Started Anno With No Ai Now i Cant Buy Ships

So have you ever felt you are doing a really good job at expanding really quickly and getting to those expeditions for your other regions as fast as humanly possible, only to get there and find that the AI has taken all the good spots and has their nasty digital claws and everything? Have you ever sat and wondered, what the crap, how do I know how fast I need to go to beat them? . Thanks to two amazing people over on the annual Wiki Bannon, the awesome administrator of the Wiki and a Ubisoft companion, and an academic frequent contributor.  With some poking from yours truly, we now know the actual triggers for when the AI will expand to other regions. 

Now, all of these triggers are based on a single player only. Multiplayer does make some changes to AI triggers, such as removing some story restrictions and stuff. So take all of this information as a single player only.  The new world is unlocked. As soon as the AI first reaches artisans, they'll be able to go to the region immediately and claim their first islands. They usually go for islands with lots of oil, sugar cane, and cotton to start off with. When the AI has around 35 artisan homes, along with having built a sewing machine factory in the cannery and builds a hospital in the old world, they will immediately go to Cape truly. Now, remember, Crown Falls itself is locked for settlement to the player only, so they cannot settle that island, but they can take it from you later on through buyout or harbor attacks.

So the AI will start by taking larger islands with oil on them first and spread out from there. After building the hospital in the old world, a two-hour timer also starts. Once this timer is over, the AI will then head to Messa. This is game time, though, and not real-time, so if you're playing on triple speed, it's going to be a lot faster than it would be in real-time. Like with Crown Falls, Taberna is locked out for the AI and only you can settle it. They like to get the big islands with TEF and Lid and Seed on them first for their starting islands and then go from there. The trigger for the Arctic has been known for a while, but just in case you don't know, the AI cannot go there at all until the player has completed the quest to build an airship. 

A good strategy here is to head to the Arctic and claim all of the islands before you start working on the DLC story quest and build yourself an airship. If you claim all of the islands, the AI won't come to the region at all, and you don't have to try to get the gas plateaus back from them if they settle one. Now, one quick note about the easy AI.  That's the one. Star AIS. Ching, Benta and Willy. They will not go to any region before the player does. So if you're playing against nothing but one-star AI, then you are safe to expand when you're ready. 

 The two-star AI and the three-star AI are independent of the player though, and they will do their own thing. You can try to slow their progress by denying them certain goods like fur, but eventually, they will still expand out. So that's it. Those are the triggers for the AI expansion to other regions. Hopefully, this helps some of you to start developing your own strategies for your own expansions.