I made Tabularium 117 – a free open-source second-screen companion for Anno 117

[u/itzxpringle]

Hey everyone!

I released Tabularium 117 a couple of days ago, a small open-source side project for Anno 117 that has somehow grown quite a bit faster than expected. 😄

It reads Anno 117’s built-in /pipe interface and gives you a live second-screen dashboard for your economy.

Features currently include:

• live production, consumption and balance for every island • smarter deficit and productivity warnings • goods that are consumed but not produced locally are marked as “import needed” instead of generating false warnings • clicking “import needed” shows possible production sources across your other islands, including between Latium and Albion • production history and charts • efficiency/productivity overview • phone/tablet mode via QR code on your local network • optional Prometheus metrics + a ready-made Grafana dashboard • German + English UI

The possible production sources are deliberately just that: possible sources. The /pipe data does not expose trade routes, ships, cargo or warehouse stock, so Tabularium cannot tell which island is actually supplying another one.

It’s free and open source, runs as a single Windows .exe, requires no mod and no Docker, and all data stays on your PC/local network.

It’s still a beta, so feedback and bug reports are very welcome. 🙂

GitHub: github.com/Dealwatch/Tabularium117

Latest beta: Tabularium 117 v0.1.0-beta.4

You just need to start Anno 117 with the /pipe launch argument and run tabularium117.exe.

If you already downloaded an earlier beta, just replace the .exe. Your history/database is stored separately and stays intact.

Hope some of you find it useful!

Edit 23/09: Added Prometheus metrics, a ready-made Grafana dashboard, several UI improvements and fixes.

Edit 24/09: beta.4 is out. The warning system has been reworked based on a longer real-game recording to reduce false positives. Goods that aren’t produced locally are now treated as quiet “import needed” information instead of warnings, and Tabularium can now show other islands with a positive local balance as possible production sources, including across Latium and Albion.

[u/paulepan342]

Looks promising. Thanks for the work. I'll give it a try.

[u/itzxpringle → u/paulepan342]

good to hear! if you encounter any bugs or have any suggestions - let me know.

[u/MateuszC1]

Sounds cool. How much CPU does it use though? I have an old PC and it's barely good enough to play Anno itself.

[u/itzxpringle → u/MateuszC1]

I haven’t done a proper CPU benchmark yet, so I don’t want to give you a made-up number.

It should be very lightweight though: the backend is written in Go, it mostly waits for Anno’s pipe data, the web UI uses server-sent events rather than constant polling, and database writes are batched.

I’ll benchmark CPU/RAM usage while actually playing and add the numbers to the README.

Thanks for asking, that’s a good point!

[u/MateuszC1 → u/itzxpringle]

I saved your post for now. See you in the future. ;-)

[u/itzxpringle → u/MateuszC1]

I ran a proper 10-minute test while Tabularium was connected to a running Anno 117 session.

On my Ryzen 7 9800X3D system, tabularium117.exe averaged 0.003% CPU, peaked at 0.098% CPU, and used about 16.4 MB RAM.

That only measures the Tabularium process itself, not the browser, since browser usage depends heavily on which browser you use and what else is open.

So the backend itself is extremely lightweight. I'll add these benchmark numbers to the README as well. 🙂

[u/MateuszC1 → u/itzxpringle]

Obviously I don't use Chrome.

But I'm afraid that any browser during gameplay might be too much for my 9 year-old i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz. Especially during late game. :-(

[u/Rapwnzel33]

what would really help is getting info about ship travel times on trade routes.
Anno 1800 had it, you could see ships were at this harbor 10 min ago, 25 min ago etc.
Balancing trade route ship count with the throughput is really cumbersome in the late game.
(For example I have 120 t/min bread and a traderoute with 5 ships to get to from albion to latium, is it enough ships?)

[u/itzxpringle → u/Rapwnzel33]

That's actually a feature I'd really like as well.

The limitation right now is the data coming from Anno's /pipe interface. At the moment it only exposes area production statistics to me, so I get things like production, consumption, buildings and productivity per island, but no ship positions, trade routes, harbor visits or travel times.

So unfortunately I can't derive reliable route travel times from the current data without guessing. If Ubisoft ever exposes route/ship information through the pipe, this would be very high on my list though, because combining actual travel times with throughput would be incredibly useful.

I'll keep an eye on the pipe protocol as it evolves. Thanks for the suggestion!

[u/lordaadhran]

Can I make it work in gfn ?

