Hello friends,

I created a spreadsheet to help calculate taxes, costs, consumption and production in order to plan your empire in Anno 1602.

I also noticed that some of the existing information online (regarding housing upgrades and building unlocks) isn't entirely accurate, so I've included more accurate information about those, as well as some tips for the game in general.

DISCLAIMER: This is a Google Spreadsheet hosted on Google Drive.
It does NOT work on Excel! It ONLY works on Google Spreadsheets.
Even though the file menu gives you the option, this Spreadsheet will NOT work if you try to download it as an Excel (.xlsx) file.

Follow this link to the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xoc8NpfDtAU7AAXoe3R-veA2k18ubeGEHTCjcFml7h0

-You cannot edit this spreadsheet directly (because then no more than one person could use it at the same time, and everyone would overwrite each other’s data).
Instead you need to make a copy of it to your own Google account (any run-of-the-mill gmail or youtube account should work I think) by going to File->Make Copy.
Alternatively you can use this URL to instantly create a copy: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xoc8NpfDtAU7AAXoe3R-veA2k18ubeGEHTCjcFml7h0/copy


The empty spreadsheet looks like this:

• You can use this spreadsheet for your entire empire or only for a specific island or subset of islands. That's up to you.
  
• You use the spreadsheet by entering the amount of buildings you will have of each type in the WHITE cells (columns D, J and O).
  GRAY cells contain formulas or configurations and should NOT be directly edited. (To help remind you, you will see a warning when attempting to edit a gray cell)
  
• Unlike spreadsheets that I've made for other city builder games, this spreadsheet doesn’t project trade because trade is more irregular in Anno than in, say, Caesar, Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar where you can just configure your city to import X of a good every year.
  This Anno spreadsheet serves to give you a foundational understanding of your settlement's balance by estimating production, consumption, operational costs, and minimum tax income - besides accurately projecting your population and building unlocks.
  These results can be further modified in-game though trade and taxes.
  
• When there are ORANGE backgrounds on building names, it means that your housing configuration in column D is not sufficient to unlock this building.
  (Of course if you're using the sheet for only certain islands and not your entire empire, then it's possible you may still have unlocked these buildings through your housing on another island.)
  
• The spreadsheet pessimistically assumes the default tax rate of 32%. If you are exploiting the tax mechanic to its fullest potential, you will usually perform better in-game than is projected here.
  
• The spreadsheet also pessimistically assumes that all buildings are active and that shipyards are constantly working. Deactivated buildings cost much less gold to maintain. This is especially relevant for shipyards, which are automatically deactivated when not busy building or repairing a ship, and as such will often drain less gold than projected here.
  
• The spreadsheet assumes 100% viability for every plantation.
  
• Ships require wood and cloth to construct or repair. So you should plan to have some surplus wood and cloth, or shipbuilding will slow down to a crawl.
  
• RED backgrounds indicate some kind of deficit in money or goods, which could potentially cause problems in-game, but bear in mind the following:
  
  • The spreadsheet doesn't account for trade, so small deficits in goods or money could be compensated for in-game by trading with free traders, natives or other players - though keep in mind that trade in Anno can be inconsistent and at times downright unreliable.
    
  • Settlers, Citizens and Merchants are all allowed to miss out on ONE of their required goods (except food). Only Aristocrats need literally ALL their desired goods. If you are not planning to evolve all the way to aristocrats, you can forego any one of the consumer goods entirely and ignore its red cell.
    
  • For goods that are raw materials used to produce other goods, a red cell means that the production chain relying on that good will not run at full efficiency, and will therefore produce less than projected in the sheet.
    For example, a deficit in flour means that bakeries will not run at full efficiency and you will end up with less food than indicated in the spreadsheet.
    (In some cases, this is okay if the production chain is not vital for keeping your island afloat. For example, you might not produce enough iron to produce tools at full efficiency, however tools are only used for expansion and your settlements will survive just fine without them - so it might not be a wise move to construct another expensive mine just to optimize your tool chain.)

Old Anno 1602 guides that you may know from Gamefaqs or Anno fansites contain helpful tables with the requirements to evolve housing and unlock all buildings.
Unfortunately, I noticed that they are NOT entirely accurate.

