I like this game but I feel like game can have too much content. When you can ignore about half of the game without any consequences I think there's something wrong with your game. At the end of the day it's subjective but I liked the scenario driven gameplay with 1404 where you had different challenges to accomplish. 1800 feels purposeless at times by comparison. There's no real challenge to city building with anno game design. You mustly wait for resources to pile up and build production chains. While satisfying it's not enough to be engaging just by itself.

>>2051520 (OP)
Its biggest issue is fucking Uplay.

>>2051520 (OP)
>When you can ignore about half of the game without any consequences I think there's something wrong with your game
precisely the opposite. that means you can build a city the way you like. you're not dependent on in-game mechanics, you're able to express your play through them in a variety of combinations.
The best RPGs do not require you to finish all the content to finish the game. They leave even more instances of content and to be discovered in subsequent runs. That is called replay-ability. You want a solved game that plays itself once you enter the right equation. But that is no play, that is using an algorithm.
Anno is very easily affected by this disease since it's a management game and like all management game analytical autists are draw to them like flies to Scheiße.

>>2051520 (OP)
Are we talking base game or including all dlcs? Because looking at the add-ons they do mostly seem to add new stuff and mechanics that aren't necessary. Although even the base game have a lot of going on. From managing settlements on multiple islands on two maps, taking care of chain of productions, trade routes and keeping all suppliers in check, doing quests, fighting with pirates, rushing to settle new island before AI, doing the "choice your adventure" expeditions, looking for new items for zoo, museum and guilds, and so on. It's always something to do and at times ti feels like busywork.

>>2051520 (OP)
I'm not sure what is bothering you with it.
While endless/sandbox was always the main thing in all games, aside from 2205 which was weird, the scenarios, challenges and campaign are always an option.
An the whole build up ever more complex production chains to reach higher pop tiers while facing off against the ai is the core gameplay loop. Optimizing it is the whole appeal.

>>2052860
Yes just being able to start the game with an actor changes a lot by being able to sidestep canned food and rum. The impact on how one plays depending on which mechanics one interacts with at what time in the game is surprising.

>>2053031
The distinction between base game and dlcs is definitely important.
Without dlc there is substantial amounts of content but the dlcs add a ton of stuff, which while optional, can run you ragged.
Well and also completely change how you interact with mechanics but that isn't a bad thing.

What's better? Placing manufacturing buildings close to production buildings so raw resource can get transported directly into them and then to warehouse or setting one warehouse all for production buildings and another one somewhere away all for manufacturing buildings?

>>2051520 (OP)
>There's no real challenge to city building with anno game design.
Play with Lady Hunt, The insane guy and the General (Di Costa is it?). Tell me if you get beyond workers.
Even if you play without enemies and decide that your trade routes are going to be perfect and all population needs are fulfilled (including luxury needs and bonus needs) on every island, Anno is the most difficult game you will ever play.
On top of all those mechanics, you then have to build a beautiful city.

>>2053143
From what I can tell it somewhat depends on where you are in the game.
If a building uses electricity and/or you have multiple items, which don't affect other buildings in the production chain, it can be better to just feed them from and to a warehouse. Similar case if you can't make the distance short, otherwise the producer might not serve the closest consumer but a distant one.
Electricity especially is important because trucks move twice as fast and unload in 2 instead of 20 seconds.

Early game and often with buildings that don't take electricity it often can be better to just place them adjacent to the consumer.
As an example lets take basic beer without any boni. 2 grain farms into 1 malt house; 3 hops farms and the 1 malt house into 2 breweries.
If everyone delivers into a warehouse at first you would need at least 4 basic warehouses, or maybe 2 large ones but that would require artisans, increase maintenance by a factor of 10 and eat up a lot of construction materials. Not viable early on.
With a direct transport you would only need a small warehouse for the breweries.
The biggest bottleneck is the amount of loading ramps and the long unload speed in the early game.

>tl;dr: pre engineers just combine producers with consumers afterwards you should be rich enough and with electricity to be able to afford specific manufacturing areas.

Whole game is very muddled and suffers from crysis of identity. It supposed to be this intricate building wide on many iles to form supply chains to then have main ile without any industry just being fed imports to have investors
but no you just have 2 mega ilands and rarely need more than 2 off-ilands
and then you also have completely overpowered union items which allow to have any ferility anywhere and influence is limitless cos hacienda attraction degree lol
and then you can just do stupid shit like have specialists which give free pocket watches and grammaphones pand arty and champagne supplying whole mega island via dockyard imports

I fell like there both too much bloat and not enough friction at the same time

>>2053422
You reckon the older titles did it better?

