The notes presented here aim to explain the fastest route for each chapter (on easy difficulty) of the Anno 1404 campaign in detail. When I say "fastest" it is implied that the game-internal "fast forward" feature is being used which increases the speed of the game at most tenfold; the routes for the "No FF" / "normal speed" categories will greatly differ from that is written below and thus should not rely on this guide.

Preliminaries & Important Shortcuts

As these notes focus on the fast forward categories it is assumed that at the start of every chapter you permanently fast forward (done by pressing F11 and then the ⏩ key). This is why the FF-categories have a rather heavy focus on execution: iIn order to go fast you should be familiar with the most useful hotkeys (and their default bindings):

• K: Change between your island's warehouses
• B: Open the building menu
• H: Build a peasant's house
• Q: Change focus between ships which are not on trading routes. You can also focus on any of your ships with TAB
• F11: Open extra menu which includes the permanent fast forward button
• N: Copy mode
• V: Demolition mode
• S: Build path
• F6: Open the trading route menu
• U: Upgrade a building (e.g., peasants to citizens or a small market building to a medium-sized one)
• Num+: Speeds up the game, but not permanently. This is also a good way to quickly revert back from permanent FF to normal speed

Be aware that some of these hotkeys can be buffered: for example if you have a peasant's house selected and start you holding U to upgrade before the ascension requirement's are met, as soon as this changes these peasants will upgrade to citizens. This is a small but noteworthy optimization as it involves no risk.

For the sake of practicing execution or memorizing a route I advise you to (use this guide and) play on FF but pause (P) whenever necessary. This way the game's progression---including resources, population, etc.---is as close as possible to what it will be once you learned and mastered the route. Also from my experience some of the mission scripts can be rather unstable when playing quickly, that is, if you do things in the wrong order it may happen that story missions do not appear. Follow this guide closely to avoid such softlocks.

Finally before diving into things I'd like to say that, obviously, no guide is perfect. If you spot any mistakes or if there is anything you'd like me to change in this guide please tell me -- either in the Anno speedrun discord (linked in this game's navigation bar on the left) or message me directly (my discord tag is toca#0527 ).

Game Version

This guide is intended to be used with the 2020 remaster ("Anno History Edition") as it features building multiple houses at once via holding the left mouse button and dragging the cursor across the screen (also known as "multi-building or "multi-placement", cf. here or here). This feature is not present in the original game so the guide needs some adjustments if that's the game version you're running on.

Chapter 1: A Declaration of Faith

• Hold ESC right after starting the chapter to skip the first cutscene. If you start pressing ESC too late, an unskippable dialogue will appear, resulting in a few second timeloss
• Hold Num+ until the sidebars disappear, press F11 + B, start fast forwarding
• Build three lumberjacks
• Click on the ship, skip two dialogues
• Build (H) three houses
• Click on the marketplace, two dialogues
• Build trees around your lumberjacks; this is to ensure 70% productivity which is necessary for the next quest to trigger
• Build fisherman's hut as soon as you have enough wood, and demolish it right after
• Click on the warehouse and wait for 10t of wood
• Hold Q to select the ship as soon as it spawns
• Skip the dialogue, collect tools, and dialogue again. Note: if you collect the tools before skipping the dialogue you will softlock because you won't be able to finish the main quest of delivering the tools to your warehouse
• Exchange the tools for 10t fish, sail to south island
• Build seven houses and a path to connect them to the marketplace
• Go to your ship (Q) and confirm finishing the fish mission
• Skip two dialogues to obtain the chapelstone, sail to Northburgh's main island
• Build two more houses
• Confirm chapelstone mission
• Build one more house, wait for "Settlement" notification
• Demolish 6 houses, build chapel. Note: In order to win there must be 8 houses within the chapel's range, so do not demolish too many

