My name is Paul and I have been playing Anno for a very very long time. This particular version of Anno may be the worst of all available options. But that's not for the reasons that one would expect.

Anno at its core was an elitist game that required hidden knowledge that made the game worth investing in just so you could understand how the game worked.

Anno 2205 moved away from the nicheness of previous titles by providing a game that was user friendly with user friendly controls and options. In previous generations of the game complicated tables and calculators were needed to figure out how much of each supply you would need. Higher difficulties would mean forfeiting progress in favor of building up a military. The older games were a giant mess of complicatedness.

But, it was fun because it was exceptionally challenging.

Anno 2205 comes with three difficulty levels that vary in their strength depending on how finely tuned your society needs to be. The walkthrough component of this was played on the hardest difficulty, but its lessons can be carried on to producing a highly efficient easy difficulty map.

This guide will cover basics of the game, the DLCs, and a walkthrough of the campaign.

By all means this guide is not complete in that the game will continue to include new DLCs and new options and this guide will advance with those new options and new DLCs. For now, it is merely a complete guide of the current time.

Anno is a logistical economy simulator. It is in a sense, it's own sub-genre of the economy sim genre.

The goal of Anno is essentially to build the largest possible population with the limited resources given. This basics will cover only The Temperate and Arctic regions, while other sections will cover The Moon and DLCs.

The object of the game is to fulfill the needs of your civilians. Once their needs are met they can be manually upgraded by one of three ways. You can click on the building and click the Green Up Arrow. You can hit U and click on the building. Or you can select A and drag all the buildings you want upgraded.

The most basic component of this game is that everything has to be connected to the dock in order to be active. On the moon homes need a heat source which they get from production bulidings.

Each resource requires a specific supply chain in order to get to the final and intended end product.

Some of them are simple. For example Organic Foods has a supply chain of 1 building, an Organic Farm.

However others are more complicated and their complexity will increase as the game progresses. Fruit Drinks require Fruit and a Fruit Drink Factory to produce. Androids require 7-8 different production facilities each producing 4-5 raw materials into a composit material that is used in producing the end product.

The goal here is to balance off your needs with output of various facilities. Clicking on a building reveals modules.

The first module is always one that increases the productivity of that building. The next 2-3 are going to reduce the costs of one of four different resources.

Each resource has its own cost and weighing in which one to reduce will be dependent on what the building is and how much of each resource it needs.

Most early buildings benefit heavily from reduced Logistics. Logistics is a resource dedicated to moving around different commodities to the various places they are needed. Logistics buildings are planted to increase these. These resources are also place specific. If there is more demand near your industry and less demand away from your industry, than a building will have more bang where the demand is.

The next main resource is going to be power. Power is generated from a large number of power generation systems. Later in the game power generation is a resource that can be tradable. These buildings can also uniquely deploy the credit maintenance reduction module.

Credits are earned the same way as the final resource, workers. Both of these are earned by having more citizens in each home. The more satisfied these citizens are, the more workers that will live in each home and the more income each home will generate.

In all of the regions other than Temperate (main one), workers are the most important resource.

Upgrading buildings is the key to the game. Temperate homes can be upgraded to five different tiers of citizenry. All others can only be upgraded to two different tiers of citizenry.

This however cannot be done in a vacuum. Each zone offers different resources that the other needs. As an example the arctic needs Fruit Drinks, but cannot produce fruit drinks. This requires building trade routes.

There are three types of trade routes. The first one costs 200 credits and supplies 20 of a thing. The next one costs 1000 credits and supplies 150 of a thing. With this it makes more sense to have 4 trade routes of 20 of a thing, than one 1000 credit trade route of 20 of a thing.

The game is a balancing act in which you will constantly be rushing between various zones to try and get the formula right.

The moon is distinct from the other three zones in that you will likely never 100% colonize it, and are not intended to.

Everything on the moon is exceptionally expensive to build and expensive to maintain. There are no profits to be earned on the moon. Instead this is a place of reducing costs and increasing profits from Temperate colonies.

