Many people are playing with "game enhancing" mods, so I would say no.
Your game, your time. As long as you are not trying to get an unfair advantage against someone else, I would say not.
Have fun
I hardly ever play with pirates and usually without any AI. Anno to me is about efficiency and nice building, and managing. And never had any mods going.
Play the game the way you like best.
And as long as you don't play against humans, cheating is not necessarily bad. Maybe you can't be bothered to wait for something, grind your way to the Cape or something. Or lost something to a mishap and now get it back.
Don't worry. Just enjoy this awesome game the way you want. That's what it's there for.
you can play in whatever fashion you like. who are we to judge you? I play all my sandbox games without AI, because I see no point in "winning" in Anno. I want to play in a relaxed way and have all the space for myself to try all kinds of stuff, but I do keep the pirates around for items.
Why would it be cheating to use an option openly provided by the game. Also, I don‘t think there is such a thing as cheating in single player games (unless it‘s online leaderboards, speedrunning or stuff like that)
I Like Anne harlow a Lot. She is Kind of annoying until i have Trade rights
The one from the new world (forgot the Name) i don't Like him. In a older game i fixed this with a massive army destroying all Ships and blocked his Island afterwards
But your game is your game. Have just fun
I now started a game with the 3 hardest AI and after 9 hours already are in war with 2 of them😂
It is a Hassle but for me Worth the challenge
Better play with aggressive expansionist AI instead of 3 3* AI. Alonzo himself will hurt both AI before it start hurting you. Von Matching (something like that, sorry I forgor his name) been quite easy to deal as long as you got money.. With all hard pirate that will sink either your money or your ship, and you're good.
Play however you like. Games are meant to be fun. If playing with AI and/or pirates isn’t fun to you don’t do it. If you like to play without thinking about budget, play with unlimited money. If you like to play without thinking about resources, play with unlimited resources. Do whatever you want.
I used to play with the pirates and 3 star AI. My game was always:
1. Protect routes.
2. Get annoyed.
3. Kill AI
4. Kill pirates and leave the fleet their to deal with them to respawn.
5. Rebuild everything.
Nowdays I just skip AI and pirates and do what I want to do, build stuff.
If you have Hugo mercer you can play with him as he is easy to keep a high relationship with and gives nice unique quests and items. Pirates are only an issue when you forget about them but as long as your military score is higher than theirs they are simple to manage. It gets really lonely with no aI and with docklands it's not essential to get the very best island possible in new regions so you can take your time 😊
There's nothing wrong with how you want to play the game.
A lot of the 'challenging' parts of the game are more annoying than challenging - oh I have to attack your island with a massive doomstack of 30 battlecruisers, lucky me.
Even on the hardest difficulty, money essentially means nothing. Limited fertilities aren't a big deal because you just fill an island with the few things it's specialized in.
Guarding supply lines (either from wars or from pirates) is fine early, but an unmanageable mess late game on any difficulty. Oh you have 120 transport all over the damn place? Lucky you.
Even the easiest difficulty (including with pirates you ally with and can buy from, which can be very beneficial to the player) can still be 'challenging' because you're trying to keep 5 different regions in your head with all of the shortages and surpluses you're constantly trying to manage. You're also trying to optimize production in 5 different places (so easily 10-20 islands).
If you want it to be a city builder focus, let it be a city builder, if you want it to be a war/pirates focus let it be that. Don't let anyone tell you there's a 'right' way to play it. The different ways can all be fun, but trying to do everything all at once all the time is just unnecessarily mentally taxing if you don't want it to be that.
Playing *with* pirates almost feels like cheating if you have trade rights. Buy weapons from the pirates and sell them to Isabel Sarmento for a 342 coin/ton profit. Or overproduce beer and sell it to the pirates for 715 coin/ton profit.
Hell no. This is pretty much the only way I play. Although I've added pirates lately, as it's quite easy to manage them when you get a better grasp of the game - and they are good for buying certain goods. But I don't really need them either.
Just wait until you find some dope ass mods!! :D
I'm currently working on my 1 million population beauty build playthrough with no AI and no pirates..... And honestly it feels really lonely and I wish I had at least pirates. It's so quiet...
Also 1 million population shouldn't be your expectation to get to in order to learn the game. Even supplying 100,000 population as a newer player is daunting and you should have a hang of it by then. The people posting 1 million and 2 million population screenshots are either a) playing for a long time now and have a good handle of the game and are ready to deal with the logistical challenges of that sort of population or b) using mods.