Chapter 2: In the Sign of the Cross

• Hold ESC right after starting the chapter to skip the cutscene, then hold Num+ until the sidebars disappear
• Press F11 + B
• Build cider farm, then start fast forwarding. Note: While one fast forward right away, building the cider farm too slowly will result in a few second timeloss because the market cart will first collect wood from a faraway lumberjack, resulting in a few second timeloss
• Select your ship (Q) and load at least 15t of fish and 3t of cider and sail to Forcas
• Switch to your island (K). Disable auto-upgrades in marketplace and build small market building north of your city
• Upgrade one peasant to citizens (U) and destroy it (V)
• Focus on your ship (Q), click through dialogues and finish Forcas' quest for fish & cider
• Sail to Marie's island. Note: although blocked by fog once the mouse is hovered over her warehouse the icon will change shape
• Go to your warehouse (K) and click through two dialogues. Note: this is crucial in order to prevent a softlock where you would not get the rope mission later on
• Build two hemp plantations and one weaver's hut. Connect only the weaver's hut with the small market building (it will automatically get the hemp as the plantations are in range) and auto build all fields (hold SHIFT while doing so to build the fields for all plantations of the same type)
• Switch to your ship again (Q) and finish Marie's quest for the letter
• Send the ship to Northburgh's southern island
• In your main warehouse (K) buy ropes and set the price to the maximum. Note: if you were fast enough until here then Northburgh will sell you 5t of ropes shortly after getting the weapon's crate
• Finish Marie's quest and send the ship back north. Discard fish and cider so you have space to get quest rewards
• At your main warehouse (K) click on the ship Forcas gave to you and load 5t linen and the ropes. Send the ship to Forcas
• Switch to your small trading ship (Q x2). Finish Marie's quest and buy 10t of wood from her
• Send your ship to the burning ship east of your island and finish the repair quest
• Send the ship north (edge of the fog, need not be precise for now). Meanwhile finish Forcas' quests for linen and ropes
• Build a warehouse on the abbot's island
• Connect your warehouse to the monastery and load the abbot
• Send the ship to Forcas, skip all dialogues, and finish the chapter

Chapter 3: Departure for the Promised Land

• Hold ESC and then Num+ until the sidebars disappear
• Press F11, start fast forwarding
• Select your ship (Q), load 30t wood and 10t tools and send it to the island in the north
• Buy 10t wood and 10t tools from Hilarius
• Change to main island (K), disable auto-upgrading in the marketplace and build one lumberjack (N​)
• Change to your ship (Q), build two stonemason's huts on your north island (one directly above the warehouse and one three tiles east of the warehouse)
• Wait until there are 4t of stones in your warehouse, then load them and sail back to your main island. Meanwhile build two more ropeyards (N​) and destroy one hemp farm, the weaver's hut, as well as 9 citizens' houses
• Unload the stone, build a shipyard and commission four small trading ships
• Set the default point of the shipyard to Forcas' island and load your flagship (Q) with at least 18t of tools. Note: if you have less than 18t of tools this means that you were too slow at the start as too many peasants became citizens
• Send your ship north again and buy 10t wood & tools from the abbot
• Build iron mine, charcoal burner's hut and iron smelter. Note: if you place the smelter west of the stonemason's hut then you only have to connect smelter to warehouse
• Once the ship arrived load it such that you have at least 21t wood / 25t tools / 18t stone
• Sail south and build a small warehouse on the crusader's island. Click on it and upgrade it (U, buffer)
• Build a harbor master's office
• Click through dialogue until Forcas "examines your Harbour master's office"
• Demolish the harbour master's office, build four small storehouses
• Demolish the storehouses and build a repair crane
• Sail back north, load 10t of iron, and sail to Forcas. Meanwhile finish the trading ship quest
• On your northern island demolish the iron smelter and build a toolmaker's workshop
• Complete the iron quest
• Back south load 15t of tools onto your flagship and deliver it to Forcas' big ship
• Finish the chapter

Chapter 4: The Lost Children

• Hold Num+ after starting the mission, then as soon as the cutscene starts press ESC. Note: The Num+ part speeds up the black screen before the cutscene starts
• As usual hold Num+ until the sidebars disappear
• Press F11 and fast forward
• Select your ship (Q) ,unload tools and wood, and sail north-east via the minimap
• Build 15 residences
• Build market building north-east
• Connect to Hilarius, order 30t wood / 20t tools
• Build two stonemason's huts and 2x hemp
• Collect child and tools and ship them to your warehouse
• Build ropeyard, shipyard, and weaver's hut
• Unload everything from ship except for 2t of tools and load Northburgh's gift & 3t of ropes
• Sail to Al Zahir
• Order 20t wood / 10t tools
• Finish Al Zahir's quest and sail east to the ship which is to be repaired
• Repair the ship, select it (Q), and send it to your main island. After building a repair crane load it with 20t wood / 20t tools
• Sail to Karim with your oriental ship and once you arrived build bazaar, 16 nomad houses, market building, and noria
• Connect market building to Karim
• While waiting for 150 residents, change to flagship (Q) and buy 30t of iron. Note: you might want to disable FF because buying in 10x FF speed is quite buggy
• Turn FF back on and sail back to your main island; ssail to the repair crane, this ensures max speed at the end for this chapter's final mission
• Build tavern, disable auto-upgrade, order tools from Hilarius, unload iron
• Once you reached 150 nomads, demolish all nomad's houses and build three spice farms on fertile ground
• Load your caravel with 10t tools, the two children, and 7t of spices and sail to your main island (for this change from 10t to 1t of default ship loading)
• Unload 2t of spices and the children, send caravel to Al Zahir
• Upgrade one citizen to patricians (U), build three weapon smithies
• Back at your caravel (Q x2), with Al Zahir's letter on board sail to the island in the east
• Collect the child and sail to the far west
• Load 5t of weapons onto your flagship (Q) and sail to Al Zahir
• Commission one small warship and set default spawn west of Al Zahir
• Discover the hidden corsair ship and send your caravel back
• Obtain the boarding party from Al Zahir and board the corsair ship
• Group your three warships and attack the corsairs
• Get both children (one from Ben Sahid) and deliver them to your main island
• Unload the child from the caravel. Note: Change back to 10t loading here because the ship load size will not reset once another chapter starts
• Unload the children from your flagship by clicking your flagship's 2t of tools repeatedly
• Finish the chapter