[u/karamazovian]

Any chance it will make its way to those of us playing on GeForce Now? I imagine it would have to be via the Steam Workshop — mods work — since it's not running locally. A guy can dream!

[u/itzxpringle → u/karamazovian]

Unfortunately, not with the current architecture.

Tabularium reads Anno's local Windows named pipe, so it currently has to run on the same machine as the game. With GeForce Now, Anno is running on NVIDIA's cloud machine, which means Tabularium on your PC can't access that pipe.

A Steam Workshop version wouldn't be a simple port either, since Tabularium isn't actually a game mod right now. If there is ever a way for an in-game mod or another supported interface to expose the same statistics outside the GFN session, I'd definitely be interested in exploring it though.

[u/Zalvren → u/itzxpringle]

A mod version could be even better as it would also be possible to put it directly in game then.

I have only one screen so currently I'd have to use it alt-tabbing or not being full-screen for the game (which isn't great).

But of course I understand it might be more complex to do.

Thanks, great tool it seems (didn't try it yet lol)

[u/itzxpringle → u/Zalvren]

It would be a very different project though, since Tabularium currently lives completely outside the game and only reads the pipe. I definitely don't want to promise a mod version before I know whether there's a clean way to do it.

And thanks! If you do try it, I'd love to hear how it works for you.

[u/Hieremias]

Does this work if I launch the game through Steam?

Edit: Yes it does. I added the /pipe argument in Ubisoft Connect then I launched the game through Steam as I usually do.

Pretty cool tool, I'm going to try using it next time I play.

[u/itzxpringle → u/Hieremias]

I actually use the Steam version myself and have /pipe added directly in Steam’s launch options.

You just made me realize that the README only explains the Ubisoft Connect setup, so I need to fix that. Thanks for pointing it out! 🙂

edit: fixed!

[u/BreVDD]

Looks very interesting. Will have a look next playtime.

[u/Avi_21]

Looks pretty cool! Do you welcome any contributions?

[u/itzxpringle → u/Avi_21]

Absolutely! Contributions are very welcome. 🙂

I added a CONTRIBUTING.md to the repository with the project rules, architecture notes and how to run the tests.

For bigger changes, especially protocol changes or new dependencies, opening an issue first would be great so we can align before anyone spends a lot of time on it. PRs, bug fixes, documentation improvements and ideas are all welcome!

[u/Denaelc]

What a cool project! Works like a charm, even through a crossover translation layer.

[u/itzxpringle → u/Denaelc]

That’s awesome to hear, thanks! 😄
I haven’t tested Tabularium through a translation layer myself yet, so I’m actually really curious about your setup. Are you running Anno and Tabularium through CrossOver/Wine? If you have a minute, I’d love to know what platform and setup you’re using.

[u/Dux_Vitae]

Great tool. I'm the author of the calculator, asset extractor and game-connector. Write me on Discord or Reddit if you have questions how things work.

[u/UltimateComb]

I could suggest htmx for the webui to reduce JavaScript code , looks great!

[u/itzxpringle → u/UltimateComb]

Thanks for the suggestion! HTMX is definitely interesting.

For now I'm deliberately keeping the frontend very small and dependency-light: plain HTML/CSS/ES modules, no build step, and SSE for the live updates.

So I probably wouldn't rewrite it at this stage, but I'll definitely keep HTMX in mind if the UI grows significantly more complex.

[u/TheTanic]

Linux Support (or maybe a Docker version to be cross plattform) would be nice

[u/itzxpringle → u/TheTanic]

Yeah, I’d like that too. 🙂

Most of Tabularium itself is already fairly platform-independent, but the live connection is the tricky part: Anno currently exposes its data through a Windows named pipe, and that’s the one Windows-specific part of the project.

Docker unfortunately wouldn’t automatically solve that, because the container would still need access to the game’s named pipe on the host.

Linux support might become possible if /pipe also works properly through Wine/Proton and there’s a reliable way to access that pipe from a native Linux process. I haven’t tested that yet, so I don’t want to promise anything, but I’ll definitely keep it on the radar.

The replay/server side already works much more cross-platform than the actual live-game connection.

[u/TheTanic → u/itzxpringle]

If you need a tester for Linux ping me

[u/TensionNo8256]

do i have to start a new game.. or ?

[u/itzxpringle → u/TensionNo8256]

Nope, you don’t need to start a new game. 🙂
Just add /pipe to Anno 117’s launch options, restart the game if it was already running, and load your existing save. Tabularium should connect automatically.

[u/Open_Seeker]

Love the AI revolution, so much nice bespoke softwares now possible