dropped! The Highlife DLC which gives a whole pile of new features...once we hit 5,000 investors. So that’s quite a ways off.   If a new DLC activates while you have an ongoing game (i.e. it releases or you buy it) the game will give you the option of activating it in the existing save file. This is a permanent option though! Once on, or off, you can’t change your choice later!  In the mess of earlier it was easy to miss a minor detail (partly because lines overlapped and I missed capturing a few). Hannah believes Bente and Aarhant are not to be trusted around dynamite (she’s probably right) so she’s sent us to find Mr. Ticker: Father’s explosives expert.  If we explore Bright Sands we find this house. Surrounded by craters and touting “Safe Explosives since 1800”. Interesting since dynamite wasn’t patented until 1867.  Uh-Oh cinematic time! Then Edvard struck back! He imprisoned all who were close to your father, including my beloved Thomas. My husband and the others were deported to Wormways Prison and I’ve heard nothing from him ever since. If you do find him unharmed, prithee tell him his wife yearns for his return.   How dare you… It’s like a zoological garden of anthropomorphised misery here… I’m surprised there’s enough misery here for such a collection. I thought you Europeans had exported all of yours to the New World by now. Oh, spare me the nauseating drivel! Flogging Queenie’s peachy island in the New World to some rebel upstarts?! Ha! Traitor is too generous a word! He hung himself in one of my cells. I’d call that a rather conclusive admission of guilt. We didn’t come here to be insulted, we came to strike a bargain. The demolitions man Thomas, we want him. Oh I vaguely remember him. Stubborn, with a loose mouth, just as innocent as all the others. He is small fry, a bail has been set. Pay every penny of his money and I will place him immediately at your disposal. I can’t think why he’d be worth anything. Everyone here is beyond redemption... With that we get our introduction to Eli Bleakworth. He’s quite the charmer, believing that whether or not someone’s guilty: if they ended up at Wormways they deserve it. It also sets up the explanation for why you can buy people from him: you’re posting their bail. Our passive income is only at +228 at this exact moment so it will be a while before we’re buying people off of him.  If we click on the prisoners down in the Wormways quarry we’ll hear their sob stories about how miserable it is, how one of them once had to scrub Mr. Bleackworth’s back, etcetera, and how they’re all not Thomas Ticker. The man we want is working on the Steam shovel.  Samuel Goode’s engineer? Aye, that’s me. Who’s asking?  Once you find Mr. Ticker Eli asks for a bail. Conveniently he also sends a ship to straight up deliver our new demolition’s expert to Ditchwater!   Which is good because phase one of clearing a tunnel into the rocks has been completed and we’re on phase two. Phase 2 requires Mr. Ticker to handle the explosives. I’m still waiting for the boom! Ah, he’s here! Try to make a good first impression, eldest; any friend of father is a friend of ours. Mr. Ticker’s rather...excessive luggage for a prisoner is sitting at our port waiting for pickup. So I’m a commodity now, to be bought and sold? Your father treated me like a human being. I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but it won’t bring Samuel back. Boy isn’t he a bright ray of sunshine? To be honest I can understand his disillusionment after what he’s been through. Anyways hopefully putting him in charge of the excavation will give him something to do while he works through his stress and disillusionment.  Oh look, he’s done!  Aarharnt’s still upset he didn’t get to play with the dynamite.   That’s a lot of dynamite…In fact that looks like ALL of our dynamite... Well I thought it best to use up the rest of the garbage I was given was disposed of in a safe way. Do you realize that the nitroglycerin inside dynamite will leach out over time and pool in the bottom of the stick if not rotated regularly? Or when given enough time it can still form shock sensitive crystals? Both will degrade the shock protection that is the whole point of processing nitroglycerin into dynamite. The explosives you gave me looked like they had crossed the Atlantic twice and in between been stored in a ratty shed, barely protected from the elements. Erm...not a shed, It was stored in an abandoned lighthouse… Everyone who was gathered round just a moment before runs to a safe distance.  Boom.I just want to say I love the voice direction in this game. Ticker’s “Boom” is delivered in such a calm, collected, under-statement which goes well with his quiet voice and I love it. Every character is done the same way. Eli Bleakworth is bitter and suspicious. Aarhant is shockingly cheerful. Every single line delivered by Edvard has this undercurrent of petulant, nasal whining even when he’s mocking the player.  In the end, Aarhant is a very simple man  We now have access to Ditchwater’s iron, coal and oil deposits! This is the end of Thomas Ticker’s contribution to the story. All he’ll do now is grouse in the background...a grousing that will slowly become more and more hopeful over time as the player succeeds in their objectives.  While that was all happening I was busy on a side project. The next part of this is actually rather expensive. Thankfully the worker’s luxury need of beer provides us with a hefty boost of income. So I plop down another wheat farm and a malthouse.  Much like the flour mill, the malthouse needs 2 wheat farms to fully satisfy it, and in turn it can satisfy 2 breweries. I don’t need that much beer at the moment (and over-building to that degree will just cost me a giant pile of maintenance with no real gain) so much like the flour mill I halve its production. Unlike the flourmill the malthouse actually employs enough workforce to actually affect the happiness levels a bit.  Over on Chuzzlewitch I slap down a pair of hops fields. Need 1.5 for every brewery so 2 go down. Also plop down what’s needed to produce schnapps for the locals since they’ve reached that point.  Now to show off trade routes. They’re basically the same as in 1404/2070 if you played those games. Charter routes are a lot more like 2205’s routes.  Since I’ve built a fresh schooner I’ll be using that instead. Trade routes (i.e. using your own ships) are more flexible and ultimately can move far, far more goods. Either from stacking up multiple ships, using bigger/faster ships, or both.  If you click on a ship on the trade route you can see their route actually on the world map (and how far they have to diverge from it to go around land)  But with that all set up I can finally plonk down the brewery and start making money that will support steel and arms industries. technically I did this somewhat out of order since steel girders are needed for both the malthouse and brewery (and the soapworks I’ve set up off screen), so you’re supposed to set up steel first. However I find it far easier to just buy some steel and get those profit making (and population growing) industries up first.   It’s time to expand our industry (and our running costs!)  First thing’s first is to grab one of the two iron lodes and start mining it. Then we slap down a charcoal kiln (turns nearby forests into coal). There is a proper coal mine nearby but we can’t exploit those until we reach tier 3 population.  Next is to build a steel mill turning the iron ore and coal into steel ingots for use elsewhere. I also lay down blueprints for a second mill, a steelworks and an armaments factory. The mine produces enough iron for 2 mills, but I’ll need to build another kiln. One mill is more than enough for the steelworks which will finally let me build my own steel girders/I-beams. This is an utterly painful step because the steel mill requires 200 workers and an upkeep of $200/minute. But it’s necessary, oh so necessary.  Around this time our first actual regular newsprint shows up. You’re presented with 3 articles that can have positive, negative or null results depending on what’s happened in your empire since the last newspaper. I got: Settled new island (+5 global happiness), a very happy island (-50% riot chance) and sold a ship (null). These bonuses are Global...ish. Down below I can replace any of the articles with propaganda. So far I’ve got: +5 happiness, distraction and +5% income. I don’t add any of these because what this set gave me is already good and...well the +5% isn’t a global thing, it multiplies what each household gives by 5%. Considering my empire is mainly farmers and they don’t even give me 20 coins per household I’ll be getting absolutely nothing from them. There’s also the Anarchist propaganda which will make Dr. Mercier very happy if I slap them in. However using either of them would cripple, perhaps even bankrupt me. One is reducing riot chance by 90% (which is awesome) by reducing the the income houses produce by 10%. I need those coins! The other is giving me a flat 125 workforce of ALL LEVELS on all islands I own for a 25% increase in goods consumed (eek). This second one is powerful, way more powerful than may look in late game, but I simply cannot afford it. It’s a shame I haven’t unlocked the 3rd Anarchist slot because I’d love that one. +20% global production for an increased chance of disease outbreaks. All of these propaganda articles cost Influence which I haven’t really gone into yet. Influence is kinda-sorta like the Honor and Licenses of 1404/2070...yet not. Honor/Licenses were a currency: you gained and spent it like coins on upgrades/items. In 1800 items are instead bought with cash, albeit large sums (Legendary items are almost always six digits). Instead of a currency, Influence is more of...let’s call it an “Imperialism Mana Pool”. You have a cap of influence you can spend, and anything you spend is returned to the pool once you lose it. So if I spent 30 influence on a propaganda article, the next time the newspaper comes up that 30 will be refunded unless I buy the same article again. Influence is instead spent on other things and is basically a sort of “limit” to how wide your empire can grow. Propaganda articles. Your ships (both war and trade). Your islands.Your modules for zoos, museums and botanical gardens. Your buildings for housing items (trade union, harbormaster, town hall). With the exception of propaganda all of these categories have a certain free limit, then past that you have to pay with influence. It’s basically a limiter on how far/fast you can expand. The ways you gain influence are:
Give them all the truth they can lay their eyes on; pamphlets, posters, pasteboard hats in bold red letters!Anyways, as said, I didn’t take any propaganda this round, which gives me +2 relationship with Dr. Mercier, and yes he does say that.  In the meantime I also “upgrade” the Angel Clare’s route: It will take work clothes from Ditchwater to Chuzzlewitch. Because Ditchwater has wheat it’s cheaper to make the wool using silos. Which means Chuzzlewitch’s village can use it’s farmer workforce for other exports. Since Ditchwater is using those work clothes as well I set a minimum amount. This way the trade route will always leave some in Ditchwater so I don’t deal with fluctuations in population/income. There is no shame in production weapons if it is in defense of the realm, eldest. Wiith what money dear sister? With what money? You’ll figure something out eldest, you always do. The vote of confidence is appreciated, but some actual assistance would be more appreciated.Hannah badgers us every now and then to continue with the main quest. Which, yes, I want to do but setting up that steel industry was expensive. Teching up through workers is a delicate time. Especially if you’re playing on low income like I am.  Thankfully building ships doesn’t cost money. I could use the cash influx of a couple of schooners.  Also Ditchwater’s inventory is full of sails, so I start passively selling any past 60 to make a little cash.   I think I skipped over it earlier but workers also require soap. Which is made from tallow which is made from the same pigs sausages are. To boost my cash flow I use the money I make from the sale of the first schooner to expand my soap factory area. Now I have a new route selling any soap I don’t use to Eli at a whopping $384/ton. This is one of the best ways to make money early in the game.  The first sale is more than enough to pay for an arms factory. Now we can produce weapons which leads to the production of warships and harbor defenses.   Our next newspaper pops! I’ve got some ugly news articles this time. Ditchwater’s starting to get uglier from industry and I had a bad fire that burned down a couple houses. We’ll fix that right away!  As said, the 5% income isn’t a global modifier. It’s a modifier per house and the farmers don’t even make enough to trigger it. So I’m only getting +$70 overall. Still better than nothing.  Spending that influence on propaganda means I unlock the first bonus tier (+7% effectiveness, which isn’t even enough to boost either of the articles I’m using). This will last until the next newspaper at which point it will go away unless I keep buying propaganda.  Anyways with cashflow under control for now, and a trickle of steel girders coming in I can finally build a public school. This will give my worker houses the last 2 population points needed to fill them up.   Which means we can progress!  All I ever wanted was a place to live and work!  Let’s take a look at the artisans’ needs and wants. First of all compared to the workers’ fully satisfied houses giving $39 per house, the artisans start at giving a delicious $69/house and will only grow from there. Well $66 + $3 from the tax. This means that while my financial woes aren’t over, I’m finally at a point I can start breathing easy. Secondly, notice some things aren’t there? Population tiers in 1800 only use their tier of goods + the previous tier (if there is one) at 2x amount. So artisans no longer need schnapps, fish or work clothes, but they consume 2x the sausage, bread, soap and beer that workers do. So as I upgrade more houses to artisans Ditchwater’s need for farmer goods will actually drop. Of course this is only applicable in the Old World zones. In the New World, Arctic and Enbessa there’s only 2 tiers of population in each zone.   My building ends up with an odd little corner so I make a cute little farmer’s market/outdoor restaurant with a playground for the kiddies. One of my favorite things about 1800 is this will actually add to the island’s attraction and has mechanical benefits. Admittedly it’s only one point but it’s a small attraction and it adds up.   It takes a while since I’m only building 1 ton of weapons every 45 seconds but I soon have enough for my first Gunboat out of the two the crown requested.  From $2,500 for a schooner to $6,250 for a gunboat. Not bad. Gunboats are obviously fragile but are the only sail boats that can shoot forward. Between shooting forward, their low cost and high speed, they’re mainly used for harassing and slowing down other ships so their bigger Frigate and Ship of the Line brethren can finish the target off.   During this time I hit the thresholds to unlock two more DLCs worth of content. Land of Lions opens up a new region in east Africa and eventually leads to the Research Institute. I’ll get into it once I finish the main campaign, but I do find that I actually get the expedition to unlock it before I even get the expedition to unlock the New World and random expeditions. Docklands simply just breaks the game and will do so in a more immediate fashion. Or would if I had the resources to start it. The Docklands Main Wharf costs $25,000, 20 wood, 60 brick, 50 steel and 30 of the Artisan resource: windows. That’s gonna take a while to gather but is well worth it.  Speaking of Windows it’s time to start building them. Windows require glass (made from sand scooped up from the beach) and wood for frames.  I take the time to also expand the Schnapps production on Chuzzlewitch. Doing so means less farmers are needed on Ditchwater so I can upgrade them into workers and artisans.  Oh and one of Dr. Mercier’s features triggers! As said, Dr. Mercier, the Anarchist, is an expanding AIs with “extra features”. One of the features is every now and then a bunch of defectors from his Anarchist conclaves will come over and beg for asylum. They offer cash, an item, but will negatively affect your standing with Dr. Mercier. If they had appeared 5-10 minutes earlier I would have said yes with no thought, but I just did a lot of work fixing my income issues and upped my beer production so I send this group off. There’s also the minor issue that this event is bugged and you don’t always get the item. The cash comes through just fine, but sometimes the item vanishes into the ether. I guess it turns out Dr. Mercier had better security than they thought? A real pisser when the item is some legendary canning machine or specialist.   This quest from the artisan is entirely non-buggy though! Some quests like this one offer fixed rewards so I know exactly what I’m gonna get. And it’s easy, I just have to find the chef at the marketplace.   Yoink! And now he works for us! The pastry chef makes a bakery’s goods that much more delicious, effectively having their upkeep. And now I feel I have enough items to make it worth showing off how items are used.  For 25 lumber, 5 bricks, and 20 influence (though the influence cost is waived for being our first) we can slap down a trade union to house our special items. Trade unions, as well as Town Halls (affects houses) and Harbormaster’s Offices (harbor buildings) have a fixed radius for their range. Their items only affect buildings in that range, and that range cannot overlap with the radius of matching buildings.  The Trade Union only holds 3 items so later on we’ll start specializing but that requires having more items. For now I’m happy to save $60 on upkeep and need 20 less workers to run the slaughterhouses.  I also snag the southernmost unclaimed island, Wollsvenn. Not using it for much now but it will eventually be the sector’s breadbasket for wheat. I’d normally leave it be for now but when playing with expanding AIs sometimes its best to get out ahead of them.  I built and sold the second gunboat already. Now I finally have both the population to unlock and the materials to build the last request of Archie’s: a Frigate.  And as the more advanced ship, the price tag is ever bigger. Frigates are the mid-range ship for when you don’t want, need or can afford a full Ship of the Line. Or want something at least a little faster than an SoL. I had believed it would only do harm to tell you, but I have grounds to believe your father was murdered. And the killer, his cellmate, walks free! The rumor is he’s in hiding, preparing to flee to the New World. Wait, father had a cellmate, and no one ever told me?! He was alone when I visited him! And no one mentioned this in the reports? I’d ask how the gentleman in question escaped Wormways, but I believe we proved how easy it was to get out of Wormways when we released Mr. Ticker. Someone supplies the murderer from Madame Kahina’s harbour? We should investigate.And with that, I think it’s a good breaking point before we enter chapter 3.  Ditchwater: population 2,721  Chuzzlewitch: population 420 (Sadly there’s no hemp in this game  ) Wollsvenn: population 60
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Sep 4, 2021 06:52
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Hey, at least you're having an easier time making glass for your windows than I am over in 2070. No limited mining and river slots for that in your game!
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Sep 4, 2021 12:48
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Cythereal posted:Hey, at least you're having an easier time making glass for your windows than I am over in 2070. *Laughs in Enbessan* No, no the game put all of the river slots in a single DLC.
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Sep 4, 2021 17:56
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No hemp? That's a terrible oversight, how are you supposed to make ropes and such for your ships?
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Sep 4, 2021 23:07
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SIGSEGV posted:No hemp? That's a terrible oversight, how are you supposed to make ropes and such for your ships? Narratively I think it gets elided in with Sails as a good. Anno 1800, being set in the dawn of the steam age, has a lot of steam ships which don't use any sails at all, so having two materials that would be used in the vast majority for one type of ship would probably be seen as excessive. I'll also briefly toot my own horn and note that I've done a decent bit of writing on the Anno 1800 Wiki, including the trivia for most of the ships. This is a fascinating period for ship design.
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Sep 5, 2021 03:25
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Oooh. Interested to see how this goes. And see one of the late game features that I'm wondering how it works. Shame I didn't see it was a free weekend till it's basically over. Ah well.
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Sep 5, 2021 09:24
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Expediting Expeditions Last time we left off with a hint/warning that our father didn’t commit suicide but was actually murdered in prison. We should follow that as soon as possible! Warning: mild technical difficulties ahead.  Right after we get the first production chain up for the Artisans! The first thing Artisans want is Canned Food which involves stuffing goulash into, well, cans! Part of the reason I grabbed Chuzzlewitch was that it had Red Peppers which is one of the two ingredients for the goulash.  I build the cattle farm for the goulash and the rest of the chain back on Ditchwater. By the way this is not nearly a fully balanced ratio. Unlike other Anno games, if you play a lot of Anno 1800 enough and into late game it really starts breaking you of going by ratio builds. The farm/ranch to goulash ratios are both 1:1, and the goulash kitchen to canning plant ratio is 3:2. Later on with production items where one stage is getting +130% production and another is getting +70%? Well it starts becoming a game of “good enough” as you dig through the helpful production view pages to get everything balanced. And with canned food, it really is a game of “good enough”. On low income settings feeding canned food to artisans actually loses money, on medium and high income settings it's barely positive. It’s needed for population (and a grand total of four population classes chow down on this stuff) but this is the last, subtle kick to the shin the game does as you’re trying to claw yourself into making real money.  Right, back to important matters! We need to check out Madame Kahina’s port for clues. Aarhant quickly deduces that a certain ship is suspicious and is being loaded up with goods for a long trip. (Thank you Irfanview for capturing a random black screen so I can’t remember the line! ) So we tail the ship. If we stray inside the inner radius around the schooner for too long it will get suspicious and the quest will fail. If we stray outside for too long we’ll lose the trail and fail again. At which point I’m pretty sure it just respawns and you can try again. The main questline is intensely fail-proof. Either way this is super easy, especially with the Flagship. The Flagship we got from the Editor is basically a slightly stronger Frigate, and is the only ship in the game classified as a “Hybrid” steam/sail design meaning it has far less of a penalty going against the wind that most sail ships do.  Follow the schooner long enough and we reach this island with a convenient bay and cove.  And out comes this menacing little steamship. The schooner, having just been hired to deliver goods, decides it’s time to get the hell out of dodge. The foul scent of a killer. We cannot let him escape. Who have we here?! Samuel Goode’s child! Want to go down with your father, do you? Meet the Cult of the Pyrphorians: Horrible little shitgoblins who hide behind masks and have a love of advanced technology and flamethrowers. They fully believe the world belong to them and any who seek to oppose them should burn.  Anyways, despite having an advanced steamship this cultist is dispatched with no effort. Later Pyrphorian ships will be tougher. The Pyrphorians have equivalents of all the steam warships that trade long range weapons for short range, high ROF flamethrowers that also set ships on fire. No, he is dead! It cannot end here, we have no answers! Look, they didn’t have time to secure the cargo they took aboard and much of it is afloat! Let’s salvage what we can and see if we can glean any clues. It is father’s diary! Quickly, what does he say!? I would indeed count that as a clue. [Image eaten by irfanview]  Ugh...really irfanview? You were behaving SO GOOD up until today! Anyways, we finally get some firm explanation of what’s going on. Samuel Goode was given an island in the New World out of the Crown’s holdings only to have it sold out from under him to the rebel Isabelle Sarmento and he was declared traitor to the Empire. The missing page talks about how one day he was given a strange note from another prisoner consisting of nothing but a flame within a sigil.  Nothing for it but to check in with Madame Kahina, blackmarketeer and knower of interesting things, to see if this is an interesting thing she knows of.  I never knew your father was mixed up with the Pyphorians--a grave malevolence. You may be wild, child, but don’t go into the new world, don’t rouse the dragon from its slumber. The diary may not be enough to convince Sir Archibald, but it may give him food for thought. ...We’re totally going to the new world aren’t we? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Child, I just told you… Blah, blah, blah, listen to your elders. Blah, blah, blah, the world is scary, go get married off instead of following your dreams. Already ran off to the New World once with little more than a spare change of clothes. This time I’m crossing the ocean with my own small navy at my beck and call. The editor wastes no time in pushing out a special edition declaring Samuel Goode clear of any wrongdoing.  He also publishes this. I’ve reached the population threshold to unlock the Sunken Treasures DLC, which triggers another expedition. Again I’ll take care of this once I finish the main campaign. I just find this hilarious that this triggers now when the Queen is very much a part of the rest of the campaign. She’s vanished! And yet she’s here!  Which leads to this utterly goofy screenshot. I pull into the harbor and Sir Archibald simultaneously gives both the main campaign line while the Sunken Treasures textbox pops up from the lighthouse. Thankfully only the campaign one is voiced. Archibald audibly talking over himself would be even more goofy.. Good heavens, this symbol is a death threat! The queen got a letter bearing this symbol just the other day! Now I’ll have to muster the fleet to find and protect the Queen! Archie, what are you going on about? Y-Your Majesty! I thought you were...I found a letter from you! Ugh, which chambermaid gave that to you? You weren’t supposed to get that yet! Yes, I do have plans but not yet! The royal court, even a small part of it, does not just up and run off on a whim. You, of all people, should know this! Sarmento’s last location is all we have. We need to plan our expedition route carefully. The New World is a cradle of anarchism. It’s important for me to include its pockets of resistance in our federation. Welcome to our introductions into Expeditions! Expeditions are how the player unlocks new regions and later quests for random rewards. Yes, 1800 has multiple maps that you have to coordinate your empire across, a feature first pioneered in Anno 2205. Thankfully, unlike 2205, the game has at most 5 regions (with only two of them sharing biome and mechanics) as compared to 2205’s 14 (5 temperate, 1 tundra DLC, 4 arctic, 3 lunar, and 1 orbital puzzle DLC). It also doesn’t have 2205’s memory leak issues that swapping between multiple regions caused.   Anyways, when outfitting for an expedition it’s important to chose the right ship. The better a ship’s natural stats, and those added by the items equipped or carried in the cargo hold, the more full the morale bar will be. Morale is basically the expedition’s HP bar: if it drops to 0 the expedition fails and the ship (and everything it carries) is lost. As I said earlier the flagship is supposed to be an improved frigate, it’s supposed to have an innate value of 30 Naval Power and 20 Navigation, but for some reason those are glitched out and only count for a pitiable 3 and 2. So I’ll use our latest frigate (of many) which still offers 20 Naval Power and 10 Navigation. In general cargo ships have better navigation, military ships have naval power. Chose whichever one works better for the expedition’s stats. Also fill up your cargo and equip slots with the right item. The bosun and telescope we got earlier will go well with some fish (for rations) and spare glass that didn’t make it into windows (for hunting).   While that’s going on I take care of the next artist's needs: Sewing Machines. This one is super easy: just wood and steel. Honestly about half the time I build a sewing machine factory before I take care of canned food: it’s super easy to get enough artisan houses to unlock the need anyways while building up to staff some window factories, and the steel need means the sewing machine factory just slots into your recently set up steel production. I also switched out the charcoal kiln for a coal mine: a little more expensive but twice the productivity and none of the negative beauty. As compared to the canned food, sewing machines are where the money’s at. You’re not just selling the artisans a good, you’re giving them the tools to create products of their own. We don’t just create sewing machines here! At BCME we make:
Among many other fine products. Oooh! BCME? Bente’s Company that Makes Everything! Mercier also buys a share in one of my islands. It’s just Wollsvenn so he’s not getting much, but I immediately buy it back. I don’t like the AI having shares in my island. If they buy all of the shares they could potentially buy the island out from under me.   Anyways, here are expeditions. They ask you for a choice, and you have to chose the best options. Sometimes the choices are just that: a choice with no bonus. Usually though the choices are like this where you get bonuses based off of what items and ship you brought. In this case the choice is between a +25 bonus to Naval power or +50 bonus to Navigation.  It’s generally pretty obvious: choose the good options, and have a better chance for better rewards. Sometimes rewards can grant bonus morale or even free items. Once you’re done with an event you’re presented with an option: use your rations and take a reduced morale penalty, no rations and take a flat 10 morale penalty, or give up and return. If you eat the same rations their bonus reduces until you’re still losing the full 10 morale. So on longer missions it's best to take a break between giving your crew rations, or better yet bring multiple if you have the cargo space and rotate them. Anyways, the next part of the mission triggers rather rapidly. It takes a while for a ship to travel across the world map to the expedition (and if it’s not revealing a new map it takes a while for the ship to return home at the end). Once your ship is at the expedition site the phases will generally trigger every 5-10 minutes.       I think it’s clear why I’m only going to be showing off only the storyline expeditions and those that open up new zones. These are long. Some of the randomized events for items can get just as long.  poo poo! Line! Line! What’s my line! We’re still fighting with the irfanviewer capture, Hannah! Did you remove the lens cap? Of course I removed the bloody lens cap! You’re the one who loaded the plate in backwards! Um...um… We came to clear the name of our father, Samuel Goode! I can work off of that. Goode? The man that sold Her Majesty’s island to me? He is just as guilty as I am! I don’t know about you, but my father would never have betrayed his Queen! Perhaps lay off the righteousness dearest sister? At least until we’re out of the ashes of Sarmento’s village? So you are calling me a liar? Love is blind. Back before they left their fiery mark, the Pyrphorians told me your father would come-- to sell me Prosperity.  We leave the burnt out island to travel to one that’s merely an industrial wasteland. A very specific island. This is Prosperity, the island that has caused all these issues is now a massive slave-labor run oil processing facility, producing fuel for Pyrphorian ships and weapons. Now our movement drills their oil for nothing, night and day. We have lost the strength to fight. Still we are afraid. And even though we buried the dead and found a hideaway, I cannot provide shelter for all of them. We are very sorry to hear your situation. Still, I must insist on our obtaining of our father’s… Hannah, clearing father’s name is important but I will strangle you myself if you do not give the grieving woman room!  So, we finally are getting to the bottom of this. Isabelle Sarmento is a leader of the resistance fighters trying to gain independence from the iron grip of Build us a haven on La Isla and we can talk about getting you that contract. The Pyrphorians would only exploit us if we tried to resettle ourselves. But with an island under your flag…So yeah if anyone was wondering why the folks in the Caribbean were so eager to work for us: it’s because we’re the latest hope for a non-horrible life. As a base to begin from we’re given La Isla to work from. It’s a pre-made “here’s your starter” island to work off of, which is good because Carl von Malching owns 3 islands here already. ...Actually I think he used to own four. When I took over La Isla I got an “Island has been conquered” notification that centers in on La Isla’s port warehouse when I click it. Either that or I stomped out Dr. Mercier’s only New World venture via plot fiat.  Another of these events pop up. Also around here I fix the irfanview problem with the tried and true method of “rebooting my computer as I stop for the night”, only afterwards when I went back to write the update did I realize the issues. Dr. Mercier! Your escapees are trying to bribe me with...tallow? ...What!? That was my response as well.  Another special edition for advancing a plot, and a regular edition I can’t complain about one bit!  Obviously the jornaleiros, the tier 1 New World population, have their own resources. First of all they want some fried plantain chips to fill their bellies.  Then they want rum to wash it down. Rum is also the first major export to the Old World. Artisans, engineers and scholars will just chug that poo poo down like there’s no tomorrow.  While I’m building up other stuff is happening. Isabelle will ask us to pick up refugees from Prosperity, sneaking them out from under the Pyrphorians' noses by...sailing right into their busy harbor?  Either way it’s an easy task for the  As soon as we do the Pyrphorians send us a lovely little letter. Anyways, here’s the symbol everyone was making such a big deal out of earlier. A few minutes later, almost as soon as I get enough jornaleros to unlock the New World fire station, La Isla starts to go up in flames. Aww, how adorable, they think we wouldn’t already blame them for any sabotage and violence. These fires cannot be due to the warm climate… Then the fires begin. It is their warning. You must find the masks who walk with the devil! While those are being put out the first Jorgenson clipper is built. These are the next tier of cargo ship. Bigger and faster. I’ve seen arguments that multiple schooners are better for shorter trips but you absolutely want to use clippers as a minimum for international trade. Do not use schooners to trade between the New and Old world! The Mild Shrimp here is loaded up to settle a fresh island in the New World because La Isla won’t give us everything we need or want out of the New World.  And a quick hop back to set up the last of the jornalero production chain: ponchos made from llama wool! It’s...work clothes for the New World. It’s literally the work clothes chain, only the pasture has an extra field and the factory is a different shape. Much like farmers, jornaleros are easy to take care of. The next tier of population not so much. The New World (as does the Arctic and Enbessa) makes up for only having two tiers of population by making the second tier more complex.  Gotta plop down a police station to bust some heads. Normally I almost never use police when it comes to population management as riots are caused by unhappiness and heavy work hours. If you’re halfway decent at managing your happiness and not overworking your population too hard, riots are vanishingly rare.  You needed a police station to root out these jokers? They’re not exactly subtle. You could make the resistance yet! We are grateful to have such security now. Sarmento asks us to pick up another load of refugees from Prosperity. Easy, peasy right? These penitents work for us!  Not so easy. The Challenger is caught by not one but two Pyrphorian ships. Normally this isn’t too big of an issue as a frigate in good winds will outrun this pair but I’m caught with almost literally the worst wind and the Challenger goes down: spilling refugees in the ocean.  But not all is lost! The Mild Shrimp in the area after settling El Zarao. Sugar, cotton, coffee, tobacco and cacao fertilities mean El Zarao will become a major international export hub eventually. Between El Zarao and La Isla we have nearly every  As can be guessed from a ship with that much sail area, clippers are speedy ships and have no problem evading the Pyrphorians to pick up the refugees (and dropped items).  Thank you editor!  Anyways, the Pyrphorian ships are still in the region and my shipyard hasn’t been idle back in Ditchwater. I’m more than a bit upset about the Challenger. Sarmento is asking for 2 frigates in the New World anyways  If they’re so eager for a fight, I will gladly give them one. As much as I detest the loss of any ships bearing the Goode colors, there are more where that came from.  Speaking of the shipyards being busy, another clipper is up and running back home in the Old World so Wollsvenn begins its work as a breadbasket.  The jornaleros ask me to track down some llamas and give me some cotton seeds I could slot into a trade union. Of course that’s too little, too late after I settled El Zarao specifically to have cotton.  Speaking of fertilities, one might have noticed I failed to mention plantains on El Zarao’s list? I’ll need to import those. In fact I plan to make La Isla a major producer of local goods needed for the jornalero and obrero population.  Speaking of obreros: Let’s welcome the first tier 2 population to the new world! They like tortillas, fedoras, coffee, chocolate, sewing machines and watching boxing matches! We really won’t need much of them at the moment beyond satisfying Sarmento’s requests to build up. That being said, I'm going to cut this update here. Next time on Anno-Ball Z:  Oh dear, was that the game balance? I think I broke it.
Alkydere fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 00:48
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Right, I said I would hold off on Enbessa/Land of Lions and we have both the story line and the Docklands to show off next. But if the thread wants me to start spinning that set of plates at any time. Crown Falls won't be until after the main campaign (which I'd say we're about 1/2 to 2/3 through) and The Passage (arctic) DLC won't unlock for a while.
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Sep 10, 2021 01:09
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Alkydere posted:I build the cattle farm for the goulash and the rest of the chain back on Ditchwater. By the way this is not nearly a fully balanced ratio. Unlike other Anno games, if you play a lot of Anno 1800 enough and into late game it really starts breaking you of going by ratio builds. The farm/ranch to goulash ratios are both 1:1, and the goulash kitchen to canning plant ratio is 3:2. Later on with production items where one stage is getting +130% production and another is getting +70%? Well it starts becoming a game of “good enough” as you dig through the helpful production view pages to get everything balanced. This started with 2205, really. 2205 offers a lot of ways to monkey with the input and output of buildings, Orbit made things messier still, and the god window lets you immediately see whether you're over-producing or under-producing goods. The ratios are more, in my opinion, a relic of games with stricter production rules and more obfuscated data to the player.
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Sep 10, 2021 01:43
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Yup, 2205 really let the genie out of the bottle with screwing with production chains. And it's great because they kept and expanded a lot of that stuff. One of the best features about 1800 is that it's actually so flexible it's hard to actually break the game. Bend it, twist it into knots, mold it into something unrecognizable? The game still runs. You're just shattering the difficulty.
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Sep 10, 2021 01:50
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Docklands I'm genuinely apprehensive about getting, just because by the sound of it it's SO balance-busting that I fear it would take the joy out of that side of the game. Also here we are, RUM. There are some goods that are absolutely crucial to keeping your society operating, and Rum is one of them. I'd call it the first utterly essential one. Why? Because money, dear boy. The amount of money you get from your population for Rum production is nuts. This creates a problem -- namely, keeping your Old World population supplied in Rum is the first major logistics challenge in my mind, and one that will persist forever. They drink so friggin' much! And the instant it runs out, your income craters and then I have a heart attack. Not least because it'll often tend to start running out and letting you know your logistics are failing just as you're trying to bring some of the obscenely expensive chains in the next tier online. So Rum becomes your object lesson in figuring out how to design and maintain large-scale transoceanic supply routes.
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Sep 10, 2021 02:22
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This is all extremely interesting and strangely gripping in terms of storytelling, but may I make a humble suggestion/request? When you build the biggest, meanest, most powerful warship and commission it into the fleet, give her the name Rooster, would you kindly? I don’t exactly mean some frigate, either; I’m talking a battleship, baby. Because this game has got to have those.
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Sep 10, 2021 08:39
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Should I name the next one "Teeth" and have a pair of utter cockbites in our navy? Yes, we do get some bigger ships later.
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Sep 10, 2021 09:49
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Alkydere posted:Should I name the next one "Teeth" and have a pair of utter cockbites in our navy? I was mostly angling for the Alice In Chains song of the same name, just so I could quote it constantly whenever the ship gets outta tough scrapes/refuses to die, but if you feel it’d be more appropriate on a smaller ship, go nuts.
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Sep 10, 2021 09:56
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Nah it's cool. In other news...I'M AN UTTER DINGUS!* I wasn't paying attention and instead of a random expedition I started the Sunken Treasures one. Oh well, I guess I'll unlock Crown Falls early. *This news will be less than surprising to anyone who remembers my ancient LPs like a decade ago.
