Community Contest – Design an island for Latium

Hello Anno Community,

It is time for the third and final Community quest dedicated to Anno 117: Pax Romana – where we ask you to use your creativity and imagination to create something that will make its way into the game.

Your third and final quest

From statue designing to quest writing, you have had quite some fun in the past few months! And we have loved seeing your creativity and imagination being applied to Anno 117: Pax Romana. This time, we challenge you to design an island for Latium, one of the twin provinces under your stewardship. Latium is close to the heart of the empire, a place of luxury and tranquility, covered in wheat and lavender fields. Cypress trees adorn paths and provide much-needed shade during the warm summers. With its beaches, open fields and breathtaking views, this province makes the perfect retreat for the wealthy.

• General rules:
  • You have time until 9th February to submit your entry
  • Only 1 entry per person is allowed
  • Entries must be submitted to this e-mail address: anno-community@ubisoft.com using the subject “Community Contest: Island”
  • Entries must be digital, i.e. if you did a paper drawing, you will need to scan or photograph it and attach it to your email
  • Entries must not infringe on any copyrights of third parties
  • Entries that have been created using AI tools will be excluded from the contest

• Island-creation rules:
  • The island must be part of Latium, the Roman-inspired province
  • You can design your island on any medium you prefer (paper drawing, MS Paint scribble, 3D model, etc.,) and anything from a quick sketch to a detailed model is fine
  • Your island should be clearly visible, and its shape must be clearly defined in top-down view
  • The shape of the island should strike a balance between being interesting to plan and build a city in while looking visually appealing. A balance of a central, cohesive space together with more fractured or narrow spaces. Try to use natural elements like the coastline shape, rivers or cliff lines as your tools to define the space.
  • The island should feature at least one large, cohesive space that is suitable to start building a city in. That space should have a connection to a beach.
  • It should feature at least 3 mountainous elements that could believably host mines.
  • The island should have at least 1 river and up to 3 in total. Rivers may branch.
  • The island should use elevation in large, smooth gradients rather than a high frequency of hills. Mountains should believably support this elevation.
  • Forests should be well distributed across the island – in both smaller and larger formations.
  • Clearly mark all these terrain elements such as mountains, hills, as well as beaches and rivers; keep in mind that if something is not marked as a beach, it will be counted as a cliff-side

If you feel the need to add notes, descriptions, gameplay ideas behind your concept – feel free to do so.  

Here is an example of how such an island design could look like, created by one of our Level Artists back in the days for Anno 1800: 

Once the submission time is over, we will review your entries and select our favourite island designs with the help of the Level Art team. The finalists will then be published in the Anno Union, and it will be your turn to decide the winner of the contest by voting for the island that will make its way into the game. Voting will start in late February.

We hope you are as excited as we are for the last Anno 117: Pax Romana contest! Have fun designing your own Anno island – we cannot wait to see what you create this time! In the meantime, for any question feel free to comment or reach out on our social channels listed below.

*We reserve the right to make adjustments to the winning island design for it to fit the Anno 117: Pax Romana level design and balancing.