>>2051520 (OP)
No you can't ignore half the game. You get bugged to open up the other continents over and over. All of them have scripted quests and events that you have to play through every single playthrough. But you are right, the game is not perfect. It's actually much weaker than anno 1404. I hate the UI and we are getting more of the slop UI in their new rome game.

>>2053459
I have played some venice but it isnt terribly complex
My complaint are dlcs going contrary to game design
Like theres so many flawed systems which serve no purpose which are bandaid-fixed by dlcs
>retarded tax system which makes it extremely hard to stay afloat without knowing beforehand what to do (like setting large soap production to trade to prison guy into furcoat production with no fur export specialist to oriental girl)
just do pocket watches lol, here, fixed
>influence system which makes unions very scarce
just use haciendas attraction lol
>resources are limited
idk just rush iles before ai its not like they are going to declare war on you if you are snowballing which you should do (I have played max difficulty ais with some adjustments to make it easier, like not fucking up taxes completely to not sit on starting ile forever turtline economy, another point btw about how fucked up natural eco is)
>funds are very limited at the begining
but you can declare war on ai straight up snipe his shit and get items which can be sold for lots of funds
>alll megaprojects come too late
I had many games where I rushed uni and basically ended up not using it since it takes so much time to get going, even when rushed, by the time you complete research you already have nearly everything naturally.
Out of all game I like 2 scenarios, silver and one where you have no tax income (ironically) and embesa the best, rest game is really fucking sucks after 1st playthought its too shallow and pre-determined and bloated

>>2053464
complete and utter bs, you can ignore embessa and arctic completely.
you can even ignore crown ilands but its like whole point of the game to build megacity so it makes no sense to do so

>>2053605
>soap production to trade to prison guy
Imo a trap/not how one should make money. Yes there is a bit of profit to be made after substracting maintenance and upkeep but taxing the population, especially with beer, is far more sustainable.

>>2053621
no its not, also setting up bear takes more time, you just put it on auto trade above 20 and forget about it

>>2053637
nta but it seems you have a problem with arithmetic which puts you at a disadvantage with this game straight away

>>2053637
>bear takes more time
Both beer and soap need steel and it's not like there is anything complicated about plopping down 5 farms and 3 buildings.

Soap needs 2 pig farms, 2 rendering works and 1 soap factory. That comes down to 105$ maintenance per ton produced. Eli buys them for 384$ per ton, so 279$ profit.
I just did an example route which had an average turnaround time of 7 minutes for this relatively short route.
You get 14 tons of soap in that timeframe which means a profit of 3906$ per run or 558$ per minute without including ship maintenance.
Schooner has an upkeep of 15 per minute for 105$ per run, so 3801$ per run or 543$ per minute
Clipper is way worse with an upkeep of 175$ for 1225$ per run, so 2681$ per run or 383$ per minute but I'm not going to assume people will use clippers although you never know.
Of course ship maintenance will matter less if you transport more per run, unless you hit slowdown and of course unloading gives you more downtime too.
And yes technically there is also the need to support the population but let's ignore that.

Beer with 2 breweries, 2 grain farms, 1 malthouse and 3 hops farms costs 325$ per ton or 650$ maintenance per minute. That is enough beer to supply 130 worker houses or 65 artisan houses.
At the worst income difficulty workers pay 10$ per house per minute for 1300$ total. after maintenance that's still 650$
Artisans at the worst income pay 30$ per house per minute for 1950$ total, so 1300$ after substracting maintenance.
Easier difficulties make it even more insane; artisans will get you up to 3737$ per minute after maintenance.

Point being; selling soap, while not a true noob trap because you do make profit in many cases, is pretty lacking and mostly is so common because the game lacks a true tutorial and doesn't communicate enough info to players.
Same issue with canned food for example being a money sink.

>>2054142
yeah and then you add investement cost of setting up hops production on another iland and momentum of the game where you want to concentrate resources and get to crown iland and all your math goes out of the window because its not how game works

I genuinely feel like the game has too much optionality. It's hard to pinpoint what to do with the game exactly. I can't even decide if I want AI opponents or not. Do I win once I kill them? Am I playing a fucking RTS? If I continue after defeating them, why play with AI in the first place? If I don't want exactly am I going to do? Just build until the savegame gets giga bloated and starts crashing? When I am playing do I put high tax difficulty or low? Do I allow moving buildings or not? What's challenging about now allowing it? I'll just have to wait longer for stockpiles to fill. Money will become meaningless at some point after snowballing. And so on.

