Anno 1880 (BETA)

I’d never played any of the Anno series, so when I saw an open BETA for the upcoming Anno 1880, I decided to give it a spin. It’s a city building game set during a period of early industrialisation. It’s an historical fantasy, of sorts, in which you play as the leader of a newly established, island based colony.

There were two modes available in this BETA – a story based campaign, and a customisable Sandbox. Because I was new to the series I began with the campaign, which not only has its own story and characters, but also serves as a series of tutorials. Only the first chapter of the campaign was available, but it taught me enough to get me started in the Sandbox.

And it’s the Sandbox mode of Anno 1880 where I’d expect most players to spend the majority of their time. There are three pre-set difficulty modes and a player custom option. I played on the default Normal settings across a couple of games. I’d have liked to explore the higher difficulties and custom settings more, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time before the BETA came to a close.

You begin your colony with simple farmers and a small selection of buildings. By expanding your population and meeting the various ‘needs’ of your people, you’ll unlock new buildings and new population types which, in turn, also have their own distinct needs to serve.

Farms are replaced by brick houses. Dirt paths become paved. As your colony continually expands, you’ll see it grow from a small farming community into an industrial giant. Of course, all of this expansion costs cash, and although you begin the game with a healthy reserve, it’s important for your colony to become profitable and self sufficient.

Cash is primarily obtained via taxes, but I believe tourism also plays a role. I say ‘believe’ because I’m really not sure. Either I missed something obvious in my limited time with the BETA, or there’s no detailed breakdown of the financial aspects of your game.

And those are details I really wanted to know – how much tax per citizen type? Can we reduce or increase the tax rate per type? How much income from tourism? And most importantly – how much through trade?

You’re not alone in the Sandbox of Anno 1880, as other AI controlled colonies are established on nearby islands. There’s a very basic ‘diplomacy’ system in which you can arrange trade deals, establishing sea based routes between your islands.

Setting up trade routes is easy, but there’s no detailed feedback on how profitable a route may be – at least, I couldn’t find anything. Like I said, I had limited time with this BETA so it’s possible I missed something, but I found it strange that I couldn’t find any detailed breakdown of my income.

Despite that, I had a lot of fun building up my colony, using the blueprint mode to perfectly plan my city streets. It’s not just about building houses, pubs, schools and churches though, but the gathering of resources and the manufacture of goods. Every good has a use, either to serve the needs of your people, or to support the production of other goods.

It’s an addictive cycle of production and expansion and there’s a great deal of satisfaction to be had in watching your colony grow. But your island may not have every resource you need, and that’s when it’s time to explore the map and find a new, uninhabited island with those resources and establish another colony to capitalise on them.

Unless, of course, one of your AI rivals beats you to it, which is where I guess the ‘War’ diplomatic option comes into play, but unfortunately I didn’t have the time to explore this feature. From what I saw though, it’s a pretty basic system just like the diplomacy, trade and financial systems. But are they all too basic for a game of this type?

Once again, it’s important to note that I only had limited time to explore this BETA, but I was surprised by how rudimentary certain gameplay systems appeared, most particularly the financial aspects. I guess the real question is if this BETA convinced me to purchase the game? No, not at release, but it’s something I might pick up on sale in the future. It’s certainly one I’ll keep an eye on.