View Full Version : Why Not Move Away from Islands?

09-21-2017, 10:39 PM
It seems to me that Anno 1800 should just use regular large maps - in concert with Islands if a player so wishes.

Large continents or sections of a continent would work just as well as equally distributed and almost equally sized and shaped "Islands"- which are frankly hard to believe.

I don't really see the point of an archipelago in this 1800 game - There are large continents with distance settlements, just make it financially amenable to ship goods and people via ship, and the game will be just as fun, if not more fun with cities all over larger maps. Have roads connect these towns, even the railroad aspect of the game would make more sense on a continental map than an Island map for 1800.

That said, I have liked the "more unique" look to the Islands we have been teased with so far, at least they have some personality.

09-21-2017, 11:01 PM
The reason I prefer more, smaller islands is the feeling of getting all your trade routes working and feeling like a well oiled machine. Having less islands would detract from this feeling, although - if implemented well railroads would work, I just don't think that it would have the same anno feel using trains as a main source of trade routes, depsite it being a similar thing to ships in essence.

09-21-2017, 11:54 PM
I feel like trade routes could work quite well, say on a St. Lawrence type map, where trading outpost cities are spaces a distance from each-other to take advantage of natural resources etc, but not too closely spaced.

It would be fun to play an East Coast US Map- from Maine to Virginia, where instead of Island outpost, the cities are all part of a larger continent, and then connect those towns with railroads, and road connections, as well as sea connections.

Anno 1800 needs to think outside the box a bit to keep the formula from becoming stale. The islands thing is kind of played, and it seems to me that it would work fine on a larger continent, just make trade more condusive to sea-based trade.

We'll agree to disagree on this one.

I feel like having a "Boston" "Baltimore" and "New York" style town growing in a larger continent (albeit connected by water) it would be a lot more fun than a kind of strange "large city on an island" after "larger city on an island".

09-22-2017, 05:57 AM
If done right trains could provide a welcoming change.
As for now they don't need to stop with islands, in fact anno 2205 teached them this was a bad move.
People made it perfectly clear they want to play the true anno feeling and that very basic desire are islands with a star on top.

09-22-2017, 08:13 PM
Maybe a combination would be a good idea. When there is an big islands or continent where everybody would want a part from. And in the same map are a lot of different little to medium islands scattered around the continent.
When the train trade is worked out well, it could lower the old logic of "the biggest fleet wins the game", so i like this idea of the continents.
Also when you create multiple cities on one island and you connect them, this could also create brilijant screenshots :) It really shows your great empire ;)

09-22-2017, 08:38 PM
I have to say, naval superiority, and having lots of ships going back and forth is one on the main reasons I like Anno 1404 and 2070, I know thats not the same for everyone, but I'd much rather stick with one main "type" of trade vessel - whether it be trains or ships, rather than a combination of two, and fewer of both.

-- just found a quote that sums up why I prefer more trade routes and lots of little things happening---- "...the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles".

09-23-2017, 04:30 AM
I get that you like large trading networks, however, don't get why you can't have large scale trade networks on a continental map.

09-23-2017, 09:38 AM
The point I am trying to make is that I'd rather see a large number of ships stopping at my harbour OR have a large rail network, rather than have a combination of both. Having both would result, overall in less of each, which is why I'd prefer one main method for moving goods around between places.

09-23-2017, 03:05 PM
You do have a point but you can't always call it effective or pretty when there are just too many ships that all need to go trough your harbor, so i think an other option would be nice.

09-23-2017, 03:40 PM
I don't wish to be rude but this is a horrible idea. Anno 1800 isn't a simulator like Cities Skylines. The game heavily relies on the logistics and planning. Basicly you would reincarnate Anno 2205 and I bet many veteran anno fans wouldn't be happy.

09-23-2017, 08:11 PM
I don't get your thought process on this.

Yes, Anno is a game about logistics and planning, but you can still have logistics and planning on a non-Island map.

A hand cart or a horse cart can't transport the volume of goods easily between distant cities on a large continental map, and you would still use ships more than other modes of transportation.

Why suddenly all logistics and planning are supposedly thrown out the window according to you because it's a continental based map instead of an island based map doesn't make sense.

