Population

A population bubble.

A player's population is the heart of cities in all Anno titles, providing a city's workforce and tax income. As city populations grow from small beginnings, more social classes (residential tiers) evolve and more features and buildings get unlocked.

The number of inhabitants settled in a game is displayed at the top of the screen, next to the population symbol . Hovering over it will show how many inhabitans of each tier you globally have.

When hovering over your island you can see your island's population status at the top of the screen. A portrait of the highest population tier is visible and the circle around the portrait fiils up as more people of this tier lives on your island. The circle is full if you have enough inhabitants of this tier to upgrade to the next tier.

Note: the population bubble and control panel screenshots come from old versions of the game and need to be updated

Control Panel showing treasury, income and population.

Population Tiers

Note: only farmers, workers, artisans, jornaleros, and obreros were available in the Closed Beta. Any information about engineers or investors beyond what has been published in the devblogs is unconfirmed at this time.

In Anno 1800, there are five population (residential) tiers in the Old World and two in the New World. Each live in 3x3 houses and have different needs.

Old World

Farmers
	Farmers are the first residential tier. When you build new houses, farmers move in. They have the most basic needs of all the tiers.
Workers
	Workers represent the bulk of the population in the 19th century. They provide significant manual labour, working in factories.
Artisans
	Belonging to the third residential tier, Artisans are the educated middle class who not only focus on providing industry and commerce, but specialised craft.
Engineers
	Engineers are the educated elite, seeking to push the world into a modern age through technological revolution.
Investors
	The fifth and final tier, Investors are the wealthy elite, members of an upper class who have built fortunes off inheritances or their wit and bare hands.

New World

Jornaleros
	The first tier, Jornaleros are the farmers of the New World, devout and hardworking people who are driven by the dream of independence at a dawn of a new era.
Obreros
	The second tier of the New World population, Obreros are the residents who have found their way from the farmlands into the cities as tradespeople.

Needs

Your population has certain needs, satisfying your people is one of the main objectives in Anno. Population needs are divided into two categories: basic needs and luxury needs.

Fulfilling basic needs increases the number of inhabitants in each house. Houses have to be full in order to advance them to higher population tiers so satisfying all basic needs is necessary.

Fulfilling luxury needs makes your population happy and pay higher taxes in return. Satisfying luxury needs is optional as people don't need to be happy to advance.

See: needs for more information.

Happiness

Happiness of your population is an important indicator of how they perceive your leadership. Residents do not require full happiness to advance to the next population tier, only their basic needs must be fulfilled. However, happy residents pay higher taxes, are less likely to riot and can organise festivals that provide useful buffs to the islands' residents, production, or attractiveness.

See: happiness for more information.

Advancement

There are a few requirements that residences have to meet to be able to advance to the next tier:

• residences have to be full
• all basic needs must be fulfilled
• enough construction material has to be available

Unlike in previous Anno games, your people don't have to be happy to advance. Your population can be unhappy or even angry and you can still advance to higher tiers as long as all requirements are met.

To advance a residence you can choose a building and press the upgrade button or you can use the upgrade tool and click on one or several residences at once. After choosing the upgrade tool, green arrows will appear over residences which can be upgraded. In the game settings to you can also choose to see these arrows all the time.

Theoretically you can upgrade all residences to higher tiers. However, you need workforce from all tiers to enable your production buildings to operate. It is advised to keep a surplus of all workforce types when upgrading residences.

Residence type	Construction costs	Upgrade costs
Old World
Farmers residences	2	4
Workers residences	6	6 2 2
Artisans residences	12 2 2	8 3 2 2
Engineers residences	20 5 4 2	10 4 3 3 3
Investors residences	30 9 7 5 3
New World
Jornaleros residences	1	2
Obreros residences	3

Corporation level

Your global population decides about the level of your corporation. The corporation level implicates the available amount of influence. High corporation levels are also required to unlock more powerful propaganda articles.

See: corporation level for more information.

Island's level

Each island has a certain level which depends on the number of inhabitants of the highest tier living on the island. It's displayed at the top of the screen, right after the attractiveness status of the island.

Island's Level	Requirement
Old World
Settlement	none
Village	100 farmers
Port Town	150 workers
City	500 artisans
Capital	500 engineers
New World
Settlement	none
Town	200 jornaleros
Colony	600 obreros