Seeds of Change is the name of the first expansion pack in Season 4 of Anno 1800. Is it worth buying? Find out more in this review.
I bought this game with my own money. I didn’t play much of the previous parts of Anno, but on the day of Anno 1800’s premiere I got tempted and bought an extended boxed edition. In retrospect, I can say boldly – it was a very good purchase, because the game consumed me for hundreds of hours. So far, I have bought all season passes, which significantly expanded and diversified the gameplay. That’s why I didn’t think too long and invested in my fourth season pass. Ubisoft has just released the first expansion pack called Seeds of Change.
Anno1800 – Seeds of Change
This expansion modifies the gameplay in the New World. It introduces several new things, the main element of which is the hacienda. Hacienda is a warehouse-like building that resembles an extensive market square. We can use various decrees, the number of which depends on the overall attractiveness of the island. For example, they modify the level of consumption of goods on the island, the storage capacity, or add influence points for residential buildings within the hacienda’s range of operation. After building it, we will unlock access to additional buildings. We also have dedicated decorations at our disposal.
Seeds of change – the influence of the hacienda
The main hacienda building operates within a defined radius. Initially, it is not very large, but it increases with the general population of the island. This is important because all the additional elements of the hacienda can be built within this radius. If we place a special warehouse, production or residential building outside the radius – it will not function and will fall into ruin.
Buildings can be connected with each other using two new types of roads. They do not differ from the ones available so far, they just look different – it is just a paving stone, or a pavement divided by a street. For reasons that I do not understand, we can only build a limited number of new roads that help create the picturesque surroundings of the hacienda. Developers limited us to a maximum of 250 pieces of such elements, which is not a lot.
Seeds of Change – additional buildings
Hacienda allows you to build additional types of buildings that work slightly differently than in the current game. There are two residential buildings at your disposal – the Jornalero and Obrera quarters. They take up more space than ordinary residential buildings, but are more spacious (4×4 tiles instead of 3×3 tiles, they can hold 2x as many population). However, in order to fill the new quarters with a full number of inhabitants, we need to meet the additional needs of our population – for example by supplying hot sauces or new alcoholic drinks. We can do this thanks to the construction of a new industrial building – a brewery. After placing it, we select the goods we are interested in from the production book and receive information about the ingredients to be delivered. In my opinion, the production speed in the brewery is too slow, so in relation to novelties, such as hot sauces, they are still missing in stock, even after placing 10 breweries.
Interestingly, the brewery makes it possible to produce, among others, in Nowy Świat, beer or moonshine, which so far had to be imported from the Old World. So where to get grain, potatoes and spices?
Seeds of Change – Better Farms
Another new feature are more efficient farms. First of all, they allow you to ignore the fertility of the soil, which makes it possible, for example, to grow potatoes, grain or spices on each island. They are also much more efficient – each crop has 64 tiles to achieve 100% efficiency. We can also increase it by using tractors (I have never done it, because I am irritated by the limited fuel transport system. If we decide on tractors, the number of grids for the field changes from 64 to 96, and the efficiency increases to 400%) or a novelty in this DLC – fertilizer.
Fertilizer in Anno1800
In the area of influence of the hacienda, we can erect another new building – fertilizer plants. They also have a defined radius of operation and if we build any building for breeding animals within it, every cycle of 4 tons of animal products, we will get 1 ton of manure. This manure is transported to fertilizer plants, which convert it into 1 ton of fertilizer. It takes quite a long time, as much as 5 minutes. (The developers addressed this issue by reducing the time from 5 minutes to 30 seconds in subsequent patches).
The fertilizer goes to the farms, but for that to happen – an appropriate silo must be built. We are again limited and the game requires us to have such a silo adjacent to the farm building. It is worth remembering about this at the stage of designing the farm layout. Interestingly, fertilizer can be transported between the islands and used on farms throughout the game (also in the Old World).
Effects of the new expansion pack for Anno1800
Seeds of change is an addition that gives us the opportunity to play with new mechanics in the previously neglected New World. By increasing the efficiency of farms and increasing the capacity of residential buildings, we will be able to build more on fairly limited size islands. This problem is indicated by many players – the islands in Nowy Świat may be optically large, but due to numerous rivers and mountains, there is not so much space for development. Hacienda and the news related to them will work, but only if you build a new island or start the game from scratch. With a booming economy and ongoing exchanges between our own islands, a complete redevelopment of an existing island can quickly get us into trouble with the supply chain. The creators of Anno 1800 have announced that a new map revealing much more land for development will also appear, but in the final expansion of season four, which will be released at the end of this year.