Space requires a shield to protect settlements from debris. These shields have a power cost associated with them. A second shield is unlocked later that grants a much larger building area.

As far as a tactic goes for the moon you should only ever try to unlock all of the structures on the moon. You should not fulfill more demands than you absolutely have to. Just one moon zone is enough to fully support all unlockable regions in the game.

So unless you want to knock out the region projects, there is no point in wasting your time with other moon colonies.

The tundra acts and reacts is almost every way like the Temperate region. The only restrictions on building in places are time based unlocks. You will need to filter a large number of resources into 'draining a marsh' in order to build in those areas.

Tundra comes with a couple of new supply chains and three new resources.

One of the new resources is needed for supplying a need to the residents of the tundra.

The other two, biocatalyst and aerosol are special resources designed to double the production of a single building.

However it will come in a very limited supply. Because of this it is better to use them on primary resource buildings to allow you to build overall more product.

You will require setting up a trade route to maintain supply of this stuff to various colonies that are using it.

This material also requires the use of an excessive amount of Work Force. Because of this it is best to use workforce reducing modules.

Upon starting the game you will get to choose from one of three Temperate zones. Each are roughly of even value with some having more land than others, some having more mining sites and some having more ocean sites. At the end of the day you will have the opportunity to play all three so it won't matter.

Objectives:

• Attract a Population of Workers 0/50
  
• Build Residences and connect it to the warehouse 0/25
  
• Build and connect Rice Farm 0/1
  
• Build and connect Sunflower Farm 0/1
  
• Build and connect Biopolymer Factory 0/1

To initiate the game you have to build at least one residence. Each residence has to be connected by a road. Holding down the left click button will allow you to build a large number of residences at once.

Residences provide two key resources for the game, Workers and Revenue. Both of these will be needed to fund and operate buildings.

Eventually you will find that you are out of a resource called biopolymer.... so maybe build more.

Biopolymer factories and sunflower farms are two structures in the game that can be built with just money. Sunflower farms produce a resource needed to create biopolymer, this is called a supply chain... albeit a very simple one. Building multiple copies of these buildings early on will help you get through things faster.

Once this is down you will be able to produce a rice farm. Rice farms produce organic food which is the first citizen need. Satisfying needs brings more people into each dwelling and increases the total revenue each dwelling brings in.

More revenue allows you to build more production buildings to satisfy more needs and in turn satisfy more people.

Objectives:

• Attract Operators
  
• Produce Water
  
• Attract population of Workers 0/200
  
• Build and connect Infodrome 0/1
  
• ! Promote the employees living in a designated residential building

The main focus of the game is evolving into various tiers of people. The first tier for Temperate Zone is Workers, the second is Operators.

In order to get to Operator you will need to attract enough population to unlock Water and Infordromes. In order to do this simply place more Worker Residences and connect them with a road.

Water is placed on an Ocean resource access point. Clicking on Desalinization Plant and planting it on an open ocean slot and connecting it with a road will grant you water. Alternatively you can click on an open slot and select the building from the options available.

Infodromes are another need of the worker. They provide basic access to Information. The closer an Infodrome is to a population the more effective it is. The further it is from buildings the less effective it is.

Once you have all three of these resources you can promote a worker residence to operator. There are three ways to promote it. The first is to select a residence and hit the Green button. The second is to hit the U key and click on a residence. The third way is to click A and drag a box on which residences you want to upgrade.

Objectives:

• Start upgrading your spaceport with a space elevator
  
• Produce Construct-o-bots
  
• Produce Vitamin Drinks
  
• Attract a population of Operators 0/1000
  
• ! Select Spaceport

The end goal here is to begin an upgrade on the spaceport. To do this you will need to attract a thousand operators to your little colony.

As you fulfill the needs of Operator buildings it will increase the number of operators total.

Another way of doing this is to build more worker buildings and upgrade them to operators, something that will have to happen eventually. Getting to a thousand will mean a balance between new residences and fulfilling needs.