I love the thought of playing the game, but I just can't find a reason to play it.

>>2054277
>then you add investement cost of setting up hops production on another iland
What investment? All you need is the 8 steel beams for an island. And that is assuming you dont just pitch an island with hops for your starting island.

>>2054277
>and momentum of the game
The what? I genuinely dont get what you mean with that.
>want to concentrate resources
Which matters how? Adding more islands and specializing is a net benefit and something you'll want to do because it is so beneficial.
At that point relying on soap for money is a crutch.
>crown iland
How does any of this involve crown falls? Cape trelawney isn't any different from the old world.

>>2054362
I think you're just approaching it wrong. At the core the game is a sandbox where you make your own goals. Wether it is to just build pretty cities, reach certain population numbers, hit a specific income per minute, make other numbers bigger, find ways to optimize production more, do it all without getting mulched by hard ai etc.
There is no proper way to play or goal to aim for.

>>2054381
>At the core the game is a sandbox where you make your own goals. Wether it is to just build pretty cities, reach certain population numbers, hit a specific income per minute, make other numbers bigger, find ways to optimize production more, do it all without getting mulched by hard ai etc.
>There is no proper way to play or goal to aim for.
Thats lame. I want a game with actual challenges that forces me to use all of its toolkit. Not an illusion of complexity. Take frostpunk for example. Its a much simpler game than 1800 but what makes it interesting is the interesting scenarios the game puts you in

>>2054717
It does use all it's toolkits. You have to go get every continent and every production chain to build everything in a mega city with skycrapers.

>>2054737
But why would I do that? Acievement hunt? With Anno game design once you make money a non-issue all difficulty goes away. The only thing you do is build more production chains and get more ships to move the everincreasing amount of goods around

>build pretty cities
>square roads
Pick one and only one

>>2054921
For the sake of doing it. Its all about the gameplay loop and any challenges you set trough ai or your won limits.
I hate to make the comparison but its like the old grand strategy games by p*radox. There is no set goal or challenge its all about the mechancis and how you engage with them.

>>2054958
>You see those islands from Latium? They've got curved roads. Curved. Roads.
The future is here old man

For anyone that is deep into optimal layout autism, do you think that diagonal roads will be useful for more space efficient layouts?

>>2054983
At most it probably won't make a difference because many buildings are still rectangular and need to be scaled on rotation.
It might help with fitting something better in the influence circle of a building but I doubt it.
Fields will fit any angles so those remain the same, animal pens don't have that advantage but those were always a bit more iffy.
To quote the devblog:
>On average, taking advantage of the diagonal option means that you will use slightly more space.

>>2054983
>be useful for more space efficient layouts?
Diagonals might help reduce travel distance which is important because the distance to a service building will probably be measured by road travel distance as was the case in 2205 and 1800.

Pic related is how I build my village center in Farthest Frontier: one diagonal street and then everything else perpendicular to that.

>>2054381
>All you need is the 8 steel beams for an island
and you get working pier for free, dont need to build anything, can build instantly without being distracted?
yup yup makes perfect sense

you know it must be fun playing some imaginary version of the game where you dont need to rush new world ilands to get them settled before AI, where you dont do embessa for instituted, where you dont put all your resoucres besides that to get to crown falls asap and get rich off scrap, where you can multitask 50 different things including scrap perfecltly and where you have clippers by the time you are ready to trade soap
I, however, play actual game where you dont get perfect conditions

>>2055848
>dont need to build anything,
Oh wow you need to build the same shit you need any way, how impactful.
the only change is the additional 10 timber and 8 steel, the latter of which can be bought from archie
If you go for the bare minimum you only need an additional 16 timber for a market, 3 houses, lumber jack and a sawmill. Come back at a later time when you have the steel for 2 breweries and build up the farms, maybe a fishery and that's it.
Incase you want to go ham and build everything at one you only need 8 steel and 68 timber.
Either let your flagship do the first few runs or pay up for schooner, which you'll have to do for soap runs too. Or hell just make a charter route if you don't want to pay for a shipyard.
>can build instantly without being distracted?
The fuck kind of distracted, what are you on about?
Plop down a marketplace, lumberjack and sawmill, a few houses, a warehouse, 13 houses and 3 hop farms. That takes a minute at most.
Might just be (You) problem

