The Anno 1800 board game was for him Kosmos Publisher is one of those titles with which you have shown a good hand. There was already experience with the brand; after all, the Stuttgart publisher had already adapted the spin-offs 1701 and 1503 from Ubisoft's video game series as analog games. However, something has changed: Klaus Teuber is no longer responsible for the implementation, but rather Martin Wallace. Also a legendary author and expert in trading and business board games. Good conditions for a successful, entertaining board game adaptation - and indeed: Anno 1800 is convincing.
The “Anno” series, whose year numbers always form the sum of nine, was able to establish itself in the 1602s, with Anno 2007, which came from Max Design and therefore from Austria. The two German development studios Related Design and Blue Byte later took over - the publisher is also different today than it was back then: Ubisoft replaced Sunflowers in XNUMX. There were no such changes with analogue equivalent: the publisher has always distinguished itself Kosmos responsible for the implementation as board games and card games. The only new thing is the author who was responsible for the design of Anno 1800. Martin Wallace was brought on board for this: experienced as a game designer, experienced as a designer of commercial and business games and also an industry legend with an impact on advertising. Could this still go wrong? Yes. Is that it? No.
Anno 1800 in the test: like the video game
The relationship to the video game template is already visually obvious: similar packaging, graphics from the digital original, same setting. A board game adaptation could hardly be more precise. Martin Wallace and Kosmos didn't experiment, but rather consistently reworked an existing concept into a functioning table game. This will particularly please those fans who have already enjoyed the PC game series. Everyone else probably doesn't care about the visual similarity, they expect playful quality. And she's also convincing.
As in the template, players start with little more than a few basic elements to get their economic cycle going. Four farmers, three workers and two artisans - there is nothing more for the two to four players who set out to become an economic power in the age of industrialization. The idea is well known: goods are produced, among other things depending on the different population categories.
The success of the board game variant of Anno 1800 is of course much more mechanical: There are bonuses and victory points for successes. Overall, the board game is based very closely on the template. In the course of the game, new elements come into play again and again - new unit types, for example, or goods. Instead of producing yourself, you can also trade with other players or do what pioneers do: discover the world, for example, because that is also worthwhile. Again and again, the game principle urges interim decisions: tokens and units can be retrieved, but you suspend or pay for them. With currency that you generate by trading with your opponents. The board game for Anno 1800 relies on various synergies that are thematically coherent and also playfully interwoven.
Similarly to video games, players can also let off steam on the respective game boards - in the building land, so to speak. With the help of ships, more space is created in order to discover new islands. All of this sounds suspiciously like Anno 1800 on the PC and it also feels like it as a board game as far as possible. Martin Wallace has succeeded in creating a game principle that does not have to be hoarded indiscriminately, but instead has to be managed sensibly. You produce according to your needs, so you use the strength of your workers as efficiently as possible - and you also expand your workforce in line with your productivity.
Instead of using the AI, you trade with the other players in the Anno 1800 board game, and this is also excellent because it is implemented without creating barriers. Anno 1800 is basically interactive, sometimes enforces it, but does not require the players to make any major preparations: If trade markers are available, goods can also be moved. At the same time, however, you also notice that you can lose yourself in these repetitive actions - this is at the expense of playing time. At around two hours, it is not particularly short anyway, but it gets longer the less players want to bring the game to an end.
Just no city festival ...
On the other hand, it is fun to optimize your supply chain, make the production landscape as efficient as possible and delay the city festival. Collect gold and bonuses, use the currencies for workers - in this case without having to let your own game stall - and repeatedly weigh up between several options: this is how the core task of the player can be roughly described. The board game for Anno 1800 does not include any gigantic machinery, but uses comparatively few, but the elements of the digital template that are particularly suitable for a board game.
At some point a game in Anno 1800 will come to an end: when all the cards in your hand have been played. Annoyingly, that is literally in the hands of the players themselves. If you ponder and hesitate a lot, you put the other players to a hard test of patience, because there is not much to do if it is not your turn. So you usually wait, in the "worst case" many minutes per move, which can ultimately add up to a playing time well over the scheduled two hours. The reverse is better: players have experience, play subsequent games and know what is important. Then Anno 1800 is crisp, but demanding - and then particularly entertaining.
It follows from this: Even with two players, the board game works excellently and the risk of delaying it is low. So one formula doesn't work: The board game for Anno 1800 is not automatically more fun with more players. This is not only due to the playing time, but to the mechanics. Apart from retail, it is designed for self-optimization. You reach into the office opposite, but that's it again. Anno 1800 is convincing as a pair, is outstanding as a team of three, but is not recommended in a full line-up with four players.
A real brake on motivation, however, is a lack of luck when drawing cards. This can quickly turn out to be fatal for your own strategy, which sometimes has balancing reasons. The compensation options are small due to the linear game principle. This becomes noticeable with increasing experience. Then moves feel the same, you work on a strategy rather than thinking up a new one. You should therefore not do without a game of Anno 1800, because going through the rather solitary actions is a lot of fun in a strange way. In the end, this is exactly due to the aforementioned linear game principle: The process in Anno 1800 ripples smoothly and unobtrusively, but you still have to think, but rarely to a tiring degree. Much more concentration is required, however, to keep track of the tangled material on the table. You get used to it, but it's an inhibition threshold.
Infobox
Number of players: 2 to 4 players
Age: from 12 years
Playing time: 90 to 180 minutes
Difficulty: medium
Long-term motivation: medium
Publisher: Kosmos
Website: Link
Year of publication: 2020
Author: Martin Wallace
Language: German
Cost: around 50 euros
