Ubisoft’s flagship economic management game Anno 1800 is still going strong, so much so that the studio have revealed they will be running a third season of expansion content in 2021. Part of this is definitely down to the game’s modding community. Anno 1800 mods may not be as prolific as other mod scenes, but there’s plenty of user generated content to check if you’re looking to spice up your game.
Anno 1800 is one of Ubisoft’s more recent titles, and it’s one that’s kept pretty much exclusively on Ubisoft’s Uplay platform (now known as Ubisoft Connect). You can find it to purchase in other places, like the Epic Games Store, but you still need Connect to launch the game. Crucially, Anno 1800 isn’t on Steam, so it can’t benefit from something like Steam Workshop.
All of the mods below have been pulled from Nexus Mods. You can check out the full library here (sorted by ‘most popular of all time’), but we’ve taken a sample selection of mods to show off the different ways you can alter your game.
These are the best Anno 1800 mods:
How to install Anno 1800 mods
You have to go a little ‘old school’ in order to install mods for Anno 1800. All of the mods listed below will come with specific installation instructions, and typically most (if not all) of them will require this mod loader tool created by a member of the community. To install it, do the following:
As a general rule of thumb, any mods will need to be placed into the ‘mods’ folder, but make sure you read any specific install instructions.
This is a utility mod that uses the mod loader mentioned above and offers a bit of extra functionality. It’s not a mods list without a mod manager, especially for games that don’t use Steam Workshop like this one. This tool acts as a standalone launcher, capable of launching the game itself, managing mod directory creation, loader files and allows for the activation/deactivation of individual mods.
This mod can best be described as a collection, pulling together various quality of life changes, gameplay tweaks and other add-ons to ‘spice’ up Anno 1800 in a way that makes the game feel fresh, but doesn’t stray into the realm of changes that make things easier. Additions include everything from a sandbox mode, to a range of ornamental mods, to crazy stuff like Thomas the Dank Engine. No, we don’t know either.
This mod unlocks the exclusive ships you either needed an extremely rare drop/reward to unlock, or had to purchase from pirates. This allows you to build a shipyard and build the exclusive ships as long as you have an Artisan on your island.
This mod is all about one thing: Battleships. In vanilla Anno 1800 the largest warship you can build is the Battlecruiser, and this mod adds in the next class rating. It comes with a custom mesh and textures for the player to be built in the Steam Shipyard when reaching 3000 Investors.
This particular cheat mod is the most popular version of this type on Nexus, currently, but there are others like it, and other mods with similar functionality. We’ve included it because in games like Anno, sometimes all you want is a bit of a boost or a way to smooth over kinks if something goes wrong.
This is a popular example of a visual overhaul mod, even though its only purpose is to create unique visual effects for Tier 4 & 5 residential buildings for Engineers and Investors, as well as adding variations for Farmer and Worker buildings as well.
