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Anno 1503/1503 AD - The New World
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ/Strategy Guide)
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1. Preface
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- 1.1 Notes
- 1.2 Credits and Legal
- 1.3 Version
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2. Introduction
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- 2.1 What is Anno 1503? What is 1503 AD?
- 2.2 Who developed the game?
- 2.3 What are the minimum requirements?
- 2.4 What has changed since Anno 1602?
- 2.5 Where can I download patches and demos?
- 2.6 What about the mobile phone game?
- 2.7 Is there an expansion pack?
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3. Gameplay
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3.1 Important Concepts
- 3.1.1 How do I explore?
- 3.1.2 How do I gain territory?
- 3.1.3 What are civilization levels?
- 3.1.4 How do I make money?
- 3.1.5 What operating costs are there?
- 3.1.6 How does the balance sheet work?
- 3.1.7 How do service areas work?
- 3.1.8 What is the significance of road access?
- 3.1.8 How does production occur?
- 3.1.10 Why should I colonize new islands and how?
3.2 Setup and Interface
- 3.2.1 What do the symbols, names and levels on the initial player menu mean?
- 3.2.2 How do I enable pirates?
- 3.2.3 Can you play as native races or pirates?
- 3.2.4 Can other players be made less aggressive?
- 3.2.5 Are the endless play mode maps random?
- 3.2.6 What are the differences between 'endless' level difficulties?
- 3.2.7 Which way is north?
- 3.2.8 Can I see the current objectives in-game?
- 3.2.9 Can I hide trees or buildings from view?
- 3.2.10 What can hotkeys be assigned to?
- 3.2.11 Is there a list of short-cut keys?
- 3.2.12 How does scoring work?
3.3 Climate and Resources
- 3.3.1 How many different climate zones are there?
- 3.3.2 What characterises each climate zone? Where can I find certain
resources?
- 3.3.3 How do I determine resources?
- 3.3.4 Why, after exploring, do no crop types show for the island?
- 3.3.5 How do you find other players and natives?
- 3.3.6 Where do I get Tools from?
- 3.3.7 How do I build and operate Quarries and Mines?
- 3.3.8 Do mines run out?
- 3.3.9 Can I turn Gold into coins?
- 3.3.10 Is Wine the same as Alcohol?
- 3.3.11 Where can I grow Hemp?
- 3.3.12 Can I change what type of trees I plant?
- 3.3.13 Do volcanoes erupt?
3.4 Roads and Storage
- 3.4.1 Is road access needed?
- 3.4.2 Are cobbled roads faster than dirt roads? What is the benefit of
Marketplace squares?
- 3.4.3 Do buildings have to face onto a street?
- 3.4.4 How do I build bridges?
- 3.4.5 How do I build roads along hills and mountainsides?
- 3.4.6 Can I have more than one Warehouse on the same island?
- 3.4.7 How do I increase the storage capacity on an island?
- 3.4.8 Why can't I build a warehouse?
- 3.4.9 What is the operating cost of Market Places and Warehouses?
- 3.4.10 Can I start an endless game without the first Warehouse placed?
3.5 Colony Buildings
- 3.5.1 How do can I build a ...? Why is a building 'greyed out' on the
construction menu?
- 3.5.2 What do wells do?
- 3.5.3 How do I determine what Small Farms grow?
- 3.5.4 Why doesn't my Whaler work?
- 3.5.5 Where should I build Fur Trappers?
- 3.5.6 What is the significance of sales stands' service areas?
- 3.5.7 Is the Tavern's service area important?
- 3.5.8 Do Churches replace Chapels? Universities replace Schools?
- 3.5.9 What are Gallows and Courthouses for?
- 3.5.10 What does the Pavilion's service area need to cover? What's a park?
- 3.5.11 What do Doctors do?
- 3.5.12 Where are the sewers?
- 3.5.13 Can I change the design of houses?
- 3.5.14 What rewards and statues are there? How do I get them?
- 3.5.15 Do I need ornaments? What do they do?
3.6 Colony Development and Events
- 3.6.1 What causes bankruptcy?
- 3.6.2 How do I delete buildings, roads and trees?
- 3.6.3 Is there a limit to the number of people on each island?
- 3.6.4 How do you stop your population using building materials?
- 3.6.5 Why don't Merchants upgrade to Aristocrats?
- 3.6.6 When I downgrade civilization levels, why am I told goods that are not
needed anymore are in shortage?
- 3.6.7 Why do my houses decay?
- 3.6.8 Occasionally my people die whilst walking around my city. What's
wrong?
- 3.6.9 What can I do about fires?
- 3.6.10 Can I prevent the Plague?
- 3.6.11 Can I change the prices my stalls sell things for?
- 3.6.12 Are people needed to work in buildings? Do I need houses on
production islands?
- 3.6.13 How much of ... will my population need?
- 3.6.14 What do the question marks over buildings mean?
- 3.6.15 What do the coloured bars that appear above farms during building
mean?
- 3.6.16 What does the "you founded an ancient graveyard" message mean?
- 3.6.17 What is the benefit of finding treasure?
3.7 Research
- 3.7.1 How do you research?
- 3.7.2 How do I research above a certain level of knowledge points?
- 3.7.3 Why can't I build cannon after researching them?
3.8 Trade and Diplomacy
- 3.8.1 How does external trade work?
- 3.8.2 Can I trade without being fired on or starting a war?
- 3.8.3 Where are the Venetians?
- 3.8.4 What do Venetians sell?
- 3.8.5 Why does my automatic trade route fail when I transport more than one
item?
- 3.8.6 Can I set my automatic trade route to wait for a full load?
- 3.8.7 Can I edit automatic trade route paths?
- 3.8.8 How do I demand tribute from other players?
- 3.8.9 What is a moratorium?
- 3.8.10 Do trade agreements cover player empires or specific cities?
- 3.8.11 How does the trade slider work? How do you set prices and volumes?
3.9 Pirates and Natives
- 3.9.1 What do native curses do?
- 3.9.2 How do I trade with natives on another island?
- 3.9.3 Do all native cultures appear in every game?
- 3.9.4 What do natives buy and sell?
- 3.9.5 How aggressive are natives? Can I ally with them? How do I attack?
- 3.9.6 Where do pirates come from?
3.10 Ships
- 3.10.1 What is the capacity of ships?
- 3.10.2 Why is my ship sold each time I build a new one?
- 3.10.3 How can I build ship cannons?
- 3.10.4 Where can I load cannon on my ships? How do I arm ships?
- 3.10.5 Why can I not repair a ship?
- 3.10.6 When should I repair ships?
- 3.10.7 Why does nobody buy my ship?
- 3.10.8 How does the white flag work?
- 3.10.9 My ship got stuck on land. Why?
3.11 Military Units
- 3.11.1 Are there limits on the number of units I may have?
- 3.11.2 What do the yellow stars and numbers above troops mean?
- 3.11.3 Can waypoints be set for scouts and other units?
- 3.11.4 Can units be set to patrol?
- 3.11.5 Can I select certain unit types from a group of units?
- 3.11.6 How do I retire units?
- 3.11.7 How do I heal injured units?
- 3.11.8 Can I capture enemy units?
- 3.11.9 What units can attack buildings?
- 3.11.10 What is the difference between ship and land cannon?
- 3.11.11 My scout/soldier got lost/stuck/disappeared/abandoned his mule/will
not come down from the mountain/has taken up scuba diving. What can I do?
- 3.11.12 Why don't my troops go up onto the walls?
- 3.11.13 How do I add/remove units from my towers?
3.12 Combat
- 3.12.1 How do I capture an enemy settlement?
- 3.12.2 Can I steal from the enemy's warehouse?
- 3.12.3 Do cannon towers fire?
- 3.12.4 Can I unload multiple units from ships at once?
- 3.12.5 Can I accidentally kill my own units in friendly fire during battles?
- 3.12.6 Must I assign specific targets for my troops?
- 3.12.7 Can I attack trees?
3.13 Multiplayer
- 3.13.1 Multiplayer?
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4. Campaigns and Scenarios
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4.1 Tutorials
- 4.1.1 Discovery and Settlement
- 4.1.2 Trade and Diplomacy
- 4.1.3 Combat Training
- 4.1.4 What now?
4.2 Campaign
4.2.1 Nova Fora
- 4.2.1.1 Introduction
- 4.2.1.2 Map
- 4.2.1.3 Objective: Found a city with 250+ Settlers
- 4.2.1.4 Why can't I settle an island?
- 4.2.1.5 Objective: Find Katherine von Breitenstein and return her to your
city
- 4.2.1.6 I lost Katherine von Breitenstein after rescuing here. Is that a
problem?
- 4.2.1.7 Objective: Find Mongols and trade 20t Salt
- 4.2.1.8 Why can I not find the Mongols with my ship?
- 4.2.1.9 Objective: Equip a fleet with 4 Archers, 4 Swordsmen, Scout, 50t
Wood, 100t Tools, 50t Food, and sail west
- 4.2.1.10 Suggested fleet
- 4.2.1.11 Why can't I train Archers and Swordsmen at my Fortress? How do I
get weapons?
- 4.2.1.12 Where is "Westward"? How do I finish?
4.2.2 Barbarrossas' Throne
- 4.2.2.1 Introduction
- 4.2.2.2 Map
- 4.2.2.3 Can I restart the mission from the menu?
- 4.2.2.4 Objectives: Build Citizen level city; Sell 25t Iron to Covana
- 4.2.2.5 Island choice
- 4.2.2.6 My Wood is in one ship and my Tools in another ship. How do I build
my first warehouse?
- 4.2.2.7 How do I stop Ramirez destroying my fleet?
- 4.2.2.8 How do I get Merchants and Aristocrats? Where is the Marble?
- 4.2.2.9 I accidentally insulted or attacked Covana, and now he will not
trade with me. What can I do?
- 4.2.2.10 Objectives: Covana's city must not be destroyed; Destroy both of
Ramirez's main cities
- 4.2.2.11 Naval strategy
- 4.2.2.12 Invasion strategy
4.2.3 Helter-Skelter
- 4.2.3.1 Introduction
- 4.2.3.2 Map
- 4.2.3.3 Objective: Positive balance sheet and at least 100 Citizens
- 4.2.3.4 Colony redesign strategy
- 4.2.3.5 Total demolition strategy
- 4.2.3.6 Objective: Get 20t Furs and 20t Medicinal Herbs and sail north with
them
- 4.2.3.7 Why can't I get the Scout to leave the city?
- 4.2.3.8 Why don't the Mongols sell me enough Furs?
4.2.4 Infernal Triad
- 4.2.4.1 Introduction
- 4.2.4.2 Map
- 4.2.4.3 Strategy overview
- 4.2.4.4 Objective: Hire O'Reilly
- 4.2.4.5 Objective: Hire Madrugada
- 4.2.4.6 Objective: Destroy Peles' fortress
4.2.5 Pack-Ice
- 4.2.5.1 Introduction
- 4.2.5.2 Strategy overview
- 4.2.5.3 Objective: Fill your colony's warehouse with Food
- 4.2.5.4 Why can I not trade for enough Food?
- 4.2.5.5 Objective: Expand Ulfilla to population 80, build a ship
- 4.2.5.6 Objective: Trade 25t of Medicinal Herbs for Whale Blubber
4.2.6 Toguldur's Stone
- 4.2.6.1 Introduction
- 4.2.6.2 Objective: Find and claim Stone of Toguldur
- 4.2.6.3 Must I destroy the Mongols? How?
4.2.7 New Acquaintances
- 4.2.7.1 Introduction
- 4.2.7.2 Map
- 4.2.7.3 Objective: Destroy Galerius's colonies
- 4.2.7.4 Defeating invaders
- 4.2.7.5 Economy strategies
- 4.2.7.6 Immediate counter-attack strategy
- 4.2.7.7 Defeating Galerius
4.2.8 Resistance
- 4.2.8.1 Introduction
- 4.2.8.2 Objective: Conquer fortress and free bookkeeper
- 4.2.8.3 How do I capture the Fortress? Why do I fail the mission after
destroying the city?
4.2.9 Genesis
- 4.2.9.1 Introduction
- 4.2.9.2 Map
- 4.2.9.3 Objective: Build 700 Citizen city
- 4.2.9.4 Objective: Trade 20t Medicinal Herbs to Native Americans
- 4.2.9.5 Objective: Destroy all houses on the Isle of the Dead
- 4.2.9.6 Single-ship strategy
4.2.10 Revenge
- 4.2.10.1 Introduction
- 4.2.10.2 Map
- 4.2.10.3 Objective: Defeat de Freeren and destroy his city
4.2.11 Quentin's Reef
- 4.2.11.1 Introduction
- 4.2.11.2 Map
- 4.2.11.3 Objective: Prevent de Freeren's flagship from escaping and save
Katherine
- 4.2.11.4 Why does de Freeren's ship keep escaping?
4.2.12 Justice
- 4.2.12.1 Introduction
- 4.2.12.2 Map
- 4.2.12.3 Objective: Destroy von Breitenstein's palace
4.2.13 Good or Bad
- 4.2.13.1 Introduction
- 4.2.13.2 Map
- 4.2.13.3 Objective: Find the treasure
- 4.2.13.4 To be continued...
4.3 Scenarios
4.3.1 Hobson's Choice
- 4.3.1.1 Introduction
- 4.3.1.2 Map
- 4.3.1.3 Strategy overview
4.3.2 Ruthless Richard
- 4.3.2.1 Introduction
- 4.3.2.2 Map
- 4.3.2.3 Strategy overview
4.3.3 Friendly Neighbors
- 4.3.3.1 Introduction
- 4.3.3.2 Map
- 4.3.3.3 Strategy overview
4.3.4 The Bet
- 4.3.4.1 Introduction
- 4.3.4.2 Map
- 4.3.4.3 Strategy overview
4.3.5 Playing for Time
- 4.3.5.1 Introduction
- 4.3.5.2 Map
- 4.3.5.3 Strategy overview
- 4.3.5.4 Objective: Build 200 Pioneer settlement within 30 minutes
- 4.3.5.5 Objective: Build 350 Settler town within 30 minutes
- 4.3.5.6 Objective: Build 600 Citizen city within 80 minutes
- 4.3.5.7 Objective: Build 900 Merchant city within 80 minutes
4.3.6 Settlement Recipe
- 4.3.6.1 Introduction
- 4.3.6.2 Map
- 4.3.6.3 Strategy overview
4.3.7 The King of Ore
- 4.3.7.1 Introduction
- 4.3.7.2 Map
- 4.3.7.3 What does the objective mean? Must I mine Ore on 6 islands?
- 4.3.7.4 Strategy overview
- 4.3.7.5 How do I stock 170t - my warehouse only holds 50t?
4.3.8 Many Small Islands
- 4.3.8.1 Introduction
- 4.3.8.2 Map
- 4.3.8.3 Strategy overview
4.3.9 Negative Influence
- 4.3.9.1 Introduction
- 4.3.9.2 Map
- 4.3.9.3 Strategy overview
4.3.10 Siege
- 4.3.10.1 Introduction
- 4.3.10.2 Battle Map
- 4.3.10.3 Strategy overview
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5. Strategies
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5.1 Getting Started
- 5.1.1 Common mistakes
- 5.1.2 Initial colony building
- 5.1.3 Settlers
5.2 Colony Planning and Building
- 5.2.1 Island Choice
- 5.2.2 Colony territory
- 5.2.3 City design
- 5.2.4 Aristocrat cities
5.3 Industry Planning and Building
- 5.3.1 General industry/farm design strategies
- 5.3.2 Food production
- 5.3.3 Salt
- 5.3.4 Iron related production
- 5.3.5 Stone and Marble
- 5.3.6 Alcohol
- 5.3.7 Cloth
5.4 Colony Management and Research
- 5.4.1 General strategies
- 5.4.2 Balancing demands and development
- 5.4.3 Research
5.5 Trade and Diplomacy
- 5.5.1 Mechanics of trade
- 5.5.2 Benefits of trade
- 5.5.3 Diplomacy
5.6 Pirates and Natives
- 5.6.1 Pirates
- 5.6.2 Natives
5.7 Military
- 5.7.1 AI players' troops are stupid
- 5.7.2 Ground unit choice
- 5.7.3 War preparation
- 5.7.4 Defense
- 5.7.5 Naval
- 5.7.6 Economic warfare
- 5.7.7 Invasions
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6. Cheating
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- 6.1 What are the cheat codes?
- 6.2 How do I edit a game?
- 6.3 Are there any trainers?
- 6.4 Can I skip campaign scenarios without completing them?
- 6.5 Are there other gameplay 'cheats'?
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7. Custom Scenarios
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- 7.1 Is there a campaign or scenario editor?
- 7.2 How do I install scenarios?
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8. Technical Issues
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- 8.1 How many bugs are there?
- 8.2 How do I take a screenshot?
- 8.3 Can I stop the statue video playing?
- 8.4 Can I play without the CD?
- 8.5 Why aren't sounds played at non-normal game speed?
- 8.6 Can I turn auto-save off?
- 8.7 Can I play save-games from other language versions?
- 8.8 Can I copy or rename save games?
- 8.9 Why don't the Moors have music?
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Appendices
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A. Building and Industry Data
B. Production Links
C. Production Efficiency
D. Military and Ship Data
E. Research Trees
This FAQ/guide should be applicable to all full versions of the Anno 1503,
including 1503 AD. It does not cover the mobile phone version - see What about
the mobile phone game? below. As released, the game contains many odd or
missing design features, which *may* be changed by future patches. Some could
radically change how the game is played - such as pirates becoming more of a
threat, Courthouses needing to be added to city designs, or ore deposits
running out. Consequently, you should use this guide with caution.
The game is not documented well, particularly when one considers the overall
level of complexity and steep learning curve for new players. Jochen Bauer,
one of the game's producers, wrote at the end of 2001: "Contrary to anything
you might have heard there will be a comprehensive handbook." Well, in my
opinion, the manual is just about sufficient to get you through the tutorial
before leaving you puzzled, while the in-game help is hard to digest. Although
not all versions have the same manual, as Vander comments: "The German manual
is a coloured 80 page manual. And there is a poster with the product chains
and a poster of ship on the box." I have a 44 page manual in greyscale with no
posters... Frieden adds: "The German manual contains special hints for 1602-
gamers only." I cannot find those either :-/ .
At the time of writing there are no known published strategy guides in
English, although there are two in German: an official one published by Future
Press, and an unofficial one by Katja Ti, published by X-Games. Neither has
been used directly in the creation of this FAQ.
Finally, consider the inscription on the upgraded school building in the game
(thanks to Renaud for pointing it out): "Non scholae sed vitae discimus",
which roughly translates from Latin as "not school but life we learn". It
occured to me that this is quite close to one of the underlying design
philosophies in 1503 - not to teach players how to play, but to let them learn
by playing. Some will find such an approach enjoyable; others will find it
excessively frustrating. Maybe this FAQ/guide will help those in the later
category get more out of the game.
This FAQ was written by Tim Howgego (also known as timski), copyright 2003,
unless otherwise stated. Errors and suggestions should be reported to tim (at)
capsu (dot) org. Please put "1503" somewhere in the email subject field. If
you are writing with a game query, please read and search through this
document carefully first, to check your question has not already been
answered. This FAQ includes ideas and strategies posted on forums, primarily
the forum at http://www.anno1503.com/ (including posts that have subsequently
been deleted), and fan sites including http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/
and http://www.a-pianto.ch/Englisch/e_Anno1503/e_Index.htm - contributors are
noted with the relevant text. Particular thanks to people like BaldJim and
Hakea for 'probing' into the game, and LadyH and many of the 1602 "freaks" for
endlessly answering questions.
You may save and print this document for your own personal use only. You may
copy and repost this FAQ, but the content of the document, including the
credits, must remain unchanged. You must not charge for it, sell, rent, or
otherwise profit from it. Informing the author that you are hosting it is
appreciated, but not mandatory. Ensuring you host the most recent version is
also appreciated, but not mandatory. Anno 1503 copyright Sunflowers
Interactive Entertainment Software GmbH, 2002-2003. All rights reserved. Other
trademarks and copyright are owned by their respective trademark and copyright
holders. This is not an official FAQ. It is not endorsed by the game's
developers or publishers. The author is not affiliated to the game's
developers or publishers.
Anno 1503 and 1503 AD (or 1503 A.D.) are precisely the same game: Anno 1503 is
used in Europe, 1503 AD in North America. From the official FAQ: "Worldwide,
the game will be called 'Anno 1503', with the exception of the USA, where the
product name '1503 A.D.' will be used. The reason for this decision is that
the term A.D. is more commonly used in the USA than the term Anno." Some
versions of the game have the subtitle "The New World". Anno 1503 was first
release in German at the end of 2002. Other language versions were released in
March/April 2003. 1503 is the sequel to Anno 1602/1602 AD. Like 1602, 1503 is
a real time strategy game, set at the start of the Early Modern period of
history. The game is based around colony building and resource management on a
series of small islands. It includes aspects of exploration, combat,
diplomacy, trade and research. 1503 is primarily an economic strategy game.
The game was developed by Sunflowers Interactive Entertainment Software (
http://www.sunflowers.de/ ) subsidiary, Max Design. Programming was lead by
Wilfried Reiter, art lead by Martin Lasser. Albert Lasser wrote the AI
(artificial intelligence). The game was published by Electronic Arts.
Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP. Pentium-II 500 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 8 speed
CD-ROM drive, 930 MB hard drive space, 16MB DirectX 8.1 compatible video card
and compatible sound card, keyboard, and mouse. On huge, highly developed
maps, the game is capable of swallowing 2GHz worth of processing 'power' and
still running slowly. However, basic gameplay and campaign scenarios will not
experience this, only custom maps such as Metropol and Gigapol, where the aim
is basically to push the game to its limits and build ridiculously large
cities.
Visualize.Raven writes: "If you know Anno 1602, you will play 1503 very easily
until you get 200-300 settlers. Then you will begin a 'new game'." Here is a
short list of major changes:
- Income is primarily generated by selling goods to your population in 1503,
not raised via taxes as was the case in 1602. This requires slightly different
strategies to be adopted, since 'just having Citizens' (for example) probably
won't be enough to turn a profit - but you can profit when they are being sold
many goods. Why was this changed? Wilfried Reiter comments: "Because it allows
different prices to be charged for different goods in different places,
promotes trade and adds importance to new construction strategies."
- In 1503, houses have internal streets, and don't specifically need road
access. Residents actually walk between their houses and the facilities they
need.
- 1503 is 'bigger' than 1602: Bigger maps, islands, and larger cities needed
break-even. In 1602 one could play an entire game with about 25 2x2 houses; in
1503, 50 4x4 houses are more likely to be needed as a minimum.
- Greater, but not excessive, depth of commodities, production and climate,
including many historically 'accurate' items that were missing from 1602 - it
still has no slave trade or specific historic context to scenarios.
- The original 5-tier civilization level system for housing still exists, but
the requirements of higher level civilizations are quite different from 1602.
Merchants no longer upgrade to Aristocrats - Aristocrat housing needs to be
built separately. Aristocrats may no longer be the optimum population type to
aim to house.
- Service areas still exist, but there are some subtle changes: Houses need
facilities within the service area of the house, it does not matter whether
the house is within the service area of the facility, as was the case in 1602.
- Research (mostly small enhancements and new units, very Warcraft-ish), which
did not exist at all in 1602.
- Military aspects are slightly more important, particularly during the
campaign. 1503's combat AI is similar to 1602 - weak and predictable once you
understand it. 1503 is still an economic strategy game at heart ;-) .
Demo versions and patches are linked from http://www.anno1503.com/ . Non-
German versions were released with all patches up to and including 1.04.02 (12
March 2003), even though some display version 1.00 or "Unknown" where the
version number should be.
A simplified version of the game is available for certain mobile phones. It
features basic seafaring, trading and colony management. You can find a guide
to the mobile game here, http://www.anno1503.com/english/support/mobile.php4 .
An addon is planned, currently titled "Schatze, Monster und Piraten"
(Treasure, Monsters and Pirates). T-Online suggests this will be released in
German during November 2003. Unconfirmed features include ten additional
scenarios, three new continuous games, new buildings, and additional wildlife.
This add-on has not been announced for non-German versions.
This section contains short answers to specific commonly asked questions.
Associated Strategies are contained in a later section. This section assumes
one has at least skimmed through the manual, attempted to play the game and/or
completed the tutorials: It does not cover absolutely everything, just topics
which have confused new players enough for them to ask the question. Topic
specific information may be found in-game, by clicking the question mark icon
on the bottom bar or pressing F1, and typing in the name of the thing you want
information on. However, much of the content of the in-game help seems to have
been written without regard to features that changed mid-development or were
never implemented, so you will find many inaccuracies. Also, the extended
tutorial level, the Citizen difficulty endless game, includes a series of
hints in the form of message icons that appear at the bottom of the screen.
3.1 Important Concepts
______________________________________________________________________________
3.1.1 How do I explore?
Agricultural resources are revealed by moving a ship close to the island.
Natives, pirates, and other players may be revealed in this way if they have
settlements close to the coast. If not, you must send a ground unit inland.
One can normally see where 'hidden' settlements are by the absence of trees or
by watching movement of shipping. Mineral resources are revealed by ordering a
Scout to walk towards mountain ranges. Mineral resources are shown as a nugget
of rock with a small pair of hammers. You need to examine each mountain peak
to ensure all resources are revealed by your Scout. Any resource that falls
within your territory (see below) will automatically be revealed. There is not
need to explore if you are prepared to gamble on the presence or absence of
resources.
Territory is gained by building Warehouses and/or Main Markets. These can be
built on unoccupied territory, and immediately allow you to build on any land
within the Warehouse/Main Market's service area. The service area is the
highlighted area seen when the building is selected, explained in more detail
below. Occupied territory cannot be claimed in this way. In the case of other
players, their Warehouses/Main Markets need to be destroyed by certain
military units (Cannon, Mortars, Catapults, Archers with flaming arrows). Once
destroyed, you can *rapidly* rebuild the Warehouse/Main Market, and any
buildings and facilities exclusively in its service area are captured by you.
Alternatively, the destroyed building can be allowed to crumble completely,
which causes the land to become neutral and all the other buildings
exclusively in its service area to be destroyed. In the case of natives, Main
Markets can only be destroyed and the land turned neutral, not captured.
Civilization levels restrict what can be built and researched, what goods can
be sold (and hence your ability to make money), and how densely populated your
housing can become. Housing starts at Pioneer level. To develop this housing
to Settler level, certain goods need to be sold to residents of houses, and
those houses need to have access to certain facilities. Appendix Building and
Industry Data contains a list of these requirements. In some cases, population
will demand things that are not needed for them to develop, for example
Pioneers demand Salt, but it is not needed for them to develop to Settlers.
You can of course sell Salt to increase revenue (the merits of Salt sales are
discussed under Industry Planning and Building strategies). Houses do not need
to be rebuilt from new when evolving between civilization levels, however
construction materials do need to be available to your residents. The
exception is Aristocrat housing, which is not an evolution of Merchant housing
- instead it needs to be built as new. Aristocrats are not necessarily the
ultimate aim of city building, and almost everything is available with a large
Merchant level population (the merits of Aristocrat cities are discussed in
the context of Colony Planning and Building strategies).
Money is primarily generated by selling goods to your population. Goods are
sold via stalls, which need to be placed within the service area (see below)
of housing. Different civilization levels make different demands for goods.
Different stalls sell different types of goods. Goods must be procured by you,
and made available on the island the stalls are selling them. Goods can
sometimes be purchased from other players, natives, pirates, or Venetians
(Free Traders), but in most cases you will need to produce the goods yourself.
Production of goods, provision of facilities, and other expenses such as
military, need to be balanced carefully against revenue from sales of goods.
Further complexity is added by the fact that certain goods can only be
produced on certain islands, which means that higher level civilizations need
to be supported by multiple islands with goods shipped between them. That
balancing act requires good city design, good financial management, and robust
advanced planning, particularly when moving between civilization levels. New
players struggling with these concepts are invited to read the Getting Started
section under strategies. Money can be generated from several secondary
sources - trade, demanding tribute (in theory, there are some bugs here) and
finding treasures, but these should not normally be relied on as a source of
revenue. It is important to note that, unlike 1602, there is no taxation of
your population.
Production buildings that produce goods constantly, and population related
facilities, have an operating cost. Production buildings where products have
to be ordered (such as shipyards, fortresses, and certain weapons shops) do
not have a fixed operating cost - they cost nothing to maintain when they are
not producing. Houses have no operating cost - the only costs associated with
them relate to building and upgrading, and of course the supply of goods for
sale. Ships and military units also have an operating (upkeep) cost. Operating
costs are deducted at regular intervals. A full list of building operating
costs can be found in appendix Building and Industry Data. Production
buildings can often be de-activated ("turned off"), which reduces, but does
not eliminate, operating cost. Population related facilities cannot be
deactivated in this way, and operating costs can only be saved by demolishing
the building. Ships and ground units similarly cannot have their operating
cost reduced - the units can only be sunk or killed to eliminate upkeep (and
the unit).
Each island settlement has separate stocks, operating costs and revenue. Money
(coin) is pooled in a single treasury. Loses on one island may therefore be
offset against profits on another island without physically moving money or
balancing trade deficits. Goods are not automatically shared between islands -
they need to be shipped between islands. Operating costs are deducted at
regular time intervals, while sales and other revenues occur at different
times. This can cause the overall balance figure to be quite dynamic, and so
the balance needs to be considered when averaged out over a few cycles. *Very*
dynamic balance sheets are often associated with under-supply or infrequent
deliveries. For example, a ship unloads a cargo, which is in heavy demand. As
it sells it generates sales revenue. Before the ship returns with another
load, stocks have been emptied, so nothing can be sold, and the sales revenue
returns to zero.
Service areas are the highlighted area when the building is selected.
Buildings that produce things need to have the raw materials they require for
production within their service area. In the case of farms and plantations,
the service area needs to contain suitable land or crop fields. Stonemasons
need a Quarry within their service area. In the case of most other production
buildings, the supply of raw materials may be a Main Market or Warehouse *or*
the original producer of the raw materials. If the raw materials are available
in the island's stores, they will be simultaneously available from every Main
Market or Warehouse on that island. Population related facilities (such as
Chapels and stalls) need to be in the service area of the houses they serve.
The houses do not specifically need to be in the service area of the
facilities. So long as the facilities are in the service area of a Main Market
or Warehouse (it is almost impossible for them not to be), these facilities'
service areas are mostly meaningless.
Most buildings benefit from road access. Production buildings have specific
entrances, shown by green arrows when building. Roads must adjoin one or more
of these entrances to function. In the case of most farms and mines, road
access is optional. If the farm or mine is within the service area of the
processing industry that requires its raw material, no road is required
because the materials can be collected by a worker walking to the farm/mine.
If road access is provided, carts can be sent from Main Markets or Warehouses
to pick up goods, which will allow excess goods to be stored until needed, and
goods to be moved around the same island or made available to be shipped
elsewhere. The disadvantage is that each Main Market/Warehouse only has a
finite number of cart drivers, so complex economies can rapidly run out of
transport capacity if they rely too heavily on cart transport. Carts will be
sent out automatically to pick up finished materials or goods. Once the cart
has returned to a Main Market or Warehouse, the goods become available at
every Main Market or Warehouse owned by you on the same island. Processing
industries must have road access, since the end product will not be
transported by any other means than cart. Road access for housing is a moot
point. Housing does not require road access, because houses have small
internal walkways between them. However, these walkways can become crowded at
higher civilization levels, which can prevent residents from accessing all the
facilities they need. Consequently most players provide some level of road
access to housing, even if only a proportion of all houses are connected by
road.
Primary production involves growing and harvesting crops or livestock, or
mining. Secondary production is often needed to process these into useful
goods. Most production is a simple case of taking one raw material to a
processing industry, and returning with the finished product. In a few cases,
two items need to be used for production to occur. For example, Ore smelters
require Ore and Wood to produce Iron. Sometimes more than one production
process is needed. For example, after Iron is produced it is made into Tools
or weapons before it has any proper use. End products are sold to your
population, used by your military, or used in further construction. Appendix B
shows Production Links. Industries operate at a percentage efficiency,
primarily based on how well supplied they are with raw materials, although
other factors such as draught or poor supply lines can cause efficiency to
drop. Balancing the provision of different industries within your economy is
part science, part art - appendix C contains Production Efficiency data to
assist in this.
New islands will need to be colonized in order to support higher levels of
civilization. It is not possible to produce everything Citizen or higher
populations require on any one island. Specific agricultural resources are
required to produce certain goods, and no one island has all agricultural
resources. Depending on the map and objectives, further islands may be needed
to access mineral resources, or simply provide space for city building. To
colonize a new vacant island, you need to build a new warehouse on it. This is
done either by moving a ship with the required construction materials close to
the island and using the construct warehouse icon on the ship's menu; or by
landing a Scout, loading it with the required materials, and then using it to
build a warehouse. In most cases it is useful to have direct sea access to a
new colony, so the former method is more common. If the island is already
completely occupied, you will need to invade first - see How do I capture an
enemy settlement? below. For warehouse troubleshooting, see Why can't I build
a warehouse? below.
3.2 Setup and Interface
______________________________________________________________________________
3.2.1 What do the symbols, names and levels on the initial player menu mean?
From hatchmoe: "One star = easy, two stars = difficult, three stars = more
difficult..." Balou adds: "Those circles ('half-moons') indicate time-limits
for missions. The time limits themselves differ from mission to mission." [I
think the half circles indicate scenarios that are about 30 minutes long.] On
the numbers, S.SubZero suggests they are, "the estimated time, in hours, to
complete that mission." BaldJim writes: "The Citizen Single Player scenario is
the easiest level. It has no provision to customize anything. You shoot right
from selecting the scenario to playing. There are computer opponents, but you
have to explore to find them. The other eight Single Player scenarios range in
difficulty from easy Baron to difficult Emperor. They have a customization
option. In it you may toggle the pirates on or off and the disaster on or off.
You may also toggle each computer opponent on or off. Four of them have three
opponents available, and four of them have four opponents available. Also
there are 12 profiles for the computer players which give some indication of
what the player will do. Each one in each scenario has a default. However, you
can change them, thereby changing the difficulty level somewhat. That is, you
can make the AI a bit more or less aggressive."
BaldJim writes: "For the single player/endless scenarios (except Citizen): On
the page where you choose your flag color, look toward the bottom center for
the customize clicker. Click on it and you will go to a page where you can
make sure the pirates are toggled ON."
BaldJim writes: "There are 3 or 4 AI players in each game. You may turn one or
more off. Alternatively, you may change their profile from the default
profile. A list of the profiles least likely to cause you war problems: The
Trader, The Timid One, The Reluctant One, The Quiet One, The Just One, The
Introvert." Changes are made under the customize button (not available at
Citizen level).
The Citizen level map is not random. On other levels, Badcat109 writes: "The
islands are all in the same spot and basically the same size, just different
shapes. Also resources are randomly placed." Zomby Woof adds: "Also the
Venetians will always have their base on the same island. ... Originally
'Baron' was the easiest level in the German version, but the more easy
'Citizen' was added later."
3.2.6 What are the differences between 'endless' level difficulties?
Based on the writings of LadyH. Pirates can be toggled on/off at the start of
the game (except Citizen). I have not included AI players since they can be
customised at the start of the game:
No, the Citizen starting cash is not mistyped... Citizen is slightly different
from the other difficulty settings, because the Citizen game occurs on a fixed
map with no customisation or variety in resources. It is designed primarily as
a training level. Balou notes: "The prices at the booths change with the
difficulty level: the easier the game, the more money you make selling stuff
to your own people." BaldJim writes: "The rate at which the AI advances varies
with the level of difficulty of the game. In the Single Player/Endless Games,
the AI players are programmed to advance at different rates depending of the
number of stars showing the level of difficulty. In the Citizen level, the two
AI players will do nothing until _after_ you have done it. This level is
better termed an Advanced Tutorial. The Baron, Viscount, and Count levels at
the one and two stars, are set to match your pace. At the three star levels,
the AI advances more independently. If you just want to practice war, skip the
other levels and go to King and/or Emperor at the four star level. I think you
will find that the AI players do _not_ wait around for you. However, the AI
will still not be as brilliant as you. The AI will not build more than it
needs to survive and doesn't do Aristocrats."
The number of different resources in each of the main endless levels are
listed by BaldJim and Gunter (based on table found at
http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/ ):
From Hakea: "North/South puzzled me for a few minutes too, as it doesn't line
up with the map edges as you'd expect, but with the edges of the screen. But
you'll kick yourself once you see the compass - it's a huge black/grey thing
with a North spike at the top, that takes up the whole centre of the map.
Oddly enough it's still easy to miss."
Yes. Select help (small '?' on the bottom bar or press F1), and then select
the check-box icon. Current objectives are shown, along with a tick-box. A
tick indicates the objective has been met, an empty box means the objective
has not been completed. You can also read the text from the video sequences
here. If you can only see and not hear, this will help you understand the
plot.
