Anno Online FAQ

Anno Online FAQ by Damien

How do I get a loan?

Northburgh will give you a quest for 100k gold if you are low on cash. You need to be around 2000 gold and have less than +50 income (that is your subsidy). The reason you got this loan is because you spent too much money making production buildings before your small community of villagers needed it. The villagers are not producing enough income for you to keep up these ratios of goods production to houses. Try to stop building production buildings until you need them, and make a LOT more homes.

Why can’t I upgrade my pioneers to vassals?

Only 50% of pioneers can be upgraded to vassals. Vassals require licences. If you click your population in the top right corner, you can see how many houses and licences you have. Every 10 houses you build will give you 5 more vassal licences.

My pioneers need services.

They require buildings to continue moving in. Build a Carpenter’s Workshop from the Community tab of the build menu (right-most tab).

What are empty deposits?

Once you have imperials, you will be able to make pickaxes that generate mines of various resources. You can only use these pickaxes on empty deposits. For now, you don’t have to worry about them.

How do I explore new sectors?

Click on the fog on your island. Unlike TSO, with an explorer, here you just click on the location and pay the materials to start exploration.

Official FAQ

How can I build a ship?

Ships are built in the shipyard. To unlock it, you need at least 1500 Vassals.

To start working, the shipyard needs several pre-produced ship parts which can be made in the naval engineer building. This is also available once you reach a population of 1500 Vassals. You can see the amount and the type of items needed to build a ship in the shipyard menu. After you have produced these items, you can start the ship building.

My ship is unable to do anything. Help!

Ships need a captain to be able to fulfill tasks. If you did not place one onto the ship, then it cannot do anything. Each captain supports one typeof ship task. The possible tasks are explore, colonize, trade andtransport. Captains are trained in the ship engineer and will be placed in the inventory afterwards. To add them on a ship, left-click on them, move your mouse over the ship and click again.

Note: Captains cannot be removed once they have been added to a ship.

To give your ship a task, click the respective button in the ship menu after selecting your ship or use the island overview menu. Here you can send ships to explore, colonize or to transport goods. To start a trade you have to use the harbormaster’s office.

See the Question: “How can I trade with other players” for details.

How can I change the game’s Language?

It is impossible to modify the game’s language.

How can I colonize islands?

Island colonization is similar to island exploration. If you want to colonize an island, you can select it in the list of your discovered islands and click on the “colonize” button at the bottom of the island overview menu. The button is not clickable, if you don’t have a free island slot available. In the opened ship list the colonization ship of your choice can be selected and the colonization is started by clicking the colonization button again. After a few hours (depending on the ship/sails you use) you will find the colonized island in your island overview. If you do not have a colonization ship yet, you need to add a loadsman trained in the naval engineer to a ship.

Please note: the ship and the loadsman are consumed during the colonization.

How can I connect to the game?

You will first need to register to the game. If you have done this already, you will then need to log-in. You will find the appropriate boxes on the top right hand corner of your screen. Please enter the email address you used for registration and the password associated to your account. Once this is done, all you need to do is to simply click on Login. If you’re having trouble registering or logging in, feel free to contact support.

How can I discover an island?

Islands are discovered by exploration ships. These are created by adding a sailor of any level to a ship. For further details on this, read the questions “How can I build a ship?” and “My ship is unable to do anything. Help!” To send your ship on an exploration, you can select it in the harbor and left-click the “Explore” button. Alternatively, open the island overview window and press “Discover…” directly in your free island slot. If you go via the island overview, the ship list will open. The expedition will start after you have selected an idle exploration ship and clicked “Discover…” again. Depending on the sailor and the ship/sail you use, the expedition can take less than one hour or as long as twelve hours.

When your exploration ship comes back, the island that it has found will be displayed in the list of your discovered islands. This is located on the left of your island overview menu. If you like an island, you can colonize it. Don’t wait too long – the islands will expire after five days.

How can I explore an additional sector of my island?

Move your cursor so that it is hovering above the mist. The size of the respective sector is displayed by a hatched border around it. After clicking on the mist, a menu opens displaying the minimum size your settlement must be in order to unlock the exploration for that sector.

To actually start exploring, you must then provide the goods displayed in the menu. After that you can start the exploration by clicking the “Explore” button. The exploration can take between several hours to days depending on the sector. Once this time has passed the mist lifts and you can use the explored sector to expand your settlement.

How can I find the island I need?