This tier unlocks a new building, a Large Residence. Large Residences take up the space of four smaller ones and are more space efficient. However they need construct-o-bots to work.

Construct-o-bots require two raw materials which can both be found in building mines. To build a mining site click on a mine and select the resource you desire. Alternatively you can choose to select the building and place it on a mine. Construct-o-bots are needed in building any of the new structures.

Vitamin drinks require building a fruit farm and a very small vitamin drink facility. Vitamin drinks due to their size are useful in squeezing in to tight places.

Vitamin drinks will also increase your operators heavily. If you can't get to the thousand operator market continue to lay down new residences and upgrade to operator.

This may mean laying down some new buildings to meet the demands of the workers, but this is just part of the game.

Click on the Ark which is the triangle on the map. Click on the upgrade and this will trigger an event that you have to complete.

Objectives:

• ! Free the detained transporters
  
• Open the Strategy Map menu
  
• Enter the crisis sector

Click on the globe on the top left corner of the screen. This will bring in the global map.

Here you will have access to all of the zones of the game eventually. Right now all that is available is unlocking three other zones (four if you own the Tundra DLC) and the Crisis Sector.

At any time two crisis sectors can appear with four cycling missions. The first one that will appear is the Prybomber Barricade.

In this mission you will get 3 Level 1 ships, the largest one is an artillery ship that deals area of effect damage.

Around the map there are side quests denoted by little downward orange arrows over certain areas. Choosing to do these will net you extra rewards at the conclusion of the mission. They are random objectives every single time involving collecting something, using an item, using an ability, delivering an item, escorting something or killing some targets.

The objective of this one is to destroy three powerful ships sieging a transport ship.

This is simply a matter of destroying anything along the way and destroying them. Items can be used to make things easier. Fuel can be consumed to allow for one of three abilties. In this first mission you will have a Repair Ship following you repairing any damage you take.

Upon completion of this you will be rewarded Iridium and Graphene.

Objectives:

• Finalize the Spaceport Upgrade
  
• Enter Your Zone
  
• Have Graphene
  
• Select Spaceport
  
• Finalize the Upgrade

To return to your zone simply click on the link and then click on it a second time once the Play symbol appears.

Once in the zone you should have enough Graphene from doing the missions to complete this.

Go to the Ark and Complete the Spaceport Upgrade. This will now allow you the ability to trade between this colony and another one. But we have no one to trade with yet.

Objectives:

• Enter the Arctic Region
  
• Open the Strategy Map menu
  
• Enter "Arctic Sector"

Click on the globe in the top left corner.

This will bring you to the Strategy or "Global" map.

Click on the new button that has appeared. You will now get to choose between one of three arctic zones. Each arctic zone has similar values however the one with the largest number of mines will be the most important earliest on.

Once you have selected this zone there will now be three arctic zones available, the one which you have claimed and two more which you can purchase once you exceed its owners corporate level.

Objectives:

• Claim an Island in the Arctic Region
  
• Select Command Ship
  
• Move your Command Ship to a Warehouse Building Site
  
• Claim the Island

Now that you have an arctic zone you need to claim an island. You can use this same process to expand to new islands on all maps.

Take your boat near an island. You will see an imprint of a Warehouse, this is a Warehouse Building Site.

Every other building site will require you to spend resources. Once you have the warehouse down you will have successfully claimed an island.

Objectives:

• Attract a Population of Protectors to the Arctic region 0/25
  
• Build and connect Arctic Dwelling 0/10
  
• Settle your employees close to a host source
  
• Produce Canned Food
  
• Produce Metal Foam

To start lay down some arctic dwellings. The resource needed to build these is called Metal Foam.

You can only build in 'heat sources.' Heat sources are generated from production facilities.... meaning building places will be very odd.

After laying down a few of these you will need to get those metal foams going. You will need to lay down an aluminum mine and a metal foam factory.

This is one of the two building materials for the arctic.