No, not without deleting them completely, which is not always an option. When
fighting in woodland, entire armies tend to disappear from view, while streets
in large cities may never be seen again...
Custom hotkeys (Crtl + 0-9) can only be assigned to groups of ships or units.
You cannot assign them to buildings or locations. 'H' can be used to jump
(cycle) between colonies, however this will always focus on the same spot. 'J'
can be used to jump to the location of an event that has been reported, such
as a battle or fire.
Yes. It can be found in the manual and in the game's readme.txt file. This is
an important reference for things like game speed, which cannot be changed
using the mouse.
H3ck|0 writes: "I don't know any formulas... but the Scoreboard is falsified
by buffer overflows. I think at 65535 for any value the game starts counting
at 0 again. So this scoreboard doesn't say anything."
3.3 Climate and Resources
______________________________________________________________________________
3.3.1 How many different climate zones are there?
Six: Polar, Tundra, Northern, Prairie, Steppes and Jungle. At first glance,
Polar, Tundra and Northern may be confused. The first is entirely snow
covered, the second only part snow-covered, and the third is devoid of snow.
Some individual maps contain less than six.
3.3.2 What characterises each climate zone? Where can I find certain
resources?
The list below is based on the comments of BaldJim. Natives and resources
shown are those that *may* be found in different climates - they will not
always all be available:
Polar:
- Ground: All snow and ice.
- Natives: Eskimos.
- Resources: Whales, Wild Game, Iron Ore, Stone.
Tundra:
- Ground: Some snow.
- Natives: Mongols (also Eskimos in the campaign).
- Resources: Whales, Wild Game, Trees, Potatoes, Hemp, Grain, Salt, Marble,
Iron Ore, Stone.
Agricultural resources are revealed by sailing a ship close to the island, and
then moving the mouse cursor over the island and reading the resources off the
bottom bar. Only rare crop types show in this way - those that can be grown on
any non-ice surface such as Hemp and Grain are not shown. On finding mineral
deposits, samstein12345 writes: "Take a scout and send him to a mountain. Then
tell him to go from mountain to mountain and you will see ore and salt
deposits pop up over mountains." Visualize.Raven adds: "Minerals are automatic
discovered if they are in range of your market." Hakea writes: "The scout can
find other things (small caches of money)."
3.3.4 Why, after exploring, do no crop types show for the island?
This occurs for Tundra and Polar islands. There are no special crop types
available on these, so the resource information bar may look just like it did
before you explored.
Other players' colonies will appear when you sail, or send a ground unit,
close to them. Gunter notes: "By looking to an island, you can guess that
somebody is living there if you notice a large treeless area." Also watch the
movement of other players' ships, which normally gives the location of their
warehouses. On natives that do not have a port, Visualize.Raven writes: "Load
a Scout on your ship, and unload it on that island you want to explore. Walk
your Scout in to the middle of the island. You can use any unit you want, but
the Scout is the cheapest."
You may buy Tools from Venetians - either by setting a buy requirement at your
Warehouse or (on certain maps only) trading with the Venetians at their
colony. You may trade with other players or pirates. Other players may be just
as short of Tools as you, and so be unwilling to trade them. Jini comments:
"If you have found the pirate's warehouse, first have look there. If they are
selling tools, they sell it for an incredible good price." Pirate settlements
cannot be found on most maps. In the long term you should produce Tools
yourself. Rayyvin writes: "Use your scout to discover an ore deposit on an
island, and then build an ore mine, small ore smelter and tool maker. Also
make sure for enough wood because the tool maker and the small ore smelter
need wood otherwise they can't make their products." Jarrah writes: "Running
out of Tools is a common thing so it's good to get into the habit of building
the Tool chain early."
3.3.7 How do I build and operate Quarries and Mines?
Quarries may be built on every mountain or large rock formation. Other mines
require specific mineral deposits to be present in the mountain (you will not
always find every type of mineral on every island). Quarries need to be within
a Stonemason's service area - they do not produce anything alone. Admiral
Drake writes: "To get bricks you need two buildings: a quarry placed on a
mountain's slot and a stone mason placed near by the mine; but never directly
before the quarry - leave a minimum of one square free space."
Other types of mines will produce minerals automatically, and if road access
is provided, carts can pick up and store minerals. Workers at facilities such
as Ore Smelters can also collect minerals direct from mines. Hakea describes
the process of building an ore mine: "(1) Send the scout to explore mountains
to find the site of the deposit. (2) Supply enough building materials to
construct the necessary production chain (see next step). (3) Run enough road
to get to the site (this may involve building more than one Market in order to
reach the mountain). (4) Place the mine in the spot(s) that the game allows.
(5) Either collect the finished goods when you think there are enough to
warrant the trip, or else set up an auto-route to get a ship to do it for
you." If you cannot build a mine, LadyH asks: "Is there a main market place
near enough that its service area reaches the mountain? Check that by double-
clicking one of your main market buildings. The mountain has to be inside of
the highlighted area." Helen adds: "You don't place it directly on the
mountain, a little below..." Certain mines only become available at higher
civilisation levels: For example, you will not be able to mine ore until you
have at least 80 Settlers.
Jini writes: "I am not 100% sure, but I think mines never run out, even ore
mines. At least I have never seen a mine running out even though I've been
playing the game for months." The game's readme says: "Once a certain quantity
of iron ore has been mined, you have to place a deeper ore mine on top of the
small ore mine in order to continue mining." Jochen Bauer's slightly cryptic
answer: "In 1602 only the iron deposits could sometimes run out. In 1503
things will be similar, but that's enough for here." I suspect this is a
missing feature, that was not implemented in the release version. I have never
experienced a ore deposit become exhausted. I have never needed a Deep Ore
Mine either. LadyH notes: "Sometimes there are problems when you try to
upgrade to a big mine, the big ones will produce nothing."
No. You cannot mint your own money. Nice try ;-) . Dobber comments: "They
already have a building that turns gold into money, it is called a Jeweler.
7500 Aristo's turn jewelry into cash so fast it makes your head swim."
Not in this game. "Wine" is only sold to Aristocrats, and is produced with
Wineries. "Alcohol" is drunk by other civilization levels at Taverns, and may
be produced from Sugarcane, Hops or Potatoes. Wine should probably be called
"fine wine" and Alcohol called something altogether less sophisticated...
Dragonling writes: "Like grain and potatoes, it can be grown on every island.
Even on tundra islands where no other farms can be build, these three grow up
perfect, but not direct on snow."
When you plant trees, a random tree type will be selected. To select a
different type, select the tree tool, and click on an existing tree (or
another area or object where no tree can be planted). The tree type will
change to a different one, and you can repeat this as often as you wish until
the desired tree appears. Nerle has catalogued tree types - pictures of
different saplings and fully grown trees can be found here:
http://www.hjbomanns.de/ANNOTools/Baumschule.htm . There are 14 types found on
colder islands (Tundra, Northern and Prairie), and 12 types found on warmer
islands (Steppe and Jungle).
Yes. They spit out hot rocks, looking somewhat like intensive mortar fire.
Buildings very close to the volcano may catch fire, however there are no
adverse effects elsewhere on the island.
3.4 Roads and Storage
______________________________________________________________________________
3.4.1 Is road access needed?
BaldJim writes: "Roads are required to get end products of production chains
from the building where they are made to a warehouse or market building.
Everything moves fine without roads except the cartmen who are based in the
warehouses and market buildings." Many farms and plantations do not need road
access, so long as they are within the service area of the relevant processing
industry: Workers from that processing industry will walk across crop fields
to collect goods. However, road access allows excess stocks to be taken away
and stored, and allows stock to be taken to processing facilities which are
not nearby. Ravell writes: "You have to connect the building at the right
spot, watch the green arrows. They don't mean the side of the building only,
but the exact spot, doors, gates."
On residential housing, Nacht writes: "Pioneer houses don't need roads. Nor
any other houses. Only buildings that produce end products need roads." A
small number of roads in a densely populated area seems to decrease the chance
of residents getting lost and not accessing facilities. Jini writes: "The fire
brigade will reach burning houses even if there are no roads at all. ...
Because of those off-road fire fighters, there is actually no real reason to
build roads in the city." LadyH comments: "They don't need roads, that's
right. But roads will protect against fire, until you're able to build a fire
brigade." Gunter clarifies: "Some people have noticed that it's better to
build some roads because it seems that fires don't cross them, and roads
therefore prevent your city from being burned completely if one house catches
fire." Limited road access around residential areas improves the flow of
people round your city at higher population levels, and can make the
difference between residents being able to access facilities and not. But
there is no need to provide absolutely every house with road access.
3.4.2 Are cobbled roads faster than dirt roads? What is the benefit of
Marketplace squares?
Nacht writes: "Movement is not faster." Cambio comments: "In the help menu it
says that movement is supposed to be faster..." Visualize.Raven answers: "Yeah
is a bug, it will be resolved in a coming patch." Samstein12345 notes: "Your
people from houses don't need road connections, they get anywhere at the same
speed." From balou: "Those two 'market places' are just fancier streets...
with no added value, just looking better..." Beemav3 notes: "Your cartmen can
go diagonally across them which shortens their trips a little bit." Are there
any uses for cobbled roads? Svar writes: "I use them for surveying because
they are easy to count."
Jini writes: "The entrance has to be 'free' - there has to be a street *or* an
empty field before it. If one builds a building in front of an entrance, the
original entrance is blocked and can not be used anymore." Some buildings have
multiple entrances (green arrows on the build plan) - in these cases only one
entrance must be kept clear.
Tom Sailor writes: "Find a straight area at a river and built a street from
one side to the other. While moving the cursor over the river the bridge will
appear automatically." Stone bridges first need to be researched, and are
constructed using the cobbled/stone road tool. BaldJim adds: "The stone bridge
will not cross anything that the wooden bridge will not cross." Ornamental
(Merchant level) bridges vary from the first method - they are built using a
specific icon on the build menu. Balou notes: "Roads build with the
'ornamental bridge' costs just as much as 'plain' stone roads. They only turn
expensive when spanning rivers." Bridges are used to cross rivers. They differ
slightly from piers, which are used to build along coastline or over shallow
areas of sea. Piers are constructed using the same method as roads.
3.4.5 How do I build roads along hills and mountainsides?
BaldJim writes: "Building roads up and down slopes requires a technique that
takes a bit of practice to acquire. Certain parts of the slopes will not
accommodate a road - namely the 'corners'. Since the land forms follow square
patterns, there are 'corners' of the various levels. The road needs two
squares on the slope and one square on both the upper and lower levels, all in
a straight line. I find that if I start with a 'held' click at the base of the
entrance to the mine and drag the road line away, a good path will appear with
a bit of patience. Be careful not to drop the 'held' click, or you have to
clean up with the pick axe."
3.4.6 Can I have more than one Warehouse on the same island?
Zomby Woof writes: "You can build more than one warehouse per island.
Additional warehouses you can build via the 'maritime buildings' in the
building menu." Solarion adds: "They can only be built inside your Market
range." Extra warehouses don't always equate to extra storage, read on.
3.4.7 How do I increase the storage capacity on an island?
Jini writes: "Every new warehouse or main market building increases the
storage capacity on that island by 20 tons. After 4 warehouse or so, the
storage increase drops to 15 tons per additional warehouse/main market
building. The absolute maximum is 190 tons. One can not have more storage
capacity on an island, even if one is building hundreds of warehouse. There is
a limitation of 2 cartman per warehouse/main market building. Cartmen are
hardwired with market buildings, i.e. every market building has its very own
cartmen. This cartmen can only fetch goods from buildings which are in the
service area of his market building and he is only moving goods from
production buildings into his market building. So, there is definitively no
'teletransportation' of cartmen." The initial (Pioneer level) Warehouse and
Main Markets are only assigned one cart. Upgrading to Settler level adds one
extra cart. Admiral Drake notes: "Even if you delete the houses, all the
existing warehouses keep level 2, only new one (built later) will again get
level one. This way you can have different warehouses on same island." This is
discussed in more detail under What is the operating cost of Market Places and
Warehouses? below.
Ravell writes: "If you have enough wood and tools [on your ship] (and cash of
course) you should be able to build a (sea)-warehouse. If you can't maybe the
shore is too rugged, try it somewhere else. Also you have to build it from the
ships menu on the bottom right (yellow), not from the construction menu." Note
that in the first campaign scenario, Nova Fora, you may only build on one
island. Also see Can I have more than one Warehouse on the same island? above.
3.4.9 What is the operating cost of Market Places and Warehouses?
From Jarrah: "There are 3 levels of markets and shore based warehouses. They
get more expensive to build and run as you progress. The markets cost 10, 15
and 30 to run. The warehouses cost a little more - 15, 25 and then 35 at the
top level." The values apply to Pioneer, Settlers and Citizen or higher
respectively. They do not upgrade immediately, as BaldJim comments: "I found
that the upgrade did not occur when there were 50 (or indeed 60) settlers. I
found that it happened when there were between 120 and 135 people and 50 of
them were settlers. It seems there are two options to gain the minimum
population to upgrade the warehouse/market buildings. (1) Build 16 houses and
arrange for only four of them to upgrade to settler level. (2) Build 9 houses
and arrange for all of them to upgrade to settler level." Jarrah adds: "I
think that what you need is 125 inhabitants. Why? Because it ties in with the
usual figure required for an upgrade to Settler (Why 125? Because you can't
build a Chapel without 125 people, and without a Chapel they won't upgrade).
And, according to the in game help, the major key to market upgrades is the
move up from one social status to another." The second stage of development is
often reported as 220 Citizens. The main advantage of the first upgrade is a
second cart is added to the roster (from Andj Pianto).
3.5.1 How do can I build a ...? Why is a building 'greyed out' on the
construction menu?
Buildings require construction materials, coin, flat land, and certain
population requirements to be met in at least one city in your empire. For
requirements, see the Building and Industry Data in the appendices.
Construction materials must be available on the island you are trying to
build, meaning in your Warehouse on that island; not in your ship's hold
(except for the first Warehouse on an island), or on another island. You can
only build within your territory.
Balou writes: "Wells increase the fertility of the land... of course that only
works, if it is below 100% (all green bar)." They also protect fields during
droughts, as Zomby Woof notes: "Not completely, but without wells half of the
fields dry up and with a well maybe 5-7 fields or even less." Balou writes:
"There's a 'well-draught' bug, where the wells loose their function after a
draught - this is a local effect though and seems to re-balance itself after a
while. Build the farm building first - the well later. Otherwise you won't get
any effect out of it. The service area has to cover at least one part of the
farm building to service this building. That way one well can serve more than
one building. The upgraded well doesn't seem to enhance the effect of the
'normal' well by much - so it's usually of no consequence to build this
'better' well over an old one." Budgie notes: "Building two or more wells for
one farm is useless and has no additional effect on the fertility." BaldJim
notes the effect extends to trees: "When I build a well and there are some
trees in its service area, the trees 'snap' to full growth." You do not need
wells in residential area - only agriculture uses them.
Visualize.Raven writes: "When the Small Farm has potatoes in its range
[service area], it will produce Alcohol. When it has grassland, it will
produce Food. You can produce both Food and Alcohol by putting just some
potatoes fields."
Hakea asks: "Did you build in an area where there actually were some whales to
catch - e.g. Polar or Tundra?" HJB notes: "Whales are bound to the shores of
polar and tundra islands, not to a specific northern area of the sea." Jini
adds: "'Whales' are the big grey ones, not the black ones with white skin
(Orcas). I built my very first whaler in an area with Orcas instead of whales
and of course it didn't work." Balou adds: "Try to avoid bays as a location
for the whale hunter, the ships tend to 'get caught' there and not work."
Visualize.Raven comments: "After you build the whaler, from it you need to
build the ship." On building the whaling ship, Tilandra comments: "Even though
the hammer at the bottom of the window is Xed out in red, you can still click
it to build a ship. That threw me off at first also. Once you click it, the
grey square next to it should fill with a graphic of a ship and the orange-to-
green progress bar that shows the ship building. Once the ship is built, you
cannot build another." Whalers may be observed to only work at 50%, even
though two Whale Oil Factories are placed for every Whaler. Zomby Woof writes:
"This is a bug, don't worry about this. If your whaler appears to be working
steadily, it runs with 100%." There is no need to relocate a Whaler so long as
it is positionned correctly to start with.
LadyH writes: "The Fur hunter will only hunt animals with white fur." White
furred animals are more common on colder, more northerly islands. Trappers are
also effective when working with orange furred Leopards found on jungle
islands. Gunter writes: "The tundra trapper worked the best, while in the
jungle he supplied only the half of his colleague in the tundra. The jungle
trapper hunted tigers." Northern islands are a moot point. Trappers will hunt
white furred rabits, although they are not as efficient as on other islands,
and poor positionning may result in no production at all.
3.5.6 What is the significance of sales stands' service areas?
Budgie answers: "The service area of the sales stands has no meaning. The
service area of the houses is important though - all public buildings required
by the inhabitants and all sales stands should be within this area." Stalls do
not need to be placed next to Main Markets in order to function, although AI
players frequently do this. Note that the green arrows on stalls are
significant - at least one side with a green arrow needs to be accessible in
order for the stalls to sell goods.
Yes, but only to ensure the supply of Alcohol at the Tavern. When selling
Alcohol to your population, it is still the service area of the house that is
the important one. Dobber writes: "The main concern however still is the
tavern has to be within range of a source of alcohol to function. That is one
good that does not teleport from the marketplace to the point of sale." From
BaldJim: "If they are within the service range of the tavern, the porter will
just as gladly walk to a small farm, a brewery or a distillery as he walks to
the market building. All he is concerned about is getting the alcohol to the
customer." If demand for Alcohol is very high (for example, one Tavern serving
2000 people), the Tavern needs to be close to the main market. If not, you may
find the deliveries cannot be made quick enough to satisfy demand, leading to
Alcohol shortages [a crisis, if ever there was one ;-) ] even when there
appears to be a large volume of Alcohol in stock on the island. Jarrah writes:
"Initially that doesn't matter much, but as you develop to higher social
levels more and more people will be crammed into those houses and the distance
will become more crucial. Eventually, your houses will become unstable (and
further development will be choked off) even though you have plenty of alcohol
in the market building, just because the tavern is too far from his supplies."
3.5.8 Do Churches replace Chapels? Universities replace Schools?
Yes and no. Zomby Woof writes: "University and church: you need only one of
them. As soon as you build the university all schools get upgraded (no matter
if they are covered by the university or not) and have the same function like
a university. The same with church and chapels." BaldJim adds: "You can NOT
get the upgrade and then destroy the church and/or the university whilst
keeping the upgrade."
Nothing in the release version. Tom Sailor writes: "Later on your people will
be able to take to the streets if they're unsatisfied. There'll also be crime.
Unfortunately it does not work in the current version." LadyH adds: "Later
Gallows will help against bandits and thieves; District Courts will help
against rebellion."
3.5.10 What does the Pavilion's service area need to cover? What's a park?
A Pavilion acts as a park - it needs to be within the service area of the
housing whose residents require park access (Aristocrats). Gunter comments:
"The service area of the pavilion has no meaning at all, and it doesn't need a
street connection." The in-game help disagrees with this, suggesting parkland
should fill the service area of the Pavilion, however many effective
Aristocrat cities have been built as Gunter describes.
They cure plague victims. Doctors need supplies of Medicinal Herbs to
function, and they only cover houses within their service area. Ravell writes:
"You can't control the doctor - but he does his job pretty well all on his
own. The paramedic (military unit) only heals other military units, not
civilians. The paramedic was able to 'heal' ships too in previous patches."
Medicinal Herbs are grown at a Medicinal Herb plantation - these must be built
on a Northern island. BaldJim writes: "Later you may research the Quick
Healing provision so the Doctor can do his work faster. You always lose a few
people before the Doctor goes to work when the Plague comes, but with quick
healing you lose fewer."
There aren't any (sewerage systems were uncommon in the 16th century,
particularly in the 'new world'). These rumours relate to a 1 April 2001 'Sim
City' spoof, which also featured dual-lane donkey highways and Aristocrat
apartment blocks ;-) .
Yes and no. When upgrading, colonists will pick their own design. When you
build a new house (either at Pioneer or Aristocrat level), you can change the
design by selecting the build house tool, and clicking once on an un-buildable
area, such as an island you don't own. Each click will change the design to a
different (randomly selected) design (from Nerle and others).
3.5.14 What rewards and statues are there? How do I get them?
The most common are statues. Balou writes: "The statue is the only award you
receive for 'doing well'. All the other 'awards' can be build, after a certain
amount of people of a certain level lives in your city." Ravell writes: "When
you build monuments [statues], they count towards the satisfaction part of the
final score." Balou adds: "You only get points if you use those statues. Even
if you see that video a dozen times, it's just points for the built ones." [I
think statues are granted on the same basis as 1602 - keep a Citizen or higher
population happy for 30 minutes, although there is a quirk in which each large
city you have may offer a separate statue, all at about the same time.]
BaldJim adds: "It's not so easy to meet the conditions at higher levels of
difficulty." When you have a certain number of Aristocrats you can start
building a Cathedral and Palace. From LadyH: "You need 600 Aristrocrats and
about 2500 people in your town to get a Cathedral." With 1000 Aristocrats you
can start building your Palace. LadyH notes that your total population also
needs to exceed 1900 - "You can have xxx merchants plus 1000 aristocrats, or
you must have a minimum of 1900 aristocrats if there are no others". Gunter
suggests what island this population are on is an important factor: "[With
Aristocrats on a] different island without merchants, you need 1900
aristocrats to obtain the cathedral, the main piece of the palace and 4 other
pieces, the ornamental well, and the obelisk." Zomby Woof writes: "With 3000
aristocrats you will get 4 more parts and with 5000 aristocrats you can build
you palace unlimited. Once you have built a palace or the cathedral you won't
loose those buildings if you throw out your aristocrats. But without
aristocrats you can't anymore build the parts of the palace unlimited if you
save the game and load it again." You can only build the Cathedral once in a
game - if you destroy it, you will not be able to build another. When you
defeat an enemy you will be awarded an Triumphal Arch. Rewards and statues do
not currently have any purpose except to look visually impressive. Balou
writes: "Maybe it will have a function in the upcoming add-on, just like the
Aristrocrats themselves are supposed to have a 'soothing' effect on your
lower-level population... but nothing so far."
3.6 Colony Development and Events
______________________________________________________________________________
3.6.1 What causes bankruptcy?
Jochen Bauer answers: "When your account lies under -1000 pieces of gold over
a longer period of time." Visualize.Raven writes: "It's not so important how
much cash you have on minus, is important how time you are on red balance."
Curley writes: "Go to the Public buildings screen. See the Pickaxe in the
bottom right corner? You will not recover materials spent when you destroy
them but it does not cost anything to use this tool. It's great for clearing
out large sections of trees quickly but watch out for roads, it will take them
too." You cannot clear mountains or rock formations, or demolish things
outside of your territory.
3.6.3 Is there a limit to the number of people on each island?
Wilfried Reiter comments: "I'm eager to find out myself - the theoretical
limit lies around 60,000." From Admiral Drake: "The highest population in one
town is restricted by an integer overflow with more than 65xxx." You can have
more than 65,000 population across multiple islands in empire. More than
200,000 people have been reported on one map.
3.6.4 How do you stop your population using building materials?
Your population only requires building materials if they wish to upgrade their
houses (to higher civilization levels). Visualize.Raven writes: "Select a
Marketplace or a Warehouse, click on information button ('?'), and down in
menu you have a button for stopping people evolving."
Budgie writes: "Your people do not jump up from merchant to aristocrat level.
Merchants stay merchants. The aristocrat houses have to be built separately
from the buildings menu. When you reached 1,900 merchants, the aristocrat
house appears in the public buildings menu."
Complete house collapse may be caused by events such as fire or plague, if the
event is not dealt with quick enough - see What can I do about fires? and Can
I prevent the Plague? below. If houses collapse for no apparent reason, it is
normally because you are not supplying enough basic goods, such as Food. This
may be due to the good not being in stock on the island. It is more commonly
due to your people not being able to buy the good, either because no
appropriate stall has been placed to sell it, or such stalls cannot be reached
by the people in the house: Either it is outside of the house's service area,
or there is no easy walk route between the house and the stall.
Aristocrats seem to be exceptionally difficult to satisfy. Even when they are
notionally being supplied with everything they need, they can become angry and
leave, destroying their houses. Many have observed that Aristocrats dis-like
walking any distance, and are prone to getting lost. Sometimes over-supply of
buildings such as Market Places, or simply removing troublesome houses and
building them somewhere else, can help resolve decaying Aristocrat cities.
Since Aristocrats aren't needed in most game situations, it may be easier to
leave your population as Merchants. Some strategies for building Aristocrat
cities are given in the Strategies section.
3.6.8 Occasionally my people die whilst walking around my city. What's wrong?
From balou: "The 'dying while walking' just happens - doesn't affect
anything... If you tear down a house, while its inhabitant walks someplace,
he'll die." Hurric@ne writes: "Sometimes a bug appears. Then your people don't
go to the next building they need, they walk around and around, and die
sometimes." Budgie notes that this often happens when people go to Church. As
Zomby Woof comments: "If the church would have a cemetery, this would be a
feature..."
Fires tend to occur regularly among houses at lower civilization levels. You
cannot stop them occurring, but you can save a burning building by ensuring it
is within the service area of a Fire Brigade. Fire Brigades will automatically
dispatch a man with a small fire truck to put out the fire. Road access is not
needed. Fire Brigades must first be research at a School (initially research
Wells). From Gunter: "If you haven't researched the fire brigade, I'm afraid
there's only one way to protect your village from taking fire: tear down
immediately a house which has caught fire before it affects the neighbors."
Balou writes: "Fire doesn't spread across streets - or empty space. If a house
catches fire, the number of inhabitants will count down. That way you can
check, how 'badly' a house is burnt. I'm not sure about the minimum number of
inhabitants before the house crashes... probably one."
No. But you can build Doctors (and supply them with Medicinal Herbs) to deal
with it when it comes. See What do Doctors do? above. The in-game help notes
that access to Public Baths reduces the chance of plague appearing, which
seems logical.
3.6.11 Can I change the prices my stalls sell things for?
No. Prices are determined by the computer, and are linked to difficulty level
and location. Balou comments: "The prices are per ton - one visitor buys one
full ton on each visit." Hakea writes: "The basic Stall items get modifiers
applied. Things like Spice have three levels (0,5,10) plus additional bonuses
depending on where your main island is. For example, Spice fetches a bit more
on North Islands (two +5 bonuses). Not sure what the (0,5,10) is for - maybe
difficulty level. Anyway, the 60 listed for Spice base cost becomes 80 on the
Stalls at the basic Citizen level on a North island." Here are some price
observations, based on the scenario Metropol:
3.6.12 Are people needed to work in buildings? Do I need houses on production
islands?
Budgie writes: "You don't need your people for supporting or working. You need
them for buying your goods and making money." BaldJim adds: "The figures that
you see doing things around each such building come with the building, and you
do not have to recruit or supply them otherwise than just building the
building. The population listed (and the ones who buy things to support the
economy) come exclusively with the houses - the residences. They have no
explicit connection with the work structures." Consequently, you do not need
to build housing for workers on remote 'production' colonies.
Data on Production Efficiency is contained in the appendices. H3ck|0 has
produced a series of spreadsheets -
http://www.marcelhecker.de/anno/suppliecalculator.xls (Excel, non-Aristocrat),
http://www.marcelhecker.de/anno/aristocrats.xls (Excel, Aristocrat),
http://www.marcelhecker.de/anno/suppliecalculator.sxc (Open Office, non-
Aristocrat), and http://www.marcelhecker.de/anno/aristocrats.sxc (Open Office,
Aristocrat), translated by Serra Angel (also
http://www.marcelhecker.de/index.php?url=anno/ ). Mitret's javascript based
Requirement Calculator is available here in German only:
http://www.mitret.de/anno1503.html .
3.6.14 What do the question marks over buildings mean?
Question marks indicate a problem with the building, preventing production.
Jini writes: "There are three question mark like symbols: (A) The 'no resource
symbol' appears if a building does not have the resources it needs to do it's
job. For example, if you place a forester building in an area with absolutely
no trees, this symbol will be displayed. (B) The 'storage full symbol' appears
if the storage of a production building is full and the workers in the
building therefore can't continue with their job. (C) The 'no road connection
symbol' addresses the same problem like (B), but here the game 'thinks' that
the problem exists because the production building is not connected with the
street grid. In the case of (A), if there are only a few trees in the service
area of the forester hut and the lumberjack has already chopped down all these
trees. Now he has to wait until the trees have grown again. Plant more trees.
In (B), if no cartmen from the surrounding main market buildings can reach the
forester hut via a street. The forester hut has to be in the service area of a
main market building and has to be connected with it by a street. Also watch
the green arrows in the building overview window on the right side - these are
the entries of the building."
On road access problems, vorosz writes: "First thing to do is be
excruciatingly careful of the details of where that building has 'opening' for
access. Not all sides are the same, for example spice plantation some are in
the middle some are on the left side of building." Look carefully at the
location of the small green arrows when building new structures. Tom Sailor
has a further suggestion: "Press the Ctrl-Key while building farms, factories
or houses. The buildings will be put into the right position automatically
then." Lothark notes: "This works only when close to a road." LadyH adds:
"Check that you have enough main market buildings. When there are not enough,
the pushcart drivers are too busy and that symbol appears."
3.6.15 What do the coloured bars that appear above farms during building mean?
They give an indication of fertility. From Jini: "If it's not in the green
range, the plantation will never have a good efficiency. On the desert like
wine and spice islands this is quite important because half of the area on
these islands is infertile desert. It really matters on which spot of the
island you are placing the plantation." Balou notes: "The placement indicator
just checks the fertility of the ground for the selected building - it ignores
any trees completely." Dobber adds: "The fertility indicator does not
necessarily recognize when space is being used by another farm." During a
drought, the indicator may show an entirely red bar.
3.6.16 What does the "you founded an ancient graveyard" message mean?
Gunter writes: "You've found a treasure chest - it's one of the strange names
the game gives for them. Sometimes it's also called an 'idol'."
Visualize.Raven adds: "If you recieve message about an ancient graveyards, it
means that if you build on that island you will get a lot of problems." LadyH
notes: "When you will find a treasure chest on an ice island there is a chance
to see it, but only when your speed is F5 or F8." Treasure is often uncovered
by your Scout, when they walk close to where it is buried.
Buried treasure typically adds 2,000 coins to your treasury. However, Ravell
notes: "I've found a treasure chest of 10,000 gold once, on an ice-covered
arctic island. Maybe it was such big because it was so well preserved, laying
there deep-frozen for some centuries."
From Visualize.Raven: "For research you need a School and later a University.
To research, you need research points (given by population and it's level) and
gold [coins]." Research points slowly build up over time at your School or
University, up to a maximum level (see below).
3.7.2 How do I research above a certain level of knowledge points?
Research is limited by the population number and civilisation level, and the
type of facility available. The number of facilities you have does not make a
difference. Libraries add 10 research points to the total, but must be
researched at a University. To save upkeep cost, S.SubZero comments: "I built
the library, got the last tech, and then deleted the library, with no ill
effect." This applies to all research - once something is known, it cannot be
lost during that scenario. The following table is based on various sources,
including Andj Pianto, BaldJim and Wargamerit:
3.7.3 Why can't I build cannon after researching them?
There are two types of Cannon, ship and land. The initial cannon research
(probably at a School) only allows ship cannon. Further research at a
University is required for ground based Cannon. See What is the difference
between ship and land cannon? below.
3.8 Trade and Diplomacy
______________________________________________________________________________
3.8.1 How does external trade work?
There are three types of trade between settlements owned by different groups.
(1) Trade with other players - this requires a trade agreement to be signed,
after which ships may be sent to one another's warehouses, and goods sold
directly. AI players may also send ships to your warehouse if you have
allocated goods for sale. (2) Trade with Venetians (Free Traders), who act as
middlemen - in most cases the Venetians will send their ships to your
warehouses. Buy/sell requirements must be set at your warehouse (also see How
does the trade slider work? How do you set prices and volumes? below). (3)
Trade with natives - goods are exchanged at the natives' market huts/tents.
Trade with natives is covered under Pirates and Natives below. Trade with
pirates occurs just as with other players, except that you do not need a trade
agreement. Budgie writes: "Barter is only possible with the native people,
i.e. the Indians. The Venetians and the other (AI) players buy and sell goods,
they accept no barter."
Ravell writes: "If you play citizen game, there is no Venetian island [this
applies to campaign scenarios too]. They just pass by with their ships. You
can recognize them by their flags, a horizontal striped red/white flag. Their
islands are quite small and covered with buildings, thriving trading cities."
LadyH adds: "Just look for a really small island without any trees and
animals." BaldJim comments: "The benefit of the island is that you can go
there and buy (sell too if they want anything). You don't have to wait on
their ship. ... It looks like their list of buys and sells changes fairly
rapidly. Perhaps they have 'teletransport' between their warehouse and their
ships." Visualize.Raven notes: "Venetians have a regular route, they come from
player to player even is nothing to sell/buy."
Venetians normally sell Tools, Bricks and Wood, and will buy Food (from LadyH)
[In my experience they do not always sell Wood, but do always sell Tools].
They often sell Ore once one player has started mining it, even if that player
is not selling it. They will also sell and buy goods from other players.
BaldJim writes: "The Venetians are middlemen who buy cheap from you and sell
dear to the other players. So they are only interested in buying from you only
what the other players have listed they will buy." With the exception of the
items listed above, you will only be able to purchase an item from the
Venetians if another player is selling it, and only be able to sell to the
Venetians if another player is buying it. You must have a warehouse on the
coast for the Venetian ships to visit you.
3.8.5 Why does my automatic trade route fail when I transport more than one
item?
If two different items are set to be transported on the same trade route, and
one or more of those items is already fully stocked at the destination, the
item will not be unloaded. Having not unloaded the item, the computer then
becomes confused about what goods to pick up and unload. This issue does not
occur if ships are able to unload all the cargo at the destination. Cargo will
not be unloaded if the destination warehouse is already full. This is
considered by most people to be a bug, although Ravell notes, "it was intended
by the programmers to play like this." It is likely to be 'fixed' by a future
patch. Serra Angel writes: "Watch your stocks in your warehouses regularly. As
long as none of your stocks are full none of your ships will have trouble
unloading their cargo." An alternative solution is to assign only one good to
each trade route, which tends to be an inefficient use of ships. Jarrah
writes: "It's mildly annoying when it first happens, but it still basically
boils down to lack of player management. Either make sure your warehouse can
sell stuff as fast as it's delivered, or lower the tonnage on the shipping
orders (and adjust production for a while)."
3.8.6 Can I set my automatic trade route to wait for a full load?
Zomby Woof writes: "There is no wait-till-full function in the game. The ship
stops at the warehouse and what is available will be loaded." Jini notes: "You
just have to pay the maintenance costs of that ship, regardless whether it's
hanging around in your harbor or transporting goods." Consequently, keeping
half-empty ships moving continuously does not have any financial disadvantage;
indeed half-empty ships move slightly quicker, so it is probably advantageous
to operate them in this way.
Yes. From BaldJim: "You can drag the buoys - you can change the route quite a
bit." Capt Bly adds: "I find the ships understand only 8 directions (0, 45,
90, 135, etc [degrees]). As a result, so do the shipping lanes. When the game
goes to pick a short path, it must be choosing from these poorly plotted paths
to begin with."
Anno1962 writes: "It has been reported as bug. They will never pay you." There
are some unconfirmed reports of tribute being paid, but it is certainly
unusual.
3.8.10 Do trade agreements cover player empires or specific cities?
A trade agreement with one AI player covers all of their cities, however, as
Balou comments, "it doesn't really help trading, since the computer player
only uses his main island to sell/buy things." BaldJim adds: "Contrary wise,
you are not so restricted. You may sell from any of your islands. A real
advantage because you do not have transport stuff to your main island to put
it up for sale."
3.8.11 How does the trade slider work? How do you set prices and volumes?
Balou writes: "With this slider you set the amount of goods to be left in your
warehouse (and not be sold)... all goods that exceed this limit can be
purchased by others. Changing the prices just a little (to your advantage) is
always safe. Basically you keep lowering/raising the prices, until no-one
sells/buys anything anymore, and then re-adjust."
3.9 Pirates and Natives
______________________________________________________________________________
3.9.1 What do native curses do?
Budgie writes: "Maybe your islands will have many droughts now, or a nearby
volcano will erupt, or the plague will come frequently." Visualize.Raven adds:
"A severe severe drought will come upon you, but only at high difficult
levels." Curse or maybe a bug, from largefry07: "When I killed all the natives
the annoying dude said that a curse was set on me and then all my units
disappeared. They still show up on the map and I'm still paying for them."