The most important thing is to choose the sailor that best fits your needs. For example, if you want to find an island with stone/iron resources, you need to use a normal or capable sailor. For gold occurrences theexperienced sailor is necessary. See the tooltips in the naval engineer menu for further details. When you chose the best-fitting sailor you just need a little luck to find the island you want. To increase your chances, you can use additional explorer ships. But be careful – each ship costs you upkeep!

How can I get more space to build my city?

In general, you have several options:

• Make sure that you have optimized the arrangement of existing buildings so that you may place them efficiently.
• You can expand the size of your island by exploring new sectors. To unlock a new sector, your settlement must reach a set population size. You then have to pay resources to begin exploring. After you have started your exploration, it will take time (usually between several hours to several days) until the mist over the sector lifts and you can use the newly discovered land to expand your city.
• You can discover new islands by sending out exploration ships. When they find an island and if you have a free island slot, you can send a colonizer ship to claim the new island. This will give you the chance to move parts of your settlement or add new buildings here. For details, see the related questions in the islands section.

How can I plant trees?

It is not possible to plant trees in Anno Online. However, you should avoid felling them by not placing buildings over them so that resources are preserved for your woodcutters. But don’t worry, your wood cutters work in a sustainable manner and do not ‘consume’ trees. In addition, you can recover overbuilt trees by demolishing any building placed over them. The trees will magically reappear.

How can I sink a ship?

You can use the demolish mode that you normally use to demolish buildings to sink ships. It can be activated by left-clicking the pickaxe button in the menu in the lower right corner. You will be given no refund by doing this.

How can I trade with other players?

The trading system is unlocked when you reach 250 merchants. To trade with other players, it is necessary to build a trade storehouse on one of your empty pier slots. If there is no pier slot available, you can build an additional pier or upgrade one of the existing ones. You also need to add a Merchant captain to a ship to create a trade ship.

After you have built a trade storehouse and trade ship, you can start trading via the harbormaster’s office. Each trade storehouse you own grants you a trade slot.

To start a trade, click on one of the empty slots in the harbormaster’s menu. First you have to decide if you want to buy or sell. The trade wizard will guide you.

After selecting an offer to buy, you get an overview screen to choose the amount you want to buy using the slider in the center. At the bottom the grand total is displayed together with the duration of the trade. This is how long your selected ship needs to transport all the goods to your harbour  Complete the trade task by clicking the finish-button. The cost of the trade will be debited immediately.

If you buy more goods than your warehouse can store, your trade storehouse will work as an interim warehouse, filling up the normal warehouse whenever more space becomes available. During this time you cannot use this trade storehouse for trading.

Selling goods works in a similar way. After clicking “Sell” and selecting the type of goods, you just have to choose the amount and the price per unit. Your offer will be listed in the trade lists after you confirmed it and other players can then accept your offer. Your offer will last for 5 days. If an offer is accepted, the other players’ ship will arrive at your harbor and start to collect the goods. In most cases the ship will need more than one visit to collect everything. Every time it docks at your pier you get paid the value of the goods it takes with it. If you are not able to sell everything during this time, the rest will be transferred to your warehouse. If there is no room in your warehouse, the trade slot will stay blocked until the goods are transferred from the interim warehouse. If your treasury cannot accept the money you earn by trading, due to your treasury house being full, the coins will be added to your inventory. You can discard trade tasks and offers at any time but be careful; if your warehouse and/or treasury are at their capacity limit, goods and money may be lost.

How can I use my ascension rights? How can I upgrade residences?

To ascend/upgrade a residence, the residence needs to have

• the maximum possible inhabitants
• access to all necessary public buildings, such as the chapel (displayed on the right side of the residence menu)
• all goods being requested by the people (displayed on the left side of the residence menu.

Make sure that the satisfaction bars in the residence menu are full. As soon as a residence meets these requirements and ascension rights are available, an upgrade arrow will appear above it. You can then upgrade it by clicking the upgrade button (top center of the residence UI) and paying the upgrade costs displayed in the tooltip. If you do not have the required resources, you will have to wait to upgrade the residence.

How do I build a farm field?

Farm fields are placed by left-clicking on a farm. The farm menu in the lower right corner has a ‘build farm field’ button on the left side of the menu. Clicking on this button puts you into farm field building mode and you can place farm fields just like normal buildings. One constraint of the farm fields is that they can only be built in the influence area of their farm. To ensure maximum efficiency it is necessary to build the correct amount
How do I build? Why can’t I build something?

