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DevBlog: What’s in the Annoversary Update?
Hey Anno Community,
With the playtest for the “Annoversary Update” (previously: “Jubilee Patch”) having concluded – thank you to everyone who participated and wrote us their feedback! – let’s talk both about our learnings from the test as well as (of course) about the upcoming Game Update itself!
So, what is the “Annoversary Update”?
The “Annoversary Update” is the last big free Game Update that we’re planning for Anno 1800 on PC (the update will not release for the Console Edition). It includes two larger new features, several quality-of-life improvements and a laaaarge number of bug fixes.
As the name implies, it’s releasing just in time for the 25th Anniversary of the Anno series! That’s a quarter of a century full of Anno!
Specifically, the release is planned for April 4th, and in addition to what we mentioned above, you can also look forward to a few surprises for the Annoversary in particular. We keep those for later 😉
Instead, let’s take a look at the contents of the Update.
The Creative Mode
The Creative Mode is a completely separate game mode, an alternative to campaign or sandbox mode. Important to note here also is, that this is NOT the intended way to play Anno 1800 since it does not simulate a regular game. Instead, it’s a mode targeted towards our beauty building community, making it easier to build the city (or industrial district) of your dreams!
Accordingly, in Creative Mode, multiple core mechanics are disabled or changed, for example:
- Money is unlimited
- The influence system is deactivated
- You won’t have to worry about incidents
- Buildings don’t need a street connection, don’t have construction costs, and don’t require input goods or workforce to function
Basically, it allows you to build whatever you want and as much as you want and – it’s in the name – be creative!
To further help with that, there are more special rules and changes compared to the regular game, like:
- Immediately place any type of residence building without needing to upgrade
- Place unlimited numbers of decorative versions of all monuments
- Place any of the Museum, Zoo or Botanical Garden exhibits freely without having to first acquire them
The Creative Mode is intended as a playground to play around with and specifically for the beauty builders among you to have a less restrictive sandbox to build and design as you please. If you own any DLC or Cosmetic DLC, they will of course also be available in this mode.
Even if you’re not so much into beauty building, the mode might still be interesting for you because of the second feature we’re adding. Introducing…
The Stamp Feature
Yes, this certainly is something we have seen being requested a lot over the years: A way to save layouts and use them again later or even in a different savegame. And that’s exactly what the Stamp Feature does.
Like with the copy tool, you can select a number of buildings, streets, ornaments etc. that are then saved as a “stamp” in a separate menu. You can rename each stamp and select an icon (from any of the buildings included in the stamp) and there are folders you can sort your stamps into.
To make things much easier, you can organize and rename your folders and stamps also outside the game in the Windows File Explorer. Additionally, this allows you to share your stamps with other players, for example on Reddit or Discord. Be it a perfect production layout or a beautiful park for your city, we’re already looking forward to seeing your creations.
If a Stamp includes content that is either limited to the Creative Mode or part of a DLC you don’t own, you can still place it, but the unavailable objects are placed as blueprints and cannot be upgraded (or, in the case of DLC content: not until you own it).
More Quality-of-Life Improvements
In addition to these changes, there are also some smaller quality-of-life improvements in this update, a quick selection below:
- Roads can now be upgraded/downgraded via the upgrade tool, like regular buildings
- You’ll be able to enable fully colored minimap islands (an improvement we took from the Console Edition)
- In Warehouses and the expedition preparation menu you can now search for specific goods
- We’ve reworked the Happiness calculation for residences to better factor in Hotels/Tourists that previously had too little impact
- Some smaller improvements for our modding community
Learnings from the Playtest
The recent playtest in particular helped us identify a few key areas where the two new features need some more context or explanations (esp. when it came to the Stamp Feature and the folders), and we’ll soon start working on those to have them ready upon the update’s release.
Additionally, our testers highlighted a few more bugs both with those new features, as well as in other areas, that they’d like us to tackle for the update, that we now have on our fix-list for the next weeks.