3.9.2 How do I trade with natives on another island?
Tom Sailor answers: "Put the goods and a scout on your ship. Sail to the
natives' settlement, unload the scout, and put the goods on the scout. Go to
the natives' warehouse and trade with them... In the end you can load the
scout back on the ship." Native warehouses (market places) are indicated by
flags. Some native settlements include coastal warehouses, allowing trade to
be conducted directly from a ship - these are not common and are always
provided in addition to inland market places. Trade with natives is based on
exchange of goods. The precise rate of exchange varies, seemingly by good,
tribe, and trade. In some cases you will be able to sell them 1 unit of
something, and take many (up to 9 or 10) units of their sale good in exchange.
In other cases you may need to offer them 4 or 5 units before they allow you
to take one. Until you understand the nature of the trade, always sell to the
natives one unit at a time, and try and take as much as it will let you in
return.
3.9.3 Do all native cultures appear in every game?
No. Annofriend writes: "I think there are never all cultures in a game." Balou
adds: "The higher the difficulty level, the less other cultures are placed.
I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but it's something like 3-4 cultures on
the two lowest level (excluding 'citizen' map), 2-3 cultures on the next three
level, etc."
BaldJim writes: "It seems to me that some of the trade items for native
cultures have been - possibly inadvertently - reversed. This is especially
true for Native Americans. They want unprocessed tobacco and they have cloth
to trade for it." Products sold do not always reflect the climate. Wilfried
Reiter writes: "For example, the Bedouins have lamp oil, but players can only
produce it in polar regions." Based on the endless game (this does not apply
to campaign scenarios), using information from BaldJim, Gunter and Andj Pianto
( http://www.a-pianto.ch/Englisch/e_Anno1503/e_Index.htm ):
3.9.5 How aggressive are natives? Can I ally with them? How do I attack?
You cannot form alliances with native tribes. Natives will not attack you
unless provoked. You do not declare war on natives as you might with other
players - just start attacking their troops and buildings and they will get
the message. BaldJim writes: "If any of your troops other than a scout happens
onto their territory, you will have war. Well at least with some; I haven't
gone about testing them all. Be warned that they generate more 'troops' at a
fantastic rate." There is no way to make peace with natives you have upset.
The combat strength of different native tribes varies, as Wilfried Reiter
notes: "Messing around with the Mongolians or the Aztecs is not a good idea."
Dobber comments: "If you press the Control key and hold it while targeting the
Venetians, you can in fact attack and destroy the Venetians. Their ships and
their city. Be forewarned though, if you do, as with the pirates, their ship
will reappear at some point and they will attack your ships when encountering
them." Blackhole89 adds: "Once I attacked a [Venetian] ship. The Venetian
ships still pass by and trade with me, but my soldiers/ships attack them."
Pirates sometimes have an island settlement, which you can sail to to trade or
make agreements - assign then to attack another player or pay protection
money. You can also attempt to destroy their settlement to remove or reduce
overall levels of piracy. They do not always have a settlement and pirate
ships may operate independently.
Each ship has a separate cargo and passenger (troop/unit) capacity. Each cargo
slot can hold up to 50t of one cargo type. Each passenger slot can hold one
unit. War Machines with crews count as one unit, as does the Scout and mule. A
full list of ship capacities is contained in the Military and Ship Data
appendix.
3.10.2 Why is my ship sold each time I build a new one?
This is caused by changing bgruppen.dat, which corrupts the game balancing -
see How do I edit a game? in the cheating section below. [This is in line for
'most frequently asked' non-campaign question award at the moment - whoever
first posted that 'cheat' has a lot to answer for...]
3.10.4 Where can I load cannon on my ships? How do I arm ships?
Ship cannon can only be loaded and unloaded at your shipyard. Your ship must
be moored near the shipyard. Click on the repair icon, and then change the
number cannon using the arrows next to the cannon icon. Cannon can also be
added when the ship is first comissioned. [This differs from 1602, where
cannon could be swapped at Warehouses.]
The ship needs to be close to a shipyard: With the ship selected, the shipyard
tab and ship repair icon will be available if this is the case. Repair
materials (Wood, Cloth, Rope) and cash need to be available on the island.
Unfortunately, if repair materials run out during the repair, the repair must
be manually restarted (this is commonly regarded as a bug). Precise repair
costs are unknown, but appear to relate to approximately the cost of the ship,
factored by the percentage damage. Balou writes: "The repair of a pretty
damaged medium ship will cost you about 2500 gold... that amount will be taken
off your account, once you click on the icon."
When they are damaged from combat. There is no need to repair them for routine
maintenance. The percentage damage is shown by the proportion of red in the
bar above the ship, displayed when it is selected. Damaged ships can sustain
less damage in subsequent attacks before being sunk, and move more slowly.
Visualize.Raven writes: "Selling depends of the price, ship, scenario, if
computer player need it." From fireball21: "Just lower the price one notch and
usually get sold right away." Largefry07 suggests moving the ship closer to
potential buyers before selling makes other players more likely to purchase
the ship.
The white flag is a sign that you are willing to surrender. From Lothark: "You
can sail with white flag and cannon or military units in your ship. You must
hoist the flag after starting the ship." Gunter adds: "If you don't want to
fight the opponent your ships should always be unarmed and have set the white
flag." The in-game help adds: "A computer-controlled player's reaction will
depend on his personality profile." Supply ships can fly the white flag
continually.
It's a bug. Wiles writes: "No guarantees, but many have suggested to try the
following things if any of your units get stuck: (1) Rotate the world map and
then try to move your units. (2) Alt-Tab out of the game and back in, then
attempt to move the units." LadyH writes: "Check each new auto route of each
ship. Look that is none of these buoys is too near to land. You can move the
buoys [away from land]."
3.11.1 Are there limits on the number of units I may have?
Yes. Gunter writes: "The [ground unit] limit progresses with the population
level, for example, settlers = 60, citizen = 80, merchants = 100 units as
maximum. The overall limit in the game is fixed at 100." Balou notes that only
crew count for cannons, mortars and war machines [I suspect this is what leads
to confusion when not being able to quite reach the limit]. The ship limit is
a maximum of 40. Specific scenarios may impose other limits. Balou,
translating Wilhelmine Roth: "The limit for land units is 100... exceptions
listed below: Campaign: 'Nova Fora' - limit is 20 [10?]. Campaign: 'Revenge' -
limit is 200. Single Player Mission: 'Siege' - limit is 200."
3.11.2 What do the yellow stars and numbers above troops mean?
Yellow stars indicate the unit's experience level. These stars can only be
seen when zoomed in fully on the unit(s). Balou comments: "As far as I know
only the crossbow and archer units gain combat experience. I consider this a
bug." Numbers indicate what group (if any) the unit is assigned to. Bizarrely,
it is sometimes possible to see this information for opponent's troops. The
numbers can give an indication of which units might act in unison.
No. Gunter writes: "It was cancelled from the game at the last moment, and we
hope that it will be added in a forthcoming patch." The in-game help reads:
"Soldiers can be used to protect objects. To do this, draw a frame around the
units while the info mode is active. Right-click on the object to be protected
and the soldier will take up his position." ...but I have not been able to get
this to work.
3.11.5 Can I select certain unit types from a group of units?
No. Another feature that was in 1602, was rather useful, but is not in 1503.
The only work-around is to assign hot-keys (Ctrl + 0-9) based on unit type.
From balou: "To 'delete' military units, you have to select them and use the
'skull' icon. There's no undo for this function, either. Mortars and cannons
need to be destroyed by themselves... they'll still be there after the units
[crews] attached to them are gone." Ships can be sunk by selecting the ship,
and then pressing the sinking ship icon.
Sir Henry writes: "You can with medics, which you then have to send along with
your troops. They will heal the wounded soldiers." Select the Medic and then
click on specific troops to order the medic to heal them. Simply leaving a
Medic and injured soldiers close to one another also normally works. War
machines (Catapults, etc) cannot be repaired once damaged. However, if the
machine survives and the crew die, a new crew may be trained and assigned to
the original war machine. This tactic can also be used with abandoned enemy
war machines.
You can assign new crews (train them at your fortress first) to enemy war
machines (including cannons and mortars) when their crews have been killed and
the machine has been abandoned. You can use the same technique to re-use your
own war machines when their crews die. You cannot capture other military
units.
Jini writes: "The only units which can attack enemy buildings are catapults,
upgraded archers (fire arrows), cannons and mortars." Ship cannon can be used
when the target is near the coast.
3.11.10 What is the difference between ship and land cannon?
Zomby Woof writes: "Ship cannons are produced by the Gunsmith. You have to
research them via the naval research menu. Land cannons are produced by the
Cannon foundry (including the crew for them), which you research via the
military research menu." Ship cannon can only be mounted on ships (all except
the smallest trading ship), and do not have a specific crew attached to them.
Land cannon require crews to man them. They can be used as ground units or
assigned to guard towers.
3.11.11 My scout/soldier got lost/stuck/disappeared/abandoned his mule/will
not come down from the mountain/has taken up scuba diving. What can I do?
This is a long-standing bug. Sometimes the unit can be recovered, sometimes
there is no other solution except to train a new unit. Zomby Woof suggests:
"Try to rotate the map, this can help sometimes." From LotharK adds: "Hit the
N button on your keyboard and you find the scout." Zuchla writes: "I got a
couple of my explorers stuck in mountains, my two traders locked in tents, and
my ship half buried in sand." From Ravell: "I've lost quite a few scouts
already by visiting the natives. One time it looked like he got killed,
because he fell down and just laid there - couldn't move him anymore, the mule
was still standing but didn't move." From vorosz: "My scout lost his donkey.
Everything worked fine. He even managed to haul 20t of product on his back. I
tried loading and unloading him a few times on my ship but I guess the donkey
wasn't onboard. I left him for a while to take care of my main island and when
I came back he found the donkey."
You need to build a wall access, preferably on the 'friendly' side of the
wall. Balou notes: "Each 'strip' of walls needs its own stairs. Units can't
'cross' towers or gates." Only basic infantry units can walk up these stairs:
War machines and cannon cannot. The in-game help suggests walls increase the
range of units like Archers, however Balou suggests they do not have a range
advantage.
To add, select the unit, then right click on the tower. The type of tower must
be appropriate for the unit. Gunter adds: "Once you've sent units into the
tower, you can click on it and will see in its menu which units there are and
if they are still in good health." If the tower has occupants, a small flag
will be raised above the main flag on the tower. From the in-game help: "To
remove units from the watchtower, click on it while the info mode is active.
Left-click on the unit and then send it to an accessible location by right-
clicking on it. The soldier will then leave the watchtower." The same applies
to cannon in Cannon Towers.
First destroy their Warehouse and Market places. In order to capture a
settlement, you should then immediately build replacement warehouses/markets
on the site of the old ones (your Scout can do this if carrying the correct
materials). You do not need to do this if you simply want to destroy a
settlement. Other players tend to build Fire Brigades in response to attack on
their markets, and you may need destroy these first. AntiPenguinGun notes: "If
you can't build the market because it wont let it build over the rubble, it's
either that you already have another market in the suitable place or that the
enemy has a market near by that is making you unable to build it."
From bobbyrookie: "You assume ownership of the goods in his warehouse if you
build your own warehouse right on top of his before his turns to rubble. You
cannot, however, pirate goods from other player's ships."
You need to assign a cannon to the tower. From Jini: "Armed towers have a tiny
flag on top of the big flag, where as empty towers only have the big flag.
Cannon towers have a shorter range than single cannons. So, they do fire but
only if the target is quite near."
3.12.6 Must I assign specific targets for my troops?
You can, but you do not have to. Setting the unit's attack mode to 'normal'
means the unit will automatically engage units that come close. An
'aggressive' setting will pursue enemy soldiers come what may. When in
'passive' mode, soldiers will only attack enemy units that come into range
whilst they remain in range. Also, from the in-game help: "If you keep holding
the Alt key while right-clicking to assign an assault target to your soldiers,
the soldiers will attack all enemy units on their way to the target."
Erm. Not at the time of writing, at least not officially. Kay Bennemann
writes: "Multiplayer will be released as a free patch. Multiplayer in 1503
A.D./Anno 1503 can be played by 2-8 players in cooperative mode or against
each other. It can be played as Continuous play or in special multiplayer
scenarios. The AI can be included into multiplayer sessions: Dependent on the
chosen game scenario, AI controlled characters will occupy all free slots not
used by human players. Multiplayer can be played via internet or local area
network. Internet games use the GameSpy matchmaking software; manual
connection to a certain IP address is also possible. You will be able to save
and load your game in multiplayer. Saved multiplayer games will continue to be
playable even if one of the human players drops out during the next session,
although this player won't be able to reconnect and continue his play once the
game has been loaded without him or her being connected. Different localized
versions of the game are compatible in multiplayer mode. Therefore, players
from different countries can connect to the same MP session. Presently the
multiplayer is still in the process of testing and finalizing - a precise
release date for the patch can not be provided yet. The total number of
scenarios included in the multiplayer patch has also not been finalized."
Multiplayer entered a closed beta phase late in August 2003. At the time of
writing this is restricted to a handful of German-speaking players only,
although it may appear to be available from within GameSpy Arcade.
The first German release included an unsupported file, AnnoNetTool.exe. This
theoretically enabled the multiplayer game, but did not work well enough to be
widely used. Vander notes: "They said it makes only trouble, so they removed
it in version 1.04.02." At the time of the German versions release, Wilfried
Reiter wrote: "The Multi-Player Patch is currently in the beta phase. If
everything goes well it should be ready in November [2002]. There are some
specially adapted missions, but there's nothing like the long matches to give
you that real Anno feeling." It will play using a 56K modem, "but it would be
better if the host had ISDN for 8 players."
These walkthroughs assume basic competence when building colonies. If you are
struggling with the basics of colony building, or find yourself going bankrupt
in normal conditions, please review some of the Getting Started strategies in
the Strategies section, and/or read through some of the common questions under
Gameplay. These walkthroughs primarily cover the things that make a specific
scenario difficult - they don't hold your hand and walk you through every last
detail. On a similar note, although it is possible to play the campaigns and
scenarios through as your first game, I'd only recommend that for anyone with
experience of Anno 1602, or who regards themselves as a veteran of these sorts
of games. Unlike 1602, the first part of the campaign is not an extended
tutorial - it has a very steep learning curve. If you are entirely new, break
off after the tutorials and play an "Citizen" endless game and develop a
profitable colony to Merchant level civilization. This will give you
experience of colony building on a map with plentiful resources and no
threats.
In order, the campaigns are: Nova Fora, Barbarrossas' Throne, Helter-Skelter,
Infernal Triad, Pack-Ice, Toguldur's Stone, New Acquaintances, Resistance,
Genesis, Revenge, Quentin's Reef, Justice, and bonus scenario Good or Bad (or
"Bonus aut Malus"). Scenarios are: Hobson's Choice, Ruthless Richard, Friendly
Neighbors, The Bet, Playing for Time, Settlement Recipe, The King of Ore, Many
Small Islands, Negative Influence, and Siege. Translations of campaign and
scenario names by LadyH are available here:
http://www.dorokult.de/anno1503/glossar/names.html . Campaign missions must be
played one at a time - once you have completed one, the next mission will be
available. In the case of Barbarrossas' Throne, this mission follows on
directly from the previous mission, Nova Fora (you start the mission with
whatever ships you took from the previous mission).
Some illustrated walkthroughs for campaign scenarios can be found at
http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/ , including translations of German
Gamestar guides.
Where relevant, I have included simple ASCII representations of maps. Maps are
always aligned with North towards the top of the page.
Objectives are numbered in the order in which they appear. Normally the lowest
numbered objectives need to be completed before others are shown. Where
several objectives are given at the same time, they are shown with letters,
for example 1a, 1b. If you do not know how to read the objectives as you play,
see Can I see the current objectives in-game? above.
The in-game rating for each scenario is shown as 1-4 stars, where 1 star is
easy, 4 hardest.
Since many do not enjoy the war aspects of the game, I have added a "war-o-
meter" rating to each scenario, to give an indication of how important the war
aspects are. The scale is as follows:
- * = Entirely city/economy building. No other hostile players to fight, even
if you wanted to (I exclude natives from the list of possible hostile players
here).
- ** = Objectives can be completed without warfare, and you are unlikely to
need to go to war.
- *** = Warfare is needed to complete the scenario, but city building/economy
is what makes this scenario difficult.
- **** = War is a major objective, with city building/economy secondary.
- ***** = War is the only objective.
The first hint screen contains general information about the interface. To
start the tutorial proper, click the "X". Once the tutorial is complete, you
can continue playing - the game will not automatically end once the tutorial
part has finished. There is only one island here, so I do not recommend you
play this after the tutorial has ended.
Trade with the Native Americans at their Market place - look for the flag
outside the tent. You will first need to offload the Scout, select it, and
then select the box/barrel symbol and move good between the ship and Scout. On
the southern island, trade via the other player's warehouse, which can be
found on the northern side of the inland bay. Don't accidentally declare war
on your would-be trading partner, by missing the trade agreement button and
pressing the declare war icon instead (it's rather too easy a mistake to make)
- if you do, restart the tutorial.
When adding the cannon unit to the cannon tower, click on the tower itself,
not the stairwell next to it (the stairs allow certain troops to access the
walls, although not cannons). In the final battle, remember the game can be
slowed down to half speed by pressing F8.
Before commencing the campaign or scenarios, I suggest you try a "Citizen"
endless game (this level does not exist in the unpatched game - play "Baron"
level instead). This gives you lots of cash and resources with which to learn
to build colonies. Aim to master building a profitable colony, advancing until
you have at least Merchant level civilisation. Help with Getting Started can
be found in the Strategies section. Also read through some of the common
questions under Gameplay. This is a far more gentle start than the campaigns
and scenarios. If you have played 1602 or consider yourself a veteran of these
types of games, you may wish to dive straight into the campaign.
This section provides a guide for the main campaign included with the game. If
it has a name, I missed it. The story is based around Katherine von
Breitenstein and a mysterious amulet.
4.2.1 Nova Fora
______________________________________________________________________________
4.2.1.1 Introduction
Objectives:
- 1. Found a city with 250+ Settlers.
- 2. Find Katherine von Breitenstein and return her to your city.
- 3. Find Mongols and trade 20t Salt.
- 4. Equip a fleet with 4 Archers, 4 Swordsmen, Scout, 50t Wood, 100t Tools,
50t Food, and sail west.
Rating: **
War-o-meter: *
Resources:
- Small Trading ship, with 17t Food, 100t Tools, 30t Wood, Scout.
- 30,000 coins (20,000 with unpatched game).
4.2.1.3 Objective: Found a city with 250+ Settlers
Settle the island shown with a flag (marked "1" on the map above). You need
250 Settlers, not just 250 people. To gain Settlers you need to supply Food,
Cloth and Leather, and provide access to a Chapel and Tavern supplied with
Alcohol. Build relatively close to one of the two main mountainous areas on
the southern side of the island, since this will allow you easy access to Ore
and Salt later in the game. If you are struggling with the basics of colony
building, or find yourself going bankrupt, please review some of the Getting
Started strategies in the Strategies section. Common general gameplay
questions such as Where do I get Tools from? and How do I build and operate
Quarries and Mines? are covered in an earlier section.
You can only settle the first island - the large one in the north-east of the
map, as indicated at the start with an orange flag on the mini-map. You cannot
and do not need to settle further islands: You do not need to develop your
population beyond Settler level, so you do not *need* Tobacco or Spices,
however much apparent demand there may be for these goods among your
population. I suspect this limitation has been added to prevent one developing
Large Warships during this mission, and using them immediately in the next
mission to flatten everything. Hemp will grow on the first island - see Where
can I grow Hemp? above.
4.2.1.5 Objective: Find Katherine von Breitenstein and return her to your city
She is standing in woodland on the northern coast of the island just to the
south of your island (marked "2" on the map above). Stack notes: "I find that
the niece shows up in the minimap as a green dot as soon as you get given the
mission." Move your ship close to the coast where she is standing. Select her
and load her onto your ship. Sail to your colony. Unload her to complete this
stage of the mission.
4.2.1.6 I lost Katherine von Breitenstein after rescuing here. Is that a
problem?
No. Once you have unloaded her onto your island, that part of the mission will
be complete. Don't worry - you'll be seeing plenty more of her in the future.
4.2.1.7 Objective: Find Mongols and trade 20t Salt
If you have not already done so, construct a Salt Mine and Works and produce
Salt. Settlers don't need to be supplied Salt, but they will buy it if
available. You will have plenty to spare, since one Salt Mine/Works can supply
about 3000 people. Load a Scout and 20t of Salt onto your ship, and sail to
the island just to the south-east (marked "3" on the map above). Un-load your
Scout, and transfer the Salt from your ship to the scout. Send the Scout
inland and trade with the Mongols at their market place (tents with flags on).
Once 20t are traded, this stage of the mission is complete.
4.2.1.8 Why can I not find the Mongols with my ship?
You need to search for them by off-loading your scout and exploring their
island, because their settlement is inland. They are on the island just to the
south-east of your island.
4.2.1.9 Objective: Equip a fleet with 4 Archers, 4 Swordsmen, Scout, 50t Wood,
100t Tools, 50t Food, and sail west
Whatever your load onto your ships and sail west with in this mission, will be
your starting fleet in the next mission. So take additional resources with you
to make the next mission slightly easier. You are limited to a total of 4
ships and 9 ground units. You cannot advance past Settlers in this mission, so
not all ship types can be researched. If you have not already done so, build
an Ore Mine, Smelter and Tool Maker - you will need Iron to make weapons, and
Tool production will be cheaper and faster than buying Tools from the
Venetians. Ship construction requires a Shipyard. Ships and Bows will require
rope, so you will need a Hemp plantation and Ropemaker. You need to research
Swords, then Bows at a School. You may also research Medium trading ships and
various civic improvements (notably Wells and Fire Brigades). Minimise upkeep
costs by only training soldiers just before you intend to leave. If you need
to, balance you finances towards the end by de-activating or demolishing
buildings that aren't needed anymore. This is particularly useful for weapons
shops, which are only needed for 4t worth of production.
Ground unit choice is probably determined by the mission restrictions - 9
units are specified, and under normal circumstances you can only have 9 units.
Dobber notes that: "You can sometimes build extra units by commissioning them
in the fortress before the limit is reached, there is bug I think that allows
for completion of all commissioned units. When I completed that one I even had
a catapult that I carried with me. I had 1 catapult, 4 archers, 4 swordsmen
and a scout." Taking a Catapult into the next mission would certainly open up
some interesting strategies for experienced players, but Dobber's trick is
quite hard to use, and might be fixed in versions after 1.04.02. Dobber
continues: "I built 3 merchant ships, then built 4 additional shipyards. Built
up my supplies and gold to support building 5 ships. I then set each shipyard
to building a medium merchant ship. It worked I wound up with a total of 8
medium merchant ships, more than enough space for my scout 4 swordsmen, 4
archers and 2 catapults (same method as ships, except with a fortress and a
war machine shop). I saved the mission just prior to attempting the sail over,
the first time only 4 or 5 I think made it, but they had gotten strung out.
Once the required got inside the zone, it transferred. I loaded the saved
misssion and bunched them up and kept them bunched as we approached the zone,
and got all 8 over that time. You have to keep them tightly bunched."
There are occassional reports of players being able to build almost unlimited
numbers of units - something they do must side-step the mission specific
restriction. Since players who experience this don't realise there is supposed
to be a restriction and assume everyone can build large armies and navies,
understanding precisely what allows many extra troops and ships to be built is
still a mystery...
Research Medium Trading Vessels, and sink your original small trading ship
(unload the Scout first ;-) ). This will give you more construction options.
You will need at least one Small Warship, because 4 Medium Trading ships can
only carry 8 ground units. Unless you are planning a highly militaristic
strategy at the start of the next mission (not recommended for new players),
you should try to carry as much cargo with you into the next mission. This
means your fleet should contain 3 Medium Trading ships, each of which can
carry 6x50t, in addition to one Small Warship. Unless you are planning a
militaristic strategy at the start of the next mission, do not equip your new
ships with Cannon. If you do, you will not be able to sail under the white
flag, and may be forced into messy naval battles before you have had chance to
build a shipyard and strip the cannons. You can still build ship Cannon (at a
Gunsmith), and transport them as cargo into the next mission, to be equipped
when you are ready to start fighting.
For ease of building a new colony in the next mission, ensure one ship is
carrying both Wood and Tools. Aside from the cargo required by the mission,
fill up your ships with materials that will either help you get a new colony
started more quickly or cheaply, or will be expensive or awkward to produce in
future. Additional Tools are always useful. 100t of Alcohol can be used to
supply your population until you get the 360 Settlers required for Hop
production - this will remove the need for inefficient Small Farm/Potato
production of liquor. Depending how you settle, Salt may be hard to find.
Lastly consider items which you are only likely to need in small quantities,
but which require a lot of real estate to produce - for example, Rope and
Weapons.
4.2.1.11 Why can't I train Archers and Swordsmen at my Fortress? How do I get
weapons?
GamersCloset writes: "You need to research Swords and Archery through the
School. Then you can build the required buildings which will produce the
weapons. When you have weapons, you can build the soldiers. Keep in mind that
you can only build the required amount to fulfill the mission, and no more."
It has been reported that killing your original Scout may prevent a new Scout
being trained in addition to 4 Archers plus 4 Swordsmen. To avoid problems,
simply retain your original Scout and train only the 4 Archers and 4 Swordsmen
requested.
Wiles writes: "Triple check your cargo and passengers to make sure they are
right. Then spin your map so that the 'N' on the map is pointed toward the
top. Sail to the western (left) side of the map. When you sail west, you are
not sailing for an island. You are sailing to the western edge of the map
screen. Think of it as sailing off the edge of the world..." Sail into the
'corner' of the map - the most westerly point on the map is not part way along
a straight edge, but in a corner.
Objectives:
- 1a. Build Citizen level city.
- 1b. Sell 25t Iron to Covana.
- 2a. Covana's city must not be destroyed.
- 2b. Destroy both of Ramirez's main cities.
Rating: ** (?)
War-o-meter: ***/****
Resources:
- Whatever ships, cargo and ground units you left Nova Fora with.
- 40,000 coins.
No. It follows on directly from Nova Fora, so the only way to completely
restart Barbarrossas' Throne is to replay Nova Fora first. I suggest you save
the game at the start of the mission (or the end of Nova Fora). All other
scenarios in the campaign can be restarted from the campaign menu without re-
playing the entire campaign.
4.2.2.4 Objectives: Build Citizen level city; Sell 25t Iron to Covana
Citizens will need to be supplied as Settlers, except also with two of
Tobacco, Spices or Salt. They will not buy Leather. Citizens also require
access to a Church and School. To profit from Citizens, you should try to
supply as many goods as possible - Food, Cloth, Salt, Tobacco, Spices, and
Silk. To supply these goods you will need to colonise at least two islands,
four islands to secure supplies of all. You may wish to consider capturing
some of Ramirez's supply islands - this saves building cost, and his supply
islands are poorly defended, so long as you hide from his navy - tactics are
discussed later. You will be invaded by Ramirez occasionally, but he normally
only lands three or four ground units at a time, which your starting army
should be able to deal with easily. Naval conflict can be more dangerous -
tactics are described below. Although you only need to trade 25t of Iron with
Covana to satisfy the second part of the mission objective, you can sell him
more (he'll stop buying eventually, but you should get 100+ t sold first).
This trade can earn you extra revenue - which can help when you are preparing
to develop Citizen housing, and have invested in various plantations, but have
not yet sold any extra goods. Baco writes: "I make a profit buying food,
cloth, and salt from Covana's warehouse at 22, 24 and 20 gold and selling
these things in my markets at 45, 70 and 30 gold." Iron trade will also allow
Covana to build extra military units, which should reduce the chance of Covana
getting destroyed later in the game. Remember to trade Iron, not Iron Ore.
During the first part of this scenario you may have no use for all those ships
and units you brought with you - consider sinking/killing a few to save upkeep
costs. Personally I found it more cost-effective to retain the trading ships
than to build new ones, but the Small Warship was not needed.
There are three viable choices for a first settlement: (1) The fairly large
island in the north-west (marked "b" on the map above). (2) A settlement on
the eastern side of Covana's island (marked "1" on the map above). (3) A
settlement on an undeveloped part of Ramirez's southern island (marked "3" on
the map above). All the options are "northern" islands, allowing Hops (and
later Herbs) to be grown. Option 1 gives access to Ore and Salt, however there
is not much space available for city building: Two mountain ranges and two
small hills require some *very* careful town planning, and it is quite easy to
find oneself without enough space to build a profitable Citizen level city.
Option 2 gives a lot of space, but no access to mineral resources. However,
the neighboring island (marked "b" on the map above) can be used for an early
second colony to provide Stone, Ore and Salt (the Salt deposit is on the
northern side). Option 3 is slightly more daring, because you settle the same
island as your enemy right at the start. However, Ramirez does not station
many troops on his southern island, so the threat shouldn't be increased
significantly. Extra caution is needed against Ramirez's navy though. The main
advantage of option 3 is that you are well placed to start invading him, and
have both space to build, and mineral deposits.
4.2.2.6 My Wood is in one ship and my Tools in another ship. How do I build my
first warehouse?
Balou answers: "Unload the scout on some island. Move the wood from your ship
to the scout. Then get the scout to move this wood to the other ship, that has
the other building materials. Now you'll be able to build a warehouse with
this ship."
4.2.2.7 How do I stop Ramirez destroying my fleet?
Ramirez has a tendency to attack your fleet early in the game with three or
four medium sized warships, which are almost impossible to destroy with your
starting mix of four small warships/medium trading ships. De-equip your cannon
(via a shipyard), and fly the white flag throughout. Ramirez's ships will
ignore your ships if they are unarmed and flying the white flag. This should
give you time to develop without losing your fleet.
4.2.2.8 How do I get Merchants and Aristocrats? Where is the Marble?
You do not need the higher levels of civilization to win. Citizens will be
fine, since they allow Large Warships to be researched and a reasonable army
to be built and supported. There no Marble on the map, which prevents building
Bath Houses, and hence prevents Merchants. There is no Gold either. This
applies to the first half of the campaign, none of the scenarios in which
require development above Citizen.
4.2.2.9 I accidentally insulted or attacked Covana, and now he will not trade
with me. What can I do?
Attempting to make peace, and then gaining a new trade agreement may take a
long time. Even if you have something the AI player wants, it may take hours
for them to calm down and forgive you. It may be better reload an earlier
saved game if you make this mistake. Unfortunately if you have absolutely no
saves prior to being aggressive towards Covana, you may find yourself
restarting the entire campaign...
4.2.2.10 Objectives: Covana's city must not be destroyed; Destroy both of
Ramirez's main cities
The first mission objective should be largely academic - Covana is rarely
attacked, and if you have supplied a reasonable amount of Iron, Covana will be
able to build a sizable army to defend himself. The second objective requires
you to completely destroy all the Market places and warehouses on Ramirez's
two main city islands (marked "2" and "3" on the map above). Zomby Woof
writes: "Concentrate on the market buildings, if they fall all the other
buildings within their influence area get destroyed too." You can capture his
territory instead (by destroying those market place/warehouses and building
your own in their place), but that is not required. You can also
destroy/capture his supply islands, but that is not required by the mission
description: There are some reports of the mission no finishing unless supply
islands are destroyed too, but I've completed it without destroying all the
supply islands. When the mission refers to "leveling", this applies only to
Ramirez's colonies on those two islands - you don't need to flatten your own
cities (I think this loses something in translation sometimes and gets players
confused).
You will need to research at least fire arrows and/or Catapults before
invading, so that you can attack buildings: On one or two of his supply
islands, it may be possible to destroy all the Market places and Warehouses
using ship based cannon, but not on his city islands. Since naval supremacy
tends to be important, you should research larger warship designs and build a
Large Shipyard to build them. You can build a University and research land
Cannon and various other military bonuses, but that is not strictly necessary.
Don't start military operations until you have a solid economy. As a new
player, aim to have more than 500 coins revenue coming in on the balance sheet
before building up a military, and a stable economy (meaning one that you can
ignore) before going to war.
Three or four fully equipped Large Warships are almost unstoppable in this
scenario. AlejandroElMagn comments: "I prefer medium warship: 5 of them. They
cost a less of money, so you can have more and in the sea." Once you start
building warships, Ramirez will send part of his fleet up to destroy them.
This is only a problem if you have just *one* new warship: Either build
several rapidly, or initially de-equip cannon and wait with a white flag up
until you are ready.
Use your navy as a pack, and slowly wipe out all the enemy shipping. Retreat
heavily damaged ships for repairs at your shipyard if you need to. From balou:
"Don't chase his ships all over the map - eventually they'll return to their
home-harbor - just wait and see. Sink his ships and his shipyard. He'll
continue to build shipyards and ships... keep destroying them as fast as he
builds them."
Some general military tactics are contained in the Strategies section.
From lisa simpson: "The smaller of Ramirez's two main islands can be easily
destroyed with just one or two archers... He doesn't care about your troops as
long as your army is small enough." If you managed to fool the game into
letting you leave Nova Fora with a Catapult, you can conquer this southern
island ("3" on the map above) with your initial forces. The only thing that
stops you doing this with the default Swordsmen and Archers, is the lack of
fire arrows - you don't have anything with which to destroy his buildings. If
you are feeling daring, or settled this island initially, consider attacking
Ramirez's city here as soon as you have fire arrows researched - you can do
this at Settler level, which is why it might be advantageous. Capture some of
his production facilities. You will need to manage your finances and resources
well to succeed, which is why this tactic is not recommended for new players.
If you wait until you have reached Citizen level before invading, you may not
benefit from capturing Ramirez's facilities, because you have probably built
everything you need already. In this case you are better destroying his
cities, rather then wasting time and resources capturing them.
Balou notes: "Destroy his fire-fighters, otherwise they'll save the damaged
buildings over and over again." Although the enemy will build a lot of Fire
Brigades, one can normally attack the Fire Brigade, then return to attacking
the main market building. The second round of attacks on the market should
destroy it before a new Fire Brigade appears.
The quick way, from dutchanno1986: "I conquered Ramirez by using 3 warships (2
medium and 1 large), some archers and 8 cavalry. First I destroyed all his
smaller islands (there was no resistance), and then I destroyed his mayor
island using 1 cavalry to lure his army and then destroy it with my ships."
Balou writes: "Use hit and run tactics. Unload some cavalry, wait for his
units to close in on you (stay close to your ships), and re-board the ship
once he is in striking distance of the ships cannons. Repeat as often as
possible. If most of his military units are 'wasted' this way, start your
invasion. ... On his biggest island, there's a whole bunch of mortars (close
to his fortress), and they waste your soldiers very easily, if you're not
quick enough to destroy them (or better, capture them) - use cavalry yourself
here."
Zomby Woof comments: "First I also tried the hit-and-run tactics. But soon I
got annoyed of that because it seemed that his reinforcements came faster than
I could defeat them. So I started a massive attack against his fortress (no
fortress - no [new] troops). I had about 10 catapults, 5-6 conquered mortars
and a group of about 20-25 fighters as escort. This group contained a mixture
of cavalry, pikemen and archers and their only duty was, to keep away the
enemy from the war machines as long as possible so they had enough time to
deal with the fortress. I lost most of the fighters but had still some
catapults and mortars left. After the fortress was destroyed there was almost
no resistance anymore, maybe some single units. So the rest was just like a
walk in the park, destroyed all market buildings and Ramirez was history. Also
it's easier if you build a forward base on Ramirez' island, so you don't waste
much time with transporting your troops."
An alternative method from RoddyC: "What ultimately worked for me is training
suicide squads of catapults and crossbows. I shipped them over to the enemy
island and sent them directly to one of his markets. Most of the time, the
market would fall and the army would die. Then I'd just train another army and
do it all again for the next market building. I also ended up building over
most of his markets so that I could get the land and he couldn't rebuild.
Eventually I owned most of the island, with his tiny town trapped in the
middle."
Economic warfare is possible, but may take some time to see any result. From
dutchanno1986: "I destroyed his church by letting my archers fire on it till
his army arrived, getting the archers back in the ship just before they were
attacked. Without the church the houses returned to pioneers and he was
without money to train new soldiers." Cutting off his supply of 'luxury' goods
by destroying his supply islands may not make a big difference, not least
because Ramirez tends to just start a new colony whilst you are waiting for
him to run out of supplies.
4.2.3.3 Objective: Positive balance sheet and at least 100 Citizens
This objective requires you to work quite quickly, so whatever strategy you
adopt, set the game to half speed (F8) immediately. Although you start with
plenty of cash, you will be bankrupt within ten minutes unless you work fast.
Such a rapid loss of cash can be a bit daunting at first, but fixing the
economy is not so hard. One of two and a half approaches may be adopted: (1a)
Methodical removal of unneeded buildings, replacement with more efficient
building types, correcting specific design flaws, tweaking trade routes, and
generally making the empire sustain itself. (1b) As 1a, except you aim to
remove certain population supporting facilities, and let your population drop
down to Settlers. Once you have a stable economy, build up to Citizens again.
(2) Delete almost everything except some existing Citizen level housing. The
second option works because this first objective only needs to be met, not
sustained. The second option also benefits from knowing what will be needed in
the second half of the mission - in essence, which two or three production
facilities need to be saved. Option 1b will take some time, and I personally
don't see it is necessary to down-grade civilization level. Although option 2
sounds a lot easier, I'd suggest option 1a first time around because you will
learn what types of mistakes AI governors make. This is important because
you'll be back here in the future, when things will be somewhat harder...
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on what strategy you adopt, changes
made to your city during this mission will not be carried over to that future
event.
The following suggestions are optimised for about 1900 Citizens, approximately
the population you start with. The diagram below is a simple representation of
the main city ("1" on the map above).
On this island:
- A: Destroy everything in this area except the Main Market and Fortress. You
can keep the Walls, War Machine Builder and Cannon Foundry if you like, since
they have no upkeep cost, but they are not needed.
- B: Destroy one Salt Mine and one Salt Works. Destroy one Ore Mine and the
Charcoal Burner. Destroy most of the Hunting Lodges in this area (you only
need to retain 3 in total). Destroy at least one Tannery. Thin out the
Forester's Huts. Open the gate into the city.
- C: Destroy the Hemp Plantation.
- D: Destroy the Ropemaker, Tailor's Shop, Armorer and Tannery.
- E: Add basic stalls to this area. Remove the remaining Tailor's Shops from
the city. Once you have made the other (more time critical) changes below,
optimise remaining stalls (remove duplicates close to one another, remove
Jewelry stalls, add in a missing Tobacco/Spice stall).
- F: Open the gate.
- G: Destroy Hemp Plantations and Rope Maker.
- H: Destroy both Fishermen's Huts.
- I: Fix the road connection to the Medicinal Herb Plantation (it seems you
cannot replant fields until you have researched the Doctor).
- J: Thin out the Hunting Lodges and Forester's Huts. Retain only one Tannery
for the whole city.
- K: Destroy all the Small Farms. Build an extra pair of Hop Farms and a
Brewery.
On your Cotton/Sugar/Silk/Indigo island ("4" on the first map above):
- Fix the Distillery's road connection.
- Destroy the Forester's Hut.
- Build 2 Dye Works.
- Destroy one Indigo Plantation and replace it with a Silk Plantation. You may
need to add an additional Silk Plantation later.
- Destroy both Weaver's Huts, and build two new Weaving Mills.
- Add some Wells.
On your Spice island ("2" on the first map above):
- Build a new Main Market close to the Spice Plantation with 'no road access'
indicated.
- Destroy the Forester's Hut.
- Add some Wells.
- You will eventually need a fifth Spice Plantation here to fully satisfy
demand for Spices, but you will first need to ship Bricks in, so don't waste
time on it immediately.
On your Tobacco island ("3" on the first map above):
- Destroy both Forester's Huts.
- Fix the road connection to one of the plantations (it helps distribute
Tobacco between factories).
- You will eventually need a fourth Tobacco combine (2 Tobacco Plantations and
a Factory) to fully satisfy demand for Tobacco, but you will first need to
ship Bricks in, so don't waste time on it immediately.
Assign a ship to auto-trade Cloth between Caetra ("4") and Hyperia ("1"). Keep
an eye on the ship "Silkassona", because its autotrade route may get in a mess
if stocks build up, but this will not be a problem to start with.
By the time you have done all that, the first goods should be arriving from
production islands. Once they are sold, your balance will turn positive. How
far you optimise the finer points of the economy (such as building extra
Tobacco and Spice production facilities, tweaking Food supply by adding an
Grain Farm and Mill, researching and Adding Doctors to deal with plague)
rather depends how long you wish to keep playing. Since the second part of the
mission can be completed in under 30 minutes, it will probably be easier to
ignore long term minor imbalances, and just get the game finished.
As mentioned earlier you can adopt a more draconian style. Willemnes comments:
"My tactic was further - go back to basic. Destroy: all military buildings on
your island; big church, university; unnecessary factories such as tailors; a
lot of other farm and alcohol produce facilities; all the produce facilities
on all the other islands, and keep only a base industries with a base
population. From then on you will have pretty good money output, and you can
again build up your town." Others suggest tactics like abandoning Silk
production to save cost, since Silk is not required to sustain Citizens.
However, the profit from the sale of Silk far outweighs the cost, so Silk
production should help balance your finances, rather than hindering.
This strategy was suggested by Jini: "Train a Scout in the fortress and
connect the herb plantation to the street grid. Tear everything down except
the warehouse and some residential houses at the coast, the main market
building near the herb plantation, and some tobacco plantations. The first
goal (positive balance plus 100 Citizens) is now reached." Simple, huh? You
have to have a sixth sense to know to retain some Herb and Tobacco production,
and to know that you will need a Scout. Sometime after the first objective is
reached, your colony will start crumbling, and the balance will begin to drop.
Complete the second objective (see below) as fast as possible, and you will
finish the scenario before this becomes a problem.
4.2.3.6 Objective: Get 20t Furs and 20t Medicinal Herbs and sail north with
them
Medicinal Herbs are easy - you are already producing them. Furs are slightly
harder to procure. Zomby Woof writes: "You can't build a trapper in this
mission, although it seems that you were able to do that in the version 1.00."
In patched versions at least, you must trade with the natives to secure Furs.
This is the order trades should be conducted. I have noted the approximate
volumes required for a successful trade, but these seem to vary slightly
between trades:
- Africans ("7" on map above): Buy Tobacco for Wine (~3 Tobacco = 1 Wine).
- Native Americans ("6" on the map above): Buy Wine for Gold (1 Wine = ~4
Gold).
- Aztecs ("8" on the map above): Buy Gold for Jewelry (~4 Gold = 1 Jewelry).
- Mongols ("5" on the map above): Buy Jewelry for Furs (1 Jewelry = ~8 Furs).
The Africans buy raw Tobacco, not processed Tobacco products. In most cases
you will need to trade using a Scout, so build one at your fortress. You only
*need* 3t of Jewelry to secure 20t on Furs, so long as you trade carefully.
Start with at 15-20t of Tobacco, and you should have enough to trade
everything you need. In most cases you can only exchange a maximum of 10t in
one trade, so you may need to make a few separate runs to get everything.
Trade small quantities to make sure you can load as much in exchange as the
natives are prepared to offer. Once you have the goods, sail north (far top
corner, indicated "9" on the first map above). Unlike Nova Fora, ships from
this mission do not transfer directly into the next mission, so there is no
advantage to loading additional cargo or sailing with additional ships.
4.2.3.8 Why don't the Mongols sell me enough Furs?
Trade with them slowly over several minutes, only offering small quantities of
Jewelry when you see they have a 'full' (~8+) stock of Furs. They will not
stock 20t of Furs at one time, and you cannot exchange 20t in one trade, even
if they could. Take part-loads back to your ship. Dobber asks: "Have you tried
continuously clicking the load arrow? If you have the menu set to trade 1 ton,
you click on the load fur button until they quit."
This scenario can be confusing because the objectives are not very clear. One
needs to explore, and then investigate what O'Reilly and Madrugada's
'colonies' need based on the diplomatic menu. Once you understand what is
needed, one can complete the objectives without significant colony
development, so long as the economy is carefully balanced. Your starting
colony is reasonably well set up, albeit it is losing money. You should
advance to Settlers almost immediately by placing a Tavern, and strip out some
Food production (specifically the Fishermen's Huts). Land is in relatively
short supply on this map, so you'll struggle to build the very large colonies
that were possible in earlier campaign scenarios: they are not needed here.
You do not need to develop to Citizen level. Pack as many Settler houses
around as few facilities as possible, used Tools sparingly so as not to need
any Iron production, and only build the facilities you absolutely need. This
can give a balance surplus of more than 500, which is large enough to fund
meeting the different objectives.
Explore the map and find O'Reilly's settlement. Open up the diplomatic menu,
and see that he wants 10,000 coins tribute. Pay the tribute (click on the hand
next to were "10,000" is displayed) to complete this objective.
Again, find Madrugada's settlement and see that he wants 50t Spices in
tribute. Settle one of the two Spice islands and grow Spices. Sail 50t to his
warehouse, and trade the Spices to complete this objective. Once the objective
is met, you can retain the plantations and sell the produce to your
population, or tear down the colony to save money.
Your military does not need to be large, since Pele's forces are mostly
fortified in towers and on walls, meaning they can be picked off one at a time
at range. Four or five Catapults are all that is needed for a ground assault.
Catapults are easy to produce as they require only simple research, one
production building, and a small amount of rope production. You start at peace
with Peles, so get your troops into position on the neutral part of his island
before declaring war. You can use your starting ship to do this, meaning you
do not need to build a shipyard or expand your fleet. Attack his towers and
Archers at range, and once you have cleared a gap in his defenses, attack the
fortress. It is theoretically possible to destroy his fortress by destroying
his Warehouse and Main Market - both of which are within range of ships' guns.
From dutchanno1986: "Make sure you only destroy Peles' fortress, not destroy
his markets, because that would kill him and so you lose the game." Jini notes
that in patched version 1.04.02, one can destroy Pele's warehouse and market
place, and still complete the mission. In my opinion, Catapults are easier and
cheaper to produce than warships, and are just as effective in meeting the
objective.
Objectives:
- 1. Fill your colony's warehouse with Food (50t).
- 2a. Expand Ulfilla to population 80.
- 2b. Build a ship.
- 3. Trade 25t of Medicinal Herbs for Whale Blubber.
Rating: ***
War-o-meter: *
Resources:
- 4,000 coins.
- Scout (at Ulfilla).
- Large Warship "Consissa", with 10 Cannons, 25t Medicinal Herbs (north of
Ulfilla, trapped in the ice).
- Colony "Ulfilla": 38 Pioneers; Warehouse, Food/Salt Stand, Small Shipyard,
Trapper; ~32t Food, ~25t Fur.
This scenario takes place on only two islands, so no map is provided. You will
lose money throughout the scenario. You need to work as fast as possible and
limit costs to a minimum. Towards the end you are required to build a ship, so
you must retain at least 1500 coins for this purpose. It is tempting to sink
your starting warship, which is trapped in the ice, and represents a useless
money-sink. If you do this, ensure you have taken *all* the cargo off the ship
first, since the Medicinal Herbs are required to complete the scenario. Jini
warns: "Do not sink this ship in order to save maintenance costs. Otherwise
the mission will maybe not proceed." I have sunk the ship and completed the
mission, so it is possible, but perhaps fails on certain unpatched games or
under certain circumstances. You can complete the scenario without sinking the
ship, but you will come slightly closer to bankruptcy.
4.2.5.3 Objective: Fill your colony's warehouse with Food
To the west of your colony you will find an Eskimo settlement. They will trade
Furs for Food (this varies a bit, but you will need at least 1t Fur for 1t
Food). You will need to make two runs with your Scout to fill your warehouse
with Food. The warehouse capacity is 50t, however while you are procuring
Food, your colonists will be eating it. Demolish the Trapper as soon as you
have enough Furs to trade for the Food you need, to save upkeep: You will not
need it after this objective has been completed - you will run out of money a
long time before you run out of Food and want to trade for Food again ;-) .
Wiles writes: "The mission states to trade furs for food. So, filling your
scout up with 20 furs, you should be able to trade for 20 food from the
eskimos. If they don't have 20 tons of Food, do not leave. Let them fill up
again, then continue clicking on the arrow to fill up the scout/mule with food
until he is full. After a second trip like the first, you should have gotten a
cut scene stating that part of the mission is over." Other problems have been
reported at this stage that relate to editing bgruppen.dat - see How do I edit
a game? below.
4.2.5.5 Objective: Expand Ulfilla to population 80, build a ship
Population 80 means doubling the number of Pioneer houses - upgrading to
Settlers is not a viable option because of the range of buildings and goods
required. For house building you will need Wood. Ships additionally require
Cloth, so you will have to set up a Sheep Farm(s) plus a Weaver's Hut. Place
two Forester's Huts in the wooded area to the east. When the building
materials become available, build two Sheep Farms and a Weaver's Hut in the
grassland just to the north. Use further Wood build five new houses. This
method should produce enough Cloth and Wood to build a small trading vessel,
both at about the same time. Once you have the required materials, demolish
the Sheep Farms, Weaver's Hut and Forester's Huts. In the meantime, you should
use your Scout to travel north to where your original ship is trapped in the
ice. Move the cargo off the ship and to your colony's warehouse in preparation
for the next part of the scenario. You will need to make two trips. After
this, consider sinking the ship to save upkeep costs - with the caveat
contained in the overview, that doing this *might* evoke a bug which prevents
the scenario from finishing.
4.2.5.6 Objective: Trade 25t of Medicinal Herbs for Whale Blubber
If you have not already done so, you will need to fetch the Medicinal Herbs
from the hold of the ship trapped in the ice. The Mongols, who the Eskimos
mentioned traded Whale Blubber, are on the large island to the south-east.
Their settlement is on the south-west coast. Although the settlement can be
seen from the coast, you will need to trade Medicinal Herbs using your Scout.
Two trips are required.
4.2.6.2 Objective: Find and claim Stone of Toguldur
In this mission you have no base, and no way to replenish loses. You only have
limited money, but your upkeep costs are small, so the mission is not a rush
against the clock. The island immediately to north-east of your starting
position contains a hostile Mongol settlement and the stone. No other islands
are used, so I have not included a map. The stone is found in the middle of a
circular mountain formation, just to the south of the Mongol settlement, close
to where you start. There is a road leading from the Mongol settlement into
this area, but it is blocked by rocks. Mortars must be used to attack these
rocks and destroy them. Each rock needs to be hit several times. If you lose
both your Mortars in combat before breaking into the area with the stone, it
will be impossible to complete the mission, because Archers cannot attack the
rocks. Once the rocks are cleared, send some Archers into the centre of the
circular mountain formation to claim the Stone and complete the mission.
Zomby Woof writes: "It's not necessary to eliminate the Mongols completely.
The stone lies within the cirque, you can unload your troops at the southern
shore. Destroy the Mongols' southern market building (the tent with the flag)
or destroy directly their soldier training camp nearby (looks like a brown
hut). This gives you the time to destroy with your mortars some rocks which
block the road leading to the stone. If the path is clear send one of your
archers inside and that's it." Although the Mongols will never stop sending
troops against you while you are near their settlement, destroying some of
their troop training buildings (directly, or by attacking the market) will
reduce the threat somewhat.
You are heavily outnumbered, notably facing a lot of fast moving Mongol
cavalry, who will close on your Archers and Mortars very fast. In a stand-up
fight you will die. Chefbartdast suggests: "Bomb and run. Stay close as you
can to your ship. Do not lose your cannons." From Visualize.Raven: "Harass. If
you hit a mongol building with a mortar, they will come to kill your mortar.
Load your mortar to the ship and your ship will destroy the mongol army. Do
this several times."
This scenario is similar to Helter-Skelter, but you have a starting population
of Merchants (who are harder to satisfy than Citizens, and unless you have
played a complete endless game, will be entirely new to you), *and* you are
invaded by a large enemy army at the start. As before, set half speed (F8) as
soon as the game starts, to give you more time to think and act.
The objectives are slightly vague as stated in the mission description. The
description reads "Get your economy back on track, train an offensive army,
and eradicate your enemy's cities." The first part simply means don't go
bankrupt - you can have a negative balance, negative total cash, or zero
population at the end of the mission and you can still complete the scenario.
The first part is therefore a suggestion, not a requirement. The last part
means destroy all three of Galerius's colonies, not just the island with
houses upon it.
You can adopt one or a combination of two approaches: (1) 'Fix' your economy
so that you are making a profit, then deal with Galerius. (2) Destroy
significant amounts of your own infrastructure to save operating costs, gather
up your military, and destroy Galerius quickly before your economy collapses.
Option 1 contains many variations. For example, one can let the population
drop back down to Citizen level, saving many maintenance costs on civic
buildings and production buildings, and potentially islands. Since this
reduces the number of people, you need to expand the total number of houses in
your city. Maintaining a Merchant level city is quite hard initially, and a
profitable one will probably need Lamp Oil production to be started. Even with
careful financial management, this variation can dip your cash into the red
before you have had a chance to start making a profit. Option 2 is slightly
more daring, because you must defeat Galerius fairly quickly. This is possible
because you start with large stocks of weapons and unit production facilities,
and almost all research completed.
Galerius's colonies are not particularly well defended - no worse than
Covana's colonies in Barbarrossas' Throne, and you should have more resources
and units available. The final attack will not be the most difficult part of
this scenario.
Although this scenario allows you to build Aristocrat houses, you should not
do this. Aristocrats are hard to satisfy, requiring many new facilities and
goods; but more importantly you only have a finite amount of Marble available.
I could find no Marble deposits on the map, so you are limited to the Marble
you start with in Hypatia's warehouses. This will be enough for the odd new
Public Baths, not a complete Aristocrat city.
At the start of the scenario Galerius's army is positioned on the northern
side of Hypatia ("1" on the map above). This force contains 7 Crossbowmen, 8
Musketeers, 14 Lancers, 2 Catapults, 2 Mortars, 4 Cannon, 3 Medics, and 6
spare Crew. After about a minute, they will start moving towards your city,
attacking and destroying every building that gets in their way.
Your ground forces are in three areas: (1) Archers scattered along the city
walls, (2) the main army, including Cavalry, cannon and Mortars, lined up in
the square on the south-eastern side of the city, (3) Lancers in the square on
the north-western side of the city. Assign hotkeys (CTRL + 0-9) to important
groups - at least the (faster) Cavalry, (slower) close combat units, and
ranged units - since separating unit types out in the heat of battle is
difficult. Open up the city gates, and send your units out into the fields on
the northern side of the city. You won't be able to get all the Archers to
leave the city walls, because some start in positions with no wall accesses.
Wiles writes: "You can also attempt to build as many additional units as you
want, but I found that capability to be limited as most of the heavier unit
production chains (such as cannons and mortars) were broken because the Iron
was not flowing, and the game does not give you quite enough time to fix those
chain issues AND produce units before the attacking army gets to your gates."
Mass production of basic troops such as Cavalry can be quite effective,
particularly if you move the fortress's rallying flag closer to the front
line. New Cavalry can also get to the front line fast enough to be useful.
At this point several different strategies may be adopted. The first is to
accept that you will lose several farms and production buildings, and let them
attack you close to the city gates. From wiles: "I sent the archers to the
walls close to the main gates to support the cavalry and other units that will
be doing the hand to hand. So, now you have added archer support on the front
walls, and you should have a pretty good army sitting outside the walls. Then
let them come to you. I did not advance my units away from the walls. I let
them destroy whatever in the field and chose to fight them on my terms. I lost
maybe half of the units on the ground, but the attackers never made it inside,
and I believe that was the more important objective."
An alternative is to seek to protect your infrastructure, and rush your troops
towards their army, specifically targeting Mortars, Cannon and Catapults,
which are the only weapons they have with which to destroy your buildings.
Jarrah writes: "I tried to take out the cannon and catapult crews (and their
backups) with the cavalry. This got pretty messy and I had to build a few more
cavalry. In the end I left the archers where they originally were on the walls
and lost pretty much all the other men. But the enemy had only one 1 man left
too - badly wounded - so I took an archer and shot him. Very messy and
wasteful." A variation on this involves retreating all your troops back to the
city as soon the enemy units that can attack buildings have been destroyed.
The enemy's ground troops will follow. Position the remaining Archers on the
walls near the main gate, and engage the enemy in close combat with your other
troops near the main gate. If you have few remaining troops, simply shut the
city gates until you have trained some replacements.
Target enemy medics early, to prevent them healing their troops. Depending on
the position you fight, you may also use your spare ships to give covering
fire, as Dobber comments: "I moved the 2 ships sitting in my harbor up to the
northern inlet beside the fishing hut. If things start to turn sour, move your
troops east past your waiting ships and let their cannons help you."
Unless you are planning to launch an attack against Galerius immediately, it
does not matter how heavy your loses are, so long as you win the battle. You
won't be invaded again with such force, you have plenty of weapons stockpiled
to build a new army, and dead troops don't need to be paid (a slight advantage
when fixing your economy). This is the reason why the second strategy
(assaulting the enemy as quickly as possible) just about makes sense - you can
afford to lose most of the army, while some of the farms and production
buildings you save are useful.
The following list of modifications are in part common to all the economy
strategies that seek to establish a stable, working economy. Some strategies
will ignore certain aspects, or demolish certain islands completely. These
variations are discussed below. The following suggestions are optimised for
just under 2000 Merchants, approximately the population you start with. Jarrah
has some advice, particularly if you intend to not follow the list below line
by line: "It's worth saving and then going slowly round each island to see
what you need to change, making a few mental notes and then reloading." Dobber
writes: "Be sure and do a savegame right after you defeat these forces, so you
won't have to do so again if your first attempt at straightening out the
economy lands you in debtors prison. And most of us have wound up there on
this one until we finally figured it out." Hakea writes: "There were
unnecessary numbers of things all over the place. Just when you'd think you'd
weeded them all out, you'd see another." Before starting, move your remaining
troops to one side - the game can be a bit tetchy about demolishing and
building things when soldiers are nearby.
First, add your spare Large Trading Vessel ("Tarpeia") to the Caetra to
Hypatia route, autotrading Silk Cloth and Cloth from Caetra to Hypatia. Add 2
50t slots for each. You can, and probably should edit the existing ship's
autotrade route, adding an additional Silk Cloth slot. The use of two ships
better balances the flow of goods and are more reliable (later, you will need
to check these routes are performing correctly, in case over-stocking occurs
and cargoes can not be unloaded). The extra Silk Cloth slot is needed to
ensure there is enough of this material to sell to your Merchants early on.
Without this change, many will downgrade to Citizens before you have had a
chance to balance the economy. With this change, you can cash-in on Silk Cloth
straight away, which should prove highly profitable. Although Merchants want
both Silk Cloth and Lamp Oil, they will only downgrade if neither is
available.
The diagram below is a simple representation of the main city ("1" on the map
above).
On this island:
- A: Destroy everything in this area, except the Main Market, Tool Maker (the
extra tool production is useful for development) and buildings that have no
operating cost: Fortress, War Machine Builders and Cannon Foundry. You should
have enough weapons stocked to out-fit a future army - if not, you can always
rebuild certain buildings when your economy is more healthy.
- B: Destroy one Salt Mine (you can also de-activate the second Salt mine for
a while, since you have plenty of Rock Salt in stock). Destroy one Ore Mine,
Charcoal Burner and both Tanneries, reduce the number of Foresters, and thin
out the Hunting Lodges. How many Hunting Lodges you retain across the entire
colony depends on what Food production facilities you lost in the first
battle. If you still have a Grain Combine (4 Grain Farms, 2 Mills and Bakery -
feeds just under 700) and a cattle combine (2 Cattle Farms and Butcher - feeds
about 300), you only need retain around 4 Hunting Lodges in total (each Lodge
feeds just under 250 people). If you lost all Grain and Cattle production in
the first battle, you should retain all 8 starting Hunting Lodges until you
can re-establish Grain/Cattle production.
- C: This corner lacks Church, University and Bath access, and stalls. You may
decide to abandon it completely, or reposition the Public Bath near the coast
in a later city redesign. Initially provide basic facilities and accept a few
houses will drop back to Citizen status due to the lack of baths. Replace the
Chapel with a new Chapel (which upgrades it to a Church), destroy the Tavern
(retain the Large Tavern nearby), and add basic stalls. Later you can upgrade
the School to give University coverage by rebuilding it.
- D: Destroy the Ropemaker, Armorer, Tannery and Tailor's Shop (Clothing is
only needed by Aristocrats) from this area.
- E: Destroy the Tailor's Shops and Library (you have all the research you
need from it completed). Destroying the Fire Brigades is optional - they
aren't needed for entirely Merchant/Citizen housing, but it is possible some
of your housing will drop to Settlers at some stage, so you could be unlucky
and be faced with a domestic fire.
- F: Destroy both Hemp Plantations, Ropemaker, Tailor's Shop, and all 4 Small
Farms.
- G: Destroy Fishermen's Huts.
- H: Destroy one Weaving Mill and one Sheep Farm. You will almost certainly
have lost a Brewery in this area during the attack, so rebuild it. Similarly
you probably lost some or all of the Cattle related production in this area.
Balance whatever you have left by building an extra Cattle Farm or Butcher.
- I: This area is often ignored by the invading army. Again, thin out the
Forester's Huts and Hunting Lodges. Depending on personal preference, and what
facilities you have after the attack, you may wish to add an extra Grain Farm
(7 total), Mill (4 total) and Bakery (2 total), effectively creating a second
Grain combine to provide Food. Alternatively consider Cattle Farms/Butchers.
If you intend on dropping your population back to Citizen level:
- E: Additionally destroy the University and replace it with a School, and
destroy both Public Baths.
- F: Build a new Hop Combine (2 Hop Farms and a Brewery - Citizens drink
slightly more than Merchants).
- H: You have the option of building 2 new Sheep Farms and retaining the extra
Weaving Mill. An alternative is to expand Cotton/Cloth production on Caetra.
Citizens require about 50% more Cloth than Merchants.
On Caetra ("4" on the first map):
- Destroy at least two of the Weaving Mills. For a Merchant population, you
may destroy a third Weaving Mill and one of the Cotton Plantations. For a
Citizen level population, retain two Weaving Mills, and add a fourth Cotton
Plantation; unless you've already expanded the number of Sheep Farms on
Hypatia (se "H" in the previous section). Whatever you do, make sure you
remove the Weaving Mill that is too far from the nearest Main Market of Cotton
Plantation to find any Cotton.
- Destroy the Forester's Hut.
- Build at least 2 more Silk Plantations. To support Merchants fully, you will
need to add an extra Indigo Plantation and Dye Works, and a total of 5 extra
Silk Plantations. If you start Lamp Oil production fairly early on, you may
not need to fulfill all the demand for Silk Cloth. For Citizens, you have the
option of reducing overall Silk Cloth production, because it is not needed.
However, it is profitable, so I'd suggest keeping it, just not expanding
production significantly.
- Tweak the Main Markets. You can probably safely remove the Market between
the Sugarcane and Indigo Plantations. Place an extra Main Market close to the
Dye Works on the far side of the island, to allow the works to use materials
from more than just the three plantations within its service area.
On Feria ("3" on map below):
- Destroy both Forester's Huts.
- Destroy the Pioneer-level Main Market close to the Citizen-level Main
Market. Rebuild it at the other end of the colony, which will allow you to
work on the plantations close to the edge of your territory, and will ease the
flow of carts.
- Build an extra Tobacco Plantation and an extra Tobacco Factory.
- Check road connections. Some plantations are missing connections completely.
Adding them will help distribute Tobacco to the factories.
On Narbos ("2" on map below):
- Destroy the Spice Plantation which is out of reach of the Warehouse (don't
rebuild it elsewhere, 6 Spice Plantations will be plenty).
- Destroy the Forester's Hut.
- Fix the road connection to the Spice Plantation near the source of the
river.
Return to your main city. Fine-tune the provision of stalls (you will not need
Jewelry or Wine Stands, for example). Take out some of the
beautification/squares and place additional houses. Consider removing some of
the walls to allow extra houses to be placed. Consider repositioning the
Public Baths from near the coast to a point closer to the Church, where it can
serve more houses - be warned that you only have a finite amount of Marble, so
take care when deleting baths that require Marble to rebuild. Dobber writes:
"I also deleted the dock next to the shipyard - I had to reroute a trade route
that was using that dock but that was no big deal." Consider redesigning the
provision of Doctors so only two are needed. An extra Stonemason is quite
useful at this stage, to provide Bricks.
As time and materials allow, tweak your agricultural production across all
islands by checking road links and field coverage, and adding wells.
Limited exploration can bring benefits. From Dobber: "The computer player in
the southeast: you can trade with him for emergency needs." Elagabalos will
happily sign a trade agreement with you, and can make a useful occasional
trading partner. If left alone, he will ignore you and let you get on with
attacking Galerius.
By this stage your should be turning a modest, if slightly variable profit.
Add in any extra production your population need. To increase that profit, you
should settle one of the Tundra islands and build a whaling outpost. Build the
Whaler building first, then the Whaling ship. One Whaling ship will supply 2
Whale Oil Factories. The Whaler itself will not appear to go above 50%
efficiency - don't worry about this, it's a bug. This, in combination with
Lamp Oil stands, will allow you to sell Lamp Oil to your Merchants, at which
point your finances will start to look very healthy.
There are several different ways of dealing with the slow supply of Spices
from Narbos. Make some further adjustments to your automatic trade routes.
Edit the Narbos to Hypatia Spice route ("La Metier") to carry up to two 50t
loads of Spices (100t in total). Jarrah suggests using two ships here instead
as a way of balancing out the intervals between deliveries. One could make use
of the spare Small Warship, but it is probably preferable to build a new
medium sized trading vessel for the route. Add an extra Main Market on the
spice island, to increase overall storage capacity. Jarrah writes: "You could
also improve things by moving the whole spice production closer - by sacking
your enemy's spice island and putting new buildings on his fields."
Galerius's navy is only aggressive if you stray too close to his islands,
where he has Small Warships patrolling. The solution to seemingly relentless
attacks is to adjust the trade route on your Spice runs, so that they no
longer go straight past Galerius's Tobacco colony - select the ship, and then
pull the marker buoys to a new position. This should eliminate all naval
combat until you decide to engage.
As mentioned earlier, an alternative strategy is to let your population drop
back to Citizens. The main advantage of this is you don't have to work quite
as hard to make sure everything is supplied. In order to support a reasonable
sized military, you will need to expand the total number of houses to retain
about 2000 total population. An extreme variation is to destroy Caetra (your
Cotton/Sugar/Silk/Indigo colony) completely. Although this reduces your
operating costs dramatically and may save you from rapid bankruptcy, in the
long term, Silk Cloth provides a good profit. The main difficulty is the time
lag between the operating cost being expended on the island and the Silk Cloth
being transported to the other side of the map to be sold.
There is another way. This strategy skips the first two parts above, and jumps
straight to invading Galerius. This is not recommended for the faint-hearted,
but with a little cunning, one can complete the mission without bothering
about the economy at all. Once you get the general idea, you will see that
there are many variations and options in how to proceed. Use the following
notes as a guide only, and alter the strategy to taste.
Build some additional units that are capable of destroying buildings (probably
Mortars). Depending on preference, you may build additional ground units and
kill off your Archers (which I find aren't especially great in combat, but
have the same upkeep as more capable units such as Marksmen and Lancers).
Order all your ships back to Hypatia ("1" on the map above). Destroy all your
Main Markets except a few in the city area of Hypatia - yes, this means
abandoning all your other islands, and all your production facilities. The
fastest way to abandon infrastructure is to delete the Main Markets and
Warehouses - you don't need to delete everything individually. Destroy any
remaining production buildings, and all civic buildings except stalls. Load
all your units onto your ships. Don't worry about the invading army. Equip all
available cannon on your ships. You may also wish to load stocks of weapons
and basic building materials, so that you can set up a small military base on
Galerius's island part way through your invasion - this rather depends on
personal combat strategy. If you have more units than ship capacity, you can
either build an extra Warship or two (which you may later sink to save cost),
or move the excess units to the other side of the island, and come back for
them later (the invading army will ignore them for a while). Since the secret
to success with this strategy is being able to defeat Galerius with a small
army, if you cannot fit the troops onto your ships you may need to evaluate
whether you need them at all. Now commence your attack against Galerius's
colonies. Attack quickly, and hope to get the scenario finished before you go
bankrupt.
This strategy is not as stupid as it sounds. For a short period your
population will keep on buying goods, while your upkeep is only a few hundred
coins, giving a net profit. The invading army will take much longer than you
might expect to wipe out your city (they'll have lots of fun slowly destroying
your walls first), by which time the city will have stopped earning you money
and all the houses will be crumbling to dust. Later you will find you need to
maintain your army using only cash reserves, but so long as you destroy almost
all your infrastructure in the first few minutes of the game, you should have
about 25,000 coins in reserve: You can keep a modest sized army in play for
maybe an hour before going bankrupt. It is feasible to destroy Galerius in
such a period of time, although nobody said it would be easy. Dobber writes:
"I was in the negative when I took out his last marketplace - had been for
several minutes. Was I glad when the cutscene played the completed mission
video instead of the rats. I still feel more comfortable running a stable
economy with income to support a drawn out war."
It should not be hard to gain naval supremacy - I never saw anything more
dangerous than a pair of Small Warships. If you are prepared to replace them
on their trade routes first, the two Large Warships you start with should be
adequate. Destroy his two supply islands first - they are defended only from
the sea by a single Small Warship... and you have sunk that already ;-) .
Head straight for the main town on the island. Destroy the shipyard. Now try
to drag the majority of enemy forces that are close to the fortress within
range of your ships' guns. Once the majority of the enemy troops in the area
have been killed, destroy his fortress. With the fortress gone, the battles
will get progressively easier. If you leave the fortress in place and destroy
the rest of the colony first, he will constantly harass you with fresh troops.
If you invade at the start of the game he will not have built many Main
Markets, and you can destroy him quite quickly. If you delay invading, you may
find Galerius has covered the whole island with Main Markets, and it can take
quite a long time to clear them all.
With careful use of troops, you don't need a large army. Jarrah writes: "I
made 4 hot-keyed groups which seems like a handy way to go. The two main
groups did a sort of left flank, right flank act and had a mixture of mortars
and cannons in both groups (total of 8 or 9 units per group). They were backed
up by a hotkeyed group of 3 medics and another roving band with 6 or 7 cavalry
in case anyone got close enough to hassle the artillery. It all looked very
smart and tactical, but in the end it went through the whole island with such
ease that it might have been a bit of overkill (didn't lose a single unit)."
You will know he has been defeated when you see a video awarding you an Arch
of Triumph. You will not have a chance to build it before the scenario ends.
4.2.8.2 Objective: Conquer fortress and free bookkeeper
The objective is quite precise. You do not need to destroy the entire city,
indeed destroying everything will fail the mission. To "conquer the fortress",
you must have the fortress entirely within your territory. This territory is
controlled by Main Markets. Should the fortress ever be in entirely neutral
territory it will be destroyed, and you will fail the mission. The fortress is
covered by three enemy Main Markets, which will need to be destroyed. You can
either build a replacement Main Market over one of these in the short period
of time between the building being destroyed (wrecked building graphic) and
the building disappearing (no building graphic), or build your own Main Market
covering the fortress first, and then destroy the remaining enemy Main Markets
around the fortress. Build Main Markets using one of your Scouts - load
building materials from your ships first. You can build a warehouse on the
coast first, as Hakea describes, "I started a small settlement, got a Forester
cutting wood, and when I had enough wood I built a short chain of markets
until one of them had the fortress in its area of influence," but that is no
need. Once the fortress falls within your territory, you will automatically
free the bookkeeper and complete the scenario.
There is no need to build a town for people to live in - and you lack the
Tools and natural resources to build anything more than a basic settlement.
You will lose money throughout this scenario, due to the operating cost of you
military. You will not go bankrupt unless you spend *hours* invading.
* ~ = Coast or river
* ^ = Mountain ridge
* - = City Wall
* F = Fortress
* M = Main Market that needs to be destroyed/captured
* m = Other Main Market
* 1 = Start position.
* 2 = Various farms and production buildings in this area.
* 3 = Large concentration of enemy troops.
* 4 = Town/housing.
* 5 = Your ships can attack the walls at this point.
The fortress is in quite a well defended position, however you don't need to
reach the fortress itself to claim the territory it stands on.
Your army has a lot of backup (spare Crews and Medics) and plenty of ranged
troops, but is thin on close combat units. All-out charges at the enemy are
likely to fail. The most obvious strategy is to draw out small groups of enemy
troops into an ambush. You won't have to try hard to draw out enemy forces:
Just *slowly* advance up the field towards the city. Keep ranged troops behind
a thin line of Lancers, and using your Cavalry to race towards anything that
out-flanks the Lancers. The aim is to use your ranged troops effectively, by
forcing the enemy soldiers into a killing-field, where all sorts of high
explosive will rain down upon them before they can attack your Lancers. It
gives you some time between battles to heal loses by pulling injured units
back towards the Medics. Don't take your eye off the battle, or you may find
your Lancers or Cavalry undertaking suicide attacks without ranged support.
Although it sounds a bit lame, this is another scenario where the half speed
setting is useful to give time to manage your army. Towards the end of the
battle, enemy Mortars and Catapults appear: Charge at their crews with Cavalry
and Lancers before they get in range. Once the majority of the enemy's troops
have been destroyed, advance towards the city itself. Use your Mortars to
destroy towers and buildings at range, while keeping the remainder of the army
nearby to deal with odd troops the enemy sends against your Mortars. You
cannot stop the enemy building fresh troops, but you can limit him by
destroying some of the weapon production buildings and War Machine Builder in
the area marked "2" on the plan above. The later will prevent Mortars
springing up behind your lines and causing carnage.
Keep your spare Crews out of the battle, but assign spare Crew to abandoned
enemy war machines where possible.
