Author: Bastian Thun

Announcement: Upcoming Technical Test (Updated)

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Brace for the Anno 1800 Technical Test

As previously alluded to, we are currently preparing a much larger Technical Test than our previous Diary Studies. And if you are be one of the chosen many, you won’t have to wait much longer, as this test will take place end of November!

A few things to keep in mind:
–          It’s a Technical Test: You should expect that some things in the game will (and sometimes even should!) break. This test is intended to give us valuable insights into topics like balance and game performance. It won’t be representative of the final polished game you will be able to enjoy next year (and which will be even better thanks to all of you helping us with this test).

–          NDA: Should you be selected to participate in the Technical Test, you will have to agree to a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). That means that you are not allowed to talk about the game outside our special Technical Test forums, and you are not allowed to post any pictures, videos or to stream the game. We appreciate that you are excited to play the game and to share your experience with others, but given that this is a Technical Test where we know things will break, this is not the time to do so.

–          The Technical Test won’t include the entire game. Players will be limited to Citizen Tiers 1-3, and the Campaign won’t be playable.

We will send out invites to Union members a few days prior to the Test’s start, so keep an eye out to see if you are among the chosen ones. We look forward to seeing many of you in the game, and are thankful for your help in making sure Anno 1800 will be the best possible experience for all Anno fans when it ships on February 26th.

Update: 

Registration

As we are seeing a lot of questions around the registration process for the Technical Test: Anyone who has registered here on the Anno Union using their Uplay-Account has a chance to be invited. You can do so here: https://www.anno-union.com/en/register/

This is also true for new registrations. So if you haven’t registered for testing yet- now would be an excellent time to do so 🙂

System Requirements for the Technical Test

We have also been asked a lot about the system requirements for the Technical Test. So here is what we recommend for participating in the test:

Current Minimum Specs:

CPU: Intel i5 3470 or AMD FX 6350

RAM: 8 GB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 670 GTX or AMD Radeon R9 285

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (all 64-bit)

Hard Drive: 46 GB

Current Recommended Specs:

CPU: Intel i5 4690k or AMD Ryzen 5 1400

RAM: 8 GB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 970 GTX or AMD Radeon RX 480

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (all 64-bit)

Hard Drive: 46 GB

DISCLAIMER: THERE ARE NOT THE FINAL REQUIREMENTS! As Anno 1800 is still in the middle of development and performance optimization, you should not consider these specs to be representative of the final game. This test specifically should help us to find some areas where we can further improve the game’s performance.

Language

We are also in the middle of game localization, which means that the Technical Test will unfortunately only be available in English. Once Anno 1800 launches next year, you will be able to lead the industrial Revolution in the following languages:

Fully localized text and audio: English, French, German, Russian

Fully localized text: Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Chinese (simplified and traditional)

Union Talk: Player Feedback

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Today, we want to present you our first Union Talk, where we sit together to talk about Anno Union relevant community topics.
With our big reveal in 2017, we invited Anno fans around the world to share feedback to help us developing Anno 1800. Thousands of comments and 120 blogs later, how has the community actually changed the game for the better?
Our Creative Director Dirk “Karrenschieber” Riegert will give you some insights how your comments and participation helped to shape the New World and other important game content.

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Let us know if you liked the idea of our Union Talk, is that something you would love to see more in future and topics you would like to see tackled in the next episode?

Union Update: Something big is coming

Posted on by Bastian Thun

We are knee-deep in the de… the final development phase of Anno 1800, and while the big event season with the likes of gamescom and EGX lies behind us, there is still plenty happening in the Anno Union world. Another Union focus test round just concluded and we are working to finalize our content roadmap for those all-important last few months prior to the release of the game. Due to that workload, it can happen that some content might suffer a slight delay, as some of you might have already noticed, but we are working hard to ensure you are well entertained leading up to the big launch date.

To give you a glimpse at our upcoming content: We plan to host Livestreams more frequently, will provide fan material such as wallpapers, highlight your community projects and will tackle important outstanding topics such as naval combat or multiplayer in detail. And not to forget, we will also open the floodgates of our focus playtesting to allow more Union members than ever before to test the game.

While we are on the playtest subject: we need to talk!
The players of the latest focus test provided us once again with a large amount of incredibly helpful feedback and we are still going through the extensive test reports. But we are confident to say that the latest results show that Anno 1800 is on the right track to deliver a game Anno fans can get excited about, even though there is still a lot of work to do prior to the release in February.

In order to make sure that we get as much feedback and data as possible, we want to invite a significantly higher amount of Union members for the next phase of the focus test. This huge test will happen as early as this year and will be exclusive to members of the Anno Union. So if you are just a reader on our page, make sure that you register on the Anno Union page with your Uplay account as soon as possible to secure your chance at being invited.

And to give you some visual impressions from the latest test, here are a few screenshots from our testers (we won’t publish the names as the test is still covered by an NDA).

AnnoUnion_Focustest_ComShot_FarmsEverywhere
Okay this guy won’t have any issues with Tier 1 workforce anytime soon!

Parasite problems? EWWWW

Hey that’s what I call a teaser!

Keyword feedback: We have not missed your comments regarding the Ship Design Contest in last weeks Union Update. Because of that feedback, we will make sure that for future votes, we give you a chance to vote on a final selection on entries to determine the winner. When talking about the skill regarding the execution of these submissions, the idea behind an entry is as important for us as the actual craftsmanship of the community member, be it a drawing, writing or any other submission (even though we are often amazed by the true display of skills in some of your work).
When we are talking about content that is supposed to be added to the game, keep in mind that we also have to check if an idea is feasible within our production pipeline.

