Anno 1800: The Board Game

OnOnbasestar8.5

As a big fan of the video game, I was very impressed with how well this captures feeling of Anno while still being a fun puzzle in the structure of a Euro. This has quickly become one of my favorites and I can't wait to see what the future expansion adds from the video game. + variable interactivity (you can rely on other players as much or as little as you'd like) + high replayability with all the different population cards and end-game objectives + deceptively simple mechanics ++ building your own production lines to find paths through your hand of cards is immensely satisfying and surprisingly intuitive + I like being able to manipulate the types of workers I have outside of just the special card actions + Various exploration options increase the number of playstyles you can delve into + Character portraits feel very vibrant and full of life some of the luck-of-the-draw can be mitigated by using the advanced rules - Being a video game adaptation, I understand that the art style for the industry tiles was probably non-negotiable. And while I don't mind the graphics that were included on the boards, the illustrations that you can see throughout the loading screens in the video game (also seen on the board game cover and back of the main board) are beautiful and wonderfully evocative of the time period. I would have loved to have seen more of those illustrations incorporated into the board game components. - an organizer keeping all the tiles in order would be nice