REVIEW : Anno 1800 Seeds of Change DLC (PC)
Annoholics are a rather contradictory bunch. At least it often seems that we don’t know what we want. On the one hand, we love it when there is so much to do, on the other hand, it drives us to flush our faces every time we run out of schnapps.
Season 3 of Anno 1800 introduced new challenges and changes to how you plan your Old World Cities, and now with Season 4, we’re finally getting the chance to expand the New World from pure farming colonies to thriving cities that can function without relying on exhausting trade ships from the Old World. While it may not appear to be much, the New World has been deficient in diversity and development for quite some time. We’ve been covering the series since the co-op was introduced, and each co-op game we load up to review new DLC has one thing in common: The New World is crammed with farms, little to no ornament usage, and is designed to be efficient rather than exciting.
In fact, instead of something spectacular like expanding in Enbessa or the Passage, running the New World became an upkeep burden. Instead, the New World just became the site that had to be completed because we ran out of upgrades so soon. While this zone was not “put it and forget it” because it provided much-needed resources for island bliss in the Old World, it did become a chore that provided more headache and joy. That’s a shame because the New World has a lush beauty and brightness that other Anno1800 zones don’t have. Thankfully, “Seeds of Change” introduced much-needed mechanic modifications and construction components that transformed the game into something entirely different.
Finally, by constructing haciendas, players can advance the New World beyond the present Jornaleros to Obreros cycle.
Haciendas are made out of one primary building (one per New World island) that is developed into a large estate to generate agricultural goods. The Hacienda, comparable to the Palace in the Old World but on a smaller size, acts as the centre point and comes with a policy slot to help minimise demands and workers on the island.
With both ornamental and functional elements, the Haciendas require ample space to build effectively because your complex will contain farms (which will grow sugar cane, corn, coffee, caoutchouc, cocoa, potatoes, spices, or grain at only 64 cells), breweries (which produce rum, beer, atole, schnapps, and hot sauce), warehouses, fertiliser factories (which require animal farms to be within the radius to produce dung as a byproduct), and larger Jorn
Connecting all of this to the main road can be difficult; there are also restricted paving tiles that allow you to build roadways within the complex with the Hacienda as the focal point. For example, when constructing a Hacienda, you just need one location that is connected to the main road system. Then you can enclose it in elegant fencing and build a full complex around the Hacienda. While you may not realise the immediate benefit of running a Hacienda estate, the addition of fertiliser alone helps you to enhance the productivity of existing farms and reduce the surplus, freeing up more area.
It is also worth noting that the fertiliser created in the New World can be used in other parts of the game to assist optimise other farms. Hacienda farms also feature products that formerly had to be imported. The capacity to grow crops that are not native to the island and come from different zones is a major changer.
“Seeds of Transformation” is a fantastic DLC that gives development and change to the New World. Furthermore, the ability to eliminate dependency on Old World commerce channels is a much-needed quality of life enhancement that helps players develop a vested interest in their New World islands.
There is distinct ease to the Hacienda expansion, as well as buildings that contain twice the population of a typical Jornalero or Obrero tile. That ease, though, is best experienced in a new save or one that hasn’t heavily established New World islands with infrastructure that only supports efficient farming and exporting.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To begin this assessment, we loaded up our current co-op save, which is around 100 hours long. You don’t have to play for that long to access the new “Seeds of Change” material, but we wanted to test how readily the new features could be incorporated into existing games. And the truth is that it was extremely difficult.
A large plot of land is required to get the most out of your Hacienda. To keep our Old World population happy, every significant space on our existing New World islands has been committed to population or unending agriculture. You can now include “Seeds of Change” into an existing game, even if the city is badly organised, by first optimising farms and removing surplus farms using the fertiliser you make. Then you proceed to modify the population tiles.
Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a knock on “Seeds of Change.” Forcing players to think about city planning in a region that hasn’t done much other than exporting for years is a delightful exercise that makes the management elements highly entertaining. However, it is crucial to note that creating a city design to accommodate the Hacienda complex and new population modules is far easier than changing something that is already in place. “Seeds of Change,” a good DLC in its own right, builds a solid basis for Season 4’s last DLC, “New World Rising,” which will be released in late 2022. This DLC will bring the Anno 1800 season to a close-by introducing a new population tier and more islands to the New World.
