Urban Outfitter

ANNO 1800 is a compelling, if somewhat idiosyncratic city-builder.

- Rick Lane

Anno 1800 belongs to a select group of games that I like to refer to as “blink and it’s 2 am” games. For example, you might sit down in an evening with the plan of setting up your first steel mill. Then you blink and it’s 2 am and you’ve somehow found a colony in the New World. Alternatively, perhaps you set the goal of reaching the next population milestone to unlock a new building. Then you do that, and the building you unlock is a zoo for which you can build individual enclosures to fill with several dozen types of animals. Blink.

This is comfortably the most engrossing city-builder I’ve played since Cities: Skylines, one that combines an intriguing theme with some enjoyably complex production chains and trading mechanics. It also has a wealth of buildings to construct and resources to produce, letting you construct some truly impressive and enormous urban sprawls.

Anno 1800 puts you in the hobnailed boots of an up-and-coming business magnate in the burning heart of the industrial revolution. There are three ways to play, Campaign, Sandbox, and Multiplayer. Structurally, they’re all basically the same—the campaign is itself a gigantic sandbox that happens to feature a chain of missions to follow.

Whichever way you choose to play, you start out in charge of a western-European island with nothing but a trading post to your name. Your first goal is to build a simple farming village, which acts as the foundation for your city. From here, your objective is to grow a bustling metropolis that will stretch its tendrils to the horizon and beyond.

CLASS WARFARE

In its early stages, Anno 1800 is a straight-up city-builder. Progress in