You will need these for creating residences and for Canned Food. Canned Food requires a fishery which will require one ocean spot. You will also need a cannery that will produce Canned Food from fish.

Continue putting down dwellings until you can get to that magic 25 protectors number.

Objectives:

• Start to upgrade your spaceport in Your Arctic Zone with icebreaker docks
  
• Attract a population of protectors 0/50
  
• Produce Metal Foam

Build arctic dwellings to increase your protector count to 50. After you have 50 you will need a single Metal Foam.

Select your Ark which is represented by a triangle and hit the upgrade button. This will trigger another event that will require ship action... or not. An alternative to this is simply to level up to the next corporate rank.

Objectives:

• Achieve victory in the crisis sector "Mission Qannitaq Conflict Zone"
  
• OR
  
• Reach the next corporate level

Corporate experience is obtained by increasing productivity and increasing population. It does not take long to get to the next corporate level and it will give you the resources you need to upgrade the spaceport.

Alternatively you can do the Mission Qannitaq Conflict Zone which will give you experience on your ships as well as give you the resources you need.

This mission requires taking out climate stablizers. At harder difficulties you are required to take out more of them. They are all in one area and are little buildings broadcasting signals into space.

Objectives:

• Finalize your spaceport upgrade in Your Arctic Zone

Go to the Arctic Zone and select your Ark. Upgrade it into a spaceport. This will now allow you to create a trade route.

Objectives:

• Attract scientists in the Arctic region 0/250
  
• Open the Strategy Map
  
• Create a Transfer Route for Vitamin Drinks from Your Temperate Zone to Your Arctic Zone
  
• Produce Neuro Implants
  
• Build and connect Community Center

Scientists are the second tier of citizenry in the arctic. Every zone but the temperate zone has two tiers of citizens. Getting to scientists means achieving all their needs.

The first is achieved by creating a trade route between your two colonies. Open up the Strategic Map and click on the trade button to the bottom right.

Select Vitamin Drinks from all options in the Temperate tab. Click on the temperate zone, and then click on the arctic zone. Adjust the amount to whatever the arctic zone needs. It doesn't matter if your temperate zone is negative here.

This will fulfill one need. You will need to get your population of arctic dwellers up until you can build neuro implants.

Neuro implants require a molybdenum mine. Once you have this made you simply need to make a Neuro implant factory and expand production until you meet everyone's needs.

Next up expand your arctic dwellings again until you unlock the Community Center. Community Centers are rather neat because they do not need to be in a heat source. This means you can be efficient with your building placements.

After you have a community center down you can upgrade one of the structures to scientists. You will need to upgrade about a dozen of these to get to the 250 scientists.

Objectives:

• Create a Transfer Route for Superalloys from Your Arctic Zone to Your Temperate Zone
  
• Produce Superalloys in the Arctic Zone

Superalloys are immediately available after getting a single scientist. Superalloys are produced from molybdenum and aluminum, which you already have down. Lay down a superalloy factory.

Open up your trade menu in the Strategic Map and create a trade route between Arctic and Temperate zones for superalloys.

Superalloys are uniquely a building material used in multiple zones.

Objectives:

• Attract Executives in the Temperate region 0/1
  
• Create a Transfer Route for Neuro Implants from Arctic region to Temperate region
  
• Produce Rejuvinators
  
• Build and connect Security Department

Open up a trade route for neuro implants to the temperate zone. This is going to be one of the most important trade routes in the game and will eventually require the overproduction of neuro implants in your arctic zone. Take as many as you need even if it requirs going negative in the arctic region.

Next up is rejuvinators. This requires production of an ocean resource that is converted in a secondary building which is then fed into a third building for the rejuvinators. It's quite the odd supply chain.

You will need to increase your number of residences and in turn increase all of your other supply chains.

Once you unlock the Security Department pop it down and upgrade to an Executive. You only need one upgraded dwelling to continue but it is advantageous to upgrade as many as possible.

Upgrading these structures requires superalloys.

Objectives:

• Start upgrading your spaceport in Temperate Zone with a launch pad.
  