Once more, a big thank you to everyone who participated in the playtest and provided us with reports and feedback!
So… what’s left to say? The “Annoversary Update” will release on April 4th, and as usual we will have the full Release Notes ready for you closer to that date when we have finalized the version.
In the coming weeks we’re getting ready for the launch of the Anno 1800 Console Edition which we’re very excited about. And at the end of March you can then expect news on the “Annoversary Update”. Stay tuned!
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Can we PLEASE get higher cash values in the total income? It’s currently locked at 1000.00m. Would you be able to set it at say, 9999.99M? thanks for your consideration.
is the creative mode available in multiplayer ? (roleplaying purpose)
can we play it with NPC ? (solo/MP roleplaying purpose, huge potential)
Creative Mode is a singleplayer-only mode, and we also deactivated NPC for this mode to allow for easy settling and building and cause we removed/deactivated several mechanics as described above, which would cause issues for the NPC logic.
i understand, i will stick with my friends into the normal mode with my own mods to make a little easier then ^^
April 4th is going to be a Great day… so many good thing’s coming
Looking forward to the Stamp feature! The quality of life updates make all the difference.
For the next Anno project please have a look at the trade routes menu. The ability to group, sub-group, sort and filter would be greatly appreciated. An easier way to see (in the stats menu) how much trades cost/profit would be absolutely amazing.
Looking forward to the update, new cDLS’s and the next project x
+1 for “the ability to group, sub-group, sort and filter” trade routes
麻溜更新哈，很期待这个印章功能！同时希望能多更新一些装饰包，比如世界地标建筑或者可以45度斜铺的道路还有更统一的建筑风格（居民建筑都已经是摩天大楼了，市政厅竟然还是小小的很不搭）.加油！
I translated English with translation software：
Update asap!Love the stamp feature idea! more cosmetic DLC please! for example, some world-famous landmark buildings,45 degree road,Unified architectural style(the style of the city hall next to the skyscraper is not very suitable).good job!
How about make cosmetic roads/bridge a true roads? Honestly i would choose a skin road rather than road upgrade feature. You guys have create many beautiful roads but most of them could only be build as ornaments rather than a true roads connecting houses and public services. I guess we can do this at creative mode but i would really appreciate it if we can get it at normal gameplay.
The new blueprint and creative modes are really nice, Hope it will become a common feature of future anno series.
And a little protest about Railways and Pedestrian Zone Pack. waters looks like a blue dead mirror from high above while seas and rivers still flows.It doesnt make sense for a huge canal across cities. railways still got grass grows with it even it’s build inside an industrial zone. If creating a brand new railways are too hard i hope we can get a
variant which just replace it base texture from dirt to brick roads.
can’t agree more
I’d also like to see all gates, arches etc that have a gap in them become true roads (or paths). It would be great to be able to, for example, fence off a few farms. But there is nothing in the farm fences that allows a path through. There are a couple of wall types with an “entrance” but not all of them, and that’s about it.
Hello Ubisoft!
I’m a huge fan of the franchise, I have ALL of them and with all the expansions. I was super excited for the console version to play on the PS5, but with each “novelty” released on the Blog, I get more discouraged.
First the ability to play with keyboard and mouse has been removed, then the DLC’s that are not yet available at launch and now several new features that will not be present in the Console version? Are we going to have a game full of limitations and disappointments, just like I had with Cities Skyline on Console?
I would really like the function of changing the weather, for example, turn on rain or snow
Is the checkmark bug in Zoos/Museums/Botanical Gardens fixed?
Yes, that issue should get fixed in the upcoming update: https://trello.com/c/dSH6BCdn/49-check-mark-icon-is-visible-in-cultural-buildings
Love the stamp feature idea!
It would be nice if we could add notes to a stamp that would be displayed as mouse-over.
Also, it would be helpful to see the resources needed/overproduced and their quantity in the mouse-over as well.
Why abandon something that players like? The game is only 4 years old. Could have ended with a bang with season 5 and fans would be happy to part ways.
I understand you’d really like us to do more content, thekingkupo, going by your previous comments. But there always has to come the time when a team is moving on towards the next project – and we already did A LOT more than we planned and a lot more than we ever did for an Anno game before.
There’s also a sense of overloading a game with content, an increasing risk for issues in terms of bugs & performance, but also in terms of complexity and player experience.
We’re also all excited to, after several satisfying years with Anno 1800, move on to something new and work on some new and different ideas.
Thank you. I just love the game you guys created and would’ve loved more content. But like you said you’re working on a newer project so all we can do is give you our full support. I hope you make another great project like this master piece.
Even though it’s unlikely, I’d like to see a rework to mail in the future. The current system just isn’t up to par, and I’d hate to see a mechanic introduced late in 1800’s life cycle be left in an unsatisfactory state simply because development is wrapping up. It doesn’t need much of a fix. There just needs to be a better way to ensure that you can supply islands with regional and international mail without struggling unnecessarily.
OK, from what I can see, everyone’s happy, but I’m not. As usual, you are completely ignoring the needs of players asking for improvement related to trading/production/automation. If I try to build a really big world using all the features and islands of all the worlds and expand all the production chains etc I have to be punished because I’m one of those guys you don’t like because I try to keep all my trade routes and production chains working smoothly, and you prefer users who ONLY focus on the aesthetic aspects of the game.
I have to click 7 times to unload my ship, I have to visit every important island twice an hour to make sure my population is happy and all needs are met, I have to work out a huge anti-ecological and anti-sense overproduction because I have no management tools to make it smarter – e.g. alarms when the goods are below the set level (at the same time there is no problem with stupid notifications about trivial events that are displayed in the upper right corner every 5 seconds, like developing another item in research institute).
Let’s forget about all those cool ideas from redit and other user forums, like: maximum amount of goods per island when trading, one-click ship unloading (which seems to be very easy to implement), viewing trade routes by goods (show me all cacao routes), highlight all buildings of the same type (because e.g. I want to find all the damn town halls to optimize them), etc., etc. And of course, forget about improving the stats. Stats is for stupid production oriented guys, lets forget about them, lets add another 10 decorations, and new super complicated to implement mode for people focused on nice landscapes, although whole game give it by design.
Understand me well, this is really impressive game and the best city builder / sandbox builder game at the market now, BUT it is absolutely unbalanced towards aesthetics and completely ignores needs of players who likes building working world not just good looking world. It is like fanatical opposition to Factorio. Is your chief game designer a hater of Factorio? He must hate it, really. It’s obviously a stupid idea for Anno 1800 to be a pure automation game, it’s so incredibly beautiful, but why the hell not keep it balanced. Many years ago I was a game designer and manager and I just don’t get it.
+ I completely agree with the comment
ещё бы хотелось бы уровень престижа дворца вывести на верхнюю панель, где престиж острова
Hey panbolec68,
there surely are some things that could be further improved for players that are heavily focused on production only. There’s always more one could do, more features, more QoL improvements.
I have to disagree with your general point about us “only focus[ing] on the aesthetic aspects of the game”. Over the last 4 years, both with DLC and free Game Updates we have added a variety of features and mechanics, as well as small improvements to make the life easier for everyone and not just the beauty builder faction. We also had the complaints that we’re focusing too much on “record builders”, so, it seems we’re somewhere in the middle.
Of course we do also cater to said beauty-builder faction, since they’re a large and important part of our player base. But out of the two larger features we’re adding with the next update, the “Stamp Feature” certainly is far more targeted towards the part of the player base who likes to optimize. (not mentioned in the blog but also happening is indeed a one-click unload function, which you listed)
And while Anno is not Factorio and also doesn’t want to be (very different games, different goals), I feel like accusing us of “hating Factorio” discredits your overall comment a bit. In contrast, there are of course also several people in the team who like Factorio, but I feel like going into Anno with the expectation of getting a Factorio experience is setting yourself up for at least mild disappointment.