So I ran a whole bunch of tests to determine the exact, accurate requirements to upgrade housing and to unlock buildings.
Here are the results, coupled with a short description of where they differ from older guides and why it matters:



Where the old guides got it wrong is the required goods for settlers, citizens and merchants.
Specifically, while they realized that citizens could miss out on either spices or tobacco products and still evolve, they didn't realize that the same also applies to cloth and liquor - any one of the 4 goods can be left out so long as you supply the other 3.
They also claimed that merchants always need cocoa, and/or that they always need BOTH tobacco and spices. Again, any one of their 5 desired goods (including cocoa!) can be left out so long as you provide all other 4.
Additionally, it is possible to upgrade pioneers to settlers with liquor rather than cloth, although you need a certain amount of settlers before you gain access to liquor so this won't be useful for your first island.

All-in-all, the game is actually a bit easier and more flexible and forgiving than the old guides make you think!



The old guides sometimes claim that merchants are required to unlock cannon foundries and deep iron mines but this is definitely NOT the case. A sufficiently large citizen town will do fine.
This is especially significant because cannon foundries are essential to fighting pirates or other players, and in certain difficult scenarios it is important to start producing cannons as soon as possible.
Again, the game is actually a bit easier than the older guides claimed.

For the sake of completion, I've added some further tips to help new players succeed at the game, since there are no other guides on steam.
This is by no means a complete guide for the game, but are rather additional tips and tricks to help you after you've completed the tutorial and have a feel for how the game works.

• The right-click camera can be very annoying when trying to micromanage ships and troops (and, boy, they require a lot of micromanaging in combat) as even the slightest unsteadiness while right-clicking to move or attack will cause you to slide the camera instead of giving the intended order.
  This can be extremely frustrating when fighting a battle!
  Fortunately, the right-click camera can be entirely disabled from the options in the main menu, and I recommend you do so.
  
• Pressing the W key with a single ship selected raises the white flag on that ship. This is very important when dealing with pirates especially in the early game, when raising the white flag is often the only way to keep your ship alive and you cannot afford to lose your only ship!
  Without the W key, you would need to navigate to the battle tab and then press the "white flag" button. This is considerably slower, and will cause your ship to take unnecessary damage.
  For some reason, it does not work with multiple ships selected.
  
• Besides the regular game speeds that can be selected with F5-F7, there is a less obvious 4th game speed that can be activated with SHIFT+F8 and is even faster than the F7 speed. •
  
• You might want to check out the “Video & Speech” settings. These can’t be accessed from the main menu but only in-game. You need to go to the options tab and press the Anno 1602 sign.
  Notably, you can disable the little videos that appear in the top right of the screen on certain events. The videos are nice, but they do obscure the minimap which you might find annoying. If you do, you may decide to disable them here.
  You can also disable certain repetitive speech messages here if they are getting on your nerves, such as the “Check your trade routes” message.
  
  
• Mining gold and selling it to free traders or other players is a good way to earn money and makes many scenarios a lot easier.
  Usually there is only a single gold mine on the entire map, so do your best to find and claim it ASAP. After reaching 150 citizens, you can start mining and selling the gold for lots of trade income, until you eventually need the gold to produce jewelry for aristocrats.
  
• Free traders will pay lots of money for cannons. If you are truly desperate for a quick cash injection, you can unequip your ships' cannons and sell them.

• Anno 1602 has two different climate types, much like other Anno games. However, climate only affects the types of plantations that are viable on an island.
  Temperate islands are usually found in the north of the map, and are viable for tobacco, vines and sugarcane. Tropical islands are usually found in the south, and are viable for spices, cotton and cocoa.
  Even then, one or more of the island's three supported plantation types may only be 50% viable. You can determine which plantation types are 50% and which are 100% viable on an island by sailing a ship to it and pressing the "explore" button in the ship's interface. The viabilities will then appear in the bottom of the screen when hovering the mouse over an island.
  Other agriculture such as wheat, forestry and livestock are always 100% viable on every climate type.
  
• Although it is not immediately obvious, you can tell whether an island is tropical or temperate by just looking at it. Temperate islands have deciduous trees, whereas tropical islands have palm trees.
  
  
• It is usually best to start your first settlement on a temperate island with 100% viability for tobacco and either sugarcane or vines. This will allow you to evolve all the way to citizens before you need to settle a second island, as you will have access to liquor, cloth and tobacco products. On a tropical island, you would only have access to spices and cloth, meaning you need to import tobacco and/or liquor from elsewhere in order to reach citizens.
  
  
• Fisheries only use water tiles that are in the "medium" shade of blue. There are light blue tiles immediately next to the shoreline and deep blue tiles out in the open sea, with only a very thin layer of "medium" blue tiles separating the two. Fisheries can only fish in this thin intermediate layer.
  
  A tile that has been visited by a fisherman needs some time to "recharge" its available fish, so each fishery needs a fair amount of medium tiles in its range in order to run at full efficiency. Be sure to place your fisher's huts in such a way that they have the most amount of medium tiles possible (and make sure that the ranges of two separate fisheries do not overlap too much).
  
• Food can be produced through fisheries, hunters, cattle farms with butchers and wheat farms with mills and bakeries. It does not matter to the citizens which food they get or if they have a variety of food types, so long as their mouths are fed.
  
  • Fisheries are the cheapest option, and waste the least space as they are built on shore tiles that are useless for most other buildings. However, as we've seen in the previous point, the amount of fishable tiles around each island is very limited, so each island can only support a limited number of these at full efficiency.
    
  • Hunters require deer to roam on the island, which in turn require a balance between trees and open ground tiles. While they can be a very effective food source in the early game, they'll get harder to use as you build up your island. Truthfully, I never bother with them.
    
  • Cattle farms and butcheries are a cost-effective food source that is great all around, although the cattle farms require a good bit of empty space around it for grazing, which it can be hard to find a good spot for.
    
  • Grain farms with mills and bakeries are the least cost-effective food source. However, since each individual grain farm requires only very little space around it, it is much easier to cram these buildings into small corners and make optimal use of the available room in your island, compared to hunters or cattle farms. If money is not an issue, they tend to be the most convenient to place.
• Flour mills and water-mills both convert grain to flour and are exactly equal in cost and performance. The only difference is that water-mills are placed partially on river tiles, thus saving a few land tiles that you could have used for other buildings.
  
• Sheep farms and cotton plantations both produce wool. Cotton plantations are much more effective and space-efficient, but are also more expensive, require a tropical island with the appropriate viability and are unlocked fairly late. Sheep farms are cheap, available immediately and work anywhere. You'll start with sheep, but might want to eventually replace them with cotton as you progress.
  
• Weaving mills are a direct improvement over weaver's huts, although they are more expensive and only unlocked later on. (A weaving mill can keep up with exactly 2 cotton plantations, whereas a weaver's hut can keep up with exactly 2 sheep farms)
  
• Liquor can be produced using either wineries or sugarcane plantations with distilleries. Sugarcane is slightly less cost-effective, but it's close enough that it doesn't really matter and you should just use whichever is 100% viable on the most convenient island for you.
  
  
• Unlike stone quarries, iron and gold mines can't just be built against any mountainside, they can only be built directly on the sides of mountains that have a deposit of that ore.
  Ore deposits are revealed by "exploring" the island using one of your ships. You need to keep the exploration process running for a short while after the plantation viabilities are already revealed.
  An icon with gold or iron ore will then appear over any mountain containing a deposit. Note that ONLY that particular mountain contains the ore and can support mines, it does NOT mean that you can build mines on other mountains on the island!
  
• Iron and gold ore can only appear in mountains. If an island does not have any mountains, it will definitely not contain gold or iron.
  
• Remember that docks, which are built over shore tiles, function as roads. They may allow you to reach mountainsides that directly face the shore and are normally inaccessible. On rare occasions, this is even the only way to access a deposit to begin with.
  Docks can also be useful to connect fisheries to your warehouse without needing to waste land tiles on roads.
  
• There are actually two types of iron deposits - small and large.
  
  • Small deposits contain 80 tons of iron, all of which can be extracted using basic iron mines.
    
  • Depending on the scenario, deep deposits will either contain 240 tons of iron or be literally infinite. After roughly 115-120 iron has been extracted, basic iron mines will stop working. You need to use deep iron mines to extract the rest.
  There is no graphical difference between the two types of deposits so it is impossible to know what type you have until your basic mines stop working.
  If the ore indicator over the mountain has then disappeared entirely, then it was a small deposit which is now complete exhausted. If the indicator is still there, then it is a large deposit and you must now switch to deep mines to extract the rest.
  
• Gold deposits are infinite, and there is usually only one of them on the entire map.
  
• If you're struggling and want to cheese a bit, you could make a save right at the beginning of the game, sail your ship to each island and note down the available resources, and then reload your save. This will allow you to immediately settle the ideal starting island.

• Note that when selecting a house, you get an interface for its particular social class on its particular island. So, if you select a settler's house and see "100 settlers", it does not mean that that house contains 100 settlers on its own, but rather its the total amount of settlers on the island.
  Any changes made in the tax rate here also only affect the selected social class on the selected island. E.g. if you raise taxes for settlers on island A, pioneers on island A will be unaffected, as will settlers on island B.
  
• It is often possible to raise taxes on houses to gain a higher income. When selecting a house, note the vertical red bar against a black background with the thin horizontal grey line in it.
  The thin horizontal grey line indicates the minimum required goods supply for these people to tolerate the current tax rate without leaving, whereas the height of the red bar indicates how happy the people are with goods supply.
  In other words, you can raise taxes until the grey line is just beneath the top of the red bar. You can raise the red bar by giving your people ALL their requested supply goods, rather than only the minimum required to evolve housing.
  
  In other words, providing surplus types of supply goods = more potential tax income. But you need to remember to actually manually control the tax rate to take advantage of it!
  
• Only inhabitants that live in actual housing consume goods and services and pay tax. Industry and service buildings also slightly increase your island's total population because the workers ostensibly just live in the buildings they operate. Since this small bit of extra population doesn't consume goods or provide taxes, their only use seems to be to slightly buff your total population for certain scenario objectives.
  
• Unlike with goods, there is NO benefit for having more service buildings than the minimum required for the desired housing level. Service buildings are expensive in upkeep costs, so you should IGNORE e.g. your settlers' request for a tavern and school until you are about to upgrade them to citizens.
  
• Only housing can catch on fire or catch disease, so doctors and fire brigades aren’t needed outside of housing areas.
  
• In order for an emergency service worker (doctor, fire-brigade) to reach a house that needs help, not only must the house itself be in range of the emergency building but THE ENTIRE STRETCH OF ROAD LEADING UP TO IT must be as well.
  If the emergency worker would need to take a detour to reach a house, and that detour would lead the worker outside of its building's range at any point, then the emergency worker will NOT be dispatched.
  (Older guides for the game don't seem to realize that this can happen, and mistake it for a bug.)

• Pirates are the most intrusive and stressful part of the game!
  
• The strength of pirate ships varies between missions, but they are usually overpowered. In most missions, only a fully equipped large warship can defeat them. Pirate ships are usually much stronger than ships belonging to enemy players.
  
• In many campaign missions, pirates will not attack other players or free traders and are only after you. :-(
  
• Until you can produce enough ships and cannons to effectively fight the pirates, the only thing you can do when attacked by them is to hoist the white flag (with the W key, see notes on controls). This will immobilize your ship, but instantly stops pirates from attacking it.
  Sometimes, the pirates will then steal some of the goods your ship is carrying. Other times, they simply hang around for a while without taking anything.
  When the pirates have finally left, reactivate your ship (also with the W key) so it may resume its journey. It's quite easy to forget this, which might leave a crucial trade route inoperative and cause further problems.
  
• If you have an idle ship, e.g. your starting ship while building your first settlement, RAISE THE WHITE FLAG. This will prevent your ship from ever being attacked by pirates while it's just sitting outside your island.
  
• Pirates may settle on one of the islands. This pirate hideout is not visible to you until you sail a ship nearby.
  If there is a pirate hideout, you can buy a (brief) temporary truce with the pirates by sailing a ship to its warehouse and handing over some money. You can also bribe them to attack another player, although I’ve not found this very effective.
  NOTE: your ship must not have any cannons equipped, or the pirate hideout's watchtowers will attack it and prevent negotiations. (Having cannons in the cargo hold of the ship but not equipped is fine)
  
  
• Native villages, like pirate hideouts, are not discovered until you sail a ship nearby.
  
• You can trade with native villages at the "native chief's hut" - you might need to hover your mouse over the buildings and read the building names to find it, as it's not very distinct.
  If the chief's hut is near the shore, you can just trade with the village using a ship. If not, you will need to settle the island and use teamsters for overland trade. Teamsters are created from the market-place and function just like a ship, but on land.
  
• Trading with natives does not involve money, rather you trade goods for other goods.
  
• Natives only have a very limited stock, so trading with them is usually not enough to rely upon.
  
• Natives may take up a lot of space on your island that you would rather use yourself. Since they only have a few warriors and no towers or ships, it is easy to destroy them.
  HOWEVER, destroying a native village gets you a native curse, which will cause negative random events (droughts, fire, plague) to happen more frequently for a period of time.
  If you are well-prepared, this isn't a big problem.
  
  
• When a war breaks out, the enemy AI player should quickly be made harmless by sinking their fleet.
  
• Fortunately, the AI does not move its ships in groups, and they only cluster together near their warehouses or in certain busy trade routes. This means that even a small group of warships can successfully pick off enemy ships one by one and defeat their entire navy, even if the AI has more ships in total.
  
• The AI also tends NOT to equip its ships with the maximum amount of cannons, instead preferring to spend its cannons on watchtowers. This makes defeating the AI ships even easier.
  
• The AI tends to only construct a single shipyard, so they will be slow to replenish their lost ships. You might be tempted to sail in and destroy the shipyard, but they will often just immediately rebuild it elsewhere and you will end up in an endless cat-and-mouse game with the shipyard. It is easier to simply camp a few ships outside the yard and spawn-kill the ships as they are created.
  
• After the AI has lost its ships, you will be safe from invasion and the AI's housing will start to devolve due to a lack of supplies from other islands. This will in turn slow down its production of ships and troops.
  However, the AI cheats for money slightly and will never go fully bankrupt, so you will eventually need to invade its islands to deal the finishing blow.
  
• Ships are far stronger than any land forces, so you'll want to destroy as many of the AI's troops and watchtowers as possible using just your ships before landing your army.
  
• Enemy troops can easily be lured to the shores where your ships can annihilate them.
  You can do this by landing a few units right next to your ships, prompting the AI to send an equivalent amount of units to face them. Building a warehouse on an unclaimed part of the AI's island also works well.
  
• Trees, walls, and other buildings block the line of fire of troops of ships. You need to destroy the closer buildings first, before you can target the buildings behind them. Since the AI likes to build walls all around its shoreline, you will need to punch holes through the walls when bombarding an enemy island with ships. (The AI might replace its walls quite quickly at first, but eventually they will use up their bricks and slow down.)
  
• Unlike troops and ships, watchtowers CAN fire over buildings, walls and trees. This makes watchtowers quite dangerous to approach, and you're better off levelling all possible obstructions from afar before trying to engage them.
  
• Your troops can attack trees if you hold down CTRL. This may be necessary in order to get a clear line of fire at a tower.
  
• Unlike what their names and appearance suggests, castles, large castles and fortresses are NOT defensive buildings and don't fight enemy troops or ships. Rather, they are only used to recruit units. Watchtowers are the only buildings that fight enemies.
  
• Fortresses train slightly faster and can queue more units than large castles, which are in turn slightly faster and can queue more units than castles.
  
• Land forces can be healed by a doctor. Select the unit and directly right-click the doctor's building. The unit will enter the building and reappear shortly afterwards with its health replenished.
  
• There are 4 types of unit, namely infantry, cavalry, musketeers and cannoneers.
  Cannoneers are the only one you'll need, as they are by far the most effective against enemy watchtowers. Your ships can take out the enemy's troops, so watchtowers are the only thing your land forces need to worry about.
  You will already be producing cannons to equip your ships, so you already have the required industry.
  Even so, enemy watchtowers slightly outrange cannoneers, can fire over trees and buildings, and have lots of health, so you should expect casualties. I find that I usually need a force of around 20 cannoneers to level the entire enemy capital in one go.
  
• Your units and ships can automatically target enemy ships and units, but only in a very limited range. You'll often need to do lots of micromanagement to fight effectively.
  Worse, your units and ships do not automatically target enemy buildings, and you need to destroy lots of them to win.
  
• After being destroyed, AI market-places stick around in ruined form for a while before fully disappearing at a random time. Until all of them have despawned, the AI will keep hold of the island and attempt to build new buildings after you've already won! Keep your army around until all market-places have gone and the AI no longer owns the island at all.
  
• When fighting pirates or AI, make sure to have a surplus of cloth and wood available to repair your ships with!