• Produce Luxury Food
  
• Attract a population of Executives 0/5000

This is going to be taxing on time.

Creating luxury foods is going to be a top priority. Adding in luxury foods will increase the individual populations of each building by a large amount. Luxury foods are going to be difficult to get. You will need to produce a soy farm to create feed for cattle ranch. You will need the cattle ranch and vineyard to make luxury foods.

At this time you should also add in Nano Textiles. This will also complete Mission 16.

Vastly expand your dwellings and increase all supply chains that you have worked on up until this point.

Once you have 5000 executives you can do the launch pad. Start the upgrade.

Objectives:

• Arrange for the necessary resources

In order to accomplish this maintain your trade route for superalloys. This will get you to the next mission.

Objectives:

• Finalize the launch pad upgrade at your spaceport in Temperate region

It's all a matter of hitting the upgrade button on your spaceport. This will launch you into outer space and allow for a trade route with moon colonies.

Before launching into outer space take the time to increase your revenue by laying down more buildings and creating more resources that people need. You will need very high revenue for space as everything up there is very expensive and not very profitable.

Objectives:

• Enter the Lunar region
  
• Enter Lunar Region

This is simple enough, click on the moon and you will be given a choice of one of three colonies. In the end it doesn't matter which one you choose. You will never be able to max out all of the mining sites on any of these at any point in the game.

Objectives:

• Attract a population of Miners in the Lunar region 0/25
  
• Claim a crater 0/1
  
• Build and connect Living Unit 0/10
  
• Build and connect a Small Shield Generator 0/1
  
• Produce Oxygen
  
• Produce Titanium plating

Well you're on the moon, congratulations. If you haven't taken the time to increase your revenues, do so. The moon is exceptional pricey.

Move your moon crawler to a crater and find a warehouse location. Select the largest crater and setup shop.

In space you need to have a shield to build in. The warehouse has a shield, but after this you will need to build a shield and connect it with a road anywhere that you want to build.

Start off by building a collection of "Living Units" which are space residences.

After this lay down titanium mine and ion welder to get Titanium plating. This is the only resource needed on the moon. Everything here requires a ridiculous amount of titanium plating.

Oxygen is the first need of all moon dwellers. Create an core ice driller and an oxygen separator to make oxygens. There is no profit to be had here so don't worry about running a profitable operation.

Once you have this structure down you should get the 25 miners you need to continue on.

Objectives:

• Start to upgrade your spaceport in Lunar Zone with a launch pad
  
• Attract a population of miners 0/50
  
• Produce Titanium Plating

It costs titanium plating to upgrade the spaceport, which you should have at this point.

Before upgrading the lunar zone make sure to lay down a few more miner residences to get to that all important 50 number.

Once you have 50 miners begin the upgrade.

Objectives:

• Achieve victory in the crisis sector 'Mission Tonrar Defense Line'
  
• OR
  
• Reach the next corporation level

Getting to the next corporation level here is much harder but doable. Simply add in more buildings and more production in the temperate zone to earn more revenues. However if you are already quite profitable you can go into the Tonrar Defense Line crisis zone.

Tonrar Defense Line will require you to destroy a few giant mega ships. They are however not as hard to kill as they look. Using EMPs, rockets, support ships and abilities will make them drop fast.

Objectives:

• Finalize the spaceport upgrade in Lunar zone

Before doing this make sure to increase some residences in the temperate zone so that you have funds to actually do something.

Click on the spaceport and do the upgrade. You will now be able to setup trade routes between space and temperate zones.

Objectives:

• Attract officers in the lunar region 0/500
  
• Create a Transfer route for Rejuvinators to Lunar Zone
  
• Produce BioEnhancers
  
• Build and connect Maintenance Station
  
• Produce Lunar Lunch

So this is where it gets expensive. You need to create a trade route for rejuvinators which will cost 3,000 credits in maintenance, ouch. If you can't afford that lay down more buildings in the temperate zone. If you can afford that and more, continue on ahead.