Not quite sure what you’re referring to with “improving the stats” – the statistics menu?
So, sorry if we may not able to tick quite all boxes when it comes to QoL improvements for more optimization and production focused players. Unfortunately, game development is also about prioritization and with limited resources there have to be decisions made on what to work on and what to keep for later – or eventually cut.
Thank you for your reply. Well, I should have put that Factorio stuff in ‘sarcasm’ tag or added an emoticon, because obviously it wasn’t serious. Anno should never be another Factorio, both games are great. Let me apologize that I was a bit rude, but when I saw the list of new features I was very disappointed (not to say broken) that none of the features related to trade / production optimization was on the list (even this one-click unloading you mentioned later in a reply not in post body). Emotions took over. I am sorry for this.
The stamp function is great, but it is also related to building fine-tuned layouts, not to automation / production optimization. Both of these terms sound awful, but what I mean is to make the world work as a whole (all regions, islands, connected with trade routes) and work at least for some time alone, without my constant checking and clicking. Now the only way to make it work for some time (and use this time to make things look nicer) is massive overproduction of everything, including ships at the end of a day, to distribute all this overproduction with a large excess.
I am definitely NOT a “record builder” aiming for 20M population and all islands filled with skyscrapers. But you gave us 5 worlds and dozens of islands and a zillion of production chains 🙂 for a reason.
If you ask me about three example features (just to show my way of thinking) which may make much easier to manage big worlds I would choose:
– The maximum stock of goods coming from trade for a given Island (working the same way as minimum stock, for trade routes, and for docklands trade). We need huge depot space for coffee but just several 100s tons for goods which we need for single restaurant recipe. (I know we may use unload/load trick to emulate such behavior but it is not the same.
– Option to set alarm for given good/island when it drops below certain level.
– Making “wait for cargo” and “wait for unloading” options usable at all. I do not think anybody use it now, (maybe in some specific cases) because both may easily result in blocked harbors. When my trade network is small I do not need them, but when it grows and I start to optimize it, using both options would result in completely blocked harbors on some islands. Solution s simple – ships should wait outside the harbor like it is in real world (waiting in the roadstead)
These are just examples. Notice, that these features are not just click optimizations (do something with less clicks), but they are also no new features like i.e. “add another type of trade route / ship / building / region / game mode” (you have probably a lot of such ideas from fans). This features are optimizations/fixes to existing, basic trade mechanics.
Trade mechanics which were suitable for only Old and New World asks for some improvement in my opinion. Adding Docklands has changed a lot but not in base mechanics. It added reckless buying to overproduction 🙂 I think whithout it keeping 5 region world in stable state would be very difficult or at least frustrating (and maybe it was one of the reasons why you added it).
Sorry again for the tone of my first post. If you think my examples are not entirely stupid, and want some details, you may contact me on email. I do not want to spam more here in comments.
Cool stuff
You know you have made it incredibly hard to top your own game with a sequel.
I am glad Anno turned out so great. It is my favorite city builder experience ever. Especially now that Settlers is completed ruined.
that is really really good. I
The stamp feature and Creative Mode have been requests by the community, like multimove, since the first year post release. I know they are not simple features to implement and understand the time it took to develop. Its really amazing to see them finally come to realization.
I just wish you guys would also free up the number keys to be assigned to other hotkeys, I don’ tneed ship fleets xD.
Im mostly curious about what “Some smaller improvements for our modding community” encompass. I expected nothing and thus this is kind of huge.
Will be there any new goods or any updates related to the basic gameplay (production-consumption chains)?
this sort of stuff only ever come with DLC, and New world rising was the last, so Im almost certain the answer is no. Why? we can do that with mods.