You make me want to go back and buy specialists because Ive been playing the game almost 100% without them. But yet.. I have everything maxxed out. My big "Atoll" island is like Baby Huey and is just fed by all the outer colonies/islands of peasants delivering everything like Uber Eats.
Some of the builds Ive seen people do on Reddit also make me feel like Im a little bit too business oriented in my builds. Some really pretty cities people have built, but I cant help but be like "No, no. That doesnt work. That housing tile extends just one too far for that building to reach it."
re: specialists, one of my complaints about Anno 1800 was that specialists are what turn your efficient but mediocre city into a gigachad producer, but the cost, effort and tedium to get specialists is so much you don't really need them. This is illustrated in challenging gameplay where if you dick around trying to recruit specialists you can get outworked by an aggressive AI.
I ended up creating a ticket:
Bug Reporter | Ubisoft and rolled back a save. Then it happened again. idk if I'm doing something to trigger it or am just ignorant about how the game works. But I'm going to put the game down for a bit until I get some answers.
re: builds, there are usually four phases for every building game:
1. Trash builds where you don't know wtf you're doing and stuff doesn't fit together.
2. Highly efficient, but boring builds that work well.
3. Highly efficient, but visually interesting or realistic or fun builds that work well.
4. Trash builds where you DO know wtf you're doing, stuff doesn't fit together but you designed it that way as a joke or challenge.
I always try to achieve #3, but #4 are the best ones.