Why not have both? Both island based maps, but also continental ones and let they player decide.

09-23-2017, 09:43 PM
I think that without islands, it would just become too much like other logistical games. Even 2205, for all its flaws, had some islands. Although you are right that logistics would still be present on an single, large island map, it just wouldn't be Anno -- there needs to be some requirement of colonizing a different area, as has been present in previous Anno games.

Just to clarify, I don't doubt that a single-island type map (or however the thought to move away from islands was envisioned), developed Anno-style, with quests, npcs etc, wouldn't be good, it may be a bit anno-like for some people with the correct bells and whistles, just that for most, it would signify a move from the the thing that has made anno iconic.

09-24-2017, 07:44 PM
I like the idea of the trains and a big continent, but I dont want to have ability to build over the entire continent. I would personally prefer the more difficult option by deviding the continent into parts with rivers and mountains. I think the game would be too easy if you would have just one map to play on, and no reason to challenge yourself. That is why I play anno...

09-27-2017, 06:21 PM
I love the idea of ships and trains, look in the real world you have both and even more with roads. Let work in the real world, USA or Europe?

09-28-2017, 03:30 PM

I agree with the train idea, but I disagree on not having to use separat islands

09-28-2017, 05:02 PM
indeed, and that is why I would suggest a combination of continents and islands in one sector (as i've already told in a previous post). So you can still see your ships on their routes and is it also good to have good harbors for in sector trade and out sector trade

09-30-2017, 11:00 AM

10-03-2017, 03:40 PM
With ressources only available at certain biome, it could be interesting. factorio with people management !

10-03-2017, 04:25 PM
I would like to have limit resources which u can only get on special places, I don't want to build a city everywhere though

10-04-2017, 03:58 PM
Sounds like a topic we might want to talk about during Anno Union. I'll let the team know.
What i can already say is, that the islands will be crafted with hard work and love.

10-05-2017, 01:17 AM
I always found the idea of larger islands / continents with railways connecting different cities intriguing. I don't want to get rid of ships entirely though just add more options.

Trains and train stations could function very similarly to ships and ports.

Yet I think it would be quite challenging to realize this without losing the traditional Anno feeling. Just building one megacity on a continent would destroy both, the logistical challenge of moving goods around as well as the architectural challenge of using your space most efficiently.

So there has to be a mechanism preventing such megacities.

This could be achieved through geographic obstacles like mountains, rivers, lakes, swamps etc. essentially creating "land islands" (similar to the "underwater islands" in 2070). This solution has a somewhat artificial "gamey" feel though.

Another interesting idea to incentivize players to settle in specific regions is through resources and fertilities. Restricting farms and mines to a given confined area retains the scarcity of land and makes most of the land empty and worthless. It functions mostly as a connection between cities with trains traveling across it.

(I think both have been mentioned already in some form, I just want to discuss them more detailed)
Maybe a combination of both could work fine.

Also, larger continents would finally give some real meaning to land forces. It always bothered me that while land combat had a lot more fleshed out mechanics than its sea counterpart, it was basically useless.

I guess one has to overcome a lot of technical problems to realize this idea. I doubt the engine in its current form could support something like it.
Well, I hardly belief we'll see any of the many great ideas mentioned in this thread as the game is currently way beyond its prototype phase.
One can dream though...

10-05-2017, 10:15 AM
Something else to think about, even though I am not a fan of the idea anyway, how would trains go through the geographical obstacles. Sure, 1800's, you could potentially hollow out a mountain, but drain a swamp? Probably not.

I agree with your last sentiment that the game probably won't be able to support this, I am just putting forward a few more things that people would have to consider before this feature would have been able to be implemented anyway.

10-07-2017, 03:28 AM



So there has to be a mechanism preventing such megacities.

The thing limiting the size of the "megacity" would be agricultural and other goods that could be delivered to it.

This isn't SimCity - every city in Anno needs a certain amount of food, goods, booze etc. delivered to it, so to have a "megacity" on a continental map, you would have to have a bustling seaport/shipyard and perhaps rail and road connections that were adequate..

