Best Anno 1800 Airships, ranked

In the worldbuilder Anno 1800 you’ll inevitably have to transport goods from one island to another. A traditional way of doing that is using cargo ships, but you can take it a step higher with Airships.

Airships were introduced to the game in The Passage and Empire of the Skies DLCs where you can build Airship Hangars used for constructing Airships in the Arctic, Old World, and New World. For those new to the game, you may be surprised to find there are numerous Airships in Anno 1800, all with their advantages and drawbacks.

If you plan to take your empire to the skies, here are the best Airships to use in Anno 1800, ranked.

Best Airships in Anno 1800

8) Colibri

Colibri is a decent starter Airship, but it’s useful only for short deliveries over land. It’s pretty fast but receives a 10 percent travel speed penalty when flying over the open sea. If you have a tight group of islands you plan to transport cargo between, Colibri will do just fine. Otherwise, there are far better options available.

7) Colibri (Armed)

Apart from moving cargo, there are two Airships designed specifically for combat. However, I barely ever had to use them myself as I preferred to steer away from conflicts with other empires. Because of how situational armed Airships can be considering the main use of Airships is transport, they are placed lower on the list.

Colibri (Armed) has the same movement properties as the cargo version of the Airship—the major difference is slot distribution favoring items over cargo. With 25 damage per second, it’s a decent Airship to use in combat, but as soon as you can I recommend switching to our next option.

6) Alicanto (Armed)

Alicanto (Armed) is a better combat Airship than Colibri (Armed) in almost every department. More cargo slots, more item slots, and most importantly, higher damage output. It does fall behind in movement speed by around 20 percent but it’s absolutely worth double the damage you get from this Airship.

5) Alicanto

Much like the armed version, the regular Alicanto is a superior version of Colibri with one extra cargo and item slots. Keep in mind that just like Colibri, Alicanto is best used for short transports over land. It has an open sea travel speed of 80 percent which is lower than Colibri’s, so make sure to plan your travel routes with that in mind.

4) Mapinguari or Boreas

Mapinguari or Boreas, depending on whether you build the ship in the Old World or Arctic, is exclusive to The Passage DLC and is the first-ever Airship introduced to Anno 1800. Despite that, it holds up well to the rest of the lineup offering a relatively decent speed of 32.8 knots and four cargo slots. The rest of the ship’s features are fairly average making it a good all-around choice.

3) Atotolin

Atotolin and Mapinguari are very similar ships, in some cases, Mapinguari can even be better. It all depends on what you plan to do with the Airship. The travel speed of both ships is similar and Atotolin has one less cargo slot than the Mapinguari. However, where Atotolin is winning for me is the loading speed. Atotolin has a 120 percent loading speed which is more than double compared to Mapinguari’s measly 50 percent.

To decide which Airship you need, look at your travel routes and cargo you plan to move. For longer routes, I’d go with Mapinguari due to the extra slot. For something shorter, Atotolin will be perfect to quickly load, deliver, and unload the goods as long as the production can keep up.

2) Dtundtuncan

The second-best Airship in the game is the Dtundtuncan, and as the game describes it, it’s an “attractive compromise between speed and cargo capacity.” It has five cargo slots, three item slots, and four drop shafts which is better than in Atotolin or Mapinguari. The maximum speed of 30.8 knots is a little bit underwhelming, but at this point, we are going all-in on cargo.

1) Quetzalcoatl

Speaking of going all-in on cargo, Quetzalcoatl class is by far the best Airship in Anno 1800 due to its sheer capacity. It’s the largest Airship ever constructed and has the biggest cargo hold with eight slots.

Quetzalcoatl isn’t a particularly fast Airship with a maximum speed of only 26 knots, but it does have a 170 percent open sea travel speed allowing it to gain enough speed to keep up with the rest of the Airships. For moving cargo across the world, Quetzalcoatl is the best Airship for the job.