Sandbox mode

Sandbox Mode is one of the game modes of Anno 1800. It can be played with 0-3 opponents (up to 4 players total), 0-2 pirates and 1-4 traders, and allows you to set different victory conditions, difficulty levels and characters. You may also select between less or more guidance, which lets you explore the game on your own or get help from tutorial messages.

Select your character

Starting a sandbox game requires choosing between a variety of playable portraits, a company logo, player name and a colour to differentiate you between your opponents. Additional portraits and logos can be purchased with Club Units as Club Rewards using the Uplay Launcher.

Difficulty settings

Anno 1800 features three preset difficulty settings ranging from Normal to Advanced to Expert.

Normal

75,000 of starting capital
Large world and islands
Abundant minerals
High fertility
Full construction refunds
Free building relocation

Advanced

50,000 starting capital
Average world and islands
Average minerals
Average fertility
Half construction refunds
Cost for building relocation

Expert

25,000 starting capital
Small world and islands
Few minerals
Low fertility
No construction refunds
No building relocation

Customizing difficulty settings

Sandbox games can be customized to your liking. You can choose from a variety of settings such as characters you compete with, factions customization, world settings, features, starting and victory conditions.

Characters

You can select up to three NPCs that have different personalities and difficulties.

Faction Customization

Factions are NPCs that are either neutral or hostile and are grouped as pirates and traders. While both pirates difficulty can be changed independently, you can only turn traders on or off (Sir Archibald Blake is the only trader that is always present in the game world).

Pirates

Traders

World

You can alter different aspects of your game world, for example world size, island size and difficulty, and fertilities.

Random Seed - a number assigned to the map being created; the map created depends also on other world settings, the same settings and the same seed will always result in creating the same map.
Starting World Size - large/medium/small
Island Size - mainly large/mainly medium/mainly small
Island Difficulty - normal/hard
Fertility - plenty/medium/sparse;
- plenty - 4 fertilities in the Old World
- medium - 3 fertilities in the Old World
- sparse - 2 fertilities in the Old World
Mineral Deposits - plenty/medium/sparse
Map Type - random/archipelago/atoll/island arc/corners/snowflake

Features

Features tab allows you to balance the in-game mechanics

Income - high/medium/low
Inactive Upkeep - off/on
Construction Cost Refunds - full/half/
Building Relocation - on/off/fee
Trading Post Restocks - common/normal/rare
City Incidents - easy/medium/hard
Quest Frequency - common/normal/

Starting Conditions

Select from four different settings which determine the beginning of the game:

Starting Ships - none/flagship/trade fleet/war fleet
Starting Harbour - off/standard/full
Starting Capital - large/medium/small
Revealed Map - off/on

Note: you have to start either with a ship, with a harbour or both. Starting Ships and Starting Harbour settings can't be both set to none.

Victory Conditions

In Anno 1800, sandbox games offer multiple victory conditions which have to be met to win a game. You don't necessarily have to set any conditions and play as long as you like. This also applies for multiplayer sessions.

Conditions Required
Monuments
Investors
Target Population
Target Wealth
Target Revenue
Diplomatic

Sadly, during the game there is no way to check the actual victory conditions and your current progress.

You can also save and load all of your settings.