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Sep 10, 2021 10:30
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The Docklands is a perfectly balanced DLC... Last time I promised a look at the Docklands, and we’ll get to that soon enough. First we have some chores to do.   First of all I need to actually set up a trade route to send rum back to Ditchwater. A quick shipment of extra wood from La Isla gets El Zarao up to spec. That much rum production should be able to satisfy not only the local caribbean population but the artisans in Ditchwater. For now at least. El Zarao will be getting its fried plantains and ponchos from La Isla to satisfy the local workforce and so I can keep more local workforce producing exports and cash crops. The warehouse should reduce the chance island storage fills up and my rum distilleries stop.  Gotta set up an international trade route next. Obviously we’ll be using a clipper to carry the valuable cargo between sectors. Schooners are just not cut out for ocean sailing. Hmm...actually something seems off...  Much better! Yes this ship/route is dedicated entirely to hauling Rum, More Rum, Even More Rum and Nothing But Rum.  Next I produce a classic Alky-Derp. I mean to start snagging the random expeditions that pop off, but while shopping around for expeditions that have easy to satisfy wants I find this one that mainly wants Diplomacy, so I set off without noticing I’ve started a DLC expedition. Go me! Where did the wine come from? Due to high happiness, Ditchwater kicked off with a Harvest Festival that has the local farms producing a whole bunch of free goodies like wine and chocolate. It also gives a big boost to local Appeal and is great for tourists.  Speaking of tourists, and the aforementioned Docklands, I build both a Tourist Dock and a Docklands Main Wharf. The Tourist Dock is easy: It directly converts an island’s Appeal score into a steady influx of cold, hard cash and the occasional trickle of Specialist items. Of course our appeal is rather low, it’s early days after all. The Docklands helps with that.  Here’s what the Docklands looks like when you click on it. To start with it’s:
 Let’s zoom in on the information. At the top we can see Captain Tobias, the soft-spoken trader who sends his special trade ships to the Docklands. Every Main Wharf you place will spawn a ship every 20 minutes to steam in and fulfill your trade. The big round circle lets you build the six Docklands modules. Repair cranes, warehouses, and piers are basically smaller versions of the normal harbor buildings that are more expensive to construct. There’s also harbormaster offices (can slot an additional item in the main wharf), exports offices (allow an extra Docklands trade route) and loading piers (Island wide +50% bonus to loading and unloading speed of ships). All of these are about as expensive as the Main Wharf itself ($20-30K depending on module, a giant pile of brick, steel and windows) but only cover an area of 3x3 tiles. Yup, all docks have a load/unload speed. Until Docklands this was a hidden stat and you had to understand that “the more goods a ship is dropping off and picking up, the longer it stays at dock.” There were a few items that would enhance nearby piers. Now it’s shown as the box/watch symbol in the bottom left. Without any loading piers the Main Wharf loads/unloads at 2 tons/second. Every single Docklands module can be built anywhere on the island’s harbor area. However if the module is connected in a chain back to the Main Wharf it will also add +15 additional Appeal to the island’s score. This encourages the player to build sprawling harbor districts, just like the real districts the Docklands DLC is based off of. The end result is not only mechanically powerful but starts to look really damned cool. Ditchwater’s main harbor is going to undergo several alterations  If you click on the Export/Import button you’re taken to this screen. This is the meat and potatoes of the Docklands DLC and where the game-breaking happens. On the left side we have the player’s items. The bottom left shows the current island’s inventory. Nothing special. The top left is our Pyramid of Productivity. When the player exports enough of a single item that item gets upgraded a tier as said item becomes more popular. Items slotted in the green slots (1,000 traded) trade at 1.2x value, 1.4x for blue (2,000 traded), 1.6x for purple (4,000 traded) and a whopping 2x value for gold (7,000 traded). Unlocking these tiers will also unlock additional docklands modules.   On the right we can see the various goods we can trade for from various fake companies we can import from. They’re pretty self explanatory about what they offer. A lot of goods are locked off (and those are just the ones we can see). Goods unlock one of three ways: export a certain amount of goods, have a certain number of active trade deals going across the game, or import a certain amount of a specific good (i.e.: to unlock malt to make beer you have to import a certain amount of hops).  How do you know how much to order? Well you see what your demand for a certain good is and then multiply by 20 since Captain Tobias sends a ship every 20 minutes. It’s also generally good to add a safety fudge factor since the ship does spawn at the edge of the map, steam in, and have to trade.  I’ve upped my soap production and stopped selling to Eli, which means I’ll be able to supply the pork needed for both sausages and my own soap needs via trade routes, and I can upgrade the farm houses supporting the pigs to more profitable workers and artisans. 3:1 isn’t bad and will get better as we export more and secure better trade deals. This starts becoming real juicy when you start getting items to buff the production chain of whatever items you’re using to sell.  My plans involve more weapons, which means I need more steel. I’ll need the steel for other things anyways, so I need to start mining my other islands. Or I will once I get some bricks. It’s easy enough to set buy orders for the lesser islands. The NPCs in the Old World will gladly sell you lumber, bricks and steel beams. You have to make your own production lines for other resources. Father I crave violence! But Father is dead… Which means I shall supply the violence myself in order to avenge him! Building the Docklands wharf and the Tourist pier means I’m about out of steel girders and there’s more stuff to build. Girders are one of the more frustrating construction materials to build due to how expensive everything is to set up. The Letter of Immunity is nice: super cheap $10K item for 40 diplomacy to carry about on future exhibitions.  With a fresh set of girders in hand I build a Variety Theater in one of the little pockets I left in Ditchwater’s layout. The artisans are happier and producing more money.     The first segment of the Sunken Treasures DLC expedition triggers and...this is just about where I lose it because I realized what I’d done.  In better news, our first batch of tourists have arrived and we can start siphoning cash from them. Tourists come in two tiers: the vanilla day trippers that we have now, and later we’ll get into the Tourist Season DLC and start building hotels so we can start emptying the pockets of a higher class of tourist.    The next set of expedition events for Sunken Treasures. I love that the “diplomatic” option is lying through your teeth about how you’re supposed to be there and walking into a costume party without any sort of costume.   Rule 1 of Anno is “Never Stop Growing” so I get the Fur Coat line up and running. Mixing furs from the Old World with cotton from the New World. One of the nice things about the furs is that since they’re not actually chopping down the wood they don’t actually compete with lumberjacks or charcoal kilns.  Dr. Mercier gives a propaganda quest so I finally use one of his propaganda articles. The -10% money one is harmless if you’re getting bonus money in return.   We catch up with the Queen and it's time to unlock the Sunken Treasures map. By the way, this expedition? Entirely impossible to fail. My favorite is if you fumble the chase at the end she just has pity on you before turning around and telling you to follow her ship.  We start with a big cinematic, sweeping introduction to the map that seems very familiar to anyone who played 2205.  After a bit the cinematic shot sweeps into a sepia mode to show massive fleets of ships fighting. The Scepter of Capon has long granted its bearers indisputable authority. But it sank to the depths, along with La Corona’s fleet. I can still smell father’s victory here at Trelawney, it is his greatest legacy. Oh my, that is a big landmass rising up in the distance, especially for Anno scale.  And here it is. Sunken Treasure does a few other things, but it comes with the Cape Trelawny map. Cape Trelawny is a 100% fixed map in the style of Anno 2205. You get a truly monstrous sized island to have fun with. The only things randomized to any degree on this map are the mine slots, mud pits and fertilities. Help me build it, and find the sceptre, and I shall designate you Warden of Trelawny, my official representative in these waters. So let me get this straight: you’re ordering me to build a big, shiny city? And reclaim the scepter of course. That’s the long and short of it. Oh! Oh my! I’d love to, but I’m a bit busy at the moment. I’ll settle here just to get a town started while I clear out a few remaining issues. Still trying to clear my father’s name and figure out the whole mess with Prosperity. Right, right, of course! The land isn’t going anywhere after all. Eeeeee! Landscaping! Urban Planning! I’m going to have so much fun with museums! Settling Crown Falls costs a fat pile of influence, which pushes the company up over the threshold to earn the first tier expansion bonus. This is one of the best bonuses in the game: a whopping 50 free workforce of every tier in the Old and New World maps. By the way, Cape Trelawny counts as Old World. So my New World Islands gain 50 free jornalero and obrero workforce, and my Old World islands all gain 50 free farmer, worker, artisan and engineer (tier 4) workforce. No houses/infrastructure necessary. This is absolutely huge. I saw it from the deck: an impish little man dredging up bits and pieces. He may be exactly what we require… As I said, I’ll get to it. Eventually.Queenie, that’s no way to talk about  In the meantime I was running a quest for von Malching. Nearly didn’t protect his clipper but one of the nice things about frigates (and later ships of the line) is that they fire broadsides, plural. Which means their DPS is doubled if you actually wedge them in between two targets.  So I slap down some houses and leave them be. Crown Falls is big so there’s plenty of room to make some space for various artsy setups. No need to go for maximum density unless you want to go for some record stuff.  Once that’s done it’s time to pay attention to the New World and knock out some of Sarmento’s requests. She wants 600 Obreros so lets start feeding the houses. First thing they want is “Tortillas” which are made of corn and beef. The New World cattle ranches produce the exact same beef that the Old World ones do for goulash, only they require 6 3x4 pens to the Old World’s 4. Either way: that beef is genuine, under-rated “Good Stuff”. Not because of any production chain nonsense but because it’s one of the earliest and easiest sources of Force on expeditions. Bring a stack of it for both rations and stats!  Back on Ditchwater I put the utterly juicy item von Malching tossed me. +55% productivity does hell with ratios, but means I’m getting that much more product without having to build more expensive buildings. This is especially nice for the steel girders as those factories cost so much to build. So what if all the buildings pollute more?  Anyways, with Trelawny open it’s time to start loading up to settle some islands there. Always gotta think ahead when dealing with expanding AIs. Trelawny was untouched when I got there, but Mercier and von Malching are already snapping up islands. Now that multiple sessions have been unlocked this little menu pops up when I click the formerly greyed out globe button. Clicking the session name will open up a list of specific harbors to stop at. Clicking the globe just sends it to the last harbor you interacted with on that map.  My plans to have Wollsvenn take over wheat and animal farm handling for Ditchwater expands, letting me rip up the framework knitters in Ditchwater and promote more farmers to workers.  