Anno 1800 Closed Beta Screenshot Challenge

Can’t post on closed beta forums and nobody is helping so I’m just gonna put this here to get lost (:

The allowed parts of the overhauled game felt great. The art design looks cool but more importantly feels authentic. As a strategy/city-management game, it has a lot of depth. The UI and UX designs howerver, needs rework on few areas and I’m going to focus my writing on this topic.

The good part is most information can be visually seen on screen without clicking. E.G. Crowded roads, Fire, Trade routes, Resources. This is really great not just aesthetically but reducing the unnecessary clicks.

Using only sliders to adjust the number of goods or etc. is taking too much control over the player. Strategy players often want to optimize their game within their own respectable experience. Even the most casual player would like to adjust a desirable number from time to time but he/she can not.

Even though there are lots of spaces left on the UI this big interface is only there to cover up the beautiful screen and that brings me to my next topic the big interface.

It’s understandable to choose a certain style of UI design. Anno 1800 has chosen a big interface design where even sometimes covers up the full screen. E.G. Events, diplomacy, etc. Games like Frostpunk has this same approach but the usage of this in here isn’t innovative enoıugh.

For events, it’s good for the player to get away from the strategy aspect mind and completely refocus on the new world events but at the same time, the game continues behind. It’s bad because of a fire, battle or something similar could happen and the player forced to rush decision and continue the strategy mind. That’s why these mini-breaks don’t exactly work as it should be. The game needs to be paused.

On the play screen, the amount of information is sufficient but this big interface gets in the way especially when changing the island because every time it gets reset! I had to click multiple times on the same things to close but they reopen every time I switch island or load a save. And that’s the next thing I want to write about. The unresponsive UI.

This UI approach is slow and it really slows down the game too much. Things like trading goods with port and ship, accepting quests, ship right-clicking and quick-build interface via right-click has to get fixed. They need to be responsive and fast; the player has to go around with multiple islands and the game is real time. The interface shouldn’t increase the challenge.

The game needs an “annual” book. Let us compare our statics -say- 20 minutes ago. How much income I’ve made with trading? How much expenditure I’m spending to sustain artisan income? Deeper statics has been present in the game.

Quick things

Options-Controls menu clumped up too much. It’s a player nightmare to go through that controls window. It has to be grouped up.

Tooltip information is needed for the graphics in order to do what’s doing what and how much they are affecting the system.

Suggestion

I think If we get to name some areas/neighborhoods within the island it would be great. Let’s say I have this good neighborhood in the middle of my city and It would be cool If I could name that place or a port area. Even naming a big park area or a boulevard!

Also, since we get to discover a new world. It would feel right to name places there too for being the first to discover. Maybe even naming a mountain or river would feel great for the player.

Thank you really looking forward to the game to release. I hope you improve the UI controls because this game has great potential to be a classic. I really mean it.