There are some reports of troops getting stuck on rocks, and effectively being
lost. Pdxdavid suggests: "keep them away from that big rock pile in the middle
of the southern field."
An alternative or variation on the slow frontal assault is to use your ships
to punch a hole through the walls next to the enemy town (shown "5" on the
plan above). From this position you can fight with covering fire from your
ships' cannons, and (arguably) attack the fortress area from the most weakly
defended angle. The main disadvantage is you are on the opposite side of the
city from all the Main Markets you need to capture/destroy, so you will tend
to end up fighting all the same enemy troops regardless. If you don't use this
strategy to invade, send your ships up to this area to destroy a few enemy
troops that have been positioned on the wrong side of the wall. This will
slightly reduce the number you need to fight in the field.
The enemy tends to concentrate troops around the Main Market to the south-east
of the fortress (labeled "3" on the plan above). It is very tempting to sneak
a few Mortars up to just the other side of the city walls fairly early in the
game, and flatten this group of units where they stand. This is a hard trick
to get to work without losing your Mortars. Since the Mortars are about the
most useful asset you have, this is a risky strategy.
4.2.8.3 How do I capture the Fortress? Why do I fail the mission after
destroying the city?
From Jini: "You have to bring the fortress inside you sphere of influence.
Solution A: Build a main market building near the fortress and destroy all
hostile market buildings in the area. Solution B: Destroy a hostile main
market building near the fortress and immediately build your on market
building over the ruins of the old one."
Hakea writes: "You have to 'capture' the fortress by claiming the territory.
To do this leave the fortress and one of the markets close to the fortress
(the one just below it seems to work OK). Then fetch one of your scouts and
load him up with tools and wood. Put him close to the market and then demolish
it with your mortars/cannons or whatever. Now, BEFORE the picture vanishes
quickly build in the rubble (the busted building graphic). You must use the
scout's build icon." Pdxdavid adds: "My scouts would lay out the warehouse
rectangle only in a north-south orientation, so I chose a north-south oriented
market to be the last I destroyed, and it finally worked."
By this stage in the game, you should have no problems creating a Citizen
level settlement. The large island in the west ("j" on the map above) is
ideally suited. The only difficulty is in avoiding Waltharius's warships - the
best tactic is to hide your ship in a quiet corner of the map until you need
it. It may be possible to trade Spices or Tobacco with Buccanon, but the trade
route is long and runs past Waltharius's islands, so is not recommended.
Instead settle some of the vacant islands on the western side of the map ("k"
on the map above for Spices, "m" for Tobacco), and try and stay away from
Waltharius's hostile shipping. You must have at least 700 Citizens, not
Merchants (you may have Merchants, but they must be in addition to 700
Citizens).
4.2.9.4 Objective: Trade 20t Medicinal Herbs to Native Americans
This is a straight-forward case of growing the goods, if you have not done so
already - research the Doctor first. Trade them with the Native Americans on
the island marked "1" on the map above. You will need a Scout to trade.
4.2.9.5 Objective: Destroy all houses on the Isle of the Dead
The mission description implies you should attack and destroy the colony on
the Island of the Dead (marked "2" on the map above). If you listen carefully
to the words spoken when you are given the mission, you will get an indication
of the minimum required: removal of all houses and population from the island.
The obvious strategy is to invade the island. One look at its 27 cannon towers
and 10 watchtowers built liberally over the entire island and its heavily
defended narrow channel approach to its warehouse, might reasonably lead you
to conclude that you need some combination of several Warships and/or Mortars
or similar before attacking. This will entail additional expense and military
facilities, so you should seek to expand your population and/or supply
additional goods such as Silk Cloth and Lamp Oil (both of which will require
additional islands to be settled). There aren't any enemy ground troops on the
island, so you should not need to bring anything other than Mortars, Cannon
and/or Catapults.
An alternative strategy is economic warfare. There is no Food or Leather
production on the Island of the Dead, so it is feasible to completely
eliminate all the housing by destroying its supply lines. Destroy Waltharius's
weakly defended supply islands from the sea, using a single ship. Target the
group of small islands around the Isle of the Dead - "r", "s" and "v" on the
map above. You should also destroy the Warehouse on the remaining island
("t"), to stop him restarting Food/Leather production here. Dodge the
occasional warship Waltharius patrols the area with - it normally patrols the
Island of the Dead itself and is easy to avoid. Although Waltharius has food
production on his larger island to the east ("o" on the map above) and has one
ship running between the two colonies, he does not seem to be able to
accommodate the new shortages you have just created on the Isle of the Dead.
Simply wait for Food to run out: The houses on the island will disappear in a
puff of smoke. There is no need to destroy the infrastructure, so you need
never physically invade the island, so you never need to build an army or
navy, or develop your colony beyond those first 700 Citizens.
This strategy completes the scenario very rapidly, and only ever uses one
ship. You will need the benefit of hindsight, but it is an interesting
strategy to adopt if you are perhaps playing a second time. At the start of
the scenario, off-load your Scout on the island you will be settling and let
him explore. Head south and destroy the three or four islands required to
complete the economic warfare strategy of the Objective: Destroy all houses on
the Isle of the Dead. Now head north and settle a colony. Use your large
starting capital to discount early loses and jump quickly to Citizen level.
Once you have met the first population objective, grow and stock Medicinal
Herbs. Once you have the herbs, ignore the needs of your colony and sail to
trade with the Native Americans. By this time the Island of the Dead will have
lost all its population, so you will complete both the last two objectives at
once.
4.2.10.3 Objective: Defeat de Freeren and destroy his city
Mircea comments: "The problem here was to establish a base and not defeating
Freeren. The fight and the conquest of the city was really piece of cake."
There are no very large entirely vacant islands, but there are a few large
enough to build a small Citizen level city, if one is careful. The largest
vacant area on which to build is actually on de Freeren's main island.
Masteron's territory is not well defended, so it is feasible to invade him
part-way through the game to secure more land. There are several different
strategies for empire building here. There is only one neutral Salt deposit at
the start (island "dd" on the map above), and should you wish to develop
Merchants, one Marble deposit. A Merchant civilisation is not needed.
I have read recommendations to start on the Native Americans' island ("u" on
the map above). This is not especially large unless one removes the natives -
not possible initially and later risks the negative consequences of their
curses. There are no efficient methods of producing Alcohol on such an island,
which tends to slow down the first part of the game. The neighboring large
Tundra type island ("v") has a similar problem with the efficient provision of
basic goods, but does have slightly more land suitable for building. The Salt
island ("dd") is the largest unoccupied 'northern' island, with the added
bonus of a Salt deposit. However, city building here will be awkward because
of the position of the river and mountain.
Once you have reached a moderate stage of development (primarily ship cannon),
you have the option of invading Masteron's main city, which he does not guard
well. With care you can inherit some useful infrastructure in the form of
Cloth, Alcohol and Silk production. You can use the same invasion forces to
pick off some of his supply islands. The disadvantage of this strategy is it
creates a diversion from your real goal - attacking de Freeren.
I think the easiest overall strategy is to take the fight straight to de
Freeren, and settle a part of his main island at the start. This is the
largest single space for city building on the map. This island also has Hops
(a good choice to help rapid early colony building) and is surrounded by one
of each type of the other islands (Spice, Tobacco, Silk/Cotton, Lamp Oil). You
will need to be moderately aggressive from the start, however de Freeren
should not be especially dangerous, and a handful of units should be able to
counter any attack - indeed, some players report that de Freeren forgets to
open his city gates to let his troops out, so you might never be invaded.
Mineral resources are potentially a problem. You can settle the northern part
of the island away from his walls, and then ship Bricks, Ore and Salt in from
elsewhere - this may be considered a significant disadvantage. Instead, you
can build right up by de Freerden's city walls, which will secure some of the
ore deposits on the southern side. There is a salt deposit here too, but that
may be slightly too close to the enemy to use before you have a military, as
Wiles notes: "The problem I ran into was that De Freeren had built his walls
so close to the salt, I was not able to put a mine on the same one. My
settlement constantly complained about salt, but salt is not required."
You do not need to capture de Freeren's Spice and Tobacco colonies, but you
may wish to either settle different parts of these islands, or capture one or
both of his colonies. Destroying or capturing both his production colonies may
be an effective form of economic warfare.
The final attack against his city should be relatively straightforward. How
far one develops before going to war is largely a matter of personal style.
Consider developing and researching up to Mortar level to give you the edge
against his inland cannon towers. You can probably succeed with Catapults and
Cavalry if you are prepared to take a casualties. Similarly, if you have
already settled on his main island, you may be able to succeed without a fleet
of warships. Wiles writes: "When I had the ability to build cannon units, I
deployed them into the enemy cannon towers as we all know that the AI
regularly does not put troops in most of them. By deploying my units into
their cannon towers, you essentially taking them over and the flag changes to
your colors on the towers. Then, when I was ready, I had my ships take out all
of the cannon towers along the sea-side wall and with cannon troops, I blasted
a hole into the back wall of the fortress and began taking out the market
buildings and eventually his fortress. If I ran into resistance, I drew back
to the areas by the walls and let my newly claimed cannon towers assist me in
defeating them. When only one market building remained, I took it over with my
scout." As mentionned earlier, you can develop to Merchant level, but you may
find yourself fighting Masterson first if he has already taken the Marble
deposit. There is no need for Merchants in this scenario.
Objective:
- 1. Prevent de Freeren's flagship from escaping and save Katherine.
Rating: ***
War-o-meter: *****
Resources:
- Lots of coins (the value is at least 8 figures so cannot be read - no need
to worry about the cash ;-) )
- 4 Small Warships (with 6 cannon), 3 Medium Warships (with 8 cannon), Large
Warship (with 12 cannon).
4.2.11.3 Objective: Prevent de Freeren's flagship from escaping and save
Katherine
De Freerden's ship starts at the point shown "1" on the map, and heads for
point "2". Fortunately, he does this by zig-zagging all over the map (his
route is shown using "+" characters on the map above). This allows you to
intercept his ship in several places (shown "#" on the map above). This
requires you to move your fleet quickly between interception points and avoid
getting too close to groups of enemy ships (indicated "!" on the map above -
fighting these ships will just slow you down). Don't worry if you cannot get
to all the points, you can complete the mission using as few as three points
out of the six suggested. I think the best combat tactic is to position your
fleet in his path, stationary, in passive attack mode, with no specific
orders. As he approaches, your ships will fire automatically. He will move
straight through your line, taking damage in the process. Once he moves out of
range do not follow. Instead move your ships to the next interception point.
If you follow, you won't inflict much damage, and you will run into other
enemy ships. Jarrah writes: "It may help to make your ships into a few groups,
but if they are in the right spots they'll automatically shoot him as he goes
past." As he takes more damage he'll move slower, and the 'chase' will get
much easier. If you still have not caused him to surrender by the last
intercept point, switch your attack mode to 'aggressive' - at this stage you
have nothing to lose from not being able to break off the attack easily.
There is some confusion about precisely what is needed to complete this
mission, as mentionned in Why does De Freeren's ship keep escaping? below. If
one completely ignores the fact you need to save Katherine, and attempt to
sink de Freerden's ship anyway, he will surrender *just* before the ship
sinks, and you will complete the mission. An alternative is to damage it
heavily, and then sail with it to close to its destination. The later approach
is harder to get right - it is easier in my opinion just to try and sink him.
4.2.11.4 Why does de Freeren's ship keep escaping?
Budgie writes: "There is one hostile battleship that is moving. That's the
ship Katherine is on. The ship starts its voyage in the West of the map. Your
task is to stop this ship which means that you have to sink it." Balou
clarifies: "Just before the ship actually would sink, he surrenders - and
Katherine's safe." It is often stated that the aim is not to sink the ship,
and that if you attack it too much it will sink and you will fail the mission.
Wargamerit writes: "The aim of this scenario is the challenge in ship's
control, to take damage to your opponent without sinking it." Zomby Woof adds:
"You can't wound him too much, if the ship still is sailing it's ok. But it
seems to be important that you escort De Freeren's ship with your own ships
(without shooting) till he gives up."
4.2.12.3 Objective: Destroy von Breitenstein's palace
This is the final showdown in the campaign. The map is big, and all resources
are present on it. This is the first (well, the first I noticed) time pirates
are active. The most important difference between this scenario and most of
those that went before is that the AI players will expand their territory
rapidly. Key resources like Marble will disappear under other players'
colonies unless you take them quickly. Island choice and rapid early
development is quite important. Perhaps more than any other campaign scenario,
there is no obviously superior way to proceed with empire building. Some
suggestions are contained below. This section is not detailed because there
are so many options, I have not tried all of the options myself yet, and the
general style of play is much closer to that of one of the harder endless
games.
Von Breitenstein's palace is the impressive looking white, gold and green
structure that sits on a ridged area just to the south-east of his main city
("1" on the map above). One can only approach it through the city. It is
recommended that you destroy the fortress nearby before destroying the palace,
to stop reinforcements appearing whilst you are mid-way through the palace
attack. Each section of the palace must be attacked separately - there are
about 20 in total. There is no need to destroy everything on the island, and
you can ignore the gardens and squares around the palace.
Jini writes: "I have settled on the enemy's island ["1" on the map above] and
he never attacked me before I started to attack him. I have put all my
military units (pikemen, ships, even the scout) on another island - maybe
that's the reason why the AI didn't consider me as being 'dangerous'. However,
other people reported they have been attacked on the enemy's island although
they did not have any military units. So, there is no peace guarantee if you
don't have military on the island. But I would say it at least enhances the
likelihood for temporary peace."
From pdxdavid: "I too settled in the eastern part of his island. I found that
he attacked me early with a handful of troops, but I was able to stop them
with pikemen and ship's cannons. After that, the only time he attacked me with
troops was when I had placed some of my troops near his wall. Then his troops
only went after my troops and did not attack my buildings."
The Gamestar guide to this scenario suggests the option of settling the
northern island in the west ("y" on the map above). This is not a bad choice
because one secures Salt and rare Marble deposits early on, however the island
has many mountains, which makes city design a challenge. It also considers the
Tundra island in the west ("l" on the map above), primarily because there is
more space, along with Salt and Ore deposits. In both cases these are close to
the starting position, meaning they can be settled quickly.
Cihnen writes: "You can settle on the island in the very east ["x" on the map
above]. In this mission you have to produce a lot of needed things on other
islands. And you can buy a lot from the pirates in the middle of the map."
Zomby Woof comments: "You will be attacked from time to time in every case, no
matter which island you choose. That's why you have a few pikemen at the
beginning, they give you some protection. Use also the ship cannons to defend
your island, those pikemen can't stand it very long."
Pirates may settle a new base if you destroy their first colony, as Dobber
notes: "After I destroyed the pirate base, he built a new base on a peninsula
of a larger production island."
From Visualize.Raven: "Until you want naval combat, don't put cannons on ships
because they [Von Breitenstein] are very very stong on water. When you build
one ship with cannons you will get attacked by about 10-15 warships." Dobber
writes: "Everybody left my merchant ships alone, I did not arm them and flew
the white flag on them and they were never bothered. I did not arm any ships
until I started building large warships." Pdxdavid comments: "His ships
constantly harassed my ships. The constant need to repair ships was a big
drain on my cloth and rope supplies. I was finally able to build up enough to
build a fleet of warships and went around ganging up on his ships, eventually
eliminating them. Once I did that and built a nice sized force of lancers,
cavalry, archers and mortars, I defeated him pretty easily."
This is a bonus scenario, which is unlocked by completing the campaign. Once
you have completed Justice, return to the single player campaign screen and
select the scenario. The aim is to find a hidden treasure chest. You do this
by moving a Scout to wherever you think the treasure is... or just move your
Scout across every island. The Scout only needs to go within around 6-8
squares to spot the treasure chest. You cannot find the treasure by scanning
the map by eye, it is only revealed by the Scout.
Run away from the pirates. Maybe a skilled player could use the small starting
force and ship to destroy all their colonies before running out of cash or
troops, and still find the treasure, but this is not required. Just keep your
ship moving at all times.
Budgie writes: "If you don't want to explore all islands, have a look on the
amulet map." The map inside the amulet can only be seen briefly during the
introductory video. Make a mental note of the shape of the island - it is
*very* distinctive. Don't worry about where the marker lines point - once you
have the correct island, it will be easy to find the treasure. And that is the
only hint I'll give... it is not hard to find the island with this hint. It is
the last scenario anyway, so no harm done if you _still_ cannot find the
treasure %-) .
"It seemed as if the secret of the amulet had been revealed, but as you find
evidence of the presence of von Breitenstein and his fellow men, doubts arise.
Although the heart of von Breitenstein's power has been destroyed, the chapter
has not yet ended. To be continued..."
This section contains guides to the ten stand-alone scenarios that come with
the game. These scenarios can be played in any order. I suggest you try to
match your level of experience with the game to star rating given. Some of the
lower rated games can be quite mundane to a player that has already completed
the campaign or has played a few harder continuous games. Likewise, certain
higher rated scenarios are not suited to new players.
Objective: Build 3,000 Citizen city OR destroy all opponents.
Rating: ***
War-o-meter: **/**** depending on objective met.
Competitors:
- 3, all of which settle new colonies at the start of the game.
- Pirates are active, and may settle one of the north-western islands late in
the game.
Resources:
- Medium Trading ship, with 50t Food, 100t Tools, 100t Wood, Scout.
- 25,000 coins.
LadyH writes: "You need 3,000 citizen. Not merchants, not settlers, just 3,000
citizen." You need at least one city that satisfies this criteria, not 3,000
spread across several cities.
3,000 Citizens is not an especially difficult target to reach. You will need
about 118 houses. You do not need to sustain this population, just reach it -
this allows one to over-stock slightly and low-ball on production facilities
at the end. Starting cash is limited, so you may need to first build a
profitable Settler colony, rather than developing Citizens straight away. I
personally build two blocks of population, each housing about 1500 Citizens,
each block clustered around a single set of population facilities. Once the
first block upgrades, the second block is laid out. Denial of certain
facilities like Chapels or Schools can be used to restrict population
development to certain areas. Don't neglect construction material suppliers -
5 or 6 Foresters, 2 or 3 Stonemasons, and 2 or 3 Toolmakers will still
struggle to keep pace with the population's desire to expand.
The main difficulty is the competition for space. A 3,000 Citizen city cannot
easily be built on one of the smaller islands, so it is important to secure a
good spot for colony building at the beginning. The three competitors expand
rapidly. Two will settle on the large 'northern' island ("m" on the map above)
before you can reach it. The third competitor will attempt to settle the
smaller 'northern' island ("l" on the map above), unless you race to settle it
first. While this island will give very slightly less building space overall,
you can build without antagonising the other players by building right up
against their territories. This island should be sufficiently large to support
the city, its construction materials, and its Food, Cloth and Alcohol
production.
If you cannot secure that smaller 'northern' island, the main options open to
you are: (1) Settle the remaining southern part of the huge 'northern' island
("m"). (2) Settle the huge jungle island to the north ("e"). Option 1 is
viable, but can become uncomfortable with three players on the same island.
Option 2 is not as attractive as it may at first seem: Although the island is
large, there are lots of rivers and mountain ridges which make city building
awkward. There is also difficulty providing basic goods such as Alcohol
efficiently during the first part of the game.
Having raced to settle a suitable area for the main colony, you must rapidly
secure secondary production colonies for Spice and/or Tobacco - particularly
if you want one of the islands close to your own. Fortunately, the large Spice
island ("n" on the map above) is large enough to sustain more than one
production colony.
The scenario gives you the option of eliminating all of the competitors. Their
rapid expansion makes this quite hard in comparison to meeting the population
objective. Your starting cash is too small to fund a large Settler level army
without an economy to back them up. Consequently, there is a good chance that
by the time you are ready for war, you will be well on the way to meeting the
population criteria. Such a strategy may be required if you find yourself
without enough space to expand. Indeed, you can develop your colony up to
Merchant level to fund a large army with which to wage war.
Different AI players have slightly different characteristics, varying from the
militaristic (the player that settles the western side of the huge 'northern'
island, "m") to one focused on city building (the player that settles the
eastern side of the huge 'northern' island, "m"). These characteristics become
quite important if you settle the same island as these two players. Pirates
are active on the map, but relatively tame and rarely encountered,
particularly is you stick to the south east corner of the map.
The hardest part of this scenario is getting started, not defeating the
pirates. You start on a Jungle island, which means you cannot produce things
like Alcohol here efficiently early in the game: Alcohol requires Small Farms
until you can build a Citizen population and access Sugarcane Plantations.
Your starting cash is less than generous, and your colony would be better
defined as "a nice stretch of wall with a shipyard" than a settlement. On the
positive side, you have more goods in stock than you would if you had just
founded a new settlement.
You have a small initial supply of Tools, which may run out before you are
able to start Tool production or trade unless you are careful. Venetians
eventually appear, but not initially. If you are exceptionally careful, you
can get Tool production running here using just under 60 Tools. This means
providing only one of each thing needed to reach Settler level (i.e. some
industries operating inefficiently, many operating unprofitably), upgrading
only 8 houses to Settler level (just enough to reach 80 Settlers and no more),
and building only one Brick and Tool chain. A variation on this strategy is to
carefully use your initial inventory of Food, Leather and Alcohol to bump the
population up to 80 Settlers without building associated production facilities
(you only need basic Cloth and Wood production). You will not be able to
sustain them for long, but you will be able to build a Tool chain quickly
without running out of Tools.
An alternative is to start some Cloth production, build one ship, and trade
with the pirates at their warehouse ("2" on the map above). Trade with the
white flag up to stop your ship being fired upon. Pirates can make good
trading partners, not least because they are cheap. They sell Tools, Alcohol,
Food and Bricks. They do not appear to replenish their supplies, so you cannot
rely on them forever.
The 2000 population objective should be met on your starting island. The other
islands are too small for 2000 Citizens, and a lack of resources prevents
attaining Merchants. Advance to Citizen level, if only to get access to Cotton
and Sugarcane production on the starting island. Once you reach Citizen level,
Jungle islands are a pleasure to work with because they can efficiently
produce two basic items (Cloth and Alcohol), and (profitable) Silk Cloth as a
bonus. Their underlying disadvantage is a tendency towards infertile areas of
land.
There are several possible strategies for dealing with early Alcohol demands.
Small Farms are convenient, but place a strain on your finances if built in
volume. Rushing up to Citizen level and staking a claim to Sugarcane
production early might be a viable tactic for an experienced player, however
the small startup cash makes this hard to do (my experience here was to reach
Citizen level with so little cash and income, that further development became
very slow). An alternative is to settle the Salt island ("g" on the map above)
early in the game, and use it for Hop production. Salt and Herbs are useful
items to have later, so settling a 'northern' island such as this is not a bad
move, even if you intend to use Sugarcane for Alcohol production when it
becomes available. There is not need to rush to build your colony - the
pirates do not expand, so you can work up to 2000 population slowly on a small
margin if you need to - just keep your cash-flow positive :-) .
You are forced to build a few production colonies and ship their goods to your
main island, in full view of several pirate ships. Pirates should logically be
far more of a problem than they are. Sail your supply ships without cannon and
with the white flag up. This prevents them being attacked. Consider paying
protection money to the pirates if they become a problem - take an unarmed
ship showing the white flag to the pirate settlement ("2" on the map above).
You will need to pay protection money at regular intervals or piracy will
restart. An alternative may be to research and build ship cannon, build a few
small warships, and take them and your starting Cannon units to destroy the
pirates fairly early in the game. You can then build up to the population
objective in relative peace. This is difficult because your starting cash is
so low - you cannot afford a navy until you have established your colony.
You start with 4 Cannon units, which are initially a money-sink. I have
noticed that they function more effectively when removed from their towers and
placed on the dock, where they take pot-shots at passing pirate ships. They
are a useful unit when assaulting the pirate base. Indeed, depending on how
one fights, they may be the only land unit you need. You do not need to
destroy all the pirate ships - just the warehouse and main market building on
their island.
Building a 1000 Merchant city is relatively straightforward. There is no need
to sustain 1000 Merchants, however Merchants require too many expensive
facilities and production chains to rush straight up to Merchant level. The
modest startup cash and difficulty in obtaining Tools (see below), encourage
slow, steady development. Pirate activity adds difficulty early on, but is not
as serious a problem as it could be, so long as your supply ships operate
without cannon and fly the white flag. There are no huge islands, and
resources are fairly scarce. There is only one island well suited to city
building, marked "b" on the map above. Fortunately, you are the only player
expanding their colony, so there is no competition for resources.
There are no Venetians in the scenario (at least I played the whole scenario
and never managed to trade with any Venetian ship). This means you should get
Tool production started as fast as possible. You start with 150t Tools, so
this is not hard to do - Tool production can be started with half that number.
At the start, pirates will attack your ship. You cannot raise the white flag
and evade that way, because you have cannon mounted, and you cannot remove
those until you build a shipyard. The best tactic is to run away - the pirates
cannot catch you. It is tempting to try and destroy the pirate base at the
start of the game. This is just about possible using the first ship. Avoid the
pirate musketeer patrols, who can inflict a lot of damage on your ship. The
warehouse and main markets (there are two main markets) may need to be
destroyed several times before the settlement falls. Unfortunately, this does
not stop pirate activities, and the pirates simply re-settle another island.
There are few, if any, advantages to destroying the pirate base. Indeed, they
have a habit of re-settling on one of the islands that contain resources you
need, forcing you to evict them again; and again... Instead leave them, and
later in the game consider trading with the pirates for items such as Tools -
they offer them very cheaply.
The map contains only the absolute basics required to build a Merchant level
city. The only island large enough to support a city ("c" on the map above)
will support a larger population than the other supply islands are capable of
providing for at higher civilisation levels. For example, you will struggle to
fit more than 3 or 4 Tobacco combines on the only Tobacco island ("d"), so you
cannot effectively supply more than about 1500 people with Tobacco.
Building up to Merchant level based on only 1500 people is possible, but
denies you a large revenue base with which to fund things like Marble
production, Universities and Public Baths. In addition, you have a very small
starting capital. Expect to play this scenario quite slowly, without ever
seeing very large profits. An alternative approach is to build a larger
Citizen level city and supply them as best you can, accepting that you will
never be able to fulfil all demand for goods such as Tobacco. Use the large
colony for profit, and just before you are ready to advance to Merchant level,
destroy some housing to in order that demand does not exceed supply.
Use the 'northern' island ("c") for your city, and produce as many things
there as you can (Cloth, Food, Alcohol, construction materials, etc) - try to
keep secondary production colonies focused on producing what cannot be
produced elsewhere.
Distances between islands are small. If you manage your trade routes
carefully, you can assign more than one trade to each ship without causing too
many fluctuations in your economy from infrequent deliveries.
Build up to Citizen level, with 1200-1500 people. Supply every good they want,
but do not build the Public Baths or University until you are ready to
advance. Wait until you have a small surplus of consumer goods. Particularly
important is Silk Cloth, which Merchants consume 50% more of than Citizens.
Then advance up to Merchant level. Once you get 500 Merchants prevent
construction materials being used by your population. You should be able to
ride out 5 minutes of extra demand based on stockpiles. You can get away with
dropping one (or maybe two) goods at the end without losing your Merchants. If
it looks like you won't make it, destroy some non-Merchant level housing to
ensure shortage supplies get to the Merchants.
This scenario deserves its four-star rating. It involves meeting a series of
objectives within a time limit. Once the objective has been met, the clock is
reset and a new objective set. Throughout this scenario one must carefully
balance the economy and build a city as normal. What makes this scenario hard
is the need to expand very rapidly, which may mean financing many more
construction material supplies than you would normally. There are no
Venetians, so you cannot buy Tools or anything else in.
The initial objectives seem relatively easy. I think you should try to use the
extra time they allow to prepared for subsequent objectives - primarily
stockpiling construction materials and cash. An alternative strategy would be
to rush through the first two objectives with the aim of getting profitable
Silk and similar trades operating. The later may suit certain play styles,
although leaves you with a lot of work to do during the second half of the
scenario.
Although the objectives are for relatively low population totals, I recommend
you cluster as many houses around a single set of facilities as possible, so
that your colony remains reasonably profitable throughout (well, at least out
of the red until you are supplying Citizens correctly). There is no shortage
of space, so it is tempting to build far more houses. The difficulty is that
these houses need to be built and supplied within the time limit. Although
ultimately more profitable, I doubt there is sufficient time to build up a
large enough economy.
4.3.5.4 Objective: Build 200 Pioneer settlement within 30 minutes
The map is huge, and it will take half your allotted time just to sail across
it. Don't waste time exploring the map first - settle the huge 'northern'
island ("b" on the map above) immediately. Settle the southern part of the
island, where you can get easy access to Stone, Ore, Salt and Marble later in
the game. You will need at least 25 houses. Build 5 or 6 Forester's Huts.
These are essential to rapid development - you should never have Wood over-
stocked in spite of this apparent over-provision. Serve your population Food
and Leather. Providing Cloth will help your balance sheet. Your starting
capital is generous so this may not seem immediately important, but it will
help later in the game. You should have 10 minutes or more to spare at the end
of this stage, so consider delaying building the last house. Instead stock up
on things like Alcohol, Wood or Cash in preparation for the next objective,
and start exploring.
4.3.5.5 Objective: Build 350 Settler town within 30 minutes
Simply providing Alcohol and a Chapel, and allowing the Pioneer houses to
upgrade will meet the objective. You should hold back full development until
you have got Brick and Tool production started. Place two Toolmakers - just
like Wood, you will need a lot of Tools quickly during this scenario. A pair
of Stonemasons will ease the pace of further development. Also build a School
and conduct basic civic research. During this phase start to explore the map
if you have not already started.
4.3.5.6 Objective: Build 600 Citizen city within 80 minutes
Develop a few more Settlers, and then switch to Hop based Alcohol production.
Now turn your attention to colonising other islands, including allied
development such as ship production. I suggest you start with Spice
production, simply because the Spice islands are closer to your city. Keep a
careful eye on soil quality - there is a lot of desert out there (especially
on the largest Spice island, "k" on the map above). Don't under-estimate the
amount of time it will take to haul goods across the map. You can develop to
Citizens by providing only Spices and Salt, but you should finish this stage
of the scenario supplying Tobacco too in order to make the next objective
possible to complete. When you are ready to develop, provide any extra
production for essentials such as Food and Cloth, and drop a Church in.
Remember that it will take several minutes for the houses to upgrade, so do
not leave it until the last minute.
4.3.5.7 Objective: Build 900 Merchant city within 80 minutes
Stop further Citizen housing developing by cutting off the flow of
construction materials. Otherwise you will need to spend the first part of
this stage building up additional production facilities for the consumer goods
you are already supplying (Food, Alcohol, Spice, etc), and it is important to
get new production colonies started early, primarily because of the large
distances ships need to travel. Increase Tool production again - an extra Ore
Mine and Smelter (perhaps use a Large Ore Smelter and start Charcoal
production), plus 3 or 4 Toolmakers in total. Prepare a ship to send south and
start a Silk colony. You may wish to use the same colony for Cloth production,
however space is not short on your main island if you prefer to retain Sheep
based Cloth production. This southern island includes a Volcano, but eruptions
are infrequently, and will not cause damage unless you build close to the
volcano.
By this time, you should have enough Tobacco and Spice to satisfy demand
continually, which will provide just enough cash to fund everything. Increase
Food and Alcohol production and attend to a few other Citizen requirements,
such as the Doctor. Now let the colony develop fully to Citizen level. Next
build up the Silk Cloth production which will increase revenue still further,
and is essential to keep Merchants happy. The next move should be a Lamp Oil
outpost. In the final 30 minutes, get Marble production started, and bolster
existing consumer good production so that you have small surpluses. Finally
drop in the University and Public Baths. Ensure you have enough construction
materials and allow plenty of times for upgrades to occur. You will need at
least 105t of Tools and Wood, and 84t of Bricks. It can be frustrating to be
just a few Tools short as the final seconds tick away...
This scenario is a good introduction to building colonies in unfavourable
circumstances. The map is small, and the only island suitable for city
building is the large southern jungle island ("e" on the map above). In
addition, there are no Venetians, so you must build up your own Tool
production early in the game.
Tool production can be started with as few at 60t of Tools, so 100t gives some
flexibility, but care is still needed. Develop up to Settler level, providing
only essential infrastructure. Once 80 Settlers have upgraded, stop supplying
construction materials, and build a Brick and Tool chain. Once Tools are being
produced, you can restart house upgrading and/or build additional facilities.
Jungle islands mean that you either need to settle a second Hop growing island
to produce Alcohol (which is inconvenient), or build many Small Farms (which
are not very efficient). It is probably easier to stick with Small Farms than
settle a Hop island. Starting capital is relatively tight, so you may not be
able to jump straight to Citizen level before going bankrupt. Once your
economy is stable, settle the Tobacco ("b" on the map above) and Spice ("c")
islands. Build basic production facilities (just one plantation will be
sufficient, plus a factory on the Tobacco island). Stockpile these two goods
until you have about 10t of each. Build a Church and a Tobacco/Spice stand.
The first house to upgrade to Citizen level completes the scenario.
4.3.7.3 What does the objective mean? Must I mine Ore on 6 islands?
The in-game text is misleading - "Mine at least 170 tons of iron ore in each
of your cities within the given period of time." It does not matter where you
mine this Ore, but each of your starting islands must have 170t or more of Ore
in stock by the end. You cannot destroy any of your starting colonies.
Your first aim should be to build a Settler level city, since this allows Ore
Mines to be constructed. The main difficulty thereafter is financing all the
Ore production and storage capacity you will need. One Small Ore Mine will
produce about 5t of Ore a minute, so you will need at least two, probably four
to produce enough in the time available (depending how early mining is
started, and whether some Ore is diverted to Tool production). Only one of
your starting islands has an Ore deposit on it ("2" on the map above), so you
may need to settle a further island specifically to mine Ore. At the time of
writing, Ore deposits do not run out (which could potentially make this
scenario far harder), the main limitation is on how many mines can be
clustered around one deposit.
Your main island ("2" on the map above) is huge, and your starting cash very
generous. One strategy to generate the revenue needed to support Ore
production, is to simply create a large Settler level colony. Settlers can be
profitable in volume, and your main island has everything needed to support
them. Since you have plenty of cash to start with, there is no need to make
large profits - indeed you can happily operate slightly in the red for the
whole scenario and still complete it. An alternative is to develop Citizens,
primarily using your other islands to grow Tobacco. In order to see
significantly more profit than you would get from Settlers, you need to supply
Citizens with several other goods too. Provision of those goods is time
consuming, and in my opinion distracts from the ultimate objective. The main
benefit is that this can provide a large revenue stream with which one can
fund many Ore Mines on several islands, allowing all the Ore to be produced
and shipped in the final hour of the game.
The last problem is where to put all the Ore. See How do I stock 170t - my
warehouse only holds 50t? below for the final answer. Provision of extra
storage facilities will increase upkeep costs quite dramatically, as well as
requiring a lot of construction materials, so ensure you have budgeted
accordingly. During the first part of the game, it is far cheaper to store Ore
in ships. A Small Trading Ship can store 200t for an upkeep of only 10 coins.
This compares to a minimum of 10 coins per Main Market/Warehouse. That makes
naval storage of one good in large volumes about 10% of the upkeep cost of
land based storage. Unless you manufacture all your Ore in a hurry at the end,
it should be cost effective to build one Small Trading ship for storage for
each of your outlying colonies. In order to complete the scenario, all the Ore
must be landed, so ship storage is only a temporary solution.
There is an alternative approach to building up a settlement, which is
slightly counter-intuitive, but works quite effectively. Build a small Settler
colony, but once you have 80 Settler (and got access to Ore Mines), destroy
everything except Main Markets and a Forester's Hut or two. Open up the
territory around the ore deposits on your main island, and place 4 Ore Mines
around the mountain with the deposits in. Set each of your outlying colonies
to buy enough Tools from the Venetians to build extra Main Markets and a
Foresters Hut. Once you have tools, build one Forester's Hut on each island.
Now haul Ore from your main colony to the outlying islands, building extra
Main Market capacity as required. You will progressively lose more and more
money, but you should be able to produce and haul enough Ore to meet the
objective before going bankrupt. It is possible to complete the entire
scenario within about an hour using this method.
4.3.7.5 How do I stock 170t - my warehouse only holds 50t?
You must increase the storage capacity on the island by building additional
Main Markets or Warehouses. To reach 170t capacity, each island must have at
least 9 Main Markets/Warehouses.
The map is characterised, as the scenario title suggests, by many small
islands. In any other game you would not wish to settle a city on any of these
islands. This leads to houses being clustered in smaller groups than normal,
or with mountains or coastal areas filling gaps where houses might otherwise
be placed. So, the same facilities can serve fewer people, which makes the
economy harder to balance.
There are many different strategies to completing this scenario, ranging from
125 Pioneer houses spread across many islands, to 24 Merchant houses crammed
onto one island (your Merchants will always ask for Lamp Oil, which cannot be
made on this map, but can be sustained without it). The Pioneer option sounds
bizarre, but is quite easy to do because so few goods and facilities need to
be provided - throw away almost everything you have learnt about colony
development, and cover three or four islands in Pioneer housing, supported
only by basic stalls, Hunting Lodges, Tanneries and Forester's Huts.