In Anno Online, buildings can be built via the construction menu. This is opened by left-clicking on the house icon in the lower right hand corner. Several requirements must be fulfilled to be able to build something:

• First, the building must be unlocked. This happens automatically when the island population reaches a set number of inhabitants. If a building is locked, you can see the amount of inhabitants needed in the tooltip for the building.
• Building materials and resources are also required. When you have selected a building, the required materials and resources are displayed in the tooltip and in the upper menu bars. If the costs are displayed in green, this indicates that you have the required materials to build. Note that if they are in red, you do not have enough.
• Next, you need to find somewhere to place your building. In the game all valid areas are highlighted green. Bear in mind that some buildings can only be built in specific places or areas. For example the fishermen’s hut can only be built on the coast.

How do I check my road connections on the island?

All you need to do is to press and maintain the space bar. Everything will be transparent except the road.

How do I quit the game?

You can simply quit the game by closing your browser window or browser tab.

How do I save my game progress?

Anno Online is a new generation browser game, it automatically saves the game for you.

How do I turn the sound off in-game ?

To deactivate the sound in-game, simply press and hold « CTRL » and « S » or you can click on the appropriate tab in the game options.

How do I write in the chat?

Simply click in the chat box and write your message. When you have finished writing, press Enter to send your message.  To find other commands you may use in chat type /help in the text box.  This will show you the chat commands to ignore a player, join another chat channel or to find a friend.

Common chat commands:

To join another global chat channel:

/joinChat global-#

How long will my ship take to travel?

You can see the travel time in the ship’s tooltip or by clicking the ship menu. Unfortunately, the timer that should display the remaining travel time does not work at the moment. So you currently need to calculate it yourself by remembering when you sent your ship out.

I built a ship. Where is it now?

Ships are put into your inventory after production. To “apply” them to the water, you have to open the inventory and left-click on the ship item. After that it will be placed into the water near your lighthouse. You can find it just off the coast in the water.

I cannot log into the game! What can I do?

To play Anno Online’s Closed Beta, you will need a beta key. If you do not have a beta key, we strongly encourage you to check the forum, Facebook and Twitter. Numerous contests and events are organised to win beta keys.

If you do have a beta key and you still cannot log in, please check if the server is actually online/available. It is possible that the server might be undergoing a maintenance.

If there is a technical issue, please contact us by submitting a ticket athttp://us.anno-online.com/en/help-and-support, or post a message on the Forum. Please remember to provide your login information or password to anyone, including game staff. A precise description of the issue at hand attached with a screenshot would be very helpful.

I have 100,000 extra coins/ I lost 100,000 coins. Why?

Currently there is an automatic system in the game that grants you a loan of 100,000 coins to help you if you have very little money. At the moment it is not possible to refuse this. Later, when your economy stabilizes and you have earned enough money, the loan will be called in and debited automatically (This should happen when you have 200,000 coins for the first time). It may be that you missed the notification that you received the loan. In that case it might be confusing, if you suddenly get your money debited. In any case you can be sure that you got the loan, even if you did not see the information.

Is this the final version of Anno Online?

No. we are currently testing. This means that the team behind the game is still learning and discovering the game’s qualities and flaws. An online game is an ongoing process and is in constant evolution. We aim to improve the game with every big update. We can already tell you that even after the release of the final version, we will continue to work hard to improve the game and provide you with the best content possible. If you have any feedback or suggestions about what you’d like to see in Anno Online, please contact us.

My mine is empty. What can I do?

If your mines are nearly empty, you can use different buffs (pickaxe) to recharge the mine.
For example:
• Stone pickaxe
• Carbon pickaxe
• Copper pickaxe
• Gold pickaxe
• Quartz pickaxe

What are ascension rights?

Ascension rights are needed to upgrade residences to the next civilization level. Without ascension rights, a residence cannot be upgraded. This means that they are a very important factor in the game and something you have to take in account. Ascension rights are generated automatically depending on the number of residences that are in your settlement/town (Each island is counted independently). In detail that means that:

• your total number of all residences defines the number of vassal rights you have
• your numbers of vassal, merchant and noblemen houses added up define the number of merchant rights you have
• your numbers of merchant and noblemen houses added up define the number of noblemen rights you have

Another important point to know is that houses consume the rights when they are upgraded. If you upgrade a pioneer house to a vassal residence, one vassal right will be bound to this house and you cannot use it for other residences unless you demolish it. That means that a Noblemen residence binds one vassal right, one merchant right and one noblemen right. But even if you demolish some of your residences, the absolute number of ascension rights you had before will not be removed.

What is Anno Online?

