While the endgame goal in Anno 1800 is to cram as many Investors and Engineers as you can into those lavish skyscrapers, your basic workers are the foundation of such extravagance. You’d still need Worker populations to keep everything running, especially those goods whose absence can cause the collapse of the elite (who’d have thought it worked like that?). Here’s how to get more Workers in Anno 1800 so your society doesn’t crumble due to a lack of Coffee or something.
Workers Come from Farmers
Well, at least that’s how it works here. You basically just upgrade your Farmer population’s housing into Worker housing. The upgrade button is present near the bottom right of the UI if you click each house. Once you do that, your population will be converted. The game even has an auto-upgrade house feature which you might want to disable for better control.
However, there’s a certain requirement for you to be able to convert your Farmers into Workers. Farmer housing will need to have the following needs or wants fulfilled (as in green meter, not blue):
- Market (proximity to the building matters)
- Fish
- Work Clothes
- Schnapps (luxury, sometimes optional if you have a Pub fulfilled)
- Pub (luxury, sometimes optional if you have Schnapps fulfilled)
- A full housing limit
Fulfill those and you can upgrade your Farmer housing into Worker housing. After that, the Workers will flock inside and fill in the vacancy.
It might take some time for them to move into your housings so you can just fast-forward the game speed to hasten the process.
Fulfill Worker Needs & Wants to Get Even More Workers
It’s important to note that you can still gain more Workers faster if you keep addressing their needs and wants:
- Same needs and luxury wants as Farmers
- Sausages
- Bread
- Soap
- School
- Church (luxury, sometimes optional)
- Beer (luxury, sometimes optional)
That’s how to get more Workers in Anno 1800. Getting them to stay, however, means meeting all their needs (non-luxury) or even luxury wants, meaning they have to be green in the meter. Otherwise, your Workers might start leaving or might go on strike. Turns out you can’t just let them eat cake.