Which brings us to point 2: "Getting rid of ships entirely".. nope, in 1800, shipping was the way the colonies traded in between ports.. they were on a continent. The ports and shipping in Boston, New York, Baltimore were bustling with trading and passenger ships. The same would happen on a large, continental (think East Coast US, or St. Lawrence Seaway map), or Great Britain Map etc.

03-07-2018, 09:27 PM
Only if it's a choice, I think island is what makes Anno unique. I don't want to move away from island.

03-31-2018, 03:55 AM
Well, I've made an Anno-inspired idea a while back on the Sufficient Velocity forums...

Well, I had an idea based upon the Anno and Impressions Games City Builder series as a whole.

The maps are absolutely huge but are split between islands, island chains, and continents with each of these split into hexagonal 'sectors' where you'll set up your cities and industries. Like the Anno series, you'll get an initial warehouse... but in this case it's a headquarters-style building that can defend itself in a limited manor, is an infrastructure hub (more on that in a bit), and accept zeppelin transports. When you start out, you'll have an initial pool of workers and electricity, full stocks on all initial tier building materials, your initial logistics depot, and plenty of cash. If I actually had pictures, I would show you that your initial warehouse/headquarters has anchor points along all sides. These points are for setting up highways, roads, and railroads. At this stage however, you'll only have access to a bog-standard road and highway. The area around your headquarters is your initial urban center... but we'll need to get some basic building material and food production first. With long stretches of infrastructure, it's recommend you get into the sector view and use the 'highway/railway to sector' command, which makes a stretch of highway/rails to the edge of the selected sector. Please note that roads connect to highways automatically and rail crossings are made as appropriate.

In this game, each island, island chain, and continent has an environment rating which represents how polluted it is on average (and the closer something is to the source, the worse the pollution affects it). If it's in 'the green', you'll get happiness, health, and farming production bonuses alongside various disaster debuffs (i.e. disasters happen less). If it's in 'the red', then you'll get malice across the board. Most buildings at this stage have little to no impact on the environment. The environment rating can be improved with environment buildings, but these start coming in later. This rating is going to be someone to keep an eye on the entire game... as your farming industries is going to be heavily reliant on this.

Now it's recommended that you keep your industrial, residential, and farming away from each other. Farming and industrial buildings are considered unseemly and thus cause problems with an area's desirability... which is going to be important when you climb up the ladder. Industrial -particularly the more pollution prone ones- tend to **** up your farming as they spew pollution. Now your farming is done via farm centers, essentially farmhouses from Emperor: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom. Once you put these down, you'll be able to set up the farmland which right now only consists of sunflowers, corn, rice, and soybeans. Later you'll be producing a wide variety of plants and eventually the goods you'll need to succeed. Right through the center of your initial farmland will be your initial highway, and please keep some space for when you upgrade this highway and for the eventual laying of rail and the stations you'll need to get them on the trains. You'll need only one farm of sunflowers -which produces resin which is a component for biopolymers, which is building material #1 at this stage- and one farm of corn, rice, soybeans, or if you want to chance it all three.

Now you mosey on over to your initial industrial zone and place a food factory (which uses all the food you produce and creates food, the quality depending on how many food types you produce) and a biopolymer plant to take care of what your farms are producing. You will also need a building module chain to produce the other building material at this stage... which is building modules. With this taken care of, you've got the basis for your first 'neighborhood' or collection of housing.

Housing is put into two categories: Worker and Upper Class. Workers are going to be your majority throughout the game but all and all, aren't going to be bringing much in terms of taxes but they provide all your worker needs for the vast majority of your industries. The Upper Class are your high-end industry workers and the majority of your cash-flow in terms of taxes. Now both require various services and goods to advance in level alongside the area's desirability being good enough. Instead of the 'sphere of influence' model that most Anno games use, we'll be using the Impressions Games' model of 'Patrol Route is X units long' route for our services. The Store is a distribution service and will -like the warehouses and housing- upgrade as time goes on. At first, your worker blocks would be small-ish in size but will grow as technology evolves. Now it's recommended that you surround each block with desirability enhanced constructs... which is helpful for making boundaries as well. We'll wait until later to start building upper-class housing, as they're far more needy than simple workers.