Chapter 5: A Storm Breaks Out

This chapter arguably is the most complex one as you have to upgrade patricians to noblemen and do a few other things in parallel.

• Hold Num+ after starting the mission, then as soon as the cutscene starts press ESC. Note: Holding ESC after the chapter starts would result in the game pausing and unpausing repeatedly as the cutscene only starts after a short blackscreen which is considered "gameplay"
• As usual hold Num+ until the sidebars disappear
• Press F11, start fast forwarding
• Build 9 lumberjacks (N​): two to the left & two to the right of your warehouse, two close to the market building next to your core city, one close to Hilarius, and two at your iron mine) and one stonemason's hut (to the right of Hilarius)
• Inbetween accept the beggars' request
• At the iron mine, destroy the weapon smithy and replace it by a toolmaker (N​)
• Upgrade the small market building
• Destroy the chapel in the southwest of your core city and build an alms house
• West of your warehouse build two toolmakers (together with 1x iron mine, 1x coal, 1x iron smelter and 1x lumberjack) and one stonemason's hut
• Fully order from Hilarius
• Build a new marketplace northeast or your existing city, as well as 45 new residences
• In the southern part of your island build: 3x cider, 3x fish, 1x lumberjack
• Build 4x hemp + 2x weaver's hut
• Order fully from Hilarius
• Deny the patricians access to bread and beer, and set them to "Happy" (instead of "Euphoric")
• West of your city build a small market building and 1x grain + 1x herbs + 1x beer
• Send your trading ship (Q x2) to the island far west
• Accept the beggar's request once again
• Collect the date pickers and bring them to Al Zahir
• Focus on your flagship (Q); load it with 70t wood, 40t tools, 40t stone and sail northeast
• Deliver the date pickers
• Build a warehouse and afterwards one small market building near the river and another small one near the brine mine
• Build 1x coal, 1x salt mine, 2x pig farm, and 1x tannery
• Pick up the vizier's report, sail to Marie's island
• On your main island disable auto-upgrade and let all citizens become patricians at once (hold SHIFT while clicking the blue arrow in the marketplace menu)
• Set citizens to even-tempered and deny them access to spices
• Unload the remaining wood from your flagship (Q) and build 1x wood and 1x paper mill
• Deliver the vizier's report
• While you wait for 8t of leather jerkins to be produced, build three new small trading ships
• Set up a new trading route between the centre of wisdom (quartz) and your north island (unload both). Let Hermes sail on this route
• Send one of your trading ships to the far west
• Select your flagship. Load at least 8t of leather jerkins and 5t of paper, then get 20t wood and 10t tools from your main island. Sail to Al Zahir
• Deliver the leather and sail to the island in the west
• Unload wood and tools from your flagship and build an oriental marketplace. Destroy the west oriental market building and build 8 nomad's houses
• Replace the two east-most date plantations by two goat farms and build two norias
• Load one idle trading ship with 40t wood, 40t tools, 40t stones and send it to your northern island
• Load the second idle trading ship with 20t wood, 10t tools and send it to your southern island
• In the northeast build a forest glassworks and two glass smelters. Then destroy all the other buildings on this island except for the western market building
• Let your far west trading ship pick up the book and bring it to the centre of wisdom
• Load your flagship with 10t dates, 10t milk and the honor scroll and sail to Al Zahir, after delivering both sail to your spice island
• Unload wood and tools and build two indigo farms and two norias. Then send the small ship to the (hidden) island southeast
• Meanwhile send the third trading ship from Ibn Al Hakim to the bottom left corner of the minimap
• Finally send the ship at your glass island to your spice island
• Load 5t indigo onto your flagship and deliver it to Ibn al Hakim. Note: As soon as the indigo farm attached to the small market building carries 2t of indigo order the market cart there
• Load at least 3t of indigo onto your small flagship and send it to your glass island
• In the southeast "find" the shipwreck then click on the bottom-right of the five crates. Note: your small trading ship has to be close enough to the island such that the Al Zahir-prompt comes up to collect the copper key
• Ship the copper key to Al Zahir
• In the southwest click on the coral reef
• Back northeast unload the indigo and build a printing house (now you have to wait for books)
• As soon as you have 3t of books and 17t of glass demolish all buildings. Ship 3t books / 27t glass / 10t leather jerkins to your main island and unload
• Unlock the patricians' need for beer & bread and set them back to euphoric. Build a debtor's prison and upgrade one patrician to a nobleman
• Demolish the debtor's prison and build three war machine workshops at your main warehouse
• While waiting for war machines send your flagship to Al Zahir
• Deliver 10t of war machines to Al Zahir
• Select the five oriental warships & your flagship and destroy Forcas' ships at the reef one by one
• Load the marked box onto the trading ship and send it to Al Zahir. Then send the remaining warships back to your harbour
• After obtaining the corsair treaty send all ships at Al Zahir back to your island
• Collect the white flag from Hilarius and equip the small trading with it which has the treaty. Activate the white flag and send the ship to Marie
• Load another small ship with 40t of war machines and send it back to Al Zahir's harbour
• Click through the dialogue quickly and wait until Marie's ships are at your harbour. Meanwhile buy five new ships from Al Zahir
• Attack Forcas' fleet (also use the new ships you just bought). If you carefully destroy the ships one by one you should end up with more than 12 ships which suffices to defeat Forcas' ships at his harbour quickly
• Do so and finish the chapter