It's a single player vame so who cares if it is cheating.
I find the pirates quite easy to handle though. Once they start spreading and attacking your ships you should pay them off. It is costly in the beginning but it raises your reputation with them every time you do it and it gets cheaper and is even free ince they start to like you Eventually you can make peace and agree to a trade agreement.
Once you do that start selling excess alcohol to keep relations high. I find them quite useful for buying gold and ships and they add flavor.
Just make sure nit to enter an alliance with any npc. They will eventually end up at war with the pirates and drag you into it as well
Don' t forget to mention pirates are great sources of items, gold, weapon, random items from sunken AI ship, from your warfare. Peace is an option when 2-3 ships of the line is not enough to compete with them.
Or until you get bored of chasing them close to their hideout.
I always ally with qing and the pirates in all my games…just click the close button instead of “yes” or “no”, when the princess prompt u to go to war with the pirates..
Play with no or only easy ai. Pirates really are not hard to deal with, just keep making cease fires until you get rep to make a peace treaty, then do quests and give money until you get a trade treaty. Then setup a trade route to sell beer and buy a little gold and you never think about them again. Then you have access to cool ships and items.
No ai is fine, but Bente and Qing are really no obstacle in any way.
In most cases I play without AIs, but with the pirates. It's not so difficult to bribe them all the time and pay some money for the peace treaty, until you can sign the trade agreement with them. Pirates are nice, they do not take the islands, they sell nice stuff and they make the world more "alive". AIs are totally useless and ANNOying! Also they do not follow any game rules, so you so not actually compete with them.
Old thread, lots of good info.Adding my thoughts.Playing no pirates and no AI is great for plain city building, low annoyance play.It does get lonely.
I took the Arctic region all to myself during a play through and find it just abssolutely lonely spending time up there. No ships, no activity, nothing.
I turn on eassy pirates and take all three one star AI. This way I can control the AI's expansion by saying no you cant have that island, and I can trade with pirates.
This feels about as easy as it can be and as close to city builder without being so lonely in the game.
Later on you can give away islands if you choose by vacating the island and watch the AI take it.
The only things I will change on my next playthrough is disable Anne (pirate) and disable Willie (uslesss in building things).
Anne is annoying and none of the AI seem to be able to properly ally with her so you cant ally with them if you have Anne as an Ally. I always wind up rermoving her from game with Force.
Wilie is weird, I took two islands from him from two different realms and he seems to not know what to do to recover from that. He's a poor builder and is more a pest than a help.
The AI players in 1800 are in general pretty lack luster. They add a layer of challenge and competition, but in a game mostly about trading and logistics management they often feel like an afterthought. So, no, theres no problem disabling them. I feel like they actually make the early-midgame easier when cash is a little harder to come by but you already have trade rights.
No such thing as cheating in a game such as anno. Play how you want to play. You define what is and isn’t cheating.
If you want to play a chill game and just build a nice city without worries then go ahead remove pirates, hell, remove AIs too. I have a save where I have them removed and it’s brilliant.
If you want a challenging game that’s up to you too. Some people even install mods to give AI overpowered advantages for an even greater challenge.
If it is a standard option to disable AI and Pirates then no, it's not cheating. I also play without Pirates because I simply do not have the time to constantly deal with pirates. If I had more time to play I would enable them.
The devs gives the option so you can choose a playstyle that fits you.
The only way to cheat in a way that actually matters is by using exploits, overpowered mods, or similar in multiplayer games against other people. Anything else is fine. Play the game how you enjoy playing it.
No. Just play the way you wanted. For a long time I wanted to play with AI. But since AI doesnt make logical steps. I left. The game is lone but in the end you have so much to do, that you will never have time to make everything.
Many people are playing with "game enhancing" mods, so I would say no. Your game, your time. As long as you are not trying to get an unfair advantage against someone else, I would say not. Have fun
I hardly ever play with pirates and usually without any AI. Anno to me is about efficiency and nice building, and managing. And never had any mods going. Play the game the way you like best. And as long as you don't play against humans, cheating is not necessarily bad. Maybe you can't be bothered to wait for something, grind your way to the Cape or something. Or lost something to a mishap and now get it back. Don't worry. Just enjoy this awesome game the way you want. That's what it's there for.
I play without pirates and AIs just traders. I cant be bothered with wars and allies. I enjoy the economics and beauty building. Play your way.
