Anno Online Routing

Anno Online is an Online Browser based city builder Game created by Ubisoft . The game is played on islands. Ships are used to distribute the products that can be made on each of thwse islands.
The ships in the game and the many routes they make are not easy to maintain, because:

• In Anno Online Islands can have the same name.
• In Anno Online the name of the Ships is very difficult to distinguish from each other.
• In Anno Online the routing interface does not provide the necessary information on the route for ship and island.
• The number of ships and routes in the game require a tool because there are too many ships and routes involved.
• There is no way in the game to calculate the total number of products transported form Island X to Island Y (Matrix Grid of Products from and to Islands).

Example, real time playing

For instance in my Anno Online game I have some 66 ships and 59 routes transporting 110 product-routes.

• In my first attempt I made an Excel SpreadSheet, but I did not liked it al all. Too much handling, too many changes on errors, because there are no validation checks on already given routes etc.
• I tried to use pivot tables in Excel, but that also did not give me a very profound result.

I came to the conclusion that a Website with all my own thoughts would help me. So the purpose of the Anno Online Route website is to help the player in achieving the best routing for his ships and the products they transport.

Naming Ships and Routes

As earlier mentioned the interface of Anno Online makes it not easy to recognize individual ships. So the user has to be smart in the naming of the routes and ships. My suggestions are:

• Use a 4-decimal ship-number and store the type in the description of the ship-name. See below for an example:

ShipNumber	ShipName	ShipType	TimeStamp
4	0004 Small Transport	Small Transportation Ship	2015-01-01 00:00:00
1280	1280 Large Trade	Large Trade Ship	2015-01-01 00:00:01

• Use in the description of the route the same description as you use in the game, and use the 4-decimal number for the Ship. See below for an example.
• The name in the below example (0004-Tools4Wheat) indicates the kind of transport:
  • From Newport Tools
  • To Newport Wheat

ShipNumber	Island from	Island to	Description	Status
0004 Small Transport	Newport	Rabenhof	0004-Tools4Wheat	active

Manual

The player gives his/her game settings for the ships, islands and routes. The program shows a matrix whith the islands and the number of items shipped from or to each island foer each product providing an insight in total and a description of the individual routes (downdirlled information).

Tabs on AnnoRoutes

AnnoRoutes Home

A description of the tabs in the program.

• Home
  Description of the game.
• Products
  Shows the list of all available products in the game. The product list is maintained by the web-developer. The player can not make any chnages to the products.
  Suggestion can be made by sending an email.
• Ships
  Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete your own Ship list.
• Islands
  Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete your own Island list
• Routes and Products per Route
  Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete your own Routing list.
• Matrices
  Shows the results of your efforts, the combination of fro and to transports from all your islands.
• Miscellaneous
  
• Register
  Registration and maintenance of your registered information.
• Login or better: Login or Logout
  Log-in and log-out.

Home Tab

The home tab gives general information and a short description of the other tabs.

Products Tab

The product tab shows all products defined by Ubisoft in Anno Online. Since this list is the same for every player of the game no need to maintain this list for individual users. The Product List is maintained by the Webmaster. If you want to change the list, please send an (email to the Webmaster containing information on Why and What you like to see changed. There is no guarantee your request will be granted.

Ships Tab

Enables the user to change his/her Ship list, meaning the user can add, delete, edit his own ships. Alterations can only be made when they do not conflict with other settings. Ships that perform a route can only be deleted when they do not have any routing task. The user can check this by retrieving the routing information of the ship.