Anno Online is a free-to-play strategy simulation game that lets you build and develop big medieval cities.
No download is required; you can experience a complex city simulation directly in your browser!
Anno Online upholds the traditional in-depth economics that are the hallmarks of the award-winning Anno franchise, and invites players to manage cities to an extent never before seen in any browser game.
The key element of the game is the player’s main island, where thefoundations of your commercial empire will be set. By satisfying the needs of your population, constructing new buildings and managing production, you will unlock new buildings and face new challenges as your population’s demands and consumption habits evolve. Soon, one island won’t be enough to satisfy all their needs and you’ll have to discover andclaim additional islands and connect them via ship trading routes to your main island. For the first time in the Anno series, players will have the opportunity to be part of a giant empire and congregate in powerful guilds to work towards joint goals such as Monumental buildings, complete server-wide quests, and establish trade routes. Players will be able to visit other players’ islands and offer aid to boost their buildings’ production, exchange in-game Mail and converse using the in-game Chat system.

When I try to set a transport route, I cannot use the whole tonnage on the return. Why?

This is a safety mechanism of the game. The total amount of goods you can allocate for the whole transport route cannot exceed the total tonnage of the ship. This is to prevent ships from running full.

When will you stop testing the game?

Unfortunately, we cannot give you an exact date. This depends on the results of our tests.

Where can I get linen garments/beer/other late game goods?

Many of the goods that you need later in the game cannot be produced on your main island. To produce hemp, herbs and other items, you need to have an island with the appropriate fertility on it. Your main island only provides fertilities for apples and wheat. For all other fertilities, new islands must be found and colonized. Later you will even need rare resources like gold or copper. You can find new islands by sending explorer ships out and you can see the resources and fertilities these islands have in theIsland Overview.

Where can I get spices, indigo, or silk?

As you cannot produce them yourself, you have to trade for these goods. Use your trade menu, select the type of goods you want and then choose the tab “Trader”. There you will find the offer from your friend Northburgh. But be careful, as even Northburgh does not produce these goods by himself and is dependent on his trading partners. This leads to fluctuating prices. If you want to get the best price, you have to check prices often.

Where is my Colonizer Ship after the colonization of an island?

The colonizer is consumed during the colonization and will not come back afterwards. If you want to colonize an additional island, you need to build a new one.

Why are my workshops not working efficiently?

To have an efficiency of 100%, a workshop needs the required amount of resources (in case of farms, the correct number of farm fields) and an efficient goods collection by dependent workshops or distribution houses. If the warehouse is full or the street connection is missing, the efficiency will also decrease.

Why can’t I build in a certain location even though there is enough space?

There might be a piece of a street blocking the position for new buildings. Enter demolition mode and use the space bar to make trees and other buildings near to your cursor invisible. This will give you a better look at the area you wish to build on. If there is no street blocking the area, try to reload the game.

Why can’t I abandon my island?

You can abandon islands only if there are no transport routes to the island or ships placed at the island. You need to cancel the transport routes and wait until the ship returns to its home port.

Additionally, you need to make sure that none of your ships have the island as their home port. The home port of a ship is defined by the island you are currently on, when you apply a ship out of your inventory. You cannot change the home port of a ship so the only way to remove a ship from an island is to sink it by using the demolish mode.

Why can’t I apply ships anymore?

Please notice the ship limit. In Anno Online, the amount of ships your settlement can use is limited by your lighthouse, placed off the coast in the water. By clicking it you can see how many ships you currently have and what the maximum limit is.

If the maximum is reached, you can still build new ships, but it is not possible to apply them to the water. To increase the ship limit, you have to upgrade the lighthouse by clicking on the upgrade button in the lighthouse menu. To do this, you need to reach a set number of inhabitants and – of course – the right building materials.

Why do I have so little money? How can I increase my income? How do I earn money?

The amount of money you get is displayed in the financial menu in the upper left corner. Income is generated by the consumption of goods by your inhabitants. Every time they consume goods, they pay for them. Conversely, all your farms, workshops, public buildings and so on have upkeep costs that you must pay. To get more money, you have to try to get the maximum income with the minimum expenses.

In order to do that you need to ensure that your production supply fits the consumption demand as closely as possible. You should avoid high overproduction since this will have a negative impact on your income. On the other hand you should try to fulfill the needs of your population to get as much money as possible. As an additional step you can try to increase the size of your town. More consumers mean more income. The goods needed for the first three civilization levels will generate a profit if your supply meets demand and your workshops and farms are working at 100% efficiency.

To earn money you can also use the trade system. This is available at merchant level. If you sell your goods at a higher price than you produced them, you will make a profit. Take into consideration upkeep costs, production times and price of resources used during production when valuing your goods. And don’t forget, if you are too greedy, no-one will accept your offer.

Why do my fishermen/woodcutters not have 100% efficiency?

The efficiency of these buildings is dependent on the number of shoals/trees in their influence area. The current and the ideal numbers needed are displayed in the building menu in the lower right corner when you click on the buildings. If one shoal/tree is covered by the influence areas of more than one workshop, the efficiency is split.

Why do my workshops for intermediate goods produce more or less goods than needed by the final workshops?

First you should ensure that you have the correct ratio of workshops. You can see the time a workshop needs to produce one item by left-clicking on it. The information is displayed in the workshop menu in the center, near the top. If a workshop is part of a production chain, it needs a set amount of goods per production circle. That means that you can use production times to calculate the ideal ratios of workshops. For example, the sheep farm needs 200 seconds to produce wool and the spinner’s hut needs 200 seconds to produce wool garments, so the ratio of buildings should be 1:1. The apple farm needs 380 seconds to produce apples and the cider brewery needs 190 seconds to produce cider, so it would be ideal to place two apple farms for every cider brewery.

Another important point is the workload for your distribution houses. Every distribution house has one market cart (which can be increased by up to three through upgrading) that collects the goods from your workshops. If you have too many workshops, the market cart is overburdened. This means goods collection is inefficient, which will eventually lead to inefficient workshops.

If you are sure that the workshops should be sufficient, build an additional distribution house and/or move your workshops to another position nearer to a distribution house or dependent workshop.

Why do some buildings not show a satisfied need for a public building, even if they stand in that building’s influence area?

It is possible that you forgot to place a street connection between the public building and the residence. This is mandatory. If you did not, check the street connection in detail. There might be one piece of street missing somewhere. Sometimes this might also occur due to a connection problem. You may want to try reloading the game.

Why does my income increase and decrease?

There are several possible reasons:

If you have overproduction and your workshops’ storage is full, they will shut down their production automatically. This reduces the upkeep costs of these workshops by 50% while they are inactive. As soon as the island warehouse has free capacity, market carts will collect goods from the workshops and they will start their production again, increasing their upkeep costs. Over the time this can lead to an unsteady balance.

If you do not produce enough of the goods needed by your population, your storage will run empty. Every time the market carts collects new goods, your inhabitants will consume them and this increases your income for a short time. Once the goods are consumed, your income will drop again. A similar situation occurs if you have a transport route carrying goods that are fully consumed before the ship returns with its next delivery.

Why does my income shrink after upgrading residences?

Your inhabitants pay for the goods that they consume. After reaching a new civilization level, their consumption of the ‘old’ goods decreases. Hence, you earn less money but you now need to provide fewer goods per inhabitant than before. In contrast, the maximum number of inhabitants per residence increases after upgrading. Once everybody has moved in and the residence is full to maximum, the consumption per house will be roughly the same level as before. This compensates for the reduced consumption per inhabitant. In addition to that mechanic, higher civilization levels may pay a little bit less for certain goods than before and this also leads to a slight reduction in income. The best way to increase your income significantly is to fulfill the new needs that arise when reaching a new civilization level.

Why doesn’t anybody collect the goods from my workshops?

This could be for several reasons:

• The storage area in your warehouse for this type of goods is full. Once this happens, these goods can no longer be collected or stored. You can increase the consumption of the goods or upgrade your warehouse capacity to solve this.
• One of your distribution houses could be overburdened and unable to collect all the goods from the workshops and farms in its area. You can build additional distribution houses, upgrade existing ones or upgrade your dirt roads to stone roads to improve the speed and collection time of the market carts.
• The workshop is not within the influence area of a distribution house or a workshop that collects and uses the goods as part of its production. A broken street connection can also prevent goods collection.
• You can also solve the problem by building additional distribution houses.

Why doesn’t my residence have the maximum possible amount of inhabitants/why isn’t anyone moving in?

There are a few possible reasons for this: – If you place residences outside the influence area of a marketplace, everyone will move out. – If you unlock a need for a new public building, for example your peasants need access to a chapel, no one will move into your residence until the chapel is built. However, when needs for a new public building are unocked, your current residents do not move out, so you might have some residences with the maximum number of inhabitants and some with less. – Higher civilization levels take longer for residents to move in, so be patient!

Why don’t I get Ascension rights / don’t have residences ready for upgrade?

Ascension rights are automatically generated when you meet certain requirements. To get ascension rights for the next civilization level, you need to build a set number of residences of the previous level. For example you need 32 pioneer houses to get 15 ascension rights to upgrade to vassals. After getting ascension rights for the first time, you will receive additional ascension rights, 5 at a time, when you build enough additional residences. So if you don’t have enough ascension rights, you need to build more residences of the previous level.