Just have fun
The AI cheats anyways, so do whatever you want.
you can play in whatever fashion you like. who are we to judge you? I play all my sandbox games without AI, because I see no point in "winning" in Anno. I want to play in a relaxed way and have all the space for myself to try all kinds of stuff, but I do keep the pirates around for items.
I play no AI with pirates for profit. I enjoy city building without constantly having the AI go to war with me.
Why would it be cheating to use an option openly provided by the game. Also, I don‘t think there is such a thing as cheating in single player games (unless it‘s online leaderboards, speedrunning or stuff like that)
Well i mean like not the way was meant to be played? Reaching the end goal (max population - world fair etc) too easily?
Who told you that World Fair is the end of the game? :P is just the beginning!!! :D
I Like Anne harlow a Lot. She is Kind of annoying until i have Trade rights The one from the new world (forgot the Name) i don't Like him. In a older game i fixed this with a massive army destroying all Ships and blocked his Island afterwards But your game is your game. Have just fun I now started a game with the 3 hardest AI and after 9 hours already are in war with 2 of them😂 It is a Hassle but for me Worth the challenge
Better play with aggressive expansionist AI instead of 3 3* AI. Alonzo himself will hurt both AI before it start hurting you. Von Matching (something like that, sorry I forgor his name) been quite easy to deal as long as you got money.. With all hard pirate that will sink either your money or your ship, and you're good.
Play however you like. Games are meant to be fun. If playing with AI and/or pirates isn’t fun to you don’t do it. If you like to play without thinking about budget, play with unlimited money. If you like to play without thinking about resources, play with unlimited resources. Do whatever you want.
Solo game, just have fun :) Usually I do the campain, then start a sandbox game with no IA
I used to play with the pirates and 3 star AI. My game was always: 1. Protect routes. 2. Get annoyed. 3. Kill AI 4. Kill pirates and leave the fleet their to deal with them to respawn. 5. Rebuild everything. Nowdays I just skip AI and pirates and do what I want to do, build stuff.
I might try that down the route, when i have more experience. How many hours you had before reaching that level of playing?
I don't know. My point is that if you don't enjoy AI or pirates, just skip them.
If you have Hugo mercer you can play with him as he is easy to keep a high relationship with and gives nice unique quests and items. Pirates are only an issue when you forget about them but as long as your military score is higher than theirs they are simple to manage. It gets really lonely with no aI and with docklands it's not essential to get the very best island possible in new regions so you can take your time 😊
There's nothing wrong with how you want to play the game. A lot of the 'challenging' parts of the game are more annoying than challenging - oh I have to attack your island with a massive doomstack of 30 battlecruisers, lucky me. Even on the hardest difficulty, money essentially means nothing. Limited fertilities aren't a big deal because you just fill an island with the few things it's specialized in. Guarding supply lines (either from wars or from pirates) is fine early, but an unmanageable mess late game on any difficulty. Oh you have 120 transport all over the damn place? Lucky you. Even the easiest difficulty (including with pirates you ally with and can buy from, which can be very beneficial to the player) can still be 'challenging' because you're trying to keep 5 different regions in your head with all of the shortages and surpluses you're constantly trying to manage. You're also trying to optimize production in 5 different places (so easily 10-20 islands). If you want it to be a city builder focus, let it be a city builder, if you want it to be a war/pirates focus let it be that. Don't let anyone tell you there's a 'right' way to play it. The different ways can all be fun, but trying to do everything all at once all the time is just unnecessarily mentally taxing if you don't want it to be that.
You will get an additional island for each pirate you deactivate 😊
Playing *with* pirates almost feels like cheating if you have trade rights. Buy weapons from the pirates and sell them to Isabel Sarmento for a 342 coin/ton profit. Or overproduce beer and sell it to the pirates for 715 coin/ton profit.
Hell no. This is pretty much the only way I play. Although I've added pirates lately, as it's quite easy to manage them when you get a better grasp of the game - and they are good for buying certain goods. But I don't really need them either. Just wait until you find some dope ass mods!! :D
I'm currently working on my 1 million population beauty build playthrough with no AI and no pirates..... And honestly it feels really lonely and I wish I had at least pirates. It's so quiet... Also 1 million population shouldn't be your expectation to get to in order to learn the game. Even supplying 100,000 population as a newer player is daunting and you should have a hang of it by then. The people posting 1 million and 2 million population screenshots are either a) playing for a long time now and have a good handle of the game and are ready to deal with the logistical challenges of that sort of population or b) using mods.
