Tips can be contributed by anyone, please feel free to add your own numbered tips in italic text to the bottom of the list.
Tip 1:
You can highlight the influence area of surrounding buildings of the same type by holding down Shift before placing your building.
Tip 2:
You can view the Anno 2070 game credits anytime by clicking on the "Command HQ" text near the top of the game menu screen.
Tip 3:
Besides the temporary "speed game up" option (Default: Numpad +), you can also permanently toggle slow game speed (Default: Numpad -) by clicking the icons of these functions on the Functions panel (Default: F11), or even drag them to your central taskbar for easy access.
Tip 4:
Residences are the only buildings which allow you to change between '4 different models' (Default: C) both while, and after placing the building, or even rotate them AFTER being placed (Default: , and . ) Using these you can build a neighborhood, or change the models of older Residences to create a custom city-look.
Tip 5:
You can construct multiple Residences at once by choosing a house, pressing the left mouse button and dragging the mouse. The neighbourhood will never be wider than 2 houses, ensuring the possibility of a Road connection for all houses. Releasing the mouse places all the buildings.
Tip 6:
Many underwater islands feature Black Smokers. These cease activity after up to 10 hours. When they're inactive, you can mine Iron, Copper, Gold or Uranium without using a deposit; and therefore without depleting resources. You can stop the activity of a Black Smoker by developing technologies in your Academy under "Fertilities and Resources". Note that this system has changed in the Deep Ocean expansion.
Tip 7
Double-click a building to highlight every surrounding building of the same type, their influence area and their production coverage.
Tip 8:
A Monument foundation will fulfill the Need for Community within its full influence area from the moment it is placed.
Tip 9:
Need help in-game? Don't hesitate to whisper other players who are willing to be mentors - use your Look for Mentors button in your Contact List-> Find Contacts.
Tip 10:
Islands can be renamed by clicking the island's name on the main Warehouse of the island. Choose names you prefer, or give them strategic names like "Tech Island" or "Tool Production Island".
Tip 11:
Prototypes can sometimes be recovered from underwater ruins without using Ebashi's Technology Scanner, but you have to scour manually underwater to find them yourself.
Tip 12:
"Picture Puzzle" type-quests where you are trusted to find X people or taxis in your cities can be solved much easier by rotating and aligning the camera to parallel view of your streets. Your targets can also spawn in other locations than the area your quest ticker highlights, so check your whole city.
Tip 13:
Don't forget to take advantage of the powers provided by the winner of the active Senate Votes. Check your Ark's Politics tab for the 4 options currently available to you by the current World Patron.
Tip 14:
Oil Rigs produce Oil about three times as fast Oil Drillers.
Tip 15:
Safeguard against oil spills: stock up in advance on an Emergency Equipment or two in the Warehouse of every underwater plateau which has Oil Rigs. Should an Oil Rig explosion occur, you then only have to pick it up with a ship and use it to quickly extinguish the fire.
Tip 16:
Many defensive structures are mobile and can be relocated just like the Ark, using the red relocate icon in the top-right corner of their Information Panel.
Tip 17:
Only Submarines can build Deep Sea Warehouses underwater.
Tip 18:
If you want to seed custom underwater fertilities using Black Smokers, make sure to plant your preferred Chemicals before any underwater plateaus stop Black Smoker activity by their natural cycle (~10+ hours).
Tip 19:
When your trading ships reach maximum capacity on every round of their trading routes you may assign multiple smaller ships to the same route, in addition to upgrading to larger ships.
Tip 20:
As traditional strategies (disable food supply first, etc) are ineffective when at war with a non-player opponent, only ever destroy the enemy's depots, shipyards and warehouses. All their other buildings are just decoration.
Tip 21:
Follow Anno on Twitter to read about server notices, updates and announcements!
Tip 22:
If you are missing some technologies from any of the Academy Research Projects categories (eg. Units 49/51) even after researching everything, it is because they require: the completion of certain Global Events, reaching rank 8 in Career Points, having a DLC which includes technologies, or having the Special Edition version of Anno 2070.
Tip 23:
Don't forget to read up the developer's blogs about some of the new features of the Deep Ocean expansion: Blog Post I. (Underwater & Trade) - Blog Post II. (The Geniuses & Needs)
Tip 24:
By building a Shield Generator next to your Laboratory you can avoid having to rebuild the Laboratory and surrounding buildings after an accident. A single shield generator can absorb even the biggest explosion.
Tip 25:
If you don't want to build a Service Bot/Pharmaceuticals chain but still want more executives, you could consider using trade duties. One Bots/Pills duty produces the same amount of goods as a factory running at 100% if you have Yana, Rufus and Devi in the game and sell fish for example.
Tip 26:
When you're at war with computer or human players, select your ships you want to have in one fleet, than press CTRL + any number key. That way you will be able to quickly select these ships from any point of the map by simply clicking the number key you used, for example CTRL+1 means you can click 1 to select your ships.
Tip 27:
You can earn 500 carrier points (350 from daily quests, 100 for voting in elctions, and 50 from the winning factions in the elections) a week without doing missions. NOTE: 50 of the points however, comes from the winning faction in a election so those is not determinable, exept for voting of the faction of your choice.
Tip 28:
Remember that you can customize the loadout and the displayed goods of the Resource Bar per individual islands, by drag & dropping up to 7 different goods from your Depot to slots on the Resource Bar.
Tip 29:
When setting up trading routes, island reserves can be set for your trade routes by right clicking on the island's goods and selecting the minimum amount to keep on the island. Your ships will then only carry goods above the minimum reserve off that island.
Tip 30:
Only the basic Commando Ship ship has air defenses until you reach engineer-level population. Submarine defenses don't exist until engineer level. Declaring war before this point can leave you defenseless, especially against Computer Players that often use air and underwater Combat units.
Tip 31:
The Shift button is used for very many handy actions, you can use it to set chokepoints for ships, loading and unloading a determined amount of goods quickly, and building multiple houses at once.
Tip 32:
You can do "depot hopper" to expand construction area and claim more mines. Just build a series of depots to places you want to claim and then delete all intermediary depots(to save maintenance costs), just keep the last depot at the desired position. Roads connecting to this last depot seem not to be deteriorated. (Not recommended for games using the Zero Construction Cost Refunded-setting)
Tip 33:
Thermal plants ' productivity depend on the number of inhabitants within its influence area, so make sure to build it where the population is dense. Also be aware that its maintenance cost is huge.
Tip 34:
Sell arms and/or overproduced goods to get huge profit.
Tip 35:
In addition to tip 12: by slowing down the game speed ( (Default: Numpad -)) it's much easier to find the needed people in the picture-puzzles.
Tip 36:
If a ship is selected and the player is pressing F1 (Postcardview) the camera will follow the selected ship automatically.
Tip 37:
If you are wondering why your Bio Drinks production is lacking or has to much stuff it is because the fruit plantation is affected by the Ecobalance while dairy farms are not.
Tip 38:
(Deep Ocean only)Don't waste energy. Use Energy Transmitters to spread energy between Islands. It is very handy to use that overflow of energy from a recently placed Hydroelectric Dam, Geothermal Power Plant and/or Nuclear Power Plant.
Tip 39:
Use Anti-escalation equipment to deal with uprisings. It is build at the Academy and can be very useful when you failed an Ultimatum. Make sure you have one ready at all times.
Tip 40:
Use Clearance Device to deal with permanent negative Ecobalance influences. Built at the Academy. Also works on permanent negative Ecobalance influences made during the game (damaged nuclear reactor).
Tip 41:
Use Missile shield for some very unexpected and hilarious tricks to play on enemies using nuclear missiles.
Tip 42:
Almost all research in the Academy are Ark items. For there are only 9 slots in the Ark, make sure you really want such items in your Ark, at the cost of others, before you start these long-lasting and expensive researches.
Tip 43:
Ever found yourself stuck with not enough open room to build your structures but way too many too tiny gaps in between your already built structures? The Building Layouts page on the Anno 2070 wiki has got you covered. Over 200 and counting freely available efficient building layout strategies to use the space on your islands in the most efficient way possible. Your personal guide to getting the most bang for your buck.
Tip 44:
Do you want to have nicer screenshots of your entire island? Try and go into postcard view while you have a flying aircraft selected. Then use arrow keys to move around.
Tip 45:
The Quick Access bar and the Quick Menu offer comfortable interface options: use them to help you build without searching for the wanted buildings every time! See Interface for more information.