Anno 1800 FAQ
98 questions players ask · Updated Nov 10, 2026 · Full rulebook
Game Setup and Components
General Rules
Turn Structure and Free Actions
- Is celebrating a festival a main action or a free action?
- Can you take free actions after celebrating a festival in the same turn?
- Can I take an extra action (from a card effect) in the middle of another action?
- Does an extra action from a card effect give you a whole extra turn?
- How many population cards can you play in one turn?
- Is playing a population card a main action, and is activating its effect free?
Resource Management
- Can you produce goods in one action and keep them for a later action in the same turn?
- Where does a population cube go when it is spent as a cost?
- Can you place a higher-level worker on a lower-ranked resource space?
- How many trade tokens does a trade cost?
- Can you trade for the same resource more than once in a turn, with any player or through an extra action?
- Can you trade with more than one player in a single turn?
- How much gold does each seller get when you trade several goods in one turn?
- Does an industry's owner need a worker on it for you to trade for its goods?
- Can you trade for New World resources on another player's island?
- Can you use the same New World resource more than once in one turn?
- Can you trade with other players to pay for completing a population card?
- Can you use End of Shift repeatedly on the same worker in one turn?
- When in your turn can you use End of Shift, and does it use up a main action?
- Do any industries require exhausting an Investor to build?
- What is the red cotton fabric resource and where do you get it?
Expanding Your Island
- Can you own two of the same industry?
- Must an alternative industry be built over the starting industry it replaces?
- Can you overbuild a built industry with a different industry?
- Can you build over a pre-printed industry on my island or an Old World island?
- What happens to workers on a tile you overbuild or return?
- Can you build a normal industry on a coastal land space?
- Can you take a tile with no cost icons without paying anything?
- Can you return one built tile during Expand in addition to building?
- Can you take Expand and return a built tile without building anything?
- Can you return a built tile before building in the same Expand action?
- Can you overbuild several ships in one Expand action?
- Can one Expand action build an industry or shipyard and also build ships?
- If you build over a shipyard that has a ship on it, do you keep the ship?
- How many ships can each shipyard build in one Expand action?
- Must a new ship be built next to its shipyard?
- Can you overbuild your own ship, and what happens to its tokens?
- Can you build a better ship over a pre-printed ship?
- Can tokens from one newly built ship pay for another ship in the same action?
- How many trade or exploration tokens can one ship hold?
- Can you build an industry on a New World island by overbuilding its resource field?
Other Main Actions
- Are the bonuses on Old World islands mandatory?
- When you open up an Old World island, do you also draw 3 New World cards?
- How many exploration tokens does each Old World or New World island cost, and how many can you have?
- Can a newly gained population cube produce resources right away for further workforce growth?
- Are upgrade costs paid per upgrade, and do workers go out to produce them?
- Do you draw population cards when you upgrade workers?
- Can you upgrade through a colour whose cube supply is empty during a multi-upgrade action?
- Can you upgrade a worker cube that is in the exhausted area?
- Can you upgrade workers one at a time and use each newly upgraded worker in the same turn?
- Do you have to take all three expedition cards when you use the expedition action?
- Is there a limit to how many expedition cards you can hold?
- What does a festival reset?
Population Cards and Their Effects
- Must you take the cubes and cards from a population card's effect when you play it?
- Is the discard-up-to-two-cards population effect mandatory, and must you use it at once?
- If a population card gives several upgrades or discards, can you save part of the reward for a later action?
- How do the three free upgrades on a population card work?
- What happens to trade or exploration tokens that a population card gives you?
- When you fulfil a card that rewards a worker, do you get the matching population card?
- Are played population cards face up or face down?
- Must you use a population card's effect right away after playing it?
- Do played population cards score if you never activate them?
- What can I do with the free New World resource a population card gives me?
- When a card says to discard cards arbitrarily, who chooses which ones go?
Objective Cards
- How are points split when players tie on a most-of-something objective card?
- Which trade tokens count toward the Madame Kahina objective?
- How often can Alonso Graves, Aarhant and The Editor be used in a turn?
- How does Beryl O'Mara work with trade and exploration tokens?
- Does a player with none of an influence element qualify for second place on a most-influence objective card?
- Does Bente Jorgensen score 18 points if you have New World islands?
End of the Game and Scoring
- If playing your last hand card draws you more cards or population, does the game end?
- Does an effect that empties your hand end the game?
- How many more turns does each player get after the end is triggered?
- Are New World cards counted as population cards?
- Is there a penalty for cards left in hand at the end of the game?
- Do expedition cards need to be placed on your island?
Anno 1800: Die ErweiterungExpansion
- What do players start with in Anno 1800: Die Erweiterung, and is a purple card dealt at random?
- In the expansion, does spending a cogwheel to build an industry skip producing its required resources?
- In the expansion, can you buy the same good from a trade partner more than once per turn?
- In the expansion, how many innovation purchases and gear actions can you make per turn?
- In the expansion, can you trade for the good needed to buy an innovation card?
- In the expansion, can hangars be built on any land space, or only on the coast?
- Can a gear action build a shipyard or a hangar in the expansion?
- How does the Anne Harlow objective card work?
- With Donald Bader, can you buy the hybrid airship and send an investor to it the same turn?
- Does spending gears to take an action pay that action's cost?
- Does a patent stop everyone from trading for that resource?
- How many worker slots does a built factory have?
- Can you buy farmer-based goods from the supply when an opponent makes the same good with another industry?
- In the expansion, does celebrating a festival end your turn?