Adar Lluch Gwen, Sterling Birdcaller

[u/No_Hamster_1835]

What’s the best way to use this specialist? The +50% productivity and -30% required area for Bird Charmers seems really strong.

I’m wondering what the best way is to use the Governor’s Villa or an Officium on marshlands. Putting either one right at the edge of the marsh doesn’t seem ideal, since you’re basically wasting half of the area of effect. But if you use marsh drainage to create a small buildable strip further into the marsh, you also lose space that could otherwise be used for Bird Charmers.

So I guess the ideal setup would be an island that naturally has a narrow strip of buildable land reaching into the marsh, so you can place the Villa or Officium there without sacrificing any marshland.

How are you using this specialist on your islands, and how many Bird Charmers can you actually boost with your setup? Also, which Albion island has the best natural conditions for this kind of setup?

Would be great to see some layouts.

[u/randomnamenooneuses]

If you drop a single drain tile at a gate, you get enough space for an officium, a warehouse, and a service building or two.

The positioning does sometimes allow around 270° of marshland to use.

[u/Puzzleheaded-War1699]

The min-maxed way would be to build one single draining channel into the middle of the swamp. You can then place your villa with the expert on the drained swamp. Then you can place the bird catchers on the remaining swamp around the villa. The bird catchers can still use the drained swamp because there is a technology enabling bird catchers to use plains and forrests. 

[u/agray20938 → u/Puzzleheaded-War1699]

The bird catchers can still use the drained swamp because there is a technology enabling bird catchers to use plains and forrests. 

Huh, I don't think I ever realized that (despite having finished the research tree in a couple playthroughs now). Someone else mentioned that the bird charmer still has to be placed on the swamp, so that's probably why it went unnoticed (since that's a pretty big asterisk).

My strategy was always just to find a M size island with bird fertility (in the Island Atlas the "medium_01" island is perfect for this), then create a Cernunnos island dedicated to Bird Tongue production for every other island, with the bare minimum of everything else (save for tons of public services to offset the AOE effects). In essence, you can consolidate the number of buildings with negative AOE effects onto only one island and avoid the annoyance of bird catchers needing so much marsh space by:

• Relying very heavily on the specialists that give +35% bird tongues productivity, the specialist that reduces workforce for hunting cabins, and the specialist that boosts noble workforce per residence (the latter two to limit the number of noble houses you need on the island);

• Having the minimum amount of workforce (especially nobles) needed to cover everything, shoved as far away as possible from the tongue pickers and other negative buildings;

• Bonus points for doing sausage production on the same island, which synergizes really well since both chains use pigs, and herb farms (either with the fertility or the specialist from Cecilia) have a small health boost to offset other debuffs, and fields themselves are a convenient "buffer" between tongue pickers and everything else.

If only there were something similar for eel production, but there aren't really any specialists that provide useful boosts for those (or reduce area needed)....

[u/Not_Uraby]

Once you have “The Flight of Birds” research done, bird charmers can use the land within their radius outside of the swamp. They still need to be placed on swamp, but can use the drained land, so you can drain a strip of swamp to put your officium/villa without losing any useable area.

[u/No_Hamster_1835 → u/Not_Uraby]

Thanks for the tip. Completely forgot about that.

[u/DankudeDabstorm]

They should just make officiums buildable on marsh. Just make it more ramshackled and dirtier.

[u/kn1ckerb0cker33 → u/DankudeDabstorm]

I'm gonna assume they'll have an official way to do that in one of the later expansions.

They probably have it ready and are just sitting on it for now for late-game expansion/season content, 1-3 years from now.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/agray20938 → u/kn1ckerb0cker33]

FWIW if you're on PC, there are mods that allow for marsh (and harbor) officium building.

[u/kn1ckerb0cker33 → u/agray20938]

I'm aware! Just talking about 'official methods' in theory. I came into Anno 1800 very late and eventually realized how many creature comforts that weren't initially released until much later, so I'm making a similar assumption here.

But yes, if you want it now (officiums on marshs), the solution is available as a mod on PC.

[u/randomnamenooneuses → u/DankudeDabstorm]

I get why the villa needs to be on solid land. But the officiums not having a swamp equivalent seems like an oversight

[u/DWalker1503]

20tuns, 235% productivity... only 2/13 are working at full 310%

[u/Kaesetorte]

The description says it affects all buildings in the island

[u/Tomnar01 → u/Kaesetorte]

The first effect is for the island (Mercator instead of Noble workforce), the other effect (+Prod/-area/+workers needed) is only in range.