Notwithstanding the above, we want to honor exceptional creative takes and creations with a proper showcase on our Anno Union channels.

And with that, we are already at the end of today’s Union Update. Don’t forget to share your thoughts, suggestions and feedback in the comments below. Moreover, we are always eager to get your ideas for the Anno Union and the Union Updates.

DevBlog: The Residents of the New World

Posted on by Bastian Thun

A continent carved by rivers, dominated by lush jungle forests and dotted with ancient mountains. Your Kontor just established on a white sand beach, the first residents settle in your newly founded city and you take a moment to watch the Tobacco leaves grow in the ardent sun.
The New World will leave a strong and vibrant impression and it was important for us that the new residents and their buildings invite the player to sink deep into the atmosphere of that beautiful continent.

Inspired by 19th century Latin America, Anno 1800’s New World residents are bound to their country but other than the dawn of the industrial age in the old world, their story is a tale of building a strong prospering society fueled by the dream of independence.
Beside a set of strong third party characters populating the second session, your settlements will have visual feedback representing residents local to the continent, including models, portraits for residential tiers and new production chains.

Residential Tier I – Jornaleros
Jornaleros are the farmers of the New World, devout and hardworking people who are driven by the dream of independence at a dawn of a new era.
Similar to your first session, the first residential tier in the New World will represent the ways of old, farmers cultivating cotton and cocoa but also participating in traditional crafts such as pearl diving. However, it is also important for us to show respect to their roots and heritage as the Jornaleros are not to color them with the same brush as the Farmers. Working on the fields is hard labor, but by the middle of the 19th century for the first time, they could call the soil they cultivate their own. When the sun sets after a long day, Jornaleros find community and harmony in cultural buildings such as the chapel.The Jornaleros are the hard working and devout farmers of the New World

Their farm houses are rather simple but also a pragmatic fit for the hot and stifling climate of their continent. We wanted that their residential buildings convey that they are slowly adapting to a new life and are not built as a long-standing family heirloom. However, not many of them can call a farm their own and it is not easy to build a lasting foundation for a small home on the jungle soil outside of paved cities or large haciendas.This concept art gives you a good idea about the flair of the Jornaleros homes.

Cocoa, Bananas or Pearls, which seem almost ordinary to the Jornaleros, fetch a high price to fulfill the craving for anything new and rare in the high society of the Old World. But while they call even common plants like sugar-cane “exotic”, the life of the New World residents also changed when goods from across the ocean became an integral part of their life. Centuries of influence brought new goods to their continent, some of them now cultivated on their own land while others are in high demand as imported luxury goods.Rum export is big business in the 19th century, as there is a high demand for the drink in the Old world.

Residential Tier II – Obreros
When the power monopoly of the Old Worlds monarchy crumbled, the Orebros managed to take advantage of the new trading deals and connections to the rising class of financial entrepreneurs. Their new prosperity allows them to import expensive crafted goods such as sewing machines and they value a distinctive lifestyle based on old traditions, which grows confidently into a promising future.
Their settled city lifestyle also offers amenities for their society, from healthcare provided by the local hospital to entertainment during a visit at the boxing ring.The Obreros are the residents of the new worlds who found their way from the farmlands into the cities, where they found wealth as tradespeople.

Some of their residential buildings have a long history but over time, the Obreros gave them their own character. As many of the Obreros grow accustom to the city lifestyle, their houses were built with lasting stone and they are more likely to spend their new wealth on their homes for the generations to come.The residential buildings of the Obreros depict an urban lifestyle still fitted to the climate.

The lounging investors and engineers in your metropolis cannot get enough of their imported cigars and chocolate but the real driver for the economy lies in precious gold and oil. Almost all goods you export into the Old World serve luxury needs and making your money aristocracy happy will challenge your smart management skills and require an elaborate trade network.Goods produced in the New World will serve as luxury goods in the Old World and vice versa.

Gold is hard to get by, which results in a heavy demand in workforce for prospecting the luxurious metal in several mines in order to ensure a profitable output.
But oil was the real game changer to bring progress and a thriving economy to the New World.  While some few oil fields will be available in the old world to cover the need for basic electrical supply, you will need to tap into the rich oil resources of the New World if you want to support your power economy and make your investors happy. The oil towers surrounded by jungle provide quite a vista, but the fossil fuel not only wants to be pumped out of the ground but also conveyed to the oil harbor and then distributed in large tanks to your Old World’s metropolis.

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A lush continent with a vibrant society
The New World will carry you away with its details, offer new and challenging production chains and invite you to meet a rich set of new third party characters and to explore it’s story in the campaign. But Anno 1800’s campaign is a story for another day and with that brief look over the two production chains, we bet you have many questions about the New World session.

Union Update: New focus test, QnA and more

Posted on by Bastian Thun

The end of September is near and we are about to wrap up our big gamescom feature list with this week’s blog about the New Worlds residential tiers and a brief look over the museum and the blueprint mode in the week to come. To give you a glimpse of the upcoming month, we are working on some exciting DevBlog topics many of you want to see for a while now.
On another note, the next round of the Union focus test has started and we are looking forward to daily feedback reports from our testers. However, there is more to come, as the Union tests will be soon open for bigger groups, allowing the Union to test the game in a larger scope than ever before.

We will also add the first Anno Fan Initiative pages to the website and if you are a fansite admin or content creator, do not forget to apply for the program!
You can get further details about the program here: Union Fan Initiative 

As we are also working on some fan resources such as wallpapers, are there some specific things you think are a must have or other material such as streaming layovers or even emotes you would like to see?

EGX Birmingham Anno 1800 Panel
A short update from our tour to the industrial Birmingham. During last week’s EGX expