Let me share a few of my thoughts, feedback and questions about Season 4 DLCs, at least with regards to what information has been revealed so far (in the blog, stream or the trailer):

Seeds of Change
Hacienda – I like the look and feel, feels very appropriate for the New World. In the stream you said it acts as a warehouse but I did not see anything regarding loading ramps, like in case of regular warehouses. Is the hacienda not limited by a number of loading ramps, is it a super powerful warehouse?

Hacienda quarters – I knew something similar would probably be introduced, though I was thinking of favelas instead. Obviously, a hacienda is a much more positive name and take, along the population living there having extra needs. I feel like I would prefer having to upgrade jornalero quarters into obrero quaters, just like with regular residences.

Hacienda farm – it’s cool to see farms not require so many modules, being more efficient etc. But except for being limited by the hacienda radius, they don’t really have any downsides or requirements. They don’t even require the appropriate fertility! While it’s ok if spices, potatoes and grain would grow everywhere, the old goods should in my opinion require the island to have appropriate fertility. This unnecessarily ‘skips’ the fertility system and makes it much less important which New World islands I decide to settle. The farms also require only 10 jornalero workforce while one of their downsides could be higher workforce requirement. The only question I have here is about the production rate, I couldn’t see in the stream what is the production rate of the hacienda farms. If it’s the same as regular farms, then really there would be no downsides and only advantages. I am not very fond of such balancing, where obtaining some better stuff doesn’t really have any reasonable downsides to balance it out.

Hacienda fertiliser works – I like the use of animal farms for making fertilisers. It’s interesting to tie this to haciendas and make it work only within the hacienda’s radius. This part is definitely something that makes you think about the layouts of your farms and buildings around the hacienda. I feel like I will focus on alpaca farms there, if I understand how it all works, making dung using faster animal farms like alpaca farms instead of cattle farms would be more efficient. I am sort of on the fence about the fertiliser because of limiting this to haciendas. On one hand it doesn’t make sense in terms of realism, on the other hand it makes sense gameplay-wise that such a powerful and easy to obtain effect would be limited somehow.

Hacienda brewery – personally I like an option to make beer or schnapps in New World, though it really depends on the exact balance. I like having several options to make something but each of those should have its advantages and disadvantages, so that you need to really consider which way is more suitable for your own company.

Hacienda ornaments – couldn’t see everything of course, but from what I’ve seen I really liked the ornaments, all hacienda buildings and ornaments seem to be made in the same style so I like that it all fits together.

Policies – I like having some kind of New World palace sort of thing. But the balancing feels off again. While the bonuses, except the influence one, do not seem super powerful to me personally, they don’t have any downsides. In case of the palace, it has a high maintenance cost, and you also need to dedicate space to its wings to increase the range. Hacienda being island wide, no high maintenance or other requirements, no worrying about the range – all of that doesn’t satisfy me in terms of the balancing, there are only profits without drawbacks.

Season of Silver – I am really looking forward to playing that scenario, I like the seasons, I think seasons in such a form would definitely be doable even in the sandbox game in Anno 1800. Though I understand why you wouldn’t do that at this point. But I think it opens up an option to fully introduce seasons to the next Anno game 😉 I like the complexity of the production of silver coins and how it is affected by the seasons. I hope we’ll be able to learn some interesting things about La Corona in that scenario.

Empire of the Skies
Personally I’m not very fond of the DLC being really focused on the airships. I like that it will be still focused on New World as the source of materials for airships. I’m curious how the gas will be produced, would it be helium extracted as an extra product from oil production or maybe something entire different? I hope that transporting people via airships, aka the alternative commuter pier system, I suppose, will be somehow challenging or expensive, so that it doesn’t just make the New World much easier without any significant effort or cost. You mentioned the mail system but nothing concrete about it, so I really have no idea what to think about that part of the DLC. Also no clues about its scenario so also nothing to talk about here.

New World Rising
Obviously a new tier, one or more though? I like the sound of embracing the culture, maybe something like an opera or some other building like that? I am definitely wondering if it is going to include electricity, light bulbs need, and what the needs and profits of the new tier/tiers would be. Curious about how introducing more islands into the New World will work, would they be completely new islands or would you just more islands from the already existing pool if available islands? Would new islands include perhaps some new fertilities or resources tied to the new population tier of this DLC? Either way, I’m really in need of more information to provide more feedback.

Overall, my current opinion is like “I’m probably gonna enjoy the new content, though I’m not crazy about it at the moment”. The first DLC is ok, though seems lacking in terms of balancing in my opinion. Very interested in the scenario it includes. The other two DLCs are big question marks, without more details can’t really say whether I will like them or not.