And that's of course excluding the option to just pick an island with hops from the start.
Pic related is me on lowest income with 2 average ai and bente
I have yet to produce canned food, go to the new world, produce rum or fur coats nor do I have an actor in a town hall to provide the first two.
I never traded soap, nor am I doing pocket watches trade to enbessa, thus far ai haven't managed to get there either.
And I nabbed 4 of the most worthwhile islands before the ai could by aggressively spending

started playing this game since it was on gamepass. problem is that its just the base game. ive played cities 1 a bunch and to me that game comes across as a version of cities without traffic altho i saw its more like an automation game in the endgame. is there any point trying the game out without the dlcs? since ill be missing out on some core aspects i think.

>>2055989
>that game comes across as a version of cities without traffic altho i saw its more like an automation game in the endgame. is there any point trying the game out without the dlcs? since ill be missing out on some core aspects i think.
the game is fine without dlcs, but they really make it shine (and bloat a little)
and no, it's an economy/management/transportation game with a focus on city building

>>2055989
I wouldn't say you're missing out on "core" aspects. Sure the DLCs have sometimes a big impact on how you can play but it is a complete game without them. As an example Bright Harvest and Seeds of Change allow you to make farms more productive and decrease the workforce and more importantly size they need. Land of Lions allows you to seek out specific items and gives an extra region etc.
Those all have a huge impact but I'd argue that at least for new players the campaign without a ton of dlc is a lot easier for new players to get into. There is just less complexity to worry about and the 2 star AI Beryl O'Mara won't be able to claim as many islands while your stuck somewhere else. Of course you can also just use a custom difficulty and switch her with Bente Jorgensen.

>>2055996
>economy/management/transportation game with a focus on city building
Yes it is noticeably different from Cities in gameplay focus.

I end up having to reroll or restart too often trying to rush and claim islands so I don't lack the basic materials.

I've never built on crown falls it's too intimidating.

Why Is everyone reluctant to trade? I just buy stuff I need and don't sweat when missing some essentials.

>>2056545
I usually settle it and outsource farmer/worker industries to another island on that map. Only artisans and above can live on crowns falls.

I kinda wish the series would go back to its roots of early American colonization. Call it Anno 1512 or 1611. This said I also fancy Anno 1854 with archipelago version of pseudo-United States where you have two settlement types/cultures of moderate climate industrial Northerners and more tropical and plantation focus Southerners who hate each other guts and you need to balance between their demands or else they rebel. I don't think there's a lot of chance for such entry in the series but I think it would be cool. What's your dreamy era for Anno title?

>>2057304
My dream would be a game set in Japan set in 1008 right after the Russian Japanese war, in an archipelago version if hokido . You would have to deal with the ainu natives and Russian immigrants, and it wouldn't fall into the standard weeb shit trap a lot of Japanese city builders fall into

>>2057348
You mean 1908.

>>2057348
>Anno whatever the fuck adds to 9 close to 1853
>You can be pro-shogooner or pro-emperor
>Anti-western or pro-western

>>2057348
Taisho era Japan city builder would be fucking peak.
>>2057949
This is a misunderstanding of history. Both the Shogunate and Imperial factions were pro-modernization, the Imperial faction was actually the 'expel the barbarian' one.
A better idea would be how far you're willing to go in modernization.

>>2057949
>Anno whatever the fuck adds to 9 close to 1853
1800? Otherwise you have 1720, which is far away or 2007 which too is quite far off.

>>2057949
>>2058055
It seems weird to play as faction more or less against modernization in a series that's all about making the most efficient chains of productions.

>>2058093
I think 99 is close enough. No need to be so strict about naming habit. 1854 would be perfect.

>>2057808
Dunno about the dlcs part but I would like love to see Anno 900 with Byzantine and Arabian nations as their own two complete separated playable factions. That would be amazing.

>>2058141
Aren't they adding the Brits in the new one? Either way, it's stupid it's all on islands, honestly my biggest issue.

>>2057808
>Each DLC would advance the series by 100 years
Way too much effort for that ti ever happen, I wont go so far as to say that each dlc would need to have the content of a game but it would be close. Well or the time difference would end up having next to no effect on gameplay.