This is a somewhat harder version of Many Small Islands (see above). The map
is characterised by a lack of large islands suitable for city building. In
addition, mineral deposits are rarer, pirates are active, and the population
objective is far higher.
I do not think it is possible to fit enough Pioneer housing (375 houses) on
the map (although having said that I expect someone to prove me wrong - it
will certainly be very tight). There is no Marble, so Merchant housing can not
be reached. This leaves a choice between reaching the objective primarily with
Settler housing (200 total) or Citizen housing (~110 total), or some
combination of the two. On some islands, one can profitably build enough
houses around the facilities Settlers need. This inevitably means shipping in
Cloth and Alcohol from other production islands. Attempt to fit 360 Settlers
into one city to allow Hop based Alcohol production. Cloth production will
always be space inefficient using Sheep Farms. One of the main benefits to
developing some Citizens is the ability to access buildings such as Cotton
Plantations. The disadvantage to Citizens is the level of support
infrastructure they require - both large items such as Churches on their
island, plus some level of Spice/Tobacco/Salt provision. Consider using
Fishermen to provide Food - expensive to operate, but require little land to
build.
Pirates should be far more annoying than they are. The scenario forces you to
ship almost everything between islands, but pirates are rarely effective in
disrupting this trade. Ultimately, the main benefit of destroying their colony
is not to prevent piracy, but to claim the land it occupies (it is one of the
larger islands available).
In addition, 37 Archers are positioned along the city walls.
Enemy start positions:
* A = Goerzenrick: Main army of close combat foot, Cavalry, Mortars and
Cannon.
* B = Maximilian: Small Mortar group with close combat foot support.
* C = Hardtmut: Small Mortar group with Crossbowmen support.
* D = Ruprecht: Small foot soldier group.
* E = Ferdinand: Main group of close combat foot and Mortars.
* F = Wallenstein: Small Cannon group with close combat foot support.
* G = Goerzenrick: Close combat foot group with Mortar and Cannon.
* H = Wallenstein: Small Cannon group with close combat foot support.
* I = Maximilian: Small Cannon group with close combat foot support.
* J = Ferdinand: Main army of close combat foot, Crossbowmen, Mortars and
Cannon.
* K = Ruprecht: Small Cannon and Crossbowmen group.
* L = Degenhardt: Large group of close combat foot, Musketeers, Mortars and
Cannon.
* M = Degenhardt: Large group of close combat foot, Mortars and Cannon.
* N = Hardtmut: Large group of Mortars, close combat foot and Crossbowmen.
* O = Wallenstein: Small group of Cannon and close combat foot.
* P = Hardtmut: Small group of Cannon and close combat foot.
* Q = Wallenstein: Large group of Cannon, Musketeers and close combat foot.
* R = Hardtmut: Small group of Cannon, Crossbowmen and close combat foot.
* S = Degenhardt: Large group of Cannon and close combat foot.
* T = Wallenstein: Large group of Mortars, Crossbowmen and close combat foot.
* U = Ruprecht: Large group of Mortars, close combat foot and Cavalry.
This scenario looks much harder than it actually is. Your troops are heavily
outnumbered, and the enemy armies will specifically target the Cathedral you
are supposed to protect. You have several advantages: (1) The enemy armies do
not all attack at once - different players declare war at different times, and
only once they have declared war do they start moving their troops. (2) You
can train additional troops at your two Fortresses (one of which will always
be behind your line). (3) The Cathedral is in a ridged area, and only has one
main approach for invading troops.
Use the time before the first declaration of war to arrange your troops,
specifically moving the group by the coast ("1" on the map above) into the
city, and repositioning Archers on the city walls. Remember to open certain
city gates to allow your troops inside.
Make some small adjustments to your economy: Open the gate ("w" on the map
above) to allow Wood from Forester's Huts to be collected. Adjust the
production of weapons at the Bow Maker and Large Weapons Smithy to taste - by
default these produce Bows and Axes only. Gunter suggests you stop producing
Tools and divert Iron to weapons production. You have a Cannon Foundry, but
you have not researched Cannon or Mortar, nor can you rapidly build a
University and research them due to lack of construction materials.
Consequently, the Cannon Foundry is of no use.
You cannot expand your defenses significantly, because of a lack of Bricks.
Construction of a Quarry and Stonemason will require expansion of your
territory first - by the time you produce enough Bricks the enemy will be
inside your city, and building additional defenses where they are needed will
be impossible. Depending on your strategy, you may wish to clear some of the
houses around the approach to your Cathedral - this helps your troops move
around, and helps you see enemy targets.
Different groups of enemy units attack different gates on your outer wall.
"A"-"C" on the map above, use gate "v". The remaining enemy on the north-
eastern side attack gate "w". All the troops on the southern side approach
gate "z". As mentioned above, different enemy players declare war on you at
different stages of the game. Time from the start is as follows:
There are two obvious battle strategies. The first involves staking out the
ground in front of the Cathedral with all your troops. Abandon the outer walls
completely. Let the enemy troops funnel up the narrow approach to the
Cathedral. You will be able to train additional troops at the Large Fortress
without a problem - just endlessly replace your loses. This strategy focuses
all your firepower in the most critical position of all, and the one position
the enemy will find it hardest to fight in. Since all the battles occur here,
it is easier to control what is happening. The main disadvantage is that
should the enemy break through your line, you will have no further chance to
save your Cathedral.
The second approach involves heading off specific waves of enemy troops as
they arrive at different points on your city's outer wall. You will need to
split your forces into at least two groups and move them between different
parts of the city wall as fresh attacks start. Archers can be positioned on
the walls, Mortars behind, and close combat troops just outside the wall.
Although slightly counter-intuitive, your troops will move faster between
battles if you demolish some of the housing and other buildings in your city
first - you do not need most them. If you find your walls have been over-run
retreat towards the Cathedral and use some of the tactics above. The clear
disadvantage of this strategy is the amount of detailed troop management
required. Even with the battle running at half-speed, it is hard to order all
your troops as you would wish. It is quite easy to accidentally be out-flanked
by one or more of the enemy groups, who then start attacking your Cathedral.
Whichever strategy is adopted, keep on producing new troops throughout. You
have plenty of money and resources available for this. Train additional crews
to man abandoned enemy Cannon and Mortars. Allow Medics to heal injured units
between waves of enemy attackers. During attacks target the enemy Cannon and
Mortars - they are the only units capable of rapidly destroying your
Cathedral. Use half speed during battles to help control your units, if you
need too. If you only do half of these things, you will win quite easily.
Although the in-game objective suggests you need to destroy all the enemy
troops, all you need to do is protect the Cathedral. You will end up
destroying most enemy units anyway, but you do not have to deal with odd units
that get stuck or lost before reaching the Cathedral.
(While browsing through the game's files, I notice there are several extra
scenarios listed. For example, 'Lessland', a goldrush scenario, one involving
pirate hunting, etc. The actual scenario files appear to have been omitted,
and only the text files associated with them can be found. I wonder what
happened to these...?)
5.1 Getting Started
______________________________________________________________________________
5.1.1 Common mistakes
Budgie quotes "a former user", who lists five errors commonly made by new
players (I've condensed and re-written the description of each). Consider each
carefully, because some mistakes below you may not even realise you are making
:-) :
- Over-production: Your economy is finely balanced, particularly at the start
of the game. You cannot afford to produce more than you need, however tempting
it may be to stock your warehouse to the rafters, 'just in case'. Also try to
keep industries running efficiently (80+% efficiency), with all buildings in
the same production chain operating at about the same efficiency. Jini writes:
"Personally I always try to have a small overproduction of food and alcohol
because the inhabitants get very grumpy if there's not enough that. With all
other consumer goods, (spice, tobacco, and so on) I'm trying to achieve a
small underproduction because this makes sure that every bit of spice or
tobacco will immediately be turned into cash."
- Retaining obsolete or outdated facilities: Some starting facilities are
inefficient and/or expensive compared to those you can build later. The most
common mistake is to retain Small Farms/Potatoes for Alcohol consumption long
after Hops/Breweries become available - the later are cheaper and more
productive.
- Meeting every demand: You don't have to give your colonists everything they
demand immediately. It is important to differentiate needs (things that will
make the colonists unhappy and leave if not provided), and demands (things
that will allow colonist to develop civilization level or contribute
additional sales revenue if provided). For example, Pioneers demand a Chapel
in order to develop to Settlers. But they can remain as happy Pioneers without
a Chapel, so only provide a Chapel when you can also meet the other needs for
advancing to Settlers, otherwise you are wasting money. Pioneers do need Food,
and if this need is not met their houses will collapse. SirGorash writes: "The
key to wealth is to build as few supply units and buildings as possible, and
to supply your people only with stuff that is absolutely required." Of course,
it is often profitable in the long run to sell goods that are demanded and not
needed, but don't feel you must meet such demands.
- Rapid expansion: When learning the game, expand slowly. Wait until you have
achieved a steady financial situation before trying to reach the next
civilisation level. New civilisation levels (such as Settler to Citizen)
require significant investments in new buildings and (often) new island
colonies, but you will not see the revenue from these investments until your
population develops to the new level - in the interim you will tend to lose
money, so ensure you start such a process from a sound financial base. As you
become more experienced, you will be able to expand much more rapidly. This
'mistake' is only a mistake for new players who don't yet instinctively know
when to add or remove buildings.
- Lack of preparation for civilisation advances: A continuation of the last
point. When your civilisation advances a level, the population will increase
dramatically (almost double). One needs to be ready to supply all the extra
Food, Alcohol, whatever, associated with such a population increase. The
reason many players come unstuck when jumping from Settlers to Citizens is
they have not anticipated the need to (on average) *double* the size of their
entire economy. Instead they see the jump as a simple case of supplying one or
two extra goods, which is only a small proportion of the problem.
I'd also add a caveat about military forces: Don't feel compelled to build up
a large military at the start of the game. You probably don't need them, the
buildings needed to make weapons will use resources better spent on civilian
facilities and production, and troop upkeep will drain funds. Even if the
scenario puts you at war with another player from the start, you can often
survive with only a handful of units. Once your economy is booming, then make
your military plans.
There is no right or wrong way to build a colony, and many veteran players may
be able to play through certain stages of the game far quicker than suggested
below. This section is primarily aimed at those whose first attempts have
ended in financial disaster, and want to learn how to make any progress in the
game at all. Once you master the basics, many tweaks and changes will become
apparent to speed up and optimise colony development.
Even if you only start with a single ship, initially you will be losing money
from upkeep. Remember game speed can be changed, using F5-F8. Half speed (F8)
can be useful when laying out basic colony facilities.
When learning the game, try to find a large 'Northern' island - one that can
grow Hops, which will make Settler level easier to sustain. Acid (translated
by Gunter) writes: "The button 'Stop supplying building materials' is very
important and should be activated as soon as have built your first warehouse.
It prevents your pioneers from an uncontrolled advance to settlers level."
Roughly plan where you will place your housing and where you will place
production facilities. Housing benefits from a large area of flat ground where
it can be densely packed close to public facilities. Later production
facilities will need mineral deposits, so consider opening up land towards
mountains with mineral deposits. Expand your territory with additional Market
Place(s), but don't over-expand, since each Market Place costs you building
materials, cash and upkeep. Hakea comments: "Usually it pays to try for the
maximum spacing of market buildings (which is a grid of 25x26 spaces) as
markets get progressively more expensive to build and run as you progress."
Construct 2-4 Forester's Huts, and plant forest around them. They don't need
their entire service area filled with trees to be efficient. Connect them up
to your Warehouse/Market Place with roads. Acid notes: "Be careful in the very
beginning that the road connections fit to the green arrows of the buildings,
otherwise the market wagons can't pick up the goods and a road symbol will
appear above the building." Four Foresters' Huts places quite a strain on your
finances. However, they mean basic construction materials are readily
available early in the game, so colonies can grow quicker. Place a pair of
Hunting Lodges near to the Foresters' area. Ideally give them a mix of trees
and open land, and of course a road connection. A pair of Hunting Lodges will
produce enough Food to feed about 400 people. Acid writes: "Fisherman's huts
aren't necessary and too expensive, you can do well without them." Wood, Food
and Hides are now being produced, which will be enough to keep Pioneers happy
and will help you on the way to Settlers.
Hakea writes: "There are two key elements in 1503 city planning: one is the
'reach' of the markets (you can't build anything outside its radial reach) and
the other is the reach of the houses (they won't be able to get the benefit of
goods or services outside their 'area')." When building residential areas, try
to group houses in a circle around a central facilities district. The aim will
be to get as many houses as close to the same set of facilities as possible.
This maximises the population per facility, giving a better ratio of revenue
to facility operating cost. You will not build all the facilities straight
away, but you should leave enough space for them to be added later. Sample
layouts are discussed under Colony Planning and Building below. Houses do not
need road access, however, you may find it beneficial to place some roads,
particularly around the central area, since this seems to help people find
their way to facilities.
Initially build 10-15 houses. Add a Food and Salt stall to your central
facilities area - make sure it is within the service area of each of your
houses. Build one Tannery to process Hides into Leather, and set up a
Cloth/Leather stall in your town. You will now be selling Food and Leather,
and will start to make some money to offset all your operating costs.
Acid suggests selling excess Food and buying some extra Tools at this stage:
"Either you do it passively via the warehouse or you look for a small flat
island where the Venetians dwell. As you're also in urgent need of tools, you
can put up a trading route with the Venetian island and your trading ship. 50t
food vs 50t tools gives an approximately plus/minus zero balance. If the
island isn't to be found, purchase the tools via your warehouse. Deactivate it
after one delivery, it's too expensive." The Venetian island does not exist in
the Citizen level endless game, or in campaign scenarios.
Keep on building houses as materials allow. Expect to build about 40 houses
around your central facilities district.
Two further goods need to be supplied before your Pioneers will upgrade to
Settlers: Alcohol and Cloth. Alcohol must initially be produced by planting
Potatoes around Small Farms. Three Small Farms should be *just* about
sufficient to get to (but not sustain) 360 Settlers, at which point more
efficient Hop production can be used. Alcohol is sold from a Tavern, which is
placed in the central facilities district. Cloth must initially be produced
from Sheep Farms and Weaving Huts. Use a ratio of 2 Sheep Farms to 1 Weaving
Hut (commonly known as a "combine"). Each Sheep/Weaver combine will cater for
almost 300 people, so one combine is all that is needed to start with.
Once Alcohol and Cloth are being sold, and you have a moderately large number
of houses, you should find yourself in a financially stable position. Don't
expect to make much money from Pioneers - hopefully you still have enough of
your startup capital to move straight on to Settlers. Build a Chapel in the
central facilities district, make construction materials available (if you
shut them off to start with), and your people will develop to Settlers.
Although Pioneers can be sold Salt, they don't need it to upgrade to Settlers.
Mining Salt early in the game is not recommended, because the operating costs
of a Salt Mine and Works exceed the profit from selling Salt in small
quantities - one Salt Mine and Works provides for about 3000 people, and is
not a profitable venture when selling to 100-200. The Pros and Cons of Salt
mining are discussed in detail later - there are exceptions to this rule for
experienced players.
As Settler houses start to develop, you will start to need more production
facilities to cater for the increased population. If Tools were not running
short beforehand, they will be now, since each Settler upgrade uses Tools.
Additionally, new facilities rapidly become available. This creates a
situation where it is easy to over-spend, or run out of something critical
just at the wrong moment, and the whole colony goes horribly wrong... Don't be
afraid to turn off the supply of construction materials to your colonists, so
only some upgrade to Settlers. This tactic is also useful when trying to build
new facilities with volumes of limited materials.
Early priorities for entirely new buildings, should be a Quarry and
Stonemason, to provide Bricks. These are normally followed by an Ore Mine, Ore
Smelter and Smithy (Toolmaker) to create Tools - these become available with
80 Settlers. One Ore Smelter will produce a lot of excess Iron - sometimes
this excess can be traded, later you may wish to build a second Smithy. Once
360 Settlers are achieved, build a pair of Hop Farms and a Brewery. Once
production of Alcohol has started from the Hops, destroy all the Small Farms.
A School should also be built (again in the centre of the town) and research
started into Wells, and then the Fire Brigade. Once this research is complete,
build a Fire Brigade to deal with the house fires that will inevitably start.
Also consider researching the Weaving Mill, which will almost double the
output of Cloth compared with a Weaver's Hut, although you will need to build
an extra Sheep Farm (ratio of 3 Sheep Farms to 1 Weaving Mill).
Hakea writes: "It's not essential to always build exact numbers of farms,
mills, etc in precise ratios to each 100 people - and in fact they rarely ever
match perfectly. Just keep a regular watch on your stock levels and make sure
that you are neither grossly overproducing (which will waste money when the
chain jams up due to lack of storage) nor running too lean (which will cause
your settlement to wither). Also check that each field and building is
producing as close to 100% efficiency as you can manage." Watch how your city
develops, including those small details that could cause problems if left
unchecked. From Acid: "If people are queuing at the stands, build some more of
them."
Once your population have reached Settler level, you should once again be in a
financially stable position. Do not start working towards Citizens while you
are hemorrhaging cash: Unless the startup capital was very generous, you will
go bankrupt before completing a Citizen level city.
In order to develop your people to Citizen status, you will need to supply
them with either Spice or Tobacco. These will almost certainly require a new
production colony on a different island. This entails using your ship (and
Scout if you also wish to be sure of revealing minerals and natives) to
explore new islands. Once you have chosen an island, load up with construction
materials and sail to the island. Build a Warehouse, and a several plantations
(Tobacco will also require Tobacco factories - approximately in the ratio of 2
plantations to 1 factory). Don't add any houses to this new island - use it
for production only. Set up a trade route with your ship to bring the new
goods back to your main colony, and add a Tobacco and Spice stand to the
centre of town.
An alternative strategy is to supply both Tobacco and Spice, primarily as a
means of generating extra revenue prior to developing Citizens. Once you start
supplying a good from another island, you will find it hard to expand further
without another ship, because your first ship is kept busy moving cargo.
Further ships require shipyards, Hemp/Rope production, and cost upkeep, so
there are good reasons to delay building additional vessels. By setting up two
different production colonies (Spice and Tobacco), one can delay supplying
goods until both supply islands are built. There are two disadvantages: (1)
whilst you are building on these supply islands and not selling any of the
produce, you will slowly be going bankrupt; and (2) due to a quirk in the
automatic trade route system, transporting two different goods at the same
time needs to be done with great care - see Why does my automatic trade route
fail when I transport more than one item? above.
The last facility to be added should be a Church. The Church can be in the
centre of the town, instead of the Chapel. However, once the main Church is
built each Chapel on the island is upgraded to a Church (albeit a smaller
one). Consequently, it may be more space efficient to build the Church at the
edge of your town, and retain the upgraded Chapel. The disadvantage is the
increased operating cost - it is a trade off between higher cost and being
able to get more houses clustered around a (slightly smaller) central
facilities district.
Before making the jump to Citizen level, ensure you have adequate supplies of
things like Food. You will also need a lot of Bricks, so consider a second
Stonemason (two can work in the same Quarry). Lastly, note that Citizens do
not buy Leather, so those Hunting Lodges and Tanneries will start fill up with
unwanted goods. Remember though that the Hunting Lodges may be providing a
significant proportion of your Food supply - don't delete them without
considering this fully.
Moving to Citizen level requires a fine balance to be struck between building
up the facilities you will need to support a Citizen population, and not being
entirely able to finance them with a population of Settlers. You may need to
restrict the supply of construction materials, if not ACid|88 comments: "Your
Citizens count will go high too fast -> Food empty -> Panic -> build new farms
-> no money."
5.2 Colony Planning and Building
______________________________________________________________________________
5.2.1 Island Choice
From Jini: "In my opinion the best island is a northern one with salt, ore and
the ability to grow hops. With such an island one can satisfy all needs of
Settlers without having to build colonies on other islands." Samstein12345
adds: "The [Northern] island is good because it supplies everything to get you
to the 3rd level. Once you need tobacco and spices you should have a good
enough economy to either make an automatic trading route to import it from
another civilization or make a settlement on an island that grows that stuff
on it and then make an automatic trading route to your island."
From largefry07: "I like an island where you can grow medicinal herbs, hemp,
and wine, with an island or a another city close by to supply tobacco and
spice. Set up a colony of your own for tobacco and spice, with just those
farms on them. Have a middle class ship and set up trade routes to go from
spice island to tobacco island and then have it drop off the goods at your
main city."
Gunter writes: "It will surely be easier if you got iron ore on your first
island - but it's also possible to mine it on another one."
Acid's method of extending territory, whilst minimising upkeep costs of
markets: "Build a market to expand your area - build a second one at its best
location - demolish the first one." BaldJim comments: "Yes some market
buildings can be deleted without losing anything. The key is that the service
area of other, remaining market buildings must overlap a bit so the total
service area of the city is not disrupted (broken into separate areas). So if
you have a long string of market buildings built just to reach an ore supply
(for example), about every other one can be 'pick-axed'. But to eliminate
market buildings just to eliminate them may place a burden on the cartmen
which will slow your production." From rnettnin: "I've deleted markets in the
middle of the chain and had no problems. The only thing is, is that at 250
coins a piece, it can be an expensive move early on." Some will prefer to
retain as many Main Markets as possible, to increase the number of carts on
the island.
From Jarrah: "What you can do is extend the effective area of your colony by
building a chain of markets through the middle of it. Then, once you get near
the coast you can put another warehouse on the shore. Or using that menu you
could have 2 warehouses close to each other 'back home' for that matter. Also,
the way the game works, everything you put into one market is immediately
available in all others across that island. Some people apparently do this and
then delete all the markets in the middle to save the running cost."
Thunder_cowz adds: "Also you can use a scout to build a market building near
the deposit and the construct a warehouse near somewhere else."
Balou writes: "As long as there's no multiplayer (i.e. human players) there's
really no need to build a 'secure' harbor. Actually it's rather a bad idea to
build your warehouses in bays and such enclosed spaces, since it handicaps
your trading (ships will turn around without unloading more often if they
can't reach your warehouse well enough - or if it gets too crowded). And since
you can build multiple warehouses in 1503 there's really no point in
'protecting' just one of them with a secluded location. I would not recommend
building just one warehouse, there are just too many advantages of having
multiple warehouses, at least on each coast of your main island to shorten
your ships routes."
BaldJim has a method of claiming territory early against expansionist AI
players: "I thought of the Scout's ability to build an inland Market. Here's
what I came up with (for a single outpost island): (1) Load your ship with 8
tools and 19 wood, and sail to a fertile outpost island. (2) Unload your Scout
and load him with 8 tools and 10 wood. (3) Direct him inland to a point near
the center of a good growing area. Click on the 'Build Market' icon in his
Info screen. (4) Move the 'to build' figure so it both covers a good growing
area and also overlaps a small piece of the coast where you can build a
Warehouse later. Then click it. (5) Unload the 5 tools and 3 wood that the
scout still has into the Market, and send him back to the coast near the ship.
(6) Load the remaining 9 wood on the Scout and send him back to the Market to
unload it there. You now have the material stored there to build the future
Warehouse. (7) Send the Scout back to load on the ship, and sail back to your
main island. You have laid claim to a useful piece of land at only the cost of
one building plus some material. The building cost less than the usual
warehouse and the area covered reaches farther inland. The maintenance is only
10 gold. Whenever you are ready to develop the outpost, simply load your ship
with building material and sail out. While the ship is getting there, you can
build the warehouse so it is ready for the ship to use."
Most city designs are based on grouping the buildings required by population
into a tight space, and placing houses in a circle around them. Sometimes this
is done quasi-randomly, sometimes it uses strict modular city designs. Such an
approach is well suited to small to medium sized cities. It becomes
increasingly less important when building very large cities, in which
facilities can just be evenly distributed across the city. The underlying
problem with any city design is that the clusters of facilities and houses are
inherently spherical in nature, and so whatever pattern is devised there will
either be gaps in housing or overlaps of facilities. The optimum city may
transpire to have production facilities in these gaps.
Production facilities and similar buildings that do not need to be within the
service area of housing, should normally be placed away from residential
areas, to maximise the number of houses that can be built close to population
related facilities.
Road-less cities are possible, as Visualize.Raven comments: "Houses have
streets, so you don't need to build roads near them." The catch with entirely
road-less cities is that those internal streets are often not wide enough for
large volumes of people to move along with ease. At higher levels of
civilization development, a total lack of roads may cause housing on the
fringe of the city to not be able to access facilities, even though those
facilities are notionally within their service area. Since placing roads tends
to reduce the number of houses, there is a fine balance to be struck between
roads and buildings.
Ravell writes: "I never cram my town from the beginning, when you settle an
island there's heaps of room and no need to jam them in most cost effectively.
Maybe that makes sense in the beginning, when the houses are still small, but
once they upgrade and there's no room around for the quadruple amounts of
people and everyone feels tightened to move around and its hard to get access
to the sales stands its not fun anymore and some of them might leave oldtown
and pack their mules and move on to new lands and discover and build another
suburb with more space and less financial pressure."
From Jarrah: "I tried putting 70 houses round one 'service centre' of stalls,
tavern, church, Fire brigade, etc and it supported them fine at Pioneer level.
But it started to struggle as the population per house increased. I've found
50 houses work OK all the way to Merchant level (with 2000+ people by then)
but they might be able to find the goods more quickly later in the game if
less houses were being serviced. I also tend to leave 'access space' for
customers around each stall, rather than building tight rows, but I don't
honestly know if this is just a personal 'cosmetic' preference, or whether it
does allow them to serve more per minute."
Budgie writes: "One stand of each will be enough to support a city with
approximately 50 houses. Just put them into the center with the public
buildings like tavern, school, etc. Keep some clear space around your market
stands. Otherwise, you might get trouble when all people are rushing to the
stands and some can't get access." Hakea comments: "I put the stalls bang in
the middle for easy reach - plus I like the civic look of it. And I can find
them easily if I want to click on one to see how its stock is." Later in the
game I'm often tempted to add further stands when I see long queues forming
for goods. In return for minimal extra upkeep, my goods get sold slightly
faster, and my people spend less time waiting to purchase, so seem slightly
happier.
From Nacht: "In the case for a chapel for example I believe that the door
should be in the houses service area, not just any part. The only way to be
sure about what sides of the building actually counts is to test it in the
game I'm afraid." Jini: "At the edge of a house's service area, everything can
happen: Sometimes the inhabitants can reach a public building although it's
curtly outside the house's service area. Sometimes they can't reach that
public building, although it's curtly inside the house's service area."
Hakea has some tips on laying out and developing planned cities: "Make sure
you have some basic needs organised first. If you don't, and you spend too
long messing about with house placement and road layout, the houses can
collapse before you get round to servicing the occupants. Monitor your
production chains regularly. Always keep a rough eye on the basics. The
increases in demand always looks more sudden and huge if you have accidentally
run low. Above all, don't rush it. Give your production chains a chance to
stabilise so that you can get a feel for how much of each item is needed for a
given number of people." Acid notes that, "the computer opponents will adapt
their progress more or less to yours." In most situations there is no need to
rush.
Below is Hakea's modular city plan. I have attempted to show colony plans
using ASCII 'art'. Each letter represents one square, even though a single
building may cover multiple squares. I've tried to add lines to show the
boundary between buildings. Hopefully these plans will make more sense when
you try and re-produce them than they do on the screen.
...r _ _ _
Additional houses can be placed around the edges, ...r|M M M M|
or additional modules can be built. ...r|M M M M|
...r|M_M_M_M|
...r_r r r_r_r_r r_r_r_r r_r_r_r r r_r_r_r r_r_r_r r_r_r_r r r_r...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_..
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H H H H|r r_r_r_r r r r r r r r_r_r_r_r r|H H H H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H H H H|r|C C C C|r|S|r|S|r r|B B B B B|r|H H H H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H H H H|r|C C C C|r r r r r r|B B B B B|r|H H H H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|r|C_C_C_C|r|S|r|S|r|S|B B B B B|r|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H H H H|r|T T T T|r|F F F|r r|B B B B B|r|H H H H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H H H H|r|T T T T|r|F F F|r r|B B B B B|r|H H H H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H H H H|r|T_T_T_T|r|F_F_F|r r|B_B_B_B_B|r|H H H H|r|H_H_..
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|r_r_r_r r_r_r_r_r r_r_r_r r_r_r_r|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_..
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|D D D D|r|L L L L|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|D D D D|r|L L L L|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|D D D D|r|L L L L|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|D_D_D_D|r|L_L_L_L|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_..
...H H|r _ _ _ |H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r...
...H H|r|M M M M|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r...
...H H|r|M M M M|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r...
.._H_H|r|M_M_M_M|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r...
...r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r...
Square Key:
* B = Public Baths * L = School
* C = Chapel (Church) * M = Main Market
* D = Doctor * r = Road or Square
* F = Fire Brigade * S = Stand/Stall
* H = House * T = Tavern
Hakea writes: "The maximum spacing of markets is a grid of 25x26 spaces. The
module holds 25 houses, plus all the local support you need up to merchant
level. The chapel will function as a church later in the game so long as you
build ONE church (which can be anywhere on the outskirts and doesn't need to
be within the local radius). Similarly just build one University somewhere
else. The market at the left of the picture is not yet necessary here, but has
been included just to give the feel for the spacing of the grids."
The plan below is attributed to Nerle and diogenes. The city centre is
surrounded by nine 12x12 blocks of housing. The entire plan needs to be
repeated around each side before all those blocks can be filled. Here is the
city centre part. Again, Chapels and Schools are placed in the residential
area, and a large Church and University placed elsewhere on the same island:
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_..
.._r_r r r r r r r r r_r_r_r_r_r r r_r_..
...H H|r r r r r r r|B B B B B B|r|H H...
...H H|r|S|S|r|S|S|r|B B B B B B|r|H H...
...H H|r r_r_r r r r|B B B B B B|r|H H...
.._H_H|r|C C C|r|S|r|B B B B B B|r|H_H_..
...H H|r|C C C|r r r|B_B_B B_B_B|r|H H...
...H H|r|C C C|r r|M M M M|F F F|r|H H...
...H H|r|C_C_C|r r|M M M M|F F F|r|H H...
.._H_H|r r_r_r_r r|M_M_M_M|F_F_F|r|H_H_..
...H H|r|L L L L|r_r_r_r|D D D D|r|H H...
...H H|r|L L L L|T T T T|D D D D|r|H H...
...H H|r|L L L L|T T T T|D D D D|r|H H...
.._H_H|r|L_L_L_L|T_T_T_T|D_D_D_D|r|H_H_..
.._r_r r r_r_r_r_r_r_r_r_r_r_r_r r r_r_..
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H...
Square Key:
* B = Public Baths * L = School
* C = Chapel (Church) * M = Main Market
* D = Doctor * r = Road or Square
* F = Fire Brigade * S = Stand/Stall
* H = House (part) * T = Tavern
The next city centre design is by LadyH. Again, houses are clustered around
the edges, and the University and Church are placed elsewhere, with the School
and Chapel being left to upgrade:
.. _ _ _ _ _ r|H H...
..|B B B B B B|r|H_H_H H|._..
..|B B B B B B|r _ _ |H H...
..|B B B B B B|r|F F F| |H H...
..|B B B B B B|r|F F F| |H H...
..|B_B_B_B_B_B|r|F_F_F| |H_H_..
.._r_r r r_r_r_r r_r_r_r r r_r_r_r r_r_..
...H H|r|H H H H|T T T T|r|C C C C|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|T T T T|r|C C C C|H H...
...H H|r|H H H H|T_T_T_T|r|C_C_C_C|H H...
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|r r_r_r r r_r_r_r|H_H_..
...H H|r r r r r r|M M M|r|L L L L|H H...
...H H|r r|S|r|S|r|M M M|r|L L L L|H H...
...H H|r r r r|S|r|M M M|r|L L L L|H H...
.._H_H|r r|S|r|S|r|M_M_M|r|L_L_L_L|H_H_..
...r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r...
Square Key:
* B = Public Baths * L = School
* C = Chapel (Church) * M = Main Market
* D = Doctor * r = Road or Square
* F = Fire Brigade * S = Stand/Stall
* H = House * T = Tavern
The plan below is by Curley. Only the central area is shown. This is
surrounded by housing. Main Markets are places around the edges. As with
others, the large Church and University are placed elsewhere on the island,
with Chapels and Schools upgraded. The plan omits Main Markets from the
centre. Curley notes: "I try and center the town between 4 of those buildings
to leave as much room as I possibly can for houses. Invariably the Tavern is
within a couple houses of a Main Market building":
..r r_r_r_r_r_r r_r_r_r r..
..r|B B B B B B|T T T T|r..
..r|B B B B B B|T T T T|r..
..r|B B B B B B|T_T_T_T|r..
..r|B B B B B B|C C C C|r..
..r|B_B_B_B_B_B|C C C C|r..
.|F F F|D D D D|C_C_C_C|r..
.|F F F|D D D D|L L L L|r..
.|F_F_F|D D D D|L L L L|r..
..r r r|D_D_D_D|L L L L|r..
..r r|S|S|S|S|S|L_L_L_L|r..
..r r r r r r r r r r r r..
Square Key:
* B = Public Baths * L = School
* C = Chapel (Church) * M = Main Market
* D = Doctor * r = Road or Square
* F = Fire Brigade * S = Stand/Stall
* T = Tavern
The final plan is by Hewolf. The positionning of houses is slightly more
freeform than other plans because the central area does not fit perfectly
within a 4x4 grid:
..r r_r_r_r_r r r r r r_r_r_r r..
..r|B B B B B|r|S|r|S|D D D D|r..
..r|B B B B B|r|S|r|S|D D D D|r..
..r|B B B B B|L L L L|D D D D|r..
..r|B B B B B|L L L L|D_D_D_D|r..
..r|B B B B B|L L L L|C C C C|r..
..r|B_B_B_B_B|L_L_L_L|C C C C|r..
..r|M M M M|F F F|r|S|C_C_C_C|r..
..r|M M M M|F F F|r|S|T T T T|r..
..r|M_M_M_M|F_F_F|r|S|T T T T|r..
..r r r r r r r r r r|T_T_T_T|r..
..r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r..
Square Key:
* B = Public Baths * L = School
* C = Chapel (Church) * M = Main Market
* D = Doctor * r = Road or Square
* F = Fire Brigade * S = Stand/Stall
* T = Tavern
From LadyH: "You need Aristocrats... when you want to see the great video
about the chateau... when you want to build a beautiful chateau... when you
want to see the great video about the cathedral... when you want to build the
beautiful cathedral... when you like to build up great cities. You don't need
them; as well as you don't need to play the game. In my humble opinion, it's a
nice experience because of different requirements. Merchants are much better
when you want to have much much much gold in your pocket."
Gunter writes: "There's no real necessity in the game for this upgrade, it's
just for fun - and you can get the cathedral and the palace. ... I guess also
that you get more money from aristocrats because the goods which they buy are
more expensive. But you should rather stick to merchants if you want more
inhabitants, for example in the 'Metropolis' mission." Aristocrat houses
contain fewer people than Merchant houses. Jini adds: "You only *need*
Aristocrats if you want to build a castle or a cathedral. For every other
purpose, Merchants are more suitable." Jarrah writes: "In 1503 (as in life)
aristocrats are somewhat unnecessary baggage. But they offer a bit of a
challenge later in the game, due to their finicky nature, and the requirement
to set up some new production chains (nobody else buys most of what they want
either)." Ravell comments: "Don't give up on the aristocrats, they bring in
good money and the collapsing happened only in 3-5 houses out of 70, all
others are happy and making me rich." Dobber adds: "You do not make less money
[with Aristrocrats], because you have not as high operating costs. You can
delete all production lines not required by Aristocrats, this is a tremendous
savings on operating expenses. You also do not need as many ships for
transporting goods, so you save operating expenses there. And the Aristocrats
pay big for wine and jewelry."
From Jini: "(1) They don't need wine and jewelry, these are optional goods.
(2) A 'park' actually only has to contain a Pavilion. Hedges are optional as
well. (3) Aristocrats are lazy bastards. If they have to walk to far in order
to satisfy their needs, they literally die during the walk. (4) There is a bug
or at least strange behaviour in the Aristocrat's 'path finding routine'.
Example: Lets assume there is Pavilion and a theatre south of an Aristocrat
house and another Pavilion north of the house. One would expect the
Aristocrats from that house are walking southwards, visit the theatre, the
Pavilion aside and then go back home. Funnily enough, they sometimes first
visit the theatre in the south and then the Pavilion in the north. This makes
their way much longer. Together with all the other public buildings, it can
happen that an Aristocrat is endlessly walking around and then starves. (5) On
should therefore carefully watch the paths along the Aristocrats are walking.
Paradoxically it can sometimes help to tear down duplicate public buildings or
to block a certain street. (6) Aristocrat houses collapsing is a know problem
which lots of people are facing."
