Heya, splitting my reply in two parts:
1 - personal view
While I don't miss such an option, since I'm generally playing rather slowly and have been playing Anno games for long enough now to know the core mechanics, I'm never against additional settings or options. I don't think Anno necessarily needs one, but if that means a better experience for some players and people new to the franchise: Sure!
2 - Anno team view
There's by no means a "this doesn't fit to Anno" stance on our side. While always complex, 1800 is the first Anno game that goes even further with multiple simultaneous regions that require your attention. Up to this point, it just really didn't seem to be necessary to include such an option.
The way the game, or more specifically the engine is set up, everything is calculating in "ticks", e.g. the game needs to be running, be active. It's a real time strategy game after all. An active pause, however, would allow players to do actions while all of the game's processes are paused completely. That's simply not something our engine for 1800 supported. We did add a slow-mode option, however, that should provide a bit more breathing room if the game enters a stressful period.
We're by no means ruling out "active pause" for any future projects, when we have time to update our engine to support such a feature (plus, solve open questions like: what's the situation for multiplayer?). After all: We're always happy to see more players enjoy our games!
devtrackers.gg