Chapter 6: Caught in a Trap

• Hold ESC right after starting the chapter to skip the first cutscene, then hold Num+ until the sidebars disappear
• Press F11 + B, start fast forwarding

After some initial preparation this chapter is mostly about waiting. The following 11 bullet points should be done before the countdown for the first attack wave ends

• Select the keep and build a large military camp at your cider farms in the south
• Then destroy the two cider farms which are most south and build three watchtowers
• Next build one stonemason's hut in the west and another one in the east of your island
• Enable production of your toolmaker as well as the weapon smithy
• Build an iron smelter next to the provision house and upgrade the small market building (U)
• Build two lumberjacks close to the houses outside the city wall
• Connect Barnabas to your market building and attach three cider farms to said path
• In the northeast of your island you'll find a small beach. Build a small market building and four fisherman's huts
• Select your ship (Q) and send it to said beach
• Select the keep and build another large military camp southwest of the medium market building (close to your first camp)
• Close off the gaps with as many watchtowers as you can build (following this route that's at most 19 towers)

From here on out there is not much to do other than wait and occasionally rebuild a destroyed tower. Thus you should mostly keep your camera focused on the keep

• Roughly 15 seconds after the second wave started your island's warehouse is destroyed. Thus as soon as you have the option build a new warehouse on the southern coast (next to your fishermen)
• Right after the second wave is defeated that there will be three spies in your city which you should select and afterwards deliver to Barnabas. Note: This is a sidequest and thus not necessary in order to win, but the faster the spies are caught the faster some subsequent quests trigger, resulting in up to 40 seconds of timesave
• Around a minute after catching the spies a message item will appear in your warehouse. Transfer it to your flagship and activate it (left-click + checkmark)
• Now all that is left is to wait until Al Zahir arrives.

