Anno 1800 Ultimate Guide: Early Game Items & Optimizations 

Annolayouts: annolayouts.de/index.htm?lang=en

this game is overwhelming. i just hit engineers and i dont even know what im doing. your guides are appreciated

2D artists are definitely not getting enough credit for all these icons :/

Speaking of overlooked specialists, the Carpenter is a common specialist that gives +1 wood to every Lumberjack's Hut at 1/3 cycle, and since they already produce wood at 4t/min, that can rack up very quickly to a lot of extra wood and is more efficient than most items that provide productivity bonuses early game. Another good early rare specialist the Recipe Archivist that replaces beef with pigs, as the latter is easier to produce at high quantities and take up less space, which can later be upgraded into Chef Michel to completely skip over the Artisanal Kitchen, Milliner is great for the same reason the Baker is, and of course the best rare is in my opinion the First Rate Sapper as it provides 50% productivity and -75% workforce to all your mines, which can be combined with Ventilator for -100% workforce early game. A lot of of the smaller islands have a cluster of mines that can be fit around one trade union, and that's a great way to get early extra ore. Taka didn't mention it here, but the reason why some prefer 0% workforce over extra workforce is because you do not get any riots or fires from your production buildings, in addition to that you can increase the productivity by 50% and it will not impact happiness as long the island does not have any housing on it, or is connected to other islands via a commuter pier.

I love how anno put Lewis brindley from the yogscast in the game, as a Alcohol /Beverage specialist

Hands up who didnt know that trade union didnt need road connection :D

I would argue that most OP item for town halls early game is the guy who provides bread, sausages and beer for workers. Makes it really easy to get extra large populations of them very cheaply. Sadly this item is really rare, on my case anyway. I also put very high value on it in later game where i do mass expansions onto other islands. Setting up populations of farmers and workers i always go with free schnapps, beer, sausages and bread. That basically includes most of the production lines to keep the people happy in that particular case and you do not have to build these on your islands or worry about transporting these goods from another island! Further down the line when i upgrade my worker islands to also include artisans, i add actor in the mix. At the end game, my plan revolves around having no people below engineers on my main island and those items make it very cheap and easy to maintain all those large populations on multiple islands.

"The costume designer is a little different but I can slap some of her on the side" - Taka 😂😂😂 7:01

More useful information, thank you. I had no idea, for instance, that trade unions didn't have to have a road connection.

If you want cheaper specialist put a couple specialist that decrease the cost you can get up to %25 cheaper maybe even %35

Another great one Taka, I always forget to use these items in early game...Thanks for the reminder!

i didnt realize it cost money to roll for items at the traders. i had like 200k and suddenly was at 20k and i couldent figure out what happened

Hey man, I'm loving your videos, they really helped me evolve my playstyle, one thing I would want though, is for these videos to be placed into a playlist. Would that be possible? :)

It is absolutely WILD how playing with Items completely changes the game. Playing completely without items (or just using quest rewards/etc as they pop up), and optimizing your production lines for/with items basically makes 2 different Annos :D One thing I wondered when I was watching others play this: If I do reduce the workforce within the range of a trade union to 0 with my items, does the impact on happiness change if I, say, let them work 50% harder? Or is this a very specific effect that only works under certain conditions, like: 0 workforce needed AND no residents on the island, but I don't provoke strikes? (As in, who's gonna strike if no one lives there? xD)

Very helpful, thankyou

these kinda guides and advice are simply awesome i got a few hundred hours of playtime already, but i never really thought or cared about the lower tiers of specialists - something i now regret i usually rushed to soap and sold that stuff to eli nonstop to finance aiming for higher specialists just that bit earlier^^

No doubt the Actor is powerful but its only there for the Canned food really. Unlike Cotten from the New world that u dont need to produce untill mutch later when u really start to stack up those Obreros, Rum on the other hand u are gonna produce over there right away and its not really an issue to produce enough that u can ship some of it back to the Old world. Canned food is a big trap given its the first new Artisan good they want and it does not even break even.

I'm going to have to pay more attention to those early game items. :D

Thanks for another great video!

cmon man chef michel where's he at!? great video man

For your metrics! 👍

I love how your pub is right next to your pig farms. Those poor residents trying to have a pint in the fresh air 🤣

Hi Takarazuka, I just found your channel and I haven't played for a year or so. Has the game changed in a year or nothing really changed? I just wanted to watch some of your guides, but idk if they still relevant to watch. Thx for your attention

hi, one thing, it's better to go full on the first island or wait for the cape trelawney one later? I mean with the multiple trade routes from the new world etc..

Is there any of the videos that cover how the percentage modifiers works when they are stacked? For example; if you combine two items with +30% production, do you get +60% or do you get +30% two times in a row? Cause this can make a difference: 100 workers * 1.6 = 160, but 100 workers * 1.3 = 130 *1.3 = 169. Also, I noticed with adding Feras to an oil refinery that (given 4 oilwells) the production goes to 400%*1.5=600%, rather than 400%+50% = 450% like I expected. This makes him very powerful in these types of situations. I haven't been able to test this stuff properly in my games.

Helpful as planning to restart the game. Can I ask about suggestions for map seeds?

I don't have the timer at AI traders at all. Anyone knows whats up with that?

There's a god tier trade union guy that gets rum from Scnapps facility. He's epic quality. Dumping sand with Archibald is excellent way for fast cash

Is this series in a plays list on Taka’s channel? Couldn’t see it

can you have more of the same specialist in one union to stackup the effects?

The best item in the game in my opinion is the Actor

I did not know trade unions dont need to touch roads

Chef Michelle is qlso pretty neat. But he is an Epic sadly

I don't like those mechanics really. It breaks the whole system of resources, chains of production and workforce. I would much more prefer the game to expand in the opposite direction. But well, it is what it is, it's amazing strategy game overall.

Comment.

Way to overthink Anno! Also I can't believe almost half a minute is spent on explaining building in circle = building in range of trade union, and another half minute explaining that rerolling costs a bunch of money (which is also clearly shown right there on the screen). If someone can't figure that out a trade union is not going to make their life easier, with or without this thorough guide...