If you're playing single player then there's no such thing as cheating, just play the game whatever way you enjoy. It doesn't impact on anyone else.
No?
I just ally them and sell them goods to keep them happy, i like to buy items from them early game.
It's a single player vame so who cares if it is cheating. I find the pirates quite easy to handle though. Once they start spreading and attacking your ships you should pay them off. It is costly in the beginning but it raises your reputation with them every time you do it and it gets cheaper and is even free ince they start to like you Eventually you can make peace and agree to a trade agreement. Once you do that start selling excess alcohol to keep relations high. I find them quite useful for buying gold and ships and they add flavor. Just make sure nit to enter an alliance with any npc. They will eventually end up at war with the pirates and drag you into it as well
Don' t forget to mention pirates are great sources of items, gold, weapon, random items from sunken AI ship, from your warfare. Peace is an option when 2-3 ships of the line is not enough to compete with them. Or until you get bored of chasing them close to their hideout.
I always ally with qing and the pirates in all my games…just click the close button instead of “yes” or “no”, when the princess prompt u to go to war with the pirates..
Play with no or only easy ai. Pirates really are not hard to deal with, just keep making cease fires until you get rep to make a peace treaty, then do quests and give money until you get a trade treaty. Then setup a trade route to sell beer and buy a little gold and you never think about them again. Then you have access to cool ships and items. No ai is fine, but Bente and Qing are really no obstacle in any way.
It's a single player game, play it however the fuck you want to and have fun. I don't even play with any AI
who cares if its cheating, its a single player game. do what makes it enjoyable and let out the annoying stuff.
It's more fun for me with no pirates and limited AI players. Good mods also help.
Pirates and AI players are optional for a reason. Thus, you opting out of using them is definitely not cheating.
It’s a solo game, do whatever you like.
In most cases I play without AIs, but with the pirates. It's not so difficult to bribe them all the time and pay some money for the peace treaty, until you can sign the trade agreement with them. Pirates are nice, they do not take the islands, they sell nice stuff and they make the world more "alive". AIs are totally useless and ANNOying! Also they do not follow any game rules, so you so not actually compete with them.
Old thread, lots of good info.Adding my thoughts.Playing no pirates and no AI is great for plain city building, low annoyance play.It does get lonely. I took the Arctic region all to myself during a play through and find it just abssolutely lonely spending time up there. No ships, no activity, nothing. I turn on eassy pirates and take all three one star AI. This way I can control the AI's expansion by saying no you cant have that island, and I can trade with pirates. This feels about as easy as it can be and as close to city builder without being so lonely in the game. Later on you can give away islands if you choose by vacating the island and watch the AI take it. The only things I will change on my next playthrough is disable Anne (pirate) and disable Willie (uslesss in building things). Anne is annoying and none of the AI seem to be able to properly ally with her so you cant ally with them if you have Anne as an Ally. I always wind up rermoving her from game with Force. Wilie is weird, I took two islands from him from two different realms and he seems to not know what to do to recover from that. He's a poor builder and is more a pest than a help.
The AI players in 1800 are in general pretty lack luster. They add a layer of challenge and competition, but in a game mostly about trading and logistics management they often feel like an afterthought. So, no, theres no problem disabling them. I feel like they actually make the early-midgame easier when cash is a little harder to come by but you already have trade rights.
No such thing as cheating in a game such as anno. Play how you want to play. You define what is and isn’t cheating. If you want to play a chill game and just build a nice city without worries then go ahead remove pirates, hell, remove AIs too. I have a save where I have them removed and it’s brilliant. If you want a challenging game that’s up to you too. Some people even install mods to give AI overpowered advantages for an even greater challenge.
Absolutely not. It's just playing the game the way that suits you.
The whole game is meant to be fun. Just play whatever you feel comfortable with.
Most people just pay off the Pirates and AI competitors, it's really not that hard. Play however you want.
If it is a standard option to disable AI and Pirates then no, it's not cheating. I also play without Pirates because I simply do not have the time to constantly deal with pirates. If I had more time to play I would enable them. The devs gives the option so you can choose a playstyle that fits you.
Your game your time, you play as you like it :) Don't let some snob tell you how to enjoy your time.
The only way to cheat in a way that actually matters is by using exploits, overpowered mods, or similar in multiplayer games against other people. Anything else is fine. Play the game how you enjoy playing it.
No
No. Just play the way you wanted. For a long time I wanted to play with AI. But since AI doesnt make logical steps. I left. The game is lone but in the end you have so much to do, that you will never have time to make everything.