BioEnhancers are an important resource that is needed on Earth and on the moon. You will be building a lot of them. You will need a mine anda facility to build these things. It is going to take a lot of power and at this point there is no cost effective power in space, you have to soak these costs.

Expand your space dwellings further until you unlock the Maintenace Station.

Once you have the maintenace station down begin upgrading to Officers. With your first officer you will gain access to the Lunar Lunch.

This is another expensive building, however it requires no mining spaces which means you can build them anywhere.

Once you have this done continue building space residences until you can get to the 500 officers you need.

Objectives:

• Build and Connect Fusion Reactor
  
• Produce Deuterium in the Arctic region
  
• Upgrade your spaceport with a launch pad
  
• Create a Transfer route for Deuterium to Lunar region
  
• Produce Helium-3 in the Lunar region
  
• Produce Fusion Power Cells in the Lunar region

Things are just getting more expensive.

You will need to upgrade your arctic spaceport so that it can trade with space. It is done using superalloys, which are easy to come by.

In the arctic lay down an ocean deuterium strainer. It's worth fully upgrading it.

Nexxt up make a trade route for deuterium in the lunar region.

Next up build a Helium-3 mine in the Lunar region.

Next up you need to build a facility to create Fusion Power cells, a Fusion Preparation Plant.

Once you have done all of this build and connect the fusion reactor. This will save you a lot of money and a lot of hastle.

Once you build the fusion reator click on it and turn it off, big round button. There is no point in having a power plant around that you don't actually need, until you need it.

Objectives:

• Upgrade your spaceport in Lunar zone with an energy transmitter
  
• Upgrade your spaceport in temperate zone with an energy transmitter

The exact same resource used in powering the fusion power plant is also needed to upgrade energy transmission. First do the lunar zone.

Make a trade route and do the same process in the temperate zone. Once you do this you will be able to make Energy Trade Routes.

Objectives:

• Achieve victory in the crisis sector Mission Tyrnemere Hideout
  
• OR
  
• Reach the next corporation level

Getting to the next corporation level is the easiest way to do this and is the most efficient. But it's not the fun way to win the game.

You need to bring your ships to certain points on the map and defend them against ships until you officially capture the point. Use abilities whenever you can to get through this as quickly as possible. You will only need to capture 2 at this difficult setting.

Objectives:

• Transfer energy from the moon to the earth

It has all lead up to this.

Go into the trade menu and on the far right is a lightning bolt. Use this to transfer any amount of power at all from the moon to the earth. This has no trade cost at all so there is no reason to delay.

Objectives:

• Build and Connect a Corporate HQ
  
• Attract a population of investors 0/150,000
  
• Produce Replicators
  
• Produce Androids
  
• Produce Quantum Computers
  
• Produce Anti-Grav Compensators
  
• Build and connect stadium 0/1

Well this is the final official mission in the main campaign.

Each of these resources is going to require trade routes between various colonies. Replicators and Androids are made in the temperate zone. Quantum Computers are made in the arctic. Anti-grav compensators are made in the lunar zone.

Getting the popular of the temperate zone up and attracting that population will require the building of a stadium. This takes up a lot of space but is ultimately worth it. Make sure to move enough Needs buildings within range of key clusters of residents to better make sure of territory.

Once you get to 150,000 investors you can lay down the Corporate HQ. This building acts as needs for all different types of Needs based buildings. It can be upgraded a few dozen times. Each time it is upgraded it will increase the Needs it produces.

Is this the greatest Anno ever made? No, I don't think so.

In some ways it was a step forward for the genre. It sheds itself of the elitism and secrets and made the game more open to more people.

On the downside the elitism was essentially the game. It was a secret game that required knowledge to play. That knowledge came with challenges, guessing, mathematics, and strategy.

What has been stripped from Anno 2205 is that sense of adventure and that tension of dealing with direct opposition that could ruin your day.

Anno 2205 is not a bad game by any means. But there is a hope that the next Anno will be more than just balancing resources.