Now at this point it's likely that power is becoming an issue, and there are two paths to generating power: an eco-friendly but somewhat inefficient and highly productive but not eco-friendly (at least until later with facilities like Liquid Natural Gas, fission, thorium, and fusion plants). It is always recommended to set up eco-friendly plants in farming sectors while you put the high-production ones in industrial ones, at least until you get eco-cleaning facilities up and running anyway.

Now by this point you'll probably be seeing that your worker housing just got upgraded. Not only does this increase tax revenue and your worker pool, it allows access to the next tier of buildings. At that moment, you'll find that your next tier of building materials -glass, wood, constructor bots, and concrete- have their chains unlocked alongside the next tier of infrastructure: improved roads and highways alongside initial rail lines and their stations. In addition, you can put branch warehouses down to enhance your logistical capabilities while storing materials/goods and these facilities -while not cheap- can be configured for specific goods like -say- a branch warehouse in a farming sector can be configured for farming materials only. Building materials are exempt from this as they are vital for your colony's survival.

With steel, concrete, and constructor bots, you'll need mines. Mines can be only placed on a mining site, usually a mountain or visible resource deposit. Steel is manufactured with coal and iron, concrete is manufactured via sand and limestone, and constructor bots require molybdenum, cobalt, and copper to manufacture. Now you will notice that the map shows the locations of these mining points since the first second you started on your game, and thus makes it easy to find the right mining site. Glass only needs sand to produce, and thus plenty of sand extractors will be needed. Wood can be placed anywhere but like agricultural facilities, it's best to keep them away from your eco-ruining facilities until you can counteract them with eco-boosting facilities. Wood is probably one of the most space-hungry resources you'll have outside of food. You'll need at least one wood farm facility, one foresting facility, and a route to your warehouses.

As you increase your food production, you'll find that you've gained the next series of food materials: pig, cattle, fruit, coffee, grapes, potatoes, fish, and cabbage. Pig, cattle, and fish require two different facilities for production purposes. Pig and Cattle require the Ranch (which requires wheat to run) and fish can be produced either from Fisheries (via fishing ponds) or the harbor-based Fishing Docks. With the ranch, it's similar to the farms in terms of flexibility, with the caveat of the Ranch being able to switch any cattle farms (which produce beef) to dairy farms (which produce milk).

As your food quality grows from this, the number of tier 2 workers grow, unlocking new goods that are needed to be produced and the chains for said goods get unlocked. Eventually you'll get enough goods that you can start working on upper class housing.

However, to advance the upper class beyond their initial tier, you'll need to expand to other lands... and that requires a harbor...
Now establishing a harbor requires a harbor location -preferably a defensible natural harbor if you can manage it, as a harbor is the best place to do a practical invasion from- to set up. Now your initial harbor is armed with some automatic dual-purpose naval rifles and AHEAD-style AA/C-RAM guns for defense, and only gets more capable armament as time goes on. Once your harbor is set up, you'll need to connect it to your infrastructure network and put down at least one or two basic shipyards. These will produce your initial warships (which require basic weaponry in addition to building materials for manufacture) and your basic transports alongside your first exploration vessel.

Now all ships, vehicles, aircraft, and infantry can be modified or designed from the in-game unit designer, but for the most part you'll be using it to produce 'mission builds' or sub-designs designed for specific missions. These mission builds can be easily switched out at a harbor with shipyards or drydocks or built right out of the gate via a 'mission build' selector. The vessels you currently are able to modify/design immediately are:

A DDHG type ship; armed with three multi-purpose automatic naval rifles of the 127mm L/70 type, some ASROCs, four AA guns of the 57mm L/100 caliber, and a small helicopter hanger carrying two UACV helicopters designed for anti-sub and limited island/continent exploration work. Goes at a decent pace right off the bat, has an impressive array of surface and sub-surface sensors, and has decent armor. Can be modified for anti-ship, anti-sub, anti-air, and multi-role mission profiles if needed.
A FFG type ship; armed with two multi-purpose 76mm L/75 multi-purpose automatic naval rifles, a VLS SAM battery, two 3-tube 508mm ASW torpedo launchers, and four twin 57mm L/100 AA guns with average sensor and speed capabilities and acceptable armor. The biggest asset of this vessel is it's cheapness (both in materials and maintenance costs) and quick build time.
A small ESB type vessel; only armed with a smattering of 57mm L/100 anti-air guns and minimal armor but is your primary island/chain/continent settlement vessel. This vessel has the largest cargo hold when you begin your sea adventures with six 200t cargo bays... but it's slow as **** if you fully laden it. It can set up branch warehouses and can take surveys on said island/chain/continent to determine what sort of resources the island holds. It is very vulnerable however, so make sure it's escorted.
A minor transport vessel; armed with only four 57mm L/100 autocannons (only useful for light pirate boats, ASMs, and aircraft), armored with minimal armor, and has four 100t cargo bays. Moves at a decent clip even when fully loaded. Needs an escort at all times however.
Now a DDHG and the small ESB is what you'll need immediately right now... but if you want to have at least one minor transport vessel and a FFG, then by all means do so (just note that they'll not be used for a while). The DDHG is going to be your scout for the moment, and since it's equipped with the exploration module, you can simply activate the 'automatic exploration' command and it'll take it from there. The vessel will now move about and explore the world, occasionally doing preliminary scans of the islands/chains/continents as it goes. What you want to find is a locale with titanium, rare earth, aluminium, uranium, and oil deposits with the exotic farm products fertility. Once an island/chain/continent is charted, you can send your ESB type vessel -fully laden with building materials- to said locale and do an in-depth survey. This is probably the most time consuming part of exploration.

Now you might discover that I might have somewhat lied when I said you'll settle continents, islands, and island chains. There are free-form (and not-so free-form connecting islands in island chains) underwater plateaus across the map that you can discover. These are probably the hardest to develop and defend in the game as not only they're vulnerable on the surface but also to submarine attacks. However, you don't have the equipment (developing these requires an SSESB from the word go, which means you'll have to be up a few tiers to begin with) right now so just keep an eye on them.

Once you found the right island, you'll use the ESB to build a branch warehouse dock (preferably in a defensible location that is as close as possible to your main dockyard) and start off from there. Now trade/supply routes here are a bit different than in previous Anno games. Each route has a value based upon how valuable the route itself is (i.e. goods), how many transports are in it, and total distance involved. This value shows how vulnerable a route is without escorts. Now I can hear you ask 'how do I make the route less vulnerable?'... and that is a good question my friend and the right one. The solution is simple: each route has an escort pool attached to it. These pools automatically assign warships to escort any assigned transports in the route. If the route is valuable enough with plenty of transports, then you get full out convoys which isn't only the craziest thing you'll ever see outside of games like Silent Hunter series but incredibly cost effective... until an opposing battle-fleet of sufficient strength comes by and wrecks them.

Thing is, if said battle-fleet is trying to take out said convoy, then you can pull a SURPRISE BUTTSEX on said battle-fleet with your own.

Anyway, once a Branch Warehouse Dock is set up, it is recommended that you unload your building materials and start setting up a defensive perimeter in the harbor before heading inland, as an undefended harbor is a piracy target... which pirates take your hard-earned goods and sell them on the black market... if they feel merciful that is. With a basic defense setup, you can focus on exploiting the resources on this island for your benefit. Like with your main colony, you'll set up your various industries in sectors for maximum effectiveness.

The new 'exotic food' farm is similar to your regular farming facility but instead of 'common' foods like wheat and corn, it processes the ability to have multiple types of food per facility (in this case truffles, spices, cassava, and exotic cabbage). Unlike your common farms, you'll have to process them in an exotic food factory. Now there are two ways to do this, either you produce said exotic food on the island and probably make your route a bigger target or you can simply ship the exotic products to your main colony and then produce the exotic food there. Your choice.

Now the next tier of goods for your workers will help you in your goals of colonial domination. As you climb up the ladder, the more logistics you'll have to take care of in terms of goods and their transport. You'll get better weapons, defenses, and buildings and fight on the beaches, in the cities, and on and under the seas. If you play your cards right, you'll probably thrive with the best of them... and there is a lot of them to go around.

But in the end, Anno is dominated by it's island-centric gameplay, and going away from that would be problematic in a standout sort of way.