>>2058141
>No need to be so strict about naming habit.
>germans
>deviating from their decade old pattern
Yeah I wouldn't hold my breath for that.
If were lucky the game after 117 will just be called anno 9 and they'll use it as a wildcard for something that otherwise wouldn't fit the naming scheme.

>>2058191
>adding the Brits in the new one
Yes those are the other region.

>>2051520 (OP)
>No land combat in the Victorian Age
Dropped

i saw some comment about making soap so now my ditchwater produces 60tons of pig per minute and i'm 10k in the red but i have 5M in the bank and going up slowly.

t. >>2055989

game's also kinda fun, altho i dont rly care for the story or the "click around the map to complete this quest" stuff. and i think i am now forced to go to war since none of the islands in the new world i managed to grab let me grow materials i need to upgrade to engineers and i dont much care for the prospect of war in this game.

>>2057949
Ez, just use the Emperor Reign number;
ie, it's the 9th year of the reign of Emperor Anno

>>2057949
Pro-Emperor was the anti-modernisation alliance, anon. As >>2058055 noted.
But Fall of the Samurai or Last Samurai are both bullshit. In reality both sides pursued as much foreign weaponry as humanly possible.
Once the Western Japanese won, the most powerful ones in the alliance couped the rest and enacted hardcore westernisation, resulting in shit like the Satsuma rebellion, a rebellion of modern-armed, Western Japanese domain fighting to preserve the privileges and gov. money owed to them for being big shots, which was now in the dumpster.

And even calling it pro-emperor vs pro-shogunate is pretty suspect. Really it should just be Western Japanese vs Eastern Japanese.
Emperor did fuck all. They were powerful enough to force him to do whatever and they threw in his iconography as nothing more than a pro-forma thing, because calling the coup a coup would have had worse connotations. Most of Japan had no idea that an emperor even existed by then, much less give a fuck about him agreeing to stamp for one of the sides.
The cult of the emperor was very meticulously developed and ingrained in the Japanese populace during the Meiji (named after the era, not the guy) Revolution. Diaries of the time are clear that Japanese had no idea what the fuck the two armies even want and saw them as a random blip on a radar of interesting events.

IGNORING all that history autism, I don't think an Anno set in Meiji/Taishou would be all that great? I mean we've just had 1800 and this would basically just retread all that with squinted eyes and rice fields.

>>2058947
>Pro-Emperor was the anti-modernisation alliance
Anti western.
>But Fall of the Samurai or Last Samurai are both bullshit. In reality both sides pursued as much foreign weaponry as humanly possible.
Fall of the Samurai depicts this, thoever.

How complex is Anno 1800? The upcoming Pax Romana got my attention. Anything set in ancient Rome is like crack to me. The problem with a lot of city builders is that they tend to be very simple. I was thinking of giving Anno 1800 a whirl just to get the idea of how Pax Romana would play. Can't believe I'm hyped over a ubisoft game of all things.
>>2057348
That's a great idea. One can only dream.

>>2059559
my only real experience with citybuilders is cities skylines 1 and both games are comparable in that theres a gimmick. in anno1800 the gimmick is balancing the supply and consumption rates and ive been doing it by doing gradeschool math and then creating areas for the industries and then scaling up or down when i need while keeping an eye on the rates. i wouldnt say its complex if you ever played some automation sim like factorio and i think its a bit less complex than CS1 where you need to plan traffic routes and cant just do an infinite grid

>>2059776
Alright, thanks! Sounds good enough.

I only played 1800 so far. Convince me to play 1404/2205

>>2060363
I don't think anyone likes 2205.
Everyone would recommend 2070 first.

>>2051520 (OP)
>I like this game but I feel like game can have too much content.
I only play the base game and never feel this way.

>>2053117
>An the whole build up ever more complex production chains to reach higher pop tiers while facing off against the ai is the core gameplay loop. Optimizing it is the whole appeal.
This.

>>2054979
>For the sake of doing it. Its all about the gameplay loop and any challenges you set trough ai or your won limits.
I hate to make the comparison but its like the old grand strategy games by p*radox. There is no set goal or challenge its all about the mechancis and how you engage with them.
Perfectly stated.

Low res because 4K res fucks file size. Rough sketch for how I think I want to reorganize my current city.

>>2065892
Not pictured, what the city used to look before I started reorganizing it.