And now that I’m getting a decent obrero population it’s time to start producing bricks in the New World instead of importing them from the Old World.  Now that I have an actual naval presence in the New World it’s time to help Sarmento some more. She’s worried that even her island sanctuary is no longer safe and asks us to escort some of the sickly and injured to our safer location.  I really detest these masked creeps but I’m oh so very glad they’re not so bright. Yes their flamethrower ships are dangerous but not dangerous enough to take 3:1 odds. All three ships, and their passengers, safe and sound! We will remember your actions. Oh, and Silos! Silos exist in the New World as well! They require corn instead of wheat. The fact that La Isla has corn fertilities is part of why I plan to have it be mass producing goods for my other islands.  AGAIN!? Ugh, where’s the creativity? No poisons, no explosions just “OOOH! FLAME PRETTY! FLAME SOLVE PROBLEM!” Well fire usually does solve… Not when the problem is Bente Goode-Jorgenson! It just makes the problem angry. Hey you weren’t very interested in our shipment of lard. Will this do better? We convinced one of the best glassmakers to come with us! Perfect! This is exactly the behavior I want to encourage from you!The Glassblower’s meh: a +10% productivity to glassmakers. However it is finally an item. I snag him up, which has the extra benefit of testing if this quest even works. As I mentioned previously the Anarchist Defectors event is buggy and doesn’t always give the items. As far as I can tell It really seems to be on a “per game” basis: it will either always works on a save, or never works. I get the glassblower item so as far as I can tell this will work from now on, and with any luck I’ll get some juicy items. I hope.  Hannah, why is our steelworks on fire? Oh just a minor explosion. The firefighters will clear it up soon enough. What firefighters? I don’t see any here!So yes, I forgot to build fire departments next to my steel area.  First Trelawny island snagged. I have enough farmers to satisfy the queen that the first stage of construction on Crown Falls is complete.  And our first Ship of the Line (which shall be henceforth shortened to SOTL so I don’t have to type that out a dozen times) splashes out of the shipyard. SOTLs are the biggest, meanest sailboats one can get...at least without the item that gives Royal Ships of the Line that trade speed for even more health. The SOTLs are slow, heavily armed and armored and like the frigates can engage two targets at once if they get between them. If they can catch something they can destroy it or put the hurt into it. SOTLs are not the meanest ships on the water, but they're a close second and the actual meanest ships are expensive. Mass construction of SOTL blobs is one of the best ways to wage actual war in Anno 1800. As to be expected they have rather high Naval Power ratings for Expeditions. That and the 6 inventory slots makes them excellent Expedition fodder. These are going to be the Goode Sisters’ shipyards primary output for the next while, along with clippers to carry Jorgeson Trust’s goods. Also you can’t see it from this angle due to all the sails but it has an adorable, tiny little steam chimney on the deck, powering what I assume is a small internal paddlewheel to give it just enough oomph to fight the wind and avoid being becalmed.   The obreros on La Isla have grown populous enough to start craving coffee which will provide me with more obreros. I see no reason not to set up a quick roaster and field to support it. Doing this finally gets me the 600 obreros I need to satisfy Sarmento and unlock the New World hospital. I also build a Boxing Arena to entertain the obreros and generate a few extra coins.    Sarmento’s people have a brand new safe haven, protected by someone who has more than enough military clout to make the Pyrphorians nervous. Now to rescue several families that are being kept hostage on an archipelago off to the west. This involves dodging several semi-randomly patrolling Pyrphorian monitors which takes a good while due to me keep getting bad luck and having to fight the wind. I do manage to squeeze by all of the ships and rescue the three sets of hostages without triggering a single one. I suspect it would just aggro the patrolling ship and not fail the mission: story missions are remarkably resilient to being failed.  It’s just a short hop (read: long, slow trip against the wind) to drop the hostages back home on Sarmento’s island so they can be reunited with their families. All of us sticking together. That is the best chance we have of defending ourselves. Indeed it is. Now about that deed you said you had? Oh no! Isabel has forgotten what we do to those who disobey! Now we must inflict what we might have saved for later. Anyways. About that island deed? We have done quite a lot here for your movement. And while there is much to be done, we do need that deed to prove our father’s innocence. Why has Isabel not yet given us the Prosperity contract? She is worryingly elusive on the subject. Worryingly elusive indeed. Especially since the delay to hand over the contract means the Crown is gathering forces to take Prosperity by force. The contract, it is gone! They must have taken it during the attack. Well that explains why they sent such a paltry fleet against prepared defenses.[i/] This unlocks another story expedition. Because of course nothing can be easy.  But first a random expedition came in! If you succeed at an expedition you’ll gain 3 rewards, and you can pick up other rewards from the quests along the way. What rewards you’ll get depend on the expedition. Zoological ones like this one obviously give animals. Archeological and Botanical ones give museum pieces and plants. Rescue missions give specialists. Pirate extermination missions usually give loot like gold bars, treasure maps and machines (usually harbor or ship equipment). Brush tailed butterflies! Excuse me one moment everyone! It’s time to set up the first zoological garden of the Jorgenson Trust! There’s architecture to do! I build the zoo entrance where I previously had fields. Add a few walkways, some exhibition modules and an opera pit and we’re in business. Zoos and Museums are vanilla parts of the game, and originally they were just “build an entrance and a big glob of modules”. You could make them pretty with a little work but you were limited that every module had to either touch the entrance or another module. The Botanical Gardens DLC added cosmetics like walkways that could act as part of the cultural building, which makes it far easier to make zoos, museums and botanical gardens that look nice.  The Botanical Gardens DLC also adds the Music Pavillion module to cultural buildings which you can insert a piece of music in based off of various Anno titles. Depending on the subject of the music piece the entire building will provide additional Appeal to certain sets. Since you get a free piece of music for the very first pavilion you set up, you might as well slap one down right away. You can get others as quest/expedition rewards or buy them from various NPCs.  Ah, there, the Jorgenson Trust’s first step to beautifying, and educating, the world!Add a few more non-zoo cultural items, equip the exhibition and we’re good to go! A good +120 appeal points that Ditchwater’s tourist dock will convert into money. Now where were we? The deed, eldest. The deed. Oh! Right!    Onwards! I finally get the ultimate artisan building set up: the University. Much like the School it does nothing besides give artisan houses the last two population points they need to upgrade.  Which means it’s time to meet the engineers! And...oh boy does the game just start [i]doing things at this point. Why yes, the “Age Of Science And Wonder” popup has railroad on it! Yes, rails are an actual mechanic in this game!  I shall evaluate this habitation, before I draw any conclusions.Engineers want the artisan level goods and services (including drinking rum like it was tap water), but they also want: spectacles, coffee, lightbulbs (and electricity to power them), penny farthings, pocket watches and access to a bank. I am SO not going into any of that right now. This update is long enough already. Engineers add new mechanics, especially with the DLCs ready. There’s a reason that a lot of players reach this point and just bounce.  And unlocking Engineers means we now have the final DLC expedition unlocked. The Passage, though I’m pretty sure everyone just remembers it as “The Arctic”  My name is Lady Jane Faithful and it is my husband, Sir John, whose expedition is lost in the Arctic. In two years, the admiralty haven’t done much about his rescue, but fortunately, I have. I have gathered men and resources to conquer the ice, and to you I offer a handsome reward for bringing him home. Wotcha! I’ll be joining you. Lady Faithful’s engaged me for some practical advice-- gonna be dead cold up there.We’re introduced to Lady Jane Faithful who’s desperate to find out what happened to her husband who was out trying to discover the Northwest Passage. You know: a sea route around the north of America? We’re joined by Much like the Engineers I won’t be going into this until next time at least.     The next phase of the expedition.  While I’m waiting for the last part of the expedition to pop off one of these events happens. The Anarchists want me to meet their demands or they’ll start setting fires. This one’s easy: they just want some cash.     The next set of the expedition quests appear. It’s all normal until the end, we’re given a choice. If we make the right one…  That’s right, we get extra loot! This shield will come in handy for a quest later.   And with that, we’ve recovered the deed of sale for the Queen’s island of Prosperity! This update's gone on long enough so we’ll see what that means next time.
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Sep 12, 2021 08:59
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Afaik Cape Trelawney is procedurally generated, too. Only Crown Falls itself is wholly fixed.
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Sep 12, 2021 15:11
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I can't wait to see what you do with the Docklands DLC. I've only dabbled in it a little bit myself as I decided to start a new game for when the High Life DLC came out, so I haven't yet come to realise how game breaking it might actually be.quote:SOTLs are the biggest, meanest sailboats one can get...at least without the item that gives Royal Ships of the Line that trade speed for even more health. ...and I had no idea that these existed (I love this game and have poured hours into it but I think I might be terribly poo poo at it).
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Sep 12, 2021 18:16
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Rasler posted:...and I had no idea that these existed (I love this game and have poured hours into it but I think I might be terribly poo poo at it). Basically, there's a few very rare harbormaster items that allow shipyards in range of the harbormaster to build special ships. This includes pirate ships (gunboat, frigate, SOTL monitor), the Royal SOTL, pyrphorian ships and IIRC a special cargo ship. All of these can also - rarely - be found for sale with the pirates if you made friends with them.
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Sep 12, 2021 18:54
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Magni posted:Basically, there's a few very rare harbormaster items that allow shipyards in range of the harbormaster to build special ships. This includes pirate ships (gunboat, frigate, SOTL monitor), the Royal SOTL, pyrphorian ships and IIRC a special cargo ship. All of these can also - rarely - be found for sale with the pirates if you made friends with them. Two types of special cargo ship. One of which is extremely important, and extremely famous.
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Sep 12, 2021 19:21
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Redeye Flight posted:Two types of special cargo ship. One of which is extremely important, and extremely famous. Erm, IIRC that one's actually wholly unique and only avaiable as a quest reward, unless you modded the game. Plus there's another one you get the ability to build en masse from the Docklands quest chain.