From Dobber: "You can fill your town with 'Aristo's only' and get rid of all
production chains except food and cloth. The only production chains you have
to add are fur and of course the tailor to convert cloth and fur to clothing.
The wine and jewelry are nice things that they gladly spend their money on but
you don't have to worry when those stocks run low. They do require a theatre
and a pavilion to be happy. Just make sure you have done all your research at
the university before going all Aristo for they do not go to school. They also
quit going to the tavern. The only public buildings needed are: Theatre, Bath,
Pavilion, Church (upgraded chapel takes up less room), Doctor and the
necessary market stalls for the particular good they are buying. Also the
excess goods that are no longer needed, spice, tobacco, lamp oil, silk and
alcohol can be placed in the sell goods menu at the warehouse and the
Venetians will eventually buy them all."
Gunter's city planning suggestions for Aristocrats: "1 or 2 principles which
I'm always observing: provided that there's enough building material, I start
with building a 'center' consisting of a market, the stalls (food, clothes,
wine, jewels) and the public buildings (church, public bath, theatre,
pavilion, I add also a doctor since I saw that they are also attacked by the
plague). Then I draw some streets and look where the houses fit in. Coming to
the edge of the area covered by the market, I start to watch if every new
house can well reach the center and all its facilities, otherwise I add what's
lacking (the pavilion is often the first one)."
Zomby Woof: "Basically my entire city is divided in rectangles, size 49 X 35
fields. The houses are built at the edge in 3x2 blocks, every block surrounded
by streets. The center is for church, tavern etc [Tavern isn't strictly needed
for Aristocrats]. This quarter contains 48 houses (1440 aristocrats) and
usually I need only one theatre and one bathing house for that, but maybe two
churches and pavilions. Market stands are at each side of the rectangle
(inside)."
Svar writes: "I built an aristocrat housing block with 990 residents and let
the economy stabilize so I could record the lowest cash flow value I saw in
about a 5 minute period. The value was 1254 gold. Next I added 2 jewelry
combines (2 gold mines, 2 gem mines, 2 goldsmiths, 2 jewelry stalls, and 1
large transport to collect raw materials) and again let the enonomy stabilize
before recording the lowest cash value in about a 5 minute period. What a
shock it was to see that I was now making 1215 gold. I turned off the jewelry
combines and expanded the aristrocrat population to 1350 which should be just
over the 2 times capacity of the combines maximum of 1334. It took some time
for the aristrocrat housing to indicate that I had met zero damand for jewelry
before I could resume the test. When I did the cash flow value had risen to
1757 without the cost of the idle gold combines. Next I restarted the 2
jewelry combines and was pleased to see the initial jump in cash flow. When
everything finally stabilized the new figure for the added jewelry sales was a
cash flow of 1966. This was only about 200 gold higher than without jewelry
sales so once the initial demand is satisfied jewelry sales don't contribute
that much to the bottom line. By the way, jewelry sells for 195 gold at this
level so the boost is greater at the lower difficulty levels. Also There was a
real advantage to adding the aristrocrats since the city already 2350
merchants and they were generating about 800 gold per minute alone. So adding
1350 aristrocrats more than doubled the cash flow and the housing block was
eventually increased to 1440 aristrocrats. My new strategy is to never over
produce jewelry again when building aristrocrats housing."
Svar continues: "I have noticed in the past that once I get large numbers of
aristrocrats that the increase in cash flow isn't proportional to the increase
in population. I now think that I overproduced jewelry. The maintaince cost
for 1 jewelry combine is 170 gold so it is easy to overproduce and lose the
small profit margin that you get at this level."
The diagram below shows a suggested Aristocrat city layout by slik. The
service area of the Pavilion has been filled with gardens and squares, which
is not required. It may therefore be possible to optimise this further. The
core of the design is shown, which is surrounded by housing - a total of 54
houses can be serviced:
.. H H|r|H H H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H ..
.._H_H|r|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_H_H|H_H_H_H|r|H_H_..
.._r_r r r_r_r_r_r r r r r r r r r r r_r_..
.. H H|r|B B B B B| p p p r|H H ..
.. H H|r|B B B B B| p p p p p p p r|H H ..
.. H H|r|B B B B B| p p p_p_p p p r|H H ..
.._H_H|r|B B B B B|p p p|P P P|p p p|H_H_..
.. H H|r|B B B B B|p p p|P P P|p p p|H H ..
.. H H|r|B_B_B_B_B|p p p|P_P_P|p p p|H H ..
.. H H|r|M M M|F F F|p p p p p p p r|H H ..
.._H_H|r|M M M|F F F|p_p p p p p_p r|H_H_..
.. H H|r|M M M|F_F_F|S|S|p_p_p|S|S|r|H H ..
.. H H|r|M_M_M|C C C C|T T T T T T|r|H H ..
.. H H|r |C C C C|T T T T T T|r|H H ..
.._H_H|r_ _ _ |C_C_C_C|T T T T T T|r|H_H_..
.. H H|H H H H|D D D D|T T T T T T|r|H H ..
.. H H|H H H H|D D D D|T T T T T T|r|H H ..
.. H H|H H H H|D D D D|T T T T T T|r|H H ..
.._H_H|H_H_H_H|D_D_D_D|T_T_T_T_T_T|r|H_H_..
.._r_r r r_r_r_r_r_r_r_r r r_r_r_r r r_r_..
.. H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|r|H H ..
.. H H|r|H H H H|H H H H|r|H H H H|r|H H ..
Square Key:
* B = Public Baths * P = Pavilion
* C = Chapel (Church) * p = Pavilion service area
* D = Doctor * r = Road or Square
* F = Fire Brigade * S = Stand/Stall
* H = House (part) * T = Theatre
* M = Main Market
5.3 Industry Planning and Building
______________________________________________________________________________
5.3.1 General industry/farm design strategies
Detailed data on industry efficiency is given in the appendix Production
Efficiency, along with data on the number of people one industry is likely to
sustain. Industries are often grouped in 'combines'. A combine attempts to
match the output of material producers to the capability of processing
industry. In most cases this works by building two material producers for
every one processing industry. For example, one Butcher's Shop can service two
Cattle Farms efficiently. There are exceptions to this rule (for example Whale
Blubber and Stone, where two processing industries can efficiently work with
one material supplier), and there are many cases where the precise ratio can
be better balanced - particularly where there are more than a handful of the
same farm/industry required. The basic 2:1 combine ratio is a good
approximation in the majority of cases.
In most cases, you should plant crops in all the squares that make up a
farm/plantation's service area. Detailed data on field efficiency is given in
the appendix Production Efficiency. Zomby Woof notes: "A big exception is the
forester. I think he has 44 fields within his service area but he uses only
half of them, so you can build two foresters directly next to each other. I do
so and my foresters are working up to 100%, saves a lot of space."
Budgie writes: "It's always good to have a main market building next to your
farms or industries, because along with these buildings come market carts that
transport your materials." From vorosz: "I almost never connect my sheep farms
or cattle farms. I always connect my crop farms with roads to build a supply
of that good for when there is a drought. Since livestock don't seem to be
affected by droughts stocking up isn't necessary."
From Hakea: "I've tried overlapping [farms and production buildings] and it
works to quite a surprising degree. I tried squeezing Cattle Farms together,
for instance, and putting a Butcher right between them to see if it would be
more efficient. The little walkers certainly take less time, but I really
couldn't say whether that's eye candy or whether it does speed things up."
From vorosz: "I always overlap cattle and sheep as it never seems to affect
production. I almost never overlap my crops, I would rather a few crops laying
idle for when I run into a drought."
LadyH writes: "You can also set one well for two farms the service area of the
well only has to reach the farm to take affect like this:"
Bobbyrookie writes: "Here's what my computations have brought me to:
- 5 hunting lodges will feed a population of 1000. Total cost=$100.
- 12 fishing huts will feed a population of 1000. Total cost=$240.
- 3 butcher shop chains (2 cattle farms and 1 butcher shop per chain) will
feed a population of 1000. Total cost=$156.
- 2 bakery chains (4 grain fields, 2 mills, and one bakery per chain) will
feed a population of 1000, with much left over. Total cost=$174.
- 13 small farms will feed a population of 1000. Total cost: $260.
So based on my computations, hunting lodges are the most cost effective form
of food production. They are not, however, the most space-consumption
effective. They are the best way to feed your people only if you have a great
deal of land. I have chosen to utilize the bakery chains to feed my
population. Even though it is more expensive to feed 1000 people than butcher
chains are, it is actually cheaper to feed a population of 3000 (5 bakery
chains will feed 3000 people at a cost of $435. It takes 10 butcher shops to
feed a population of 3000, at a cost of $520). Bakery chains also take up less
space than hunting lodges."
Visualize.Raven comments: "Important is cost/unit and the producing speed.
Also you may be will be interested in building costs (resources because gold
it's not so important). When you have 300-400 inhabitants use hunters. After
than build 2 cattle farms and 1 butcher. Maybe later you will want to delete
your hunters. However you should keep your cattle farms when you use grain."
Bobbyrookie replies: "Once you get a colony up and running, the bottom line is
what feeds the most people for the least cost. If it costs $520 to run 10
butcher chains, and it only costs $435 to run 5 bakery chains, and both are
capable of feeding 3000 people, that pretty much tells you everything you need
to know. Even if the building costs are more for bakery chains than they are
for butcher chains, you easily make up the difference over time in the amount
you save in production costs. If I'm correct on the definition of production
speed being the amount of time it takes for an operation to reach 100%
production, then production speed is only relevant if your stock is low. At
first, utilize hunters, then progress to butcher shops (because like I said,
butcher shops feed a population of 1000 for less cost than bakeries do). But
once your colony is established, and you're able to work up a reserve of food,
I suggest transferring food production to bakery chains, unless you have
enough space for a dozen or so hunting lodges."
Jini writes: "Grain is much more efficient concerning production cost ($/food
unit) and ground (squares/food unit). I would therefore strongly recommend to
feed your inhabitants with grains. Secondly, grain is the only food production
which is really 'scalable'. Feeding 10,000 inhabitants with hunters or small
farms is almost impossible - with grain no problem. Last but not least,
'bread-plants' are simply looking much cooler than those crappy small farms. I
always build something like this:
g g g g g g g r P P P r g g g g g g g
g g g g g g g r P P P r g g g g g g g
g g F F F g g r P P P r g g F F F g g
g g F F F r r r P P P r r r F F F g g Square key:
g g F F F g g r P P P r g g F F F g g * g = Grain field
g g g g g g g r P P P r g g g g g g g * F = Grain farm
g g g g g g g r P P P r g g g g g g g * r = Road
g g g g g g g r P P P r . . . * P = Production building (Mill,
g g g g g g g r . . . Bakery, or Market)
g g F F F g g r . . .
Such a 'production-street' can be expanded with almost zero effort."
Jarrah notes: "Generally mono-cultures like all wheat farms are unwieldy due
to being prone to droughts and variations in soil fertility, depending on
where you are. Don't expect to get those figures always. They are also harder
to balance as your population isn't always neatly going to divide by 600 or
667 (the figures vary after Pioneer level)."
Wiles writes: "The only objection I would have for not using hunters for a
vast population is that it seems to vary how much food you get at different
times. For me, it seems that the AI forgets to repopulate the hunters area of
influence with new stock from time to time if you have a lot of other things
going, and it reduces the flow of food to the warehouses. I've watched as the
hunter goes out, walks around, and comes back empty handed a lot more often."
Jarrah comments: " Hunters can be overlapped with other enterprises like
Foresters and Farms, and definitely don't need a lot of space to themselves.
They will still run at 100% efficiency - but under any circumstances they seem
to be prone to occasional slumps in animal availability."
Hakea writes: "The Hunters seem to like a mixture of woods and open areas in
their territory and will overlap OK with Foresters (share some space)."
Hunters can work outside of your territory if their huts are placed on the
border. From Curley: "I put Foresters and Hunters in the same areas. They seem
to be able to overlap and get along well. Many times I blanket the entire area
with trees (no open spaces) and the animals seem to stay available for the
Hunters to harvest." From vorosz: "I usually have 6 or 8 foresters running in
a large clump. The resulting large forest produces a lot of game that I place
my hunters (3-4 staggered around) across the road from my forest, using up
more than half of his field of influence and rarely go below 100%. I also am
not to concerned about leaving the rest of it's field of influence completely
clear, as game always come to where the grass is to graze." Acid's conceptual
plan for integrating Hunters and Foresters is as follows:
Zomby Woof comments: "I never produce food with those [Small] farms. I prefer
to build a second hunter and later cattle and grain combines."
Jarrah writes: "In my experience each food maker has its advantage and
disadvantages and suits certain circumstances and play styles and not others.
I like to see a bit of variety (which I'm sure my population appreciates) but
it also seems a more flexible way to be able to respond to changing game
circumstances. I think that a 'mono-culture' approach not only looks rather
dull, but wastes some of the opportunities offered by other methods. I start
with Hunters and work my way up without often deleting to switch over
(although I do use Small Farms only for alcohol). I even sprinkle one or two
Fisherfolk in as I like the look of them and they use space nobody else uses
(ragged edges and ocean) so can be tucked in at any stage if you just want to
balance up without the expense of opening up new territory with a fresh
market. Hunters are good for that later in the game too, so don't forget your
original 'best mates'."
Additional numerical analysis of Food production by Stratgan is contained in
the Production Efficiency appendix.
From Hakea: "Here are some figures (from the official tables):
- Output from 1 salt works = 6 tons per minute.
- Number of Pioneers that 1 salt works will supply = 3000 (i.e. 500 per 1
ton).
- Cost of building salt mine and works = 10 tools, 20 wood and 1100 gold.
- Running costs of Mine + Works = 55 gold per minute.
- Selling price of salt at Stall = 30 - 38 gold per ton (which 500 pioneers
use in 1 minute).
So if you have only 500 Pioneers (and you quite possibly have even less) you
are losing at least 17 gold every minute. (Unless you make a few tons and then
shut the mine and works down.) You COULD make a profit, but only IF you could
sell all the salt you are making (which is unlikely - usually you'd just end
up knee deep in salt). If you also take into account the fact that you
probably also built a couple of extra Markets, just to reach the salt mine,
you are actually losing far more than that. And you don't even need to supply
salt to Pioneers at all. They will progress to Settler without it."
Jarrah comments: "After realising that Pioneers want Salt, but don't actually
need it, and it never seemed to make me money, I skipped it until I happened
to be building in that direction anyway - usually during the Settler stage."
Ravell writes: "Salt is essential for a worthy life and don't withhold it from
your people just because of economic reasons to make you richer."
Balou writes: "I always use 1 mine - 2 smelters - 4 toolmakers. You might need
additional ore this way (if it's a small mine), but the Venetians usually sell
lots of ore (if another player has a mine, that is). I would only add mines to
production islands if I have major tool problems... usually it's just mines on
my main island."
Fireball21 writes: "I would only put 2 masons to every quarry because on the
quarry they only have enough room for 2 people to chip stone." Dobber
comments: "Tis true only 2 will chip away at a time, but while those 2 are in
the shop forming bricks, 1 or 2 others can be chipping stone. Thus they take
turns at the quarry and not be in each others way. If there are 2 at the
quarry, the other(s) wait in their shop until there is room for them. After
the first wait they are synchronized."
Samstein12345 writes: "But if you don't have 360 Settlers, you could just use
potato farms to start. Then, once you have 360 Settlers, build hops and or
sugarcane." Budgie adds: "There are 2 [effective] ways to delirium: 2 hop
farms + 1 brewery, or, 2 sugarcane plantations + 1 distillery." Dobber writes:
"Hops and breweries are definitely the way to go, and if you give the hops
farm a road connection you can do 5 farms and 3 breweries and keep 3 breweries
busy. ... A road connection does not hurt the production at the brewery and
will allow for storage of raw materials against a drought."
Dobber comments: "I prefer cotton plantations once I have settled an island I
can plant cotton on. They take up less room for the same results. 2
plantations supply a weaving mill, it takes 3 sheep farms to supply a weaving
mill." Gunter writes: "Sheep farms can't be affected by droughts. That's why
recently I supplied my 2000 merchants completely with 2 production chains
based on sheep." BaldJim adds: "I have found that overlapping sheep farms is
very successful. It really cuts down on the amount of space needed. I have
even successfully overlapped sheep farms and cattle farms. I put the yellow
outline which shows during placement of new buildings just next to the already
existing building. Therefore there are four squares in distance between the
two farm buildings."
5.4 Colony Management and Research
______________________________________________________________________________
5.4.1 General strategies
Visualize.Raven writes: "In Anno 1503 you should build much more house as in
Anno 1602. Try to provide your settlers many expensive resources they demand."
Whitedog comments: "You don't really start making good money until you are
fully supplying Merchants (with everything). You're immediate goal should be
to get to that point as soon as possible."
A profit objective, from Hakea: "I have a sort of rough figure of '1 gold from
2 inhabitants' that I shoot for at a Citizen level of a game, but it depends a
huge amount on what the terrain is like and also what war goals you might
have."
King Bigcastle writes: "Tobacco is usually what you go for first, because your
people would rather have that than spices." From fireball21: "I put it
[Tobacco] first because it makes me more money." Ravell adds: "I always build
the tobacco farms as soon as possible, because I know from my own experience
how desperate my people are waiting for it %-) ." LadyH comments: "Everytime I
will produce Spice first, because: (a) needs less materials, (b) needs fewer
buildings, (c) faster to build, (d) cheaper to build up." From vorosz: "I
usually decide by how close the island is to my main island and how inviting
it looks by having apparently more fertile land that is unoccupied."
From johnw106: "Save your game often and especially before making any major
changes or advancing to the next level or declaring war."
From Spearthrower: "When houses upgrade you'll end up with more population
anyway and each resident will be buying more valuable goods... in turn letting
you improve your infrastructure and letting you have more population. So I
vote for upgrading and keeping your actual house numbers down to 40-50."
Jbmtneer writes: "It always seemed that I couldn't get the right amount of
food circulating, I always ended up with overstocked food and salt in some
cases. So here's what I did in the emperor endless game: I had 4 different
'subdivisions' to start out, with each subdivision having there own Food and
Salt stand. I built them far enough apart to keep it organized at the
beginning. I kept adding Hunters and houses. Then building a few tanneries and
slowly adding a cloth stand to sell my hides to each subdivision as long as
the stock stayed high. Then adding a tavern to 1 subdivision to reach the next
level to start making my own tools. I think you see where I went with this.
Keep each subdivision separate and build the stands as you have the stock. I
ended up at one point, making 2 additional subdivisions and it worked out
great for me."
Curley warns: "Remember that when you make a Civilization advance your
population can double. Best to have extra food in storage to handle them."
From Snakeroot: "Running out of food brings very nasty consequences... and it
takes time to get back a 'stable' economy. My strategy has been to fill the
warehouse with food... then add new house (20) and then watch all commodity
levels as those 20 houses mover to Merchant level."
Jarrah writes: "If you still want to stockpile stuff at 'home' for some reason
then build a spare merchant ship and use it for storage. It can sometimes also
be handy for stockpiling wood, bricks, etc ready for the big rush when your
population jumps to Settler, Citizen or whatever)."
From Visualize.Raven: "I recommend to make how quick you can well, fire
station and cloth." Hakea comments: "Quite a lot of the research topics are
war related, but there are some useful civil ones too, like the ones Raven
mentioned, plus bigger ships, a Doctor, etc. The cloth one he talked of allows
you to build Mills to replace Weaver's Huts. These can use the output from 3
sheep farms (2 farms to 1 for Huts) and make woolen cloth for about 20 gold
per unit instead of 24. They also make it faster. 1 mill can churn out 3 units
of cloth a minute, whereas you'd need at 4 fields and 2 huts to produce
slightly less than 3. But it's not that big a deal, as you're probably selling
it at your Stalls for about 80. It's just a better option to allow a bit of
fine tuning as your settlement develops."
Once you have completed any research requiring a Library, destroy it to save
upkeep. Your librarians will hate you ;-) , but you do not need to retain it
once the research has been completed.
5.5 Trade and Diplomacy
______________________________________________________________________________
5.5.1 Mechanics of trade
From Zomby Woof: "Selling something is a question of demand, if nobody demands
tools you won't sell any."
Ravell writes: "The AI never builds any aristocrats so there's no need for
jewelry. In fact the AI never builds a goldmine or gem mine on his own
islands."
LadyH notes: "When you offer all interesting things for sale, first the
Venetians will come and buy it. Later the AI will realize, that it's cheaper
to buy directly."
Balou writes: "I wouldn't recommend trading with other computer players via
auto-routes. Their selling and buying preferences are just changing too often
to be reliable. What I usually do: Once in a while, I check each of the
computer players warehouses, load up my biggest trading ship (I always try to
have/keep one ship for this purpose exclusively) with the (then) needed goods
and finally set sail to that location. Hopefully their buying setting didn't
change in the meanwhile and I'll be able to sell all - or at least most - of
my stuff to them. ... You can have the Venetians do the shipping for you. Sell
your product on one of your production islands, and buy them on your main
island, but this tactics has some drawbacks. First, it's not very reliable, so
I'd never count on it - but it might be a good way to support your own trading
routes. Second, it's expensive, because in order to interest the Venetians in
doing all the traveling, you need to sell at a low price and buy at a high
price, loosing money (even if your buying price is below the price you're
selling it to your people at your sales stands - you're still making less
money)."
From Gunter: "In the beginning I started with my habits of 1602 AD and made my
ships take goods at various islands close to each other. But I quickly saw
that the distances are much more longer here, and now I actually dedicate one
ship to one island. No problem, I guess, to let it take 2 products there...
Later on, when you need a more frequent supply you should send over a second
and even a third ship to the island, - but with a different time schedule:
while the first ship starts at the supply island with goods to be delivered,
the second should have just delivered his cargo and should be ready to return
there, and so on."
From mwe1967: "I sent a ship to each computer warehouse and made a trade route
with 2 stops, both at the computer warehouse to buy as much alcohol, tobacco
and spice he was selling. So now the ship is in an endless loop and sits at
the computer dock trying to buy stuff and as soon as he puts it up for sale I
buy it. Leave the ship there for 30 minutes or an hour and when you come back
he's full of goods. Of course then you have to manually sail him back to
unload and then just reactivate the trade route and he goes back to buy more."
KingBob's suggestion: "Build boats... and sell them. It seems that opponents
(but not pirates and Venetians) buy them very quickly even if they don't use
them (they are often waiting in their seaports). Maybe the costs of producing
resources seems to be high but when you sell a few ships your money increases
rapidly." Rayyvin comments: "In my case, the opponents bought 2 ships and then
no more." Free Trader writes: "One trick I found is to make medium trade ships
and sell them to the computer players. It costs 2500 gold coins, 25 wood, 10
cloth, and 7 ropes to make one, and the computer players (in my game at least)
bought every ship I made for EXACTLY 4032 dollars."
Sir Jim writes: "I decided to sell the small trading vessel I had left. I
clicked on the ship, went to sell ship and lowered the price to 2500, the
computer player then bought it from me but because I was still on the sell
ship section I could change the price of the ship even though it wasn't mine.
I lowered the price of the ship down to 1 gold coin and was then able to buy
it back for 1 gold coin. Made a profit of 2499 gold coins. ... I wouldn't
really call my ship trick a cheat, more taking advantage of the AI players."
From Renaud: "I had a big merchant stuck _inside_ a warehouse (no kidding).
You could barely make out the edges of the ship, it was pretty funny. Slide
the price bar low enough and it will sell. If it's stuck, the poor computer
player who buys it from you will sink it immediately."
Jarrah writes: "Selling on your own Stalls seems to get the best price, and
it's predictable and doesn't involve the cost of ships etc."
From Ravell: "When I start a game I try to get independent from the Venetians
as soon as possible, the other AI's aren't much of a trading partner in the
beginnings, I don't want to sail half around the world for 3 or 4 tons of some
goods. But once I'm settled well and have a steady income in my own
population, trade is becoming a good way to meet your neighbors and get a
little salt or spice and sell some tobacco or silk, not much though but it
increases the diplomatic bar with each visit. I don't think trade can make you
rich in 1503. Trade has become a very good way to visit my neighbors, have a
tea and a handshake and go back to our ships again."
Dobber comments: "I'll take anybody's money, and I don't sell anything that
contributes to the war effort, and I set my prices high. Everything they spend
to help keep their economy flourishing means there is that much less for them
to spend on the war."
Monopolies, from Jini: "The only way to make reliable profits with the
Venetians, is to have a monopoly on a good which everybody needs. If you have
occupied all tobacco islands for example, you can make quite a lot of money by
selling tobacco."
Bobbyrookie continues: "Ever since I was able to corner the tobacco market,
trade has made me extremely wealthy. I literally own all of the tobacco
growing islands now. That means the two remaining computer opponents have to
go through me for tobacco. The Venetians never produce enough of anything to
satisfy a population of over 1000 people. I am only friendly with one of my
computer civilizations right now. Their tobacco demand is constant. So I've
set up a constant trade route from one of my tobacco islands to theirs. My
periodic balance now goes between 4,000 and 8,000 in the positive. My
operational balance (total revenue minus total expenses, not including trade)
is only about +800. That means that most of my surplus comes from trade. So
trade has definitely made me rich. It only makes you rich, however, if you
have a trading partner who has a constant demand for a product."
Jini writes: "Making the AI your friend can become very difficult. Try this:
(1) Trade with the AI player as much as possible. (2) Never sail close to his
islands with armed ships. The AI is rating this as an act of aggressiveness.
(3) Be an ass-kisser. There is a chat option in the diplomacy menu which also
contains a 'bootlick-option'. It may be schizophrenic to talk with an AI
player, but it could help. However, AI players are often capricious and you
maybe don't get a military treaty even if you are trying everything. It might
also depend on the player's character profile which can chosen before starting
an endless game." Vorosz adds: "The 'boot licker' does have effect on AI. I
have started a game with aggressive AI. Initially they would not sign a trade
agreement. I then used the boot licker, and my offer of trade agreement was
signed."
A cautionary tale from largefry07: "My ships were passing through another guys
water and he declared war on me. I will quick offer a peace treaty and paid
the tribute. He signed it to and we were at peace. But I did notice that my
ships still weren't out of his waters and he declared war on me again. I
offered another peace treaty and he didn't take it."
Ravell writes: "You can sign alliance with the AI, but only when the green bar
is up high after lots of trading. It worked 2 times for me so far, but not
always." Balou notes: "If you have a military alliance you can see all his
islands - even those you haven't traveled yourself yet... great advantage. ...
Also, once in a millitary alliance, you can sail your armed ships through your
ally's territory without war being declared right away." From rnettnin: "I had
an alliance once, but it didn't last very long because I went to war with
someone else and the other AI cancelled the alliance right away. I guess it
decided I was too warlike for his taste."
Largefry07 writes: "The AI player always has at least a small standing army of
some kind. But when you start building up arms so will he. If you don't build
up an army he won't except for the small standing army that he has." Dobber
adds: "Different AI players react differently: some are very much the
pacifists and are very easy to defeat, and others a little more difficult.
When you start the endless game, while selecting your banners color you can
take a look at the personality of each of the computer opponents and then know
somewhat what to expect from each." On settling the same island as AI players,
Wilfried Reiter writes: "Whether an opponent gets upset or not depends on the
AI's character. Some of these comrades are friendly and have nothing against
it."
5.6 Pirates and Natives
______________________________________________________________________________
5.6.1 Pirates
BaldJim writes: "I am surprised to find the Pirates to be a supplier of cheap
goods - especially tools. Find their home base, and sail up with no ships
cannon and the white flag flying. You will see what they have for sale - no
doubt stolen from some poor sucker, maybe even you. One case, I came up to pay
my protection money and their base showed zero population and would take no
money or assignments, but there were still goods for sale. The food seemed to
come out of a never empty supply. I noticed the AI ships visiting all the
time; now I know why."
Svar comments: "In my experience with pirates, eliminating their base dosn't
do anything. They keep sending ships even without a base. They eventually
build a new base anyway." From rnettnin: "If their settlement is too close to
my island, I usually destroy their port and the whole settlement disappears.
Later on the pirate ship relocates a new settlement on another island."
Svar writes: "I have noticed that always flying white flags on all ships will
keep the pirates from attacking any ships. They will still attack soldiers
close to shore so I keep my troops well inland until I need them." BaldJim
comments: "If you fly the white flag at all times (only possible on unarmed
ships), they will leave your ship(s) alone until the very hardest levels. If
they start firing on your ship and you raise the white flag, they will take
the cargo (common or not)." LadyH comments: "When your ship is being attacked
by pirates, you can throw all your cargo overboard to make your ship faster."
From vorosz: "The pirate ships are very powerful, a large battleship on its
own will have a hard time with the pirate ship. I always back away from the
pirates unless I have a fleet of battleships at hand to sink him or am close
to my shipyard to fight and repair at the sametime. If you choose to run he
does not follow much at all and is easy to lose." Dobber writes: "I had a
large warship sitting at my shipyard and a pirate ship attacked it, I let it
get down to orange and repaired the ship, Pirate ship was in the orange also,
so I figured fully restored ship against half destroyed ship, no problem,
stareted checking other things. Next thing I hear is 'You have lost a ship'.
sure enough it was that ship, pirate ship was still there barely. The ship was
fully loaded with cannons."
Ravell writes: "I've never seen a reason to take on a war with some natives, I
prefer to get my economy straightened and live on well with the
africans/indians/native americans/polynesians/mongols and the Eskimos of
course... they are all good trading partners once discovered."
Largefry07 writes: "They rip you off. The eskimos want 30 tons of cloth for 10
tons of lamp oil. When I looked at how much both of them cost, the cloth runs
around 55 coins per ton and the oil runs around 68 coins per ton." From Svar:
"I think it was an Emperor game where I found 4 Polynesian villages and could
trade 100 tons of salt for about 48 tons of silk. I tried to optimize the
trades but never returned home after trading 100 tons of salt with more than
49 tons of silk. I could get 9 or 10 tons of silk at each village and would
just go from village to village until I ran out of salt before returning
home." Depending on the location, Silk Cloth sells for just over twice the
price of Salt, while Salt production is hard to balance for small populations,
so one is likely to have over-production.
Ravell adds: "I've found out it varies, the amount what you get for your stuff
isn't always the same. I looked at their warehouse and they had 16 tons of
silk and wanted 25 tons salt for it. I unloaded 10 tons and loaded 7t silk,
then I unloaded another 10t salt and received 6t silk only. I waited a while
till they apparently were desperate of salt, I unloaded 10t and got 8t silk in
return. Today I swapped raw tobacco against medicine, not sure what natives
they are (not the native americans). I received between 7-9t of medicine for
10t tobacco, not a bad deal either."
From pdxdavid: "It seems the natives have things that you don't need,
especially by the time you acquire the thing they want." Bobbyrookie comments:
"The strange part is that they're always on an island that is good for
producing what they need. The Native Americans always demand tobacco, but
they're on an island that's good for producing tobacco. It doesn't make any
sense. They should be producing tobacco and trading it for cloth. Instead,
they are producing cloth and trading it for tobacco."
5.7 Military
______________________________________________________________________________
5.7.1 AI players' troops are stupid
From Visualize.Raven: "Put a cannon on one of your ships and go with all ships
near his buildings. Unload your cannon and when the enemy army come load it
back quick. Your ships will kill his army easily." This trick worked in 1602
too, and allows almost any AI army to be destroyed with a handful of units.
You need naval supremacy close to the enemy's island. Some enemy troops can
fire back at your ships, but even if they do serious damage (which is
unlikely) one can normally retreat ships relatively quickly. This technique
can be ineffective when the enemy produces replacement troops very rapidly,
the main enemy settlement is some distance from the coast, or you are faced
with many units that stay out of cannon range (Mortars mostly). Wiles adds: "I
usually use cavalry if I am going to be baiting from a more inland point, as
they are a little quicker."
Jini writes: "When the AI attacks my island, it always unloads its soldiers on
the same spot. It attacks with only 6 soldiers and often these guys just stand
around instead of attacking my market houses."
Ph.B. writes: "Sometimes it seemed that he wanted to fight against me but his
City Gates were closed and his troops couldn't go out. ... It was not
difficult to beat him."
From Renaud: "A fully maxed AI will have (in order of building): 12 pikemen,
12 crossbowmen, 12 cavalry, 6? catapults, 12 lancers, 6? cannon, 12
musketeers, and 6? mortars. Not sure about the war machines, but this seems
about right. I have never seen the computer make musketeers, archers, medics,
crew or scouts." BaldJim comments: "The AI does not move the Rally Point Flag.
Therefore newly trained troops which have not been 'deployed' (or put on
patrol which the AI can do but we can't yet), are in the courtyard [of its
fortress] behind the flag - not stationed in the fortress."
Tables of Military and Ship Data can be found in the appendices.
An analysis of ground unit strengths and weaknesses, from Mr Dude:
"- Musketeer - Can kill: Swordsmen Pikeman and Crew. Loses against: Lancer and
Cavalry.
- Pikeman - Can kill: Crew. Loses Against: Everything Else.
- Lancer - Can Kill: Everything.
- Cavalry - Can Kill: Everything except for the Lancer.
- Archer - Can Kill: Nothing. Loses Against: Marksmen and Crossbowmen.
- Crossbowmen - Can Kill: Archer. Loses Against: Marksmen.
- Marksmen - Can Kill: Everything.
So basically the best combination of troops would be Lancers, Cavalry and
Marksmen. All ranged testing was tested on flat open ground."
From Gamestar (translated by Gunter): "Anno 1503 uses the 'scissors, stone,
paper' principle for the different military types: artillerists beat
swordsmen, these beat lancers, who do well against the cavalry, which kills
the artillery. Defeat or victory are mainly decided by the artillery. Your
infantry's task is only to stop the opponents' masses which will then be shot
by the catapults and mortars."
Renaud comments: "I've come to the conclusion that there are only three viable
units: Cavalry, mortars and medics. The rest are unnecessary. Muskets should
be a force multiplier, but they are many times weaker than mortars on attack
and no better on defense with same fire rate. Pikes or lancers should beat
cavalry but they don't. So the paper/rock/scissors game of unit selection is a
bit messed up. The way it SHOULD work is lancers beat cavalry, cavalry beats
everything else, musketeers beat lancers. Muskets should have faster rate of
fire to make them useful as support troops for lancers and musketeers. Then a
mix would be required, with the emphasis on footies with musket support, and
cavalry used for out-flanking and taking out the artillery."
Balou writes: "To be honest, there's way too many military units that are of
no practical use... Best (and most useful) units are: Cavalry (fast and pretty
durable) and Mortars (strongest unit, destroy everything, even with the 'move
a little, fire again immediately' bug removed). If the other player has lots
of cavalry, include some spearmen."
From Jini: "Mortars can destroy buildings and wreak fatal havoc among enemy
soldiers. The only condition is that the enemy troops stand still because
Mortars fail to hit moving targets. The advantage compared with cannons is
that Mortars don't need line of sight with the target, because they shoot
indirectly."
Renaud writes: "Ever notice what the AI targets first in a group of units?
I'll tell you: the medics. Then comes artillery. That should give you an idea
of how much of a threat the doctors are. They can heal a unit faster than
another cavalry unit can wound it (probably works for cannon/mortars too, but
haven't done the experiment). That means cavalry supported with auto-healing
doctos are INVINCIBLE. Maybe my 8 doctors is over-kill, but at least 4 near
the front lines almost guarantees a zero-casualty rate."
Vorosz writes: "You can hunt game with your ranged units to gain stars
[experience] over your ranged troops. I usually hunt wolfs as I don't like
them eating my game. I think it has to do with how accurate they can shoot,
but seasoned troops are better fighters then fresh recruits." Balou comments:
"I never noticed any improvement (I think, ranged units are pretty accurate to
begin with) by raising in ranks (gaining stars)."
Samstein12345 writes: "When playing easier levels, the computer will rarely
instigate war on you unless you have acted first by firing on their ships,
putting soldiers on their land, etc. Even if you do go to war with the AI, the
computer is very easy to beat so don't worry about having a huge military and
wasting all that money to keep it maintained. I don't even put one military
character or ship until my economy is rolling and even then, it's not a lot.
There is no actually funding for war. However, every soldier, ship, war
machine, etc, that you train, you pay an upfront cost and a cost to maintain
it. So after a few years, you may have spent a good deal of cash keeping your
fleet of 20 (or however many you have) warships sailing. The same goes for
soldiers. My strategy is to keep a few soldiers on my turf at all times plus 2
or 3 warships just if someone declares war on me unexpectedly. Then, if you
know that another civilization is gearing up for war with you or you just want
to conquer someone, then you start training your ships and units. This way you
will always have some kind of defense, plus when you do go to war, you won't
have spent lots of cash maintaining your units while they were doing nothing.
Just to let you know, the AI does not go to war very often when you are
playing on pretty easy levels and even if they do, they are very easy to
conquer. Don't build up your military until you are a few minutes away from
going to war because you don't want to pay to keep your units if they're not
fighting."