Chapter 7: The Man with the Mask

• Hold ESC right after starting the chapter to skip the first cutscene, then hold Num+ until the sidebars disappear
• Press F11, start fast forwarding
• Start by destroying (V) the oriental market building & extending two existing paths (S) around your market place northwards
• Build 11 nomad's houses, deny the nomads access to milk
• Build a small market building and two lumberjacks next to Izmir's tower (don't connect them yet!)
• Build two oriental market building east of the river
• Build two goat farms, a Noria, and two date plantations next to the oriental market buildings and connect the lumberjacks and Izmir to the small market building
• Load your flagship with 21t wood / 11t tools / 5t milk
• Send the ship to Hildegard and then directly to the northwest. Inbetween unlock the nomads' desire for milk
• Build a warehouse and connect it to Hekata (click on the witches' lair to trigger the quest). Give her the milk and then load your ship with the leftover wood and tools as well as the message in the bottle
• Sail straight south and build a warehouse. Note: before building the warehouse you might want to throw the bottle overboard. This way the bottle won't get transferred to the warehouse but you can quickly pick it up from the sea to save 1-2 seconds
• Sail your oriental ship (Q) to Hildegard---meanwhile collect the bottle with your flagship (Q) and send it to your main island
• Back at your oriental ship (Q) buy the 150 priced honor roll as well as wood, gold and iron. Send it to Al Zahir
• Meanwhile select your main warehouse (K) and buy mosaic (set the cap to maximum)
• Back at your oriental ship deliver the honor roll and buy tools and mosaic. Sail back to your island and unload everything from both ships
• Switch to the west island (K), build noria and two silk farms
• Back at your main island (Q) build 12 more houses (N​)
• Accept Ibn al Hakim's quest and build two indigo farms at your oriental market building
• Create a route (F6) between your west island (silk), your main island (unload silk, mosaic, tools), and Al Zahir (tools & mosaic) operated by your flagship "Santa Barbara"
• Load your oriental ship with at least 6t of indigo and sail to Al Zahir
• Meanwhile build two carpet workshops and build a mosque
• With your oriental ship (Q) buy at least 5t of paper as well as a sailcloth (if available) from Al Zahir
• Sail to the northeast of the minimap to produce a map of the Assassins' island
• Deliver the map to Hildegard
• Upgrade 8 nomads to envoys (through the corresponding menu in the marketplace, disable auto-upgrade first), then the miners should spawn
• Order the miners to the coast of the assassins' island, then send your oriental ship (Q) back to the Assassins' island
• While waiting for the miners to arrive, build 20 more houses (this should get you to the 52 houses you need) and upgrade as many nomads as possible in one click (Shift+left click in the marketplace menu)
• Back at the assassin's island (Q) build a castle and let the miners attack the small tower
• While waiting for the miners to finish their attack, upgrade the castle to a warehouse and load Northburgh onto your oriental ship & bring him to Hildegard

Here is where the route splits depending on whether you do an IL or a full campaign run:

• If you're doing an IL attempt move the miners to your main island, next to the tower where the black pearl will potentially be later on; you'll have to hope that the black pearl will spawn there

• If you do a full campaign run order the miners to the sea between your main and your silk island.

• Your oriental ship should have Northburgh's letter on board now

• This is where the Merchant skip can be performed, which is a way to get the ship stuck in place so you can destroy it easier. Roughly speaking, deliver the letter to Hekata and position your ship correctly before going through the dialogue which makes the cursed ship. For the details I refer to the video linked above. However this only saves a few seconds at most and, especially for beginners, the risk of softlocking outweighs the benefits

• Attack the merchant's ship with both of your ships (focus on your flagship with TAB)

• After destroying the ship bring the recipe back to Hekata

• Send your oriental ship to your main island

Again your next action depends on what kind of attempt you're currently doing:

• If you're doing an IL select your miners and attack the tower

• If you do a full campaign run look for a large skeleton directly behind the tower at each spot. The tower with the large skeleton will be where the Black Pearl is---move your miners there and attack

• Upgrade nomads to envoys until you have 32 envoys' residences

• Finish the quest of Phillips Lamour and Izmir

• Load your ship with the phial as well as the black pearl (wherever you found it) and deliver it to Hekata