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Sep 12, 2021 19:49
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Dunno why you guys are spoiler-chatting about boats like this. It's not like there's going to be a giant plot twist about the Extravaganza Steamer or something. Obviously I avoid talking too much about future stuff in the actual updates but you're free to talk about stuff as long as you don't get too far ahead. And I did mention ship variants. I appreciate the posts (hopefully we can get to a new page soon so there's less images to load on one) but I think it's a bit silly to have chat about a city builder start looking like a CIA document. Alkydere fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Sep 12, 2021 |
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Sep 12, 2021 21:15
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Actually, I'll have you know that during the switch to ironclads and so on, there was a lot of stuff worthy of CIA documents.
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Sep 12, 2021 21:28
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To End in Flame Last time we finished off with an expedition to recover the deed of sale for the island of Prosperity. You beat the Pyrphorians at their own game! Well done Eldest! You have served both Isabel and the Empire greatly.  Looks like we were just in time too. Maybe nothing need be sunk at all, Majesty! Who are you, to speak up without permission? Er… this is one of the Goode children I mentioned. A little forward, but surprisingly helpful so far! Oh! You’re Bente’s sister? Regard here, your Majesty! The prosperity contract and our father’s diary. The signatures do not match. And now compare with a freight document by our uncle Edvard. Do you see? He forged the signature in order to impersonate father! Yeah Sarmento’s fleet in the background is painfully, laughably outclassed. Then we too were betrayed. We will leave Prosperity immediately, your Majesty. Then I suppose we’ll not be sinking any ships today. Not even as a deterrent? Terribly sorry, your Majesty, but I fear not. Wait, so we may stay? You have to leave but then you can come right back. So yes, tear everything down and abandon the island then you may return as the new owner rebuilds the island in their image. Yes, yes, I realize it’s a great and honestly pointless hardship: I may be the Queen but I don’t make the game mechanics. Finally this nightmare is over! I am sorry you had to go through all this just to have justice. For the first time in my life, I know freedom. We return to the Old World where apparently Aarhant has been holding down the fort for us. Edvard was the cause of all of our grief! To see his face when he discovers we know! Edvard is behind this? He’s pathetic. Whatever the punishment, the damage to Edvard is already done. Onwards to the next chapter! Edvard is as good as dead to me. Edvard! I told you he was as rotten as a fig. I pause here to do a quick quest for my engineers and get this nifty doohicky. Now that we have engineers we have a new mechanic: POWER! Power is how you get your production buildings to just…explode with production! I’ll get into that in a bit.  Thank you, editor! And now to confront our uncle! Waste of breath and time, just let the courts do it. He’ll just whine and go ‘blah, blah, blah you don’t know what it’s like not being as popular as my brother was’ and make it all about him. I’m going to stay back here and keep building up our cities. We need to bring the contract to Bright Sands to continue. When we do we find Edvard at Samuel’s grave.  What are you talking about, child? Only words between brothers, that’s all. I love that they gave Hannah and Aarhant actual models on the map that emote for this scene. Edvard, however, is basically a generic population model. You start seeing these tophat fellows on the streets when you get investor houses. from the moment I saw you, I knew it meant trouble. Enough! It was you who sold Prosperity for the Pyrphorians! You forged father’s signature! You sentenced him to death! But now the sentence is on you, uncle! I knew this would happen. I was just saying to your father I’ll never come up to him--not even after having sacrificed it all. If he says that we’ll never understand… Uuuuugh, your sister called it. You don’t understand pain. Real pain. I can’t be scared. No more than I am already. But another tiresome prophet of doom, Archie. How dreary! Are these common around here? We’re a pastiche of industrial-era Britainnia. Full of wealth and bored, idle nobility with nothing to do besides start little social clubs. What do you think? At least these ‘Pyrphorians’ merely want to burn the world down and rule the ashes. Better than that Clue-lu-lu or whatever cult last month. I shudder to speak of what they were doing with fish. Well, momentarily at least! Mr. Edvard Goode, you are to be placed under house arrest in Bright Sands until the time of your trial. Yes. Guilty as charged. Your heart didn’t really look like it was in that last line, Hannah. Bente was right, he just sucked the fun out of everything. Speaking of Bente, let’s see how she’s doing. Oh! You’re back! I just had the workers clear out some rocks and the Crown commissioned me to build a courthouse right there! A courthouse!? So this is a nifty little slight of hand the game pulls. The entire time up to this point there were some boulders here. Suddenly now those boulders transform into a worksite. Means the player can’t put something important there, and the devs don’t have to add an extra build icon for the storyline and only the storyline. Indeed! This will do wonders for Ditchwater’s prestige! While technically mining the passage with dynamite to reveal iron and coal was the storyline’s first monument, the Court of Justice is our first proper monument that’s gonna take some work. Starting with making sure there’s enough workers to build it!  While this is all happening I haven’t stopped working on other things. A rescue mission comes back with some coffee, a peddler (he’s small fries: increasing the range of marketplaces by 20%) and this Arborist. Oooh baby: increasing New World crop productivity, reducing the space they take and giving free tobacco. That’s a juicy item!  And now time to talk about power! The Engineer tier provides powerplants which will add a straight +100% production to industrial buildings. Obviously this won’t affect farms or ranches, but it affects mines, factories, and so forth. Now I don’t have a power-plant yet (I’ll get to that in a bit) but I do have this item the engineers give me. So +100% production for +75% maintenance cost. This is a massive cost saving in workforce, especially on expensive stuff like steel production. Oh and a moderate +50% chance for explosions from the item itself. Mixed with the fact that increased production means an increased chance of accidents happening means I should probably build some extra fire stations nearby.  Oh and I also go slap down a public mooring in Crown Falls. Part of why Crown Falls is so silly is that empty land adds to an island’s appeal. Not as much as decorative items, but it adds up. Crown Falls island/peninsula being so big means it adds up to a lot of beauty points. This mooring is going to be giving me something like $3,000 in profit from day trip tourists coming to stare at empty land.  And since I’ve got engineers its time to get cracking on their production material! Engineers require reinforced concrete for their buildings. Placing this factory next to the trade union with the generator in it means double the production so I can get started on juicy engineer tier buildings right away.  It does help that Ditchwater comes with a pair of limestone deposits to produce the concrete. Yup, unlike in Anno 2070 we’re mining concrete, not limestone, from these deposits: no need to add sand.. The Engineer just wants us to add iron reinforcement to the concrete.  Now that Isabella Sarmento’s rebels are no longer under threat from the Queen’s wrath they’re quite happy to move back in. All I have to do is click on the main warehouse and I can take control and start building a fresh city/settlement.  While all that was happening I finally complete the first stage of the courthouse. It took a bit more than the 10 minutes, mainly due to struggling to get ahold of all the steel and being short on workers. Partly because I built so many so fast that I couldn’t adjust to the production shock using the Docklands. So I had to rebuild some pig farms for sausages and soap. One of the big problems with the Docklands trade system is that it really doesn’t handle sudden population spikes very well. I think we have built up enough trust with Isabel to rely on her as a witness. Thanks to the generator I’m producing steel at a decent clip which means this time I have plenty of steel! The required extra 200 worker workforce on top of the initial 500 kinda hurts though. Still nothing compared to later monuments. Is the Court of Justice finished yet? Not quite? I don’t normally attend trials so this one must be important. Well the sooner we’re done with this, the sooner I can get to work on your new capital of industry on Cape Trelawny. And with that we’re through Phase II and into Phase III. Now we need artisan workforce for this step which means I can upgrade some of those worker houses to artisans for more cash! Or...I will be when I get my sausage/soap production finally sorted out. And then they’ll be artisan houses that consume 2x as much sausage and soap. Also apologies for the steam notifications that pop up, I hope they’re not too distracting. I really don’t notice them as I’m playing and it’s too late to go back and fix stuff later   Anyways, onto satisfying our first engineer need. Ditchwater was originally settled and then abandoned during a rush for tin. However it still has plenty of copper and zinc, exactly what we need for brass!   Combine brass and glass and we get spectacles for our engineers! I do find it kind of odd that the artisan symbol is a pair of glasses, but we don’t build glasses until we get engineers. We’ll be using the brass for other products later: mainly steam engines when we get there. Also as you can see I built a lovely little amusement park near the coast in some spare space!  I also head back to Prosperity to set up some rubber tree plantations. We’re going to need this for the next engineer tier good.   An Archeology expedition returns with some Yes! Now we have a museum started as well! This will really bring in the visitors! As the spectacles start to flow in the city grows. Unlocking steam ships, steam engines...and penny farthings! That’s right, the engineers are off to the bicycle races!  Hitting this mark means the second half of Bright Harvest unlocks. It’s a bit more involved (as is everything the engineers do) but in some ways it’s the more powerful half of the DLC. That’s right, we’re going past grain silos to ensure our farm animals have a constant supply of food: we’re making tractors! Or...we will be. Later.   I also finish a quest from Madame Kahina and get some much needed cash and some garden plots. These are part of the Botanical Gardens DLC expanding cultural buildings. By activating the garden item in my island’s inventory I get a set number of these garden pieces I can add to my museums. zoos and botanical gardens. They look nice, space out the modules a bit and add a dash of Appeal to the island.  