Anno 1800 is currently one of the best construction strategy games that can be found in the gaming scene. If you’re not one of the video game players but still want to build empires, you have the option of adapting a board game whose name is no different from the title of the game from Ubisoft. The following paragraphs of our review will tell you how it is played and who it is actually aimed at.
Number of players: 2 – 4
Game time: 90 – 120 min.
Price: 1099 CZK (Albi)
Provided by: Albie
Age: 12+
In Anno 1800 you will have your own island.
Just like in Anno 1800, the tabletop version has your own island on which you can build your colony. Each player starts with their home island, and you place a certain number of peasants, workers, and artisans in predetermined areas. In addition to these three social classes, builders and investors will also be available to you in the future. Just a format based on the fact that every profession is actually capable of doing something. You expand the workforce by producing the required amount of resources needed to hire specific populations. Each time you are hired, you receive a resident card. If they are no longer available, you pay for newbies in gold.
Similar to the strategy of Anno 1800, the base buildings in which individual population groups live evolve. In short, you can improve them and thus turn peasants into workers or artisans. Each level of development requires a certain amount of raw materials. But when you have enough of them, you can expand your company relatively well. As mentioned above, recruiting residents results in obtaining resident cards. They are disposable. When you have enough resources, it is easy to get gold, influence points or discovery points from them. It is not necessary to save the selected cards; it is possible to exchange up to three of them for new ones.
The range of features of Anno 1800 will surprise you.
In Anno 1800, a player can only take one action per turn, which doesn’t seem like much at first glance. However, the range of what can be done is extremely varied. In total, you have at your disposal nine “basic” actions, in addition to which you will also find free actions related to the activation of resident or interest cards. In short, you can do a lot. One of the most fundamental events is undoubtedly Development. As the name suggests, you use it to develop your island by constructing new buildings, shipyards or ships. Just like in a video game, you need a certain amount of raw materials to build certain structures or ships.
As part of a development action, only one building can always be built, but the number of ships is determined by the number of shipyards built. The more of them you have, the more sailors you can send to sea on ships focused on trade or exploration. The exploration tokens you gain this way are then used to explore the Old World, which you can use to expand your space on your home island or to explore the New World. In both cases, you can have a maximum of 4 boards of each option in your hand. The new world will offer you foreign resources on every board, but you will always have to use a trade token to obtain them. Interestingly, raw materials produced by another player cannot be obtained through trade.
Other actions that can be performed include the aforementioned manpower recruitment, changing cards, or obtaining expedition cards, which you use to view discovery cards. The last option is a city festival, which gives you the opportunity to use fleet and population tokens again. Both personnel and ships are being transferred to the appropriate areas and ports.
The game in Anno 1800 always ends when one of the players draws the last card. The game then continues until all other players have made the same number of moves. Then the scoring begins. Your ranking includes played population cards, expedition cards, gold, interest cards, or even a fireworks tile, which is awarded to the first person to “finish” the game. The winner is the player with the most influence. There are even scoring charts so you can do it in real style. I think the pace of the games is decent.
The board game Anno 1800 allows you to immerse yourself in construction.
Adapting video games doesn’t always work out. However, in the case of Anno 1800, we can say that the authors succeeded. This is because it is a very special strategy that allows you to work with divisions of your company, expand your empire and discover hitherto unexplored places. In short, everything we already know from the Ubisoft title, but in a different form. The board game Anno 1800 is relatively accessible, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced players. It’s definitely not that difficult to get into. I definitely recommend trying it yourself, it’s worth your attention.
We would like to thank Czech game distributor Albi for providing us with a review copy of Anno 1800.
Source :Indian TV