From dcarlb: "Why go to war in the opening stages, the computer will not
attack you? He may have a small settlement on you island but if you watch him:
He will not expand."
From Hakea: "The easiest way to play the game seems to be to spend the first
few days practicing building a good strong economic engine that will pretty
much run itself without too much attention (you can then re-use this in later
games). Understandably, some players are not so interested in this side of
things, but want to get on with the conquest. However, if you don't nail the
economic side the battles will probably always be a pain." From Ravell:
"Before I start a war I try to have a balance of at least 1000/turn."
BaldJim writes: "I usually build the Small Fortress even if all I plan on
needing is a few more scouts. There is sometimes a problem with new units
getting stuck in the building. In the right frame when you click on the
building, near the bottom right there is a 'Rally Place' flag. Click on it and
you get a marker at the cursor on the map. Click it at a place which is a
small distance from the building. The flag will appear there. After that when
units complete their training, they will march out of the building to group
around the flag."
From AntiPenguinGun: "When I have enough goods, I take a ship fill it with
wood, tools and bricks and send it with a scout and put claims on islands that
are already settled to have a area of which you can attack if this colony ends
up an enemies colony. I put markets over all the islands and usually don't
build anything unless need be. I put a claim on all lands and have a attack
point on all islands to potential enemies."
Jarrah writes: "A good supply of cloth and rope is handy (to repair your own
ships) and (if you're rich) even an extra dock near the enemy island can be
handy for repairs. Not essential though."
Ravell writes: "I secure my auto-trade routes by circling the enemies fleet
with my warships and destroying his ships first before landing my troops on
his land. So normal life can go on my home islands and economy stays strong."
From samstein12345: "At easier levels, the only real defense you need (you
really don't even need it, unless you are planning to be at war often) is a
wall around your main city with a few cannon towers and places to put some
sharpshooters or another long-ranged unit. Make sure you have plenty of wall
entrances and when you put in your gates, to leave them open so your units can
get through. Remember to put a few, and only a few units on your islands that
aren't your main one." Double check this when reloading a game or taking over
a new city in a scenario - the computer has a habit of shutting gates.
Samstein12345 continues: "At harder levels, you will need more warships and
units to keep your cities and settlements safe. You may want to consider
completely surrounding your main city and some other important buildings like
the Cathedral and Palace. Make sure you have plenty of cannon towers and
watchtowers with units in them. To guard your warehouse, surround the ocean by
a wall with many cannon towers and maybe put a few warships in front of it.
Once an enemy ships comes near your ocean warehouse, take the 2 or 3 ships
that are in front of the warehouse and surround the ship. Now you have the
advantage."
AntiPenguinGun writes: "I defend my lands until I have in place enough goods
to be able to wage an all out war. I have had several boats and soldiers
frozen in place which happens a lot, so I suggest you keep an eye on them and
when it happens kill the soldier. This helps keep the recruiting ability in
flow and allow you to not have half your army frozen in place but alive and
useless. The ships that freeze I sink."
From Balou: "The range of towers is lower than that of 'standard' cannons or
mortars (and of ships, too, I believe)... Makes towers pretty senseless."
BaldJim notes: "The data I have seen gives the range of cannons as 9 and the
'service area' of the cannon towers as 9."
From blackhole89: "City walls are of no more use than Ornamental Fences.
Archers, cannons, etc, can shoot over them. Ornamental Fences are heavier to
destroy and cheaper."
DonCorn writes: "If you want to attack another ship, press 'Stop' so it fires
automatically. If you attack the other ship by hand, only one cannon will
fire."
From samstein12345: "On harder levels, the AI will most likely attack your
ships or your warehouse that is on the ocean. Thus, put your warships in 2s or
3s, so if you are attacked, you can fight back and maybe only have 1 damaged
ship."
BaldJim comments: "Trying to manage ships in combat is hard to do one at a
time. I discovered that they work well in the 'Line' formation. I had three
warships which the pirates decided to attack periodically. I would select all
three (with the 'draw the square' with the cursor thing) and click on the
'Line' formation symbol - then give them the Pirate Ship as a target. They
would line up nicely and blaze away, sinking the pirate. The pirate would
generally be aiming at only one of the three - which one would suffer most of
the damage. The best part is that they didn't bump into each other or get in
each other's way - as when I tried to direct them individually. It seems the
line formation works better than the '?' / 'Regular' formation."
From Ravell: "Before I attacked I tried all the different formations, they
work much better than the individual single-ship order, if they're send to a
hot spot in a formation they probably take out the enemies ship(s) in a safer
way, without much losses."
Fireball21 writes: "Your ships don't automatically attack archers or towers,
they just attack other ships. You have to direct them and attack the tower or
archer with the ship yourself." Pdxdavid adds: "Archers can actually sink a
battleship."
From Hakea: "I tried positioning my ships to block the exit from enemy's
harbour, but the enemy seemed to be able to sail right through my ships too."
From Jarrah: "Blockading a harbour just means stationing some of your ships
there and sinking the enemy ships as they come to unload and load supplies.
It's much easier than trying to chase ships all over the map." Pdxdavid
comments: "I like to send at least three ships of medium to large size. They
just park there and wait for the enemy merchant ships to come by and
load/unload goods. Then blast them and sink them. Since the enemy has only one
warehouse, the ships have to come there to deliver the goods from the
production islands."
Jarrah continues: "There two good reasons to get control of the seas - one is
to cripple the enemy's economy by stopping him trading, and the other is to
sink his warships and prevent him from building more." DonCorn notes: "If you
destroy your enemy's ships, he'll be weakened in a few minutes. Then war is no
challenge at all."
Jarrah again: "Demolish the enemy's main big church quickly if it's in a
vulnerable spot. Without that he can't sustain his population at the higher
social levels and within a few minutes his houses all start to downgrade back
again, further weakening his economy." Largefry07 comments: "Destroy stands,
markets and fire brigades - never houses or churches because it's just wrong."
From AntiPenguinGun: "I start my wars by taking the spice and tobacco islands
of the enemies settlement. I lay claim to any other suitable islands and cover
them with the markets to increase the coverage of my lands. Without the spice
and tobacco the population will go down and you will already have won part of
the battle. Their colonies will always have less military presence and are an
easy target." Renaud comments: "The consumer base is the real money maker, not
the colonies. So don't fiddle with the extremities. Once you've taken out the
main island, he is no longer a threat or serious competitor, and you can
restore trade relations later when it pleases you. If you eliminate the
colonies first, that's not an option."
From Ravell: "When I attack I always go for the main island first. Sneak in
some warships close enough to his warehouse without entering his sea
territories. Then I bring in some troops on the backside of his island. I
attack him from both sides, but more important is to sink his ships first and
destroy his shipyard and stay there and shoot it down every time he builds a
new one... control of the seas is essential in this game."
AntiPenguinGun writes: "I expand my markets on the enemy's mainland to cover
any land they don't control in their island. I clear a huge area of trees and
make a place to place all my troops to sort them out. After unloading my ships
I send all of them to attack the enemy's Ship builder, the main port, and at
their ships. Inactive boats I leave in the main port. "
Renaud writes: "Select all you mortars, and put them on aggressive stance.
That single thing makes all the difference. The other key point is use of ALT-
click to move the mortars. Otherwise they act VERY stupid and if you miss-
click your target, or if the target dies before they get there. Cavalry on
normal stance. Use them to rush the enemy mortars and to defend your own. They
can also safely take out ranged troops. Let the mortars do the rest. I've been
using a boat-load of cavalry, with 8 medics, mortars and replacement crew (3
ships total)."
From Jarrah: "Have a few spare crew ready to put any disabled mortars or
cannons back into action. If you see enemy medics try and kill them so they
can't heal their wounded troops. And conversely, make sure you have some
medics to heal your own troops, but keep them safe, they're easily killed."
From vorosz: "You have to take over his marketplaces, just destroying his
plantations does nothing for you. If you take over his marketplaces you will
get some of his infrastructure that is covered by your new marketplace and not
by his existing ones."
Curley writes: "The problem with this is that now all of the building in it's
area of control now become yours. You might think that's a good thing but
consider this... You are now paying for those buildings. The computer is
unbelievable inefficient in it's layout and not your finely tuned supply
system is being thrown way out of balance as uncontrolled production or
housing demands start showing up. This game has such a fine balance of supply
and demand it does not take much to upset it. You can't even make any money
from selling the buildings that you just captured. Add in that you have to
haul loaded Scouts around with your army and it just isn't worth it. When you
start building vast armies usually your gold plummets. When you start going to
war it's a one way trip to kill off whoever and then dispose of your troops as
soon as possible if you are going to keep playing."
From Svar: "I just keep advancing into the enemy territory by advancing my own
markets and clearing the land as I go. For some reason the enemy doesn't
advance very far into my new territory so I can always retreat and heal my
troops."
Visualize.Raven writes: "Organize your army good and stay as far away as you
can from the towers. You kill towers with mortars without losing anything.
Just let him to come at you and don't run into his units and towers."
AntiPenguinGun continues: "The barracks I usually send a group of cannons or
mortars to destroy as soon as the attack begins. Depending on how good it's
going, sometimes I leave the barracks alone so I get a good battle and only
attack the barracks last to have a fun time with the enemy. Depending on how I
feel, I just split the enemies land in two and occupy the middle ground. With
this, and possessing the enemy's colonies for tobacco and spice, you can make
demands for all the money you can get from them and make constant threats of
war. You are juicing the country before occupying the people that remain."
From bobbyrookie: "In order to eliminate an opponent, you are probably going
to have to hand him a beat down in 3 or 4 different places before you are
finally rid of him. Once you are rid of him, you'll get the victory arch, and
the video will kick in. If you beat him up, and the video didn't kick in, that
probably means he has erected another settlement somewhere. So now it's a
search and destroy mission."
NOTE: I have not tried these cheats myself, but these questions are frequently
asked, so I have included information on the topic. Most cheats require the
game to be hacked in some way. Don't complain if they make the game crash or
you suddenly encounter "bugs" after using them ;-) . Subsequent game patches
have tended to remove cheats, and invalidate certain hacks and trainers. This
will inevitably lead to confusion about what works in what version, while old
hacks may have unforeseen negative results.
Once again note this is an unsupported hack - don't complain if the game fails
to work correctly as a result. Cheat codes may require a cheat enabler to be
downloaded and installed. This utility can be found here (and many other
places): http://www.actiontrip.com/cheats/anno1503thenewworld.phtml . The
cheat replaces the existing annoframe.dll, and enables the codes. It seems one
can also hex edit annoframe.dll, replacing the string 885E0C with 909090 . It
has been reported that in certain versions one simply types "mastertag" and/or
"ruamzuzla" to enable most of these codes. Codes are from Knoxi and Calmiche
(ignore the leading asterisks):
* Ctrl + T = +5 Tools
* Ctrl + H = +5 Wood
* Ctrl + Z = +5 Stone
* Ctrl + M = +5 Cash
* Alt + P = Build Everything [hehe, where have I read _that_ before**]
* Alt + F = View AI players
* Alt + C = Cloth
* Alt + Z = Brick
* Alt + K = Clothing
* Alt + N = Food
* Alt + L = Lamp Oil
* Alt + G = Spices
* Alt + A = Alcohol
* Alt + R = Tobacco
* Alt + W = Iron Ore
* Shift + C = Cheat menu
A further unconfirmed variation (may only apply to early German versions, or
may have been confused with 1602), involves placing your cursor over a
warehouse, entering a number between 1 and 53 and pressing enter, then
pressing "+" to add 10t of a commodity to the warehouse stock. The number
determines the commodity, with "1" being Iron Ore. Not all the numbers are
used.
[** That joke will only make sense to those who have tried to use Anno 1602
cheats ;-) .]
The following has been anonymously posted on various cheat sites: Open the
"bgruppen.dat" file in /1503AD/DATA in a text editor. Examine lines under
"Bedarfsguter". You will find blocks of data starting with "Id". The values
for Id refer to the German name of products - translations of names are
available here: http://www.dorokult.de/anno1503/glossar/ . Edit the
appropriate "Preis" value to increase the price charged for that item. For
example, editing the "ALKOHOL" Preis value, increases the amount you charge
your population to drink Alcohol in your Taverns. It is suggested that by
increasing this to 900, your population will happily buy your liquor and
increase your finances accordingly.
*WARNING*: Some _interesting_ side-effects of editing bgruppen.dat have been
reported. Many people complain that whenever they build a new ship, it is sold
immediately, rendering the game effectively unplayable. Other problems are
more subtle, as Kay Bennemann writes: "Changing the bgruppen.dat might look
like a good way to make the game easier, but it can have a variety of strange
effects since the changes you make affect the balancing. These effects range
from strange AI behavior to complete crashes or lockups, so it's not a good
idea to play around with the data in the bgruppen.dat unless you want to mess
up the whole game."
There are some floating around the internet. I won't give specific urls,
because many trainers are specific to one patched version only (whether their
authors realised that or not). Since at the time of writing, the game is being
patched every few months, there is a reasonable chance that a given trainer
will be for an old game version, and will not work. Big Bad Jim warns: "I have
come across a Trainer for unlimited money. Please be careful with this, as I
have not been able to get it to work and it has caused my game to crash." For
the German version there is an unofficial "Bessere Welten" by Profisoft
Vertriebs GmbH, which allows various gameplay balances to be customised.
6.4 Can I skip campaign scenarios without completing them?
There are two ways to do this: (1) Download another player's save game, saved
just before the end of the scenario - files can be found here:
http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/ (for information about how to copy save
games, see Can I copy or rename save games? below). (2) Use a level unlocking
utility such as one available here: http://www.icecheat.de/ - I have no idea
if that works in non-German versions, but since I am told all versions are the
same, it should do.
These are game features which can be exploited to make the game easier under
certain circumstances. Whether these are cheats or legitimate tactics is
rather in the eye of the beholder. Hatchmoe suggests: "Save the game in the
beginning, then explore every island. After you have found an island worth
settling, load the save game and settle on the island..." There are a lot of
other 'features' which are regarded as bugs, and which might change in future
patches, so I don't intend to list them all at the moment.
Officially, at the time of writing, no. An editor is likely to be included in
a future expansion (likely to appear towards the end of 2003). There is a fan
produced editor, written in German by Dieter Robert Kohler. One can find
information about it in German at
http://www.hjbomanns.de/ANNOTools/DRKScenes.htm . From drkohler [17 May]: "I
have been asked to publish the program. I have neither forwarded the program
nor the source (Borland Delphi) up to now due to several reasons, the key
reason being that the software is, indeed, rather difficult to use. At this
time, I can generate simple maps only - you can download examples
'DiePrinzessin' of what is do-able [available from previous url]. I am still
busy working on the software - I have just rewritten it, actually, due to the
fact that it was so complex I no longer could add additional stuff without
losing track of what was going on." Blackhole89 is also developing a
map/scenario editor - a download of the current version can be found here,
http://nexoeticker.8bit.co.uk/_blacky/ (in German).
Sunflowers has started making scenarios available from
http://www.anno1503.com/ - these include English installation instructions and
scenario descriptions. At the time of writing, two additional scenarios are
available in English (and several other languages) - Metropol and Marquis.
Should these not install, Kay Bennemann suggests two possible problems: "(a)
You downloaded the wrong language version. (b) There's something wrong with
the registry entries of the game in your Windows Registry." In the last case,
reinstallation of the game is suggested.
Five unofficial custom scenarios are also available for download here:
http://www.hjbomanns.de/ANNOTools/DRKScenes.htm or http://www.anno-
zone.de/annopool/ (this includes the GigaPol - an island world with many large
islands on which to build huge cities...). Installation text for those
scenarios is in German, however Maul provides some simple translations of
important buttons:
- Hiermit wird das [scenario] auf Deinem System installiert = This application
will install [scenario] on your system
- Zuruck = Back
- Weiter = Next
- Abbrechen = Cancel
- Fortsetzen = Continue with installation
- Setup beenden = Cancel installation
- Anno 1503 starten = Launch Anno 1503 on exit
- Fertig = Exit
Many current technical issues will (hopefully) be fixed by forthcoming
patches, and Sunflowers/EA are still actively supporting the game, so I do not
see a need for this section to be particularly extensive at the moment. Many
technical FAQs are covered here: http://www.anno1503.de/english/support/ .
Sir Henry maintained an unofficial bug list, a translation of which can be
found here: http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/gamedata/bugs/bugs.html . The
non-German release version (released with patch 1.04.02) contained more than
70 known or suspected bugs, most of which are either rare (only affect certain
players sometimes) or just annoying (rather than fatal). The original German
version has many more, including fundamental errors, such as many of the
second (play) CDs being corrupted, and a map graphics issue affecting ATI
cards. The later issues were thought to be fixed by patches prior to other
versions being released. Of course, not *everything* that works differently to
the way you expect is a bug: It's not a "bug", it's a "feature"... erm maybe
;-) .
Press Shift + S. The image will be stored as a Targa (.TGA) format file, named
screen001.tga (where 001 increments with each screenshot), in the main Anno
1503 directory on your hard drive. Targa format is not supported by all image
editing packages. Ravell warns: "Move them to another folder because when you
start a new game the numbering of the screenshots will start at screen001
again, so if there's any older pictures they'll be overwritten." The total
number of screenshots in one session seems to be limited to about 30.
Ravell writes: "Copy the folders music and videos from CD2 to the 1503 folder
[on your hard drive]. Open up the video folder and rename 1002.bik to
_1002.bik . The video won't play anymore (it can't play it from the folder AND
it's not loading it from the CD) ...BUT... the screen will go black for a
second."
Tom Sailor writes: "You can copy the /music and the /video files [directories]
to your hard disk [copy the directories into the main game directory on your
hard drive]. Then you'll only need the CD to start the game." Bomi notes that
this requires at least patch 1.01.
8.5 Why aren't sounds played at non-normal game speed?
From Kay Bennemann: "It's intentional that you only hear the ambient sound
(swords clashing, people working, etc.) when you play in 'normal' game speed -
if you choose different speeds, this sound is muted. And with good reason:
While testing the sound playing at different game speeds we decided that it
can become quite a nuisance, especially with the 'fast' setting."
Save games are stored in the folder [Drive/.../Anno 1503]/SaveGame/[Profile]
where "Drive/.../Anno 1503" is wherever you choose to install the game, and
"Profile" is the name of the player. Files ending in .sav are saved games.
"User.dat" appears to contain user preferences. All files except lastgame.sav
use 'GUID' names (long hexadecimal strings). In single player mode, these can
be renamed to something else and the game will still recognise them. Bomi
notes that multiplayer games are expected to need the original GUID name to
function. Bomi wrote a tool (in German) to manage save games. It is available
here: http://www.bomibomanns.de/ANNOTools/ .
A. Building and Industry Data
______________________________________________________________________________
The following tables are based primarily on my own observations, augmented by
a .pdf document called "Production Overview",
http://www.anno1503.de/english/home/show_news.php4?id=353&caller=archive ,
data from Wargamerit ( http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/ ) and Andj Pianto
( http://www.a-pianto.ch/Englisch/e_Anno1503/e_Index.htm ).
The first table shows the requirements for different civilization levels.
-------------+----+----+----+----+----
|Pion|Sett|Citi|Merc|Aris
Requirement |eers|lers|zens|hant|toct
-------------+----+----+----+----+----
GOODS
Cloth | U | E | E | E |
Clothes | | | | | E
Food | E | E | E | E | E
Jewelry | | | | | *
Lamp Oil | | | ~U | English |
Leather | E | E | | |
Salt | * | ? | ? | * |
Silk Cloth | | | ~U | English |
Spice | | ^U | ^E | E |
Tobacco | | ^U | ^E | E |
Wine | | | | | *
-------------+----+----+----+----+----
BUILDINGS
Chapel | U | E | | |
Church | | U | E | E | E
Pavilion | | | | | E
Public Baths | | | U | E | E
School | | U | E | |
Tavern | U | E | E | E |
Theatre | | | | | E
University | | | U | E |
-------------+----+----+----+----+----
Notes:
- Aristocrat houses become available once you have 1900 Merchants. Merchant
houses don't upgrade in the way other houses do.
- E = Essential in order to keep the population happy.
- U = Required to upgrade to next level. Such goods can still be sold at this
civilization level.
- * = Bonus item. Not essential, but makes population happier and potentially
increases profits.
- ^ = Requires Spice or Tobacco. Both may be sold.
- ~ = Requires either Lamp Oil or Silk Cloth. Both can be supplied for greater
profit.
- ? = Probably not required. However, it may be needed in small volumes to
upgrade from Settlers to Citizens. For example, if Settlers are only ever
offered Spices (never any Tobacco or Salt) they will not upgrade to Citizens.
Maximum population per house is as follows. Upon upgrading, population will
slowly rise until the house is full. If the residents become dissatisfied the
number will decline. If it declines to the maximum level of the previous house
type, the house will downgrade. Except in the case of Aristocrats, where it
will simply collapse. LadyH notes: "Merchant [and Settler/Citizen] houses can
fall down when plague is coming and there is no doctor nearby. Then they don't
downgrade, they fall down like Aristocrats houses do":
In the following table, operating costs are expressed as Active/Passive.
Service areas are included for all buildings, shown as the number of squares
radius from the edge of the building: This figure may vary by 1, because
buildings do not create perfect circles. In some cases the building's service
area has no discernable in-game meaning. For details of research requirements,
please see the Research Trees in a later appendix.
1000 Aristocrats Main Palace, first 4 Palace extensions.
3000 Aristocrats Next 4 Palace extensions.
5000 Aristocrats All Palace extensions.
Research Bow Maker, Cannon Foundry, District Court, Doctor, Fire
Brigade, Gunsmith, Large Ore Mine, Large Weapon Smithy,
Large Shipyard, Library, Medicinal Herb Plantation, Small
Weapon Smithy, War Machine Builder, Weaving Mill, Wells.
B. Production Links
______________________________________________________________________________
These diagrams are based on chains found in the manual. I've re-arranged them
slightly, to make links clearer, and added omissions such as ships and troops.
Buildings in the chain are shown as straight text. Fields, materials and goods
are shown in square brackets. Buildings or units shown in normal brackets
indicate the product is also used to supply part of a different chain - the
other part of the chain is shown elsewhere on the diagram. Curley brackets
("{}") indicate a ground unit trained at a fortress. Goods can be taken/stored
via a Main Market or Warehouse at any stage in the chain, unless indicated
with a tilda ("~"). *** Indicates materials are primarily stored for general
construction work and house upgrading.
[Cotton Field]~>Cotton Plantation->-.
+->[Wool]->-+------------.
[Grassland]~~~~~>Sheep Farm------->-' | |
v v
Weaver's Hut Weaving Mill
| |
'--->-+-<----'
|
v
[Cloth]
|
v
[White furred animals]~~>Trapper-->[Furs]--->-. .-<-+->Cloth/Leather Stand
| | +->(Large Shipyard)
| | '->(Small Shipyard)
| |
v v
Tailor's Shop
|
v
[Clothing]
|
v
Clothing Stand
Trappers also skin Leopards.
FOOD CHAINS
[Grain Field]~>Grain farm->[Grain]->Mill->[Flour]->Bakery->-.
|
[Grassland]~>Cattle Farm->[Cattle]->Butcher's Shop-------->-+
|
[Sea]~~~~~~~~>Fisherman's Hut-------->-. [Food]
| |
[Grassland]~~~~~~~~>Small Farm------->-+-->---[Food]----. |
| | |
[Wild Game]~~~~~~>Hunting Lodge------>-' v v
Food/Salt Stand
IRON AND CHARCOAL CHAINS
.~>Small Ore Mine->-.
[Iron Ore Deposit]~>~+ +->[Iron Ore]->-.
'~>Large Ore Mine->-' |
v (Wood)
(Wood)->Charcoal Burner->(Charcoal)->+->-------. .---<-+->-. |
| | | | |
v v v v v
| Large Ore Small Ore
| Smelter Smelter
| | |
| '->-+-<-----<-'
| |
| v
| [Iron]
| |
v v
(Cannon <----------+->(Armorer)
Foundry) +->(Gunsmith)
+->(Large Weapon Smith)
+->(Small Weapon Smith)
'->(Toolmaker)
JEWELRY CHAIN
[Gold Deposit]~~>Gold Mine-->[Gold]->-.
|
[Gem Deposit]~>Gem Mine->[Gems]->-. |
| |
v v
Goldsmith->[Jewelry]->Jewelry Stand
LAMP OIL CHAIN
(Wood) (Rope)
| |
v v
Whaler Building->Whaler Ship->-.
+->[Whale Blubber]->Whale Oil Factory->-.
[Whales]~~~~>~' |
v
[Lamp Oil]
|
v
Lamp Oil Stand
LEATHER CHAIN
[Wild Game]~>Hunting Lodge->[Hides]->Tannery->[Leather]->-+->(Armorer)
|
v
Cloth/Leather Stand
C. Production Efficiency
______________________________________________________________________________
The following tables are based on a .pdf document called "Production
Overview",
http://www.anno1503.de/english/home/show_news.php4?id=353&caller=archive ,
with several adjustments made to reflect inaccuracies in those tables. Cost
data is based on that contained in the Building and Industry Data appendix.
"Consumption" is the consumption in tons of raw materials per ton end product.
"Prod Time" is the time per ton of end product, in seconds. "Cost per unit"
was erroneously labeled "Cost per Minute" in the original. "Base price" is the
"internal game base price in gold per ton". Hakea notes: "It is for the Price
we get, but the basic Stall items get modifiers applied. Things like Spice
have three levels (0,5,10) plus additional bonuses depending on where your
main island is. For example, Spice fetches a bit more on North Islands (two +5
bonuses), etc." All times are based on normal game speed.
Kay Bennemann writes: "To give you an example of how to read the data [for a
Bakery]: the value 0.98 means that the Bakery consumes 0.98 tons of raw
material (flour) to produce 1 ton of bread. The 'production time'-value
represents the time (in seconds) needed to produce 1 ton of the final good.
The bakery consumes 0.98 tons of raw material to produce 1 ton of bread, which
takes 10 seconds." Narcissus X queries: "If I understand correctly then, a
Sheep Farm will consume 15.29 tons of grass to produce 1 ton of wool in 45
seconds." Kay replies: "As far as I understand it - yes. Sheep consume LOTS of
grass."
Kay provides a translation of parts of the original method: "To measure
productivity a statistic continually keeps track of the amount of goods
produced by the workshop in question over the last five to ten minutes. The
mean value is then calculated and taken for the average amount of goods
produced per minute. This amount is then compared to a value set by the
programmers. The following rule applies whenever productivity lies under this
value, e.g. the mean value is lower than the reference value: Effectiveness =
Mean Value / Reference Value; otherwise: Effectiveness = 100%. This method's
limitations are best shown using the hunter, whose reference value lies at 0.6
units of food per minute. Hunters well supplied with game can also produce 1.5
- 2 units or more of food per minute. This would represent an effectiveness of
250 - 333%, yet 100% is all that is shown. On the other hand, some workshops,
such as tobacco plantations, can never reach 100% as their reference values
are set just a tiny bit higher than the best possible productivity value. This
therefore means that the productivity display is not particularly expressive
in the 90 to 100% range. In the end, these values mean nothing more than that
the workshop is producing approximately as much as the game designers expected
it to. However, if productivity lies markedly under this value there is
obviously a problem which you should do something about."
A test environment was created where other factors affecting the balance sheet
were removed (sales to population, new construction, etc). Production times
were related to the time taken for operating costs to be deducted. This method
discounts the differences created by playing at different game speeds. This
has one limitation: "The measurement of time in terms of balance period
doesn't work for game stands with very small balance amounts (less than 50
pieces of gold). Since operating costs are deducted in many small steps
rounding errors may occur in the players favor, resulting in less gold
actually being deducted from the players account than theoretically required.
In as much as these rounding errors (on the order of around 10 pieces of gold)
themselves fall into the realm of very small balances this can result in
misinterpretations."
"Although using more workshops increases the universality of the results, it
doesn't do anything towards reducing errors in measurement, which increase
with each new workshop added. When testing agricultural workshops (farms,
etc.) it is especially important to make sure that the test phase runs
significantly longer than the re-growth period of the produce in question.
This is the only way to take variations in harvest yields into account in the
mean values." Tests were typically run until 50-100 units had been produced by
a workshop, after which a comparison of starting and finishing balance and
stock were made.
The second table shows land and workforce requirements for primary industries
(farms, plantations, mines). Growth per second is the time from harvest until
a new crop is available. "No. Fields" is the number of fields that can be
placed within the farm's service area; "Max Effec Field" is the maximum number
of fields that are used. "Max Trnspt" is the maximum weight each worker can
carry, in tons. "Time" is the time needed to harvest one field, in seconds.
"Workers" more accurately means figures, so a worker on a cattle farm is
actually the cow figure. On most farms these figures are humans.
The final table in this series shows the number of people each industry can
support. In most cases, these values assume 'combines'. Combines attempt to
balance the provision of industries in a way that tends to make them operate
efficiently. Usually they provide 1 processing building per 2 raw material
suppliers. For example, a Cattle Combine, is 2 Cattle Farms and a Butcher,
because a Butcher processes Cattle into Food at about twice the speed that one
Cattle Farm produces Cattle. Suggested combines are:
- Cattle = 2 Cattle Farm + Butcher.
- Charcoal = 2 Forester's Hut + Charcoal Burner.
- Clothing = Trapper + 4 Weaving Mill + 4 Tailor's Shop [Values are based on
Cotton for Cloth, so I assume 8 Cotton Plantations are also needed, but that
is not stated].
- Cotton/Weaving Mill = 2 Cotton Plantation + Weaving Mill.
- Grain = 4 Grain Farm + 2 Mill + Bakery [Dragonling suggests the optimum
(double) combine is 7 Grain Farms + 4 Windmills + 2 Bakery].
- Hop = 2 Hop Farm + Brewery.
- Jewelry = Gold Mine + Gem Mine + Goldsmith.
- Lamp Oil = 1 Whaler + 2 Whale Oil Factories.
- Marble = Marble Stonemason + Marble Quarry.
- Ore (Small) = Ore Mine + Ore Smelter + 2 Forester's Hut.
- Ore (Large) = Large Ore Mine + Large Ore Smelter + Charcoal Burner.
- Rope = 3 Hemp Plantation + 2 Ropemakers [1:1 ratio also suggested].
- Salt = Salt Mine + Salt Works.
- Sheep/Weaver Hut = 2 Sheep Farm + Weaver's Hut.
- Sheep/Weaving Mill = 3 Sheep Farm + Weaving Mill.
- Silk = 2 Silk Plantation + Indigo Plantation + Dye Works [LadyH's suggestion
(for a double combine) is 5 Silk Farms + 2 Indigo Farms + 2 Dye Works].
- Stonemason = 2 Stonemason + Quarry.
- Sugarcane = 2 Sugarcane Plantation + Distillery.
- Tannery = Figures are for one Tannery. 3 Hunting Lodges + 2 Tanneries is an
optimal combine, however often settlements will reach Citizen levels and never
need more than one Tannery, so I have left the figures as one Tannery. Hunting
Lodge output is variable, so use the values with caution.
- Tobacco = 2 Tobacco Plantation + Tobacco Factory.
Aristocrats are widely considered not to require Cloth, just Clothing. The
original table included Cloth figures for Aristocrats, so I have left them in
for now.
---------------+----+-----+----------
|Cost|T/min|Cost/T/Min
---------------+----+-----+----------
Hunting Lodge | 20 | 2.05| 9.76
Fisherman | 20 | 0.8 | 25
Small Farm | 20 | 0.72| 27.78
---------------+----+-----+----------
Cattle Farm(2) | 15 | - | -
Butcher(1) | 22 | 3 | -
Combo | 52 | 3 | 17.3
---------------+----+-----+----------
Grain Farm(4)+ | 10 | - | -
Windmill(2)+ | 16 | - | -
Bakery(1) | 15 | 6 | -
Combo | 87 | 6 | 14.5
---------------+----+-----+----------
Notes:
"You will notice that the cost/minute of the .pdf file is not the same as mine
for some items. These are the butchers/windmill/bakery costs. From what I have
gathered, they include the price of raw materials in their base cost/minute,
which 'could' be sold on the market instead, which considerably raises the
price tag. I have factored that out of my equations, using only operational
cost/tons produced. That should help explain the discrepancies."
----------------+----+-----+----------
|Cost|T/Min|Cost/T/Min
----------------+----+-----+----------
Cattle Farm(9)+ |
Butcher(5) | 179| 15 | 11.9
----------------+----+-----+----------
Grain Farm(11)+ |
Windmill(6)+ |
Bakery(3) | 251| 18 | 13.9
----------------+----+-----+----------
Notes on Optimal Combos:
"As per the production table .pdf files, I have calculated different combo's
to maximise efficiency. Since cattle farms produce 2.3 cattle per farm, and
butchers eat 3.98 cattle per shop, with the standard ration, you basically
produce 4.6 cattle, and the butcher eats 3.98 of them. The leftovers are put
in the warehouse. Instead, using those values, make 9 cattle farms (20.7
cattle/minute), and 5 butcher shops (eats 19.9 cattle/minute), thus, you save
1 cattle farm's worth of operational cost, hence the much lower cost of this
combo, while still putting in 0.8 cattle/minute in your stock. For grain, its
the same. Using the .pdf file as a reference, I put 11 grain farms x 1.92
grain = 21.12 grain/minute, 6x windmills x 3.52 grain consumption/minute =
21.12 (exact amount needed). Because the conversion ratio of a bakery is
nearly the same as the output of a pair of windmills (5.86 consumption for the
bakery, vs 6 tons of production from 2 windmills), I use 3x bakery x 5.86 =
17.58 grain/minute consumed, with .42 t/grain/minute going in reserves."
Stratgan continues: "It is important to compare another factor when deciding
on which food chain to produce... space, or 'fields' used. The following table
list how many field each food production chain uses, and their averages (I had
to manually count all the squares for each type of building... took a while):
----------------+------+----------+-----------
|Fields|Production|#Fields/Ton
----------------+------+----------+-----------
Fisherman | 9 | 0.8 | 11.3
Hunting Lodge | 221 | 2.05 | 107.8
Small Farm | 45 | 0.72 | 62.5
Cattle Combo I | 131 | 3 | 43.7
Cattle Combo II | 594 | 15 | 39.6
Grain Combo I | 207 | 6 | 34.5
Grain Combo II | 576 | 18 | 32
----------------+------+----------+-----------
Note:
"The fishermen take only 9 spaces on the mainland, their fields being water!
Thus, although they are incredibly expensive to maintain for their production,
they can be a life saver when you have limited space on an island. The Cattle
combo II is the best cost wise, but it takes up more fields than the grain
combo. This can be especially important when strapped for space on a small
island."
D. Military and Ship Data
______________________________________________________________________________
The following tables are based on information found at
http://digilander.libero.it/anno1503/ and http://www.a-
pianto.ch/Englisch/e_Anno1503/e_Index.htm . Some of this information exists in
the in-game help, but the statistics seem to have been mixed up - for example,
Swordsmen are listed as "Damage: 1 Square, Range: 8", which does no sound
particularly logical.
---------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
|Car | |Can-|Spe-| To Build |Upkp
Ship |-go |Unit|non | ed |Cost|Wood|Clth|Rope|Cost
---------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Large Trading | 8 | 3 | 6 | 40 |3500| 35 | 15 | 10 | 15
Large Warship | 4 | 12 | 12 | 27 |4000| 40 | 15 | 10 | 25
Medium Trading | 6 | 2 | 4 | 35 |2500| 25 | 10 | 7 | 15
Medium Warship | 3 | 8 | 8 | 25 |2500| 25 | 10 | 7 | 15
Small Trading | 4 | 2 | 0 | 30 |1500| 15 | 8 | 5 | 10
Small Warship | 2 | 6 | 6 | 30 |1500| 15 | 8 | 5 | 10
---------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Small Pirate | 4 | 4 | 6 | ? | | | | |
Large Pirate | 8 | 8 | 8 | ? | | | | |
---------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
"Cargo" indicates number of cargo holds. Each hold can contain up to 50t of
one item. "Unit" shows the number of ground units than can be carried. War
machines with an assigned crew count as a single unit. One Scout (including
mule) likewise counts as a single unit. "Cannon" is the maximum number that
may be mounted. Upkeep costs of all ships are included under military
expenditure.
E. Research Trees
______________________________________________________________________________
The diagrams below are based on in-game screens. The first line contains the
name of the research, which is also often the name of the thing the research
produces. The second line gives the Knowledge Point (K) and Gold coin (G)
requirement. Where the research requires a University, this is indicated *U*.
The third line contains the name of any building that this research makes
available, or a short description of what the research does if this is not
obvious from its name.
Dt. Konfigurator, Geldeditor, Kontoreditor, Missionsfreischalter, Cheattastenenabler, Verbrauchsrechner und Schiffseditor für für die Versionen 1.01b-1.05.00 sowie das Addon