Anyways, the Bright Harvest card popping up means it's time to get working on oil! Not for tractors, but for more vanilla reasons: it’s time to set up power! It all starts by setting up an oil harbor down on the coastline. The engineer tier is where a lot of first time players get overwhelmed. We’re transitioning from a muscle/animal/wind powered economy to a steam powered one and it takes a lot of effort and resources to set up a brand new infrastructure to support it.  Next is to place oil refineries next to the oil seeps. The oil refineries can build drilling rigs on top of nearby oil seeps and it takes 3 oil seeps to fuel an oil power plant. I could move this refinery a bit over to the side and get 3 seeps easily but Ditchwater has 4 seeps and I feel a 2-2 setup would work better. There’s also the fact that oil refineries are heavy industry which means they just love to explode. Each seep adds another +100% production, which means it increases the chance it explodes. I once found a legendary 6-seep spot for a refinery. The building entered orbit within 15 minutes.  And between the refineries and oil harbor we add rail! That’s right, we need rail lines to carry oil! This is the part that overwhelms new players. Tapping a new resource is one thing but having to set up a brand new transport network is another. It’s made further complicated by the fact that unlike the little horse-drawn wagons (and early trucks that replace them when you power a building) trains don’t clip. One train per segment of a track. That’s why I created the massive avenue down the center of Ditchwater: for future rail expansion. But...but why are we transporting this oil in expensive trains? Why don’t we just load this in barrels on a wagon? Because, trains!This setup has cost close to $80K between the two refineries, the drill rigs, the oil harbor and the track (the segments aren’t cheap cash-wise and also cost both wood and steel). And we’re not even done setting everything up.  Finally, another $25K down and we have the oil power plant up and running! Much like the generator the power plant provides, well power. Only it does so in a range along the roads instead of a radius from the buildings.  I placed the first power plant here for 3 reasons: there’s room to move some industries here. It’s close enough to where I’ve been making engineer houses that some of their houses will get electricity (yes it’s one of their needs later) and finally it’s close enough to the harbor to boost my shipyards. Yes the sail shipyard is now producing at double speed as shown by the glowing blue meter, and the steam shipyard (that is only a blueprint ghost right now) outright requires electricity to run.  With that taken care of, the Court of Justice is complete! Finally we will let Edvard tell his sob story to the world! Finishing the Court of Justice sets quite a lot into action rather fast.  First of all the Queen arrives! The two brown SotLs behind her Royal SotL are her honor guard sent by Archibald Blake. Did Archie tell you I was visiting? I hope there’s a convenient mooring. I dislike long walks. Your majesty. Isabel Sarmento, at your service. I hope as witness I can prove the Pyrphorians were behind this deal, not us. Everyone’s showing up at our island. Who’s next to arrive for the party? A modern Queen must show she is able to dispense mercy. The man must be given fair hearing. Just need to pick up the summons and deliver it.  Oh my, suddenly we’re in the cutscene zone! No, child. It’s too late. Judgement has already come.  The alarms are raised and the local fleet sails out to meet the strange, aggressive ships on the horizon.  Oh dear this isn’t good!  Another masked figure appears! I am. Of course you are. The heat will peel your sins from your flesh like cloth. Acolytes, purge the place! Yes, Grandmaster! Gladly. The local defenses fare just as poorly against the onslaught of flame. If only father were here, he’d have known what to do. No! And with that Edvard’s part comes to a close. Samuel will forgive you on the other side, Edvard! Meanwhile the Pyrphorians aren’t just cleaning up their cat’s paw: they’re burning all of Bright Sands down to ash.  And Aarhant makes a grand statement at the head of Goode Sisters fleet   As safe as the situation allows, highness. Their fleet is formidable. I count many ships. How many is ‘many’ Aarhant? We use numbers around here. Oh you are awfully right, old chum. I beseech you, we must protect Her Majesty at any cost! The Pyrphorians have seized Bright Sands. They enchain it to their foul cause! We’re spat out of the cutscene with Bright Sands burning down. The Pyrphorian fleet hunkers down near the ruins of Bright Sand’s main harbor and will attack anything that comes close owned by the player or expanding AIs. By some hilarious luck my trade routes are just outside of the aggro range of the fleet.  The Pyrphorians also quickly send a fleet right into your harbor. It’s easily cleaned up by my ships. If my ships weren’t there, Aarhant had earlier given the player a sidequest to build some harbor defenses just in case something happened. This attack is actually something of a boon as the Pyrphorian ships on the map will drop loot when they sink. They can drop: -A few tons of naval weaponry to use for building defenses or ships -Mortar items that lob a slow, powerful shot into the air at a target location for heavy damage -Torpedos which zip through the water at a target location and do heavy damage to anything they hit.  Thank you Editor. Anyways at this point Aarhant suggests a battle plan. Either bring 10 SotLs to the fight or 16 frigates. Either should be enough to dislodge the Pyrphorian fleet. Since I’ve been building like mad I’m only 2 SotLs short.  The game starts spawning these little patrol fleets of Pyrphorians as bonus objectives to clean up. They’re an excellent way to stock up on weaponry to build more military ships if you’ve fallen behind.  Oh and we have the first riot of the game on Crown Falls! The worker population grew to the point it needed a church without me realizing it. Add to the fact I’ve been laying on the propaganda heavily and we have a riot! If you rely too heavily on propaganda your population distrusts the newspaper which means they take a happiness hit and become more likely to riot.   Once that little segue is taken care of the Armada is ready to take on the Pyrphorian menace. While I don’t wish to sound like I’m not glad someone was actually prepared for this mess, but what guarantee do we have that this fleet won’t go up in so much smoke and flame as Bright Sand’s fleet? Simple. When I learned we were fighting firebomb throwing maniacs I invested in covering my ships’ outsides with the latest and greatest in fire-retardant materials: asbestos panels! Excellent. Now for a fight like this I suggest putting all of your ships in a line and- All ships! Fire torpedoes and mob the bastards!  Ships of the line are the king of close quarters combat. Especially if you can get them in the center so both broadsides are brought into play. It doesn’t hurt one bit that the initial Pyrphorian raid on Ditchwater also dropped a nice pile of torpedoes to soften up the enemy fleet with.. Confound you meddling Goodes! I will return and take you to darker places than you ever could conceive.Spoilers: he doesn’t come back.  10 SotLs sailed against a far more advanced fleet, 7 still float and there’s a giant pile of free stuff floating in the water around my fleet. What you did goes far beyond us, dear blood. You have saved us all from a reign of terror. Now we are ready for Her Majesty. All the eyes of the world will be upon us.  The survivors of Bright Sands cheer as the Queen’s flagship and escorts sail into the ruins of the harbor. The Pyrphorians are defeated, the Queen is here, even if these two events are only somewhat tangentially related they’re both still something to celebrate.  No doubt, your Majesty--mustn’t worry. Your attendance at this ceremony is nothing short of sublime. A gesture of the uttermost nobility that can heal this tormented place. Let’s heal it then, and be off. I still need to get back to my project in Cape Trelawny! See? Her Majesty is paying her last respects, just as Archie promised! Yes, just look at her. I bet she’s already forgotten who we are. From now on they rest side by side in the family vault. They are at peace now. For your unquestionable loyalty and bravery you shall be knighted and bequeathed the island of Bright Sands from now and forevermore! Hahaha… Forgive me, I always laugh at funerals! I fear Majesty, it is time we were on our way... She is… ...the Queen. She’s the Queen. After the funeral the camera pans over a mountain ridge and ends up over here on this distant shore of Bright Sands. After all we’ve been through I will not be fooled, Aarhant. I know that we shall one day be parted. But if my prayers be answered, today will not be that day-- dearest sibling? Today is not a day for parting.  And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we have completed the main storyline campaign of Anno 1800. I’ll be a lot more free to move on into the DLC and building up our city. Maybe waging war on either Mercier or von Malching. Now that the campaign is over all of the NPCs on the map have a line to deliver. You broke the chain! Now we are really somewhere. I was worried for a while there would be no Queen to grant me my baroncy. I had been looking forward to putting Edvard’s head through the noose. Never mind. Ruthless when you had to be. I like that. The world is rid of a great evil. The Pyrphorians are gone, but the problem that caused them, absurd crown on her head, is somehow still there.  As a reward for our service the Queen bequeathed Bright Sands upon us and Hannah is oh so very interested in rebuilding it to its former glory, or beyond. It’s in shambles at the moment since the Pyrphorians had their fun. Nothing but scraps of road and burnt out ruins remain behind. Oh and a shocking amount of trees have grown up in the last 5 minutes since there was a city here.  As for the big estate and graveyard on the back corner of Bright Sands it really doesn’t anything. It just exists, can't even click on anything besides the Goode monument. Doesn't even give a tourism bonus. However if you do click on the Goode monument in the very back it will take you to this screen where Hannah will cycle through a set of mournful lines about Samuel and Edvard. And with that the main campaign has been finished and just moves into free play mode, giving us free reign in the New World and Old World besides Hannah’s desire to rebuild Bright Sands. Next time we’ll be starting Land of Lions and really getting into Sunken Treasures.
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Sep 18, 2021 23:23
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Alkydere posted:
Well, in a manner of speaking? It's hinted at quite a bit, if she's present in the session, that the Grandmaster of the Pyrphorians is Lady Margaret Hunt, the hardest of the expanding AI players.
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Sep 19, 2021 19:49
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