Note
The mod loader is now integrated into the game thus this project is no longer required. For the "official" version that has code for the new/different features see the following fowkr https://github.com/jakobharder/anno1800-mod-loader
The one and only mod loader for Anno 1800, supports loading of unpacked RDA files, XML auto merging and DLL based mods.
No file size limit. No more repacking. Less likely to break after updates (in general a mod should continue to work after every update, YMMV).
This changes the games XML files using XPath, this makes it easy and possible to only have the changes in a mod that you absolutely need instead of handling megabytes of XML files.
Short shitty video to show how easy it is to install the loader.
Mods have to be installed seperately.
Head over to the releases page and download the loader.zip from the latest release.
Unzip the contents to the location where Anno1800.exe is
Uplay default path is
C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Anno 1800\Bin\Win64
You will be asked to overwrite python35.dll, just accept that.
You probably also need the VS 2019 Redist https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/VC_redist.x64.exe
And that's basically it.
Mods will always be loaded in alphabetical order. Mods are either loaded from:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Anno 1800\modsassuming default Uplay path. This depends on the location you chose when installing Anno 1800- your Documents folder if that contains a
modsfolder. You can access this using Win + R and enteringshell:Personal\Anno 1800
modsin Documents takes precedence over game install directory, meaning if you have amodsfolder in the documents location mods will no longer be loaded from the game directory.
For more experienced users symlinks made with
mklinkwill be followd (resulting in an easier way to manage different reposetories of mods).
A short introduction for mod creation with the mod loader is given below. For an example zoom extend mod see the examples directory.