• Bring the phial of life to Northburgh and finish the chapter

Chapter 8: Pillars of Justice

• Hold ESC right after starting the chapter to skip the first cutscene, then hold Num+ until the sidebars disappear
• Press F11 + B, start fast forwarding
• Put the imperial cathedral off hold
• Send your flagship (Q x2) to the small island northwest of Stone Quarry
• Select Al Zahir's warehouse to trigger the quest for the lost
• Rescue the three shipwrecked with your flagship (Q x2) and bring them to Al Zahir. Collect the reward
• Send the construction workers to the southern beach of your island and build a harbormaster's office
• Build a market place in the southwest (where the gap is) and disable auto-upgrading
• Unload the construction workers and loat 20t linen, 20t bread. Send the flagship back to Al Zahir
• Switch to your small ship (Q), load 10t wood and send it to your beer island in the north
• On your northern island build a small market building below the river, an ore mine, a lumberjack, and a paper mill and connect them
• Demolish all the buildings in the east of this island (1x crop farm, 1x monastery garden, 1x brewery, 1x medium market building)
• Go to your main island (K); in the northwest destroy church, taverne, large market building, and all the subsequently angry citizens
• Destroy the debtor's prison in the middle of your town as well as the church in the south. The latter will cause three citizen houses to turn angry as the corresponding need is not satisfied anymore. Demolish those three houses, as well
• Refill all iron mines and stonemasons (Shift)
• Plant trees at all lumberjacks and charcoal burners (Shift)
• Build a stonemason's hut south-west of the one you just refilled
• Build a tool production chain (1x iron mine, 1 charcoal, 1x iron smelter, 2x tool production) close to your main warehouse. Note: Destroy the large market building and the taverne and then build the smelter northwest of where the taverne was
• Switch back to your small ship (Q), unload the wood and load (at least) 10t iron ore, 15t paper. Send the ship to your most southern island
• Demolish the paper mill, the lumberjack and the paths connecting all of them
• Roundabout now there should be a quest appearing that spies have been sighted in your city. Catch them. Note: If you fail to complete this quest then all your main island's wood is being lost so it is highly advised to complete this quest successfully
• Back on your northern island build a charcoal burner's hut, an iron smelter and two toolmaker next to the ore mine. Also build two stonemason's huts (at the two stone deposits close to the main warehouse)
• Around now the first construction phase should finish. Immediately start the next phase
• Switch to your flagship and complete Al Zahir's next quest. Ship the oriental workers to your main island
• Unload the oriental workers and load your ship with 40t wood, 10t stone & send it to Al Zahir
• Unload the goods from your small ship and send it to Al Zahir
• Open the trade menu (F6); extend the beer route by tools and stone and extend the spice route by glass
• Go to your flagship and buy 20t of tools (and the fastest sailcloth available). Ship the goods to your spice island
• Demolish the marketplace, the 5 houses, the date farm, and the stone path (but not yet the oriental market building)
• Place a small market building south of Karim instead (such that the gate of Karim's building is included) and destroy the oriental market building next to it
• Build a noria left and right of the market place each
• Catch the two spies on your main island. Note: This is crucial because failing this quest will result in one of your ships being destroyed which results in a huge disadvantage for the rest of the chapter
• Build an oriental market building (N​) between the two quartz spots as well as two quartz quarries and one glass smelter
• Destroy the oriental market building next to your spice farms and build two forest glassworks and connect them to your small market building
• Unload everything from your flagship
• Build three glass smelters next to the market building between the quartz deposits
• Destroy the stone path at your main warehouse and reconnect everything (with normal paths)
• Build a fourth glass smelter
• Catch the three spies at the imperial cathedral
• Load your flagship with exactly 3t wood and 2t tools
• Around now the second building phase should finish. Start the final building phase
• Jump to your small ship and click through the dialogue until you get the strongbox. Sail to Lucius' island in the north
• Jump to your flagship and accept Karim's offer. Equip the red flag and sail to Lucius' island
• Once arrived there deliver the strongbox. Click through the dialogue until the storm destroys Lucius's warehouse
• Build your own warehouse and connect it to Ibn al Hakim. click through the dialogue and load the "Tome on Architecture" onto your ship
• Send your flagship back to your main island and your small ship to your spice island
• Unload the "Tome on Architecture" and switch to your small ship
• Right after that the black plague befalls your city so Karim will give you the essence of life. Bring it to your main island and unload it as quickly as possible
• Set your people to happy so they're moving in again

For the next three minutes you have to wait for the imperial cathedral to finish. You should catch spies whenever they come up (and if you fail a spy quest repair the damage dealt, if necessary). Other things you can do is build four fishermen's huts next to your existing ones as those will blow up if you fail to catch the final 8 spies---which on FF is somewhat likely

• Once you reach ~120/160t glass at the imperial cathedral---which is usually the point where there's enough glass on your main island to finish---order all of your four ships northeast of the "Stone Quarry" island. This is where the emperor's warships will spawn
• Click through the dialogue and select all your ships (four inital + new warships) and sail to your main warehouse
• Destroy Lucius' first wave of ships and then sail north to Marie
• Once those ships of Lucius are taken care of send your ships aside from two warships to Al Zahir
• The two warships you did not select go south of Lucius island and destroy the three ships there. Pick up the Cardinal and bring him to the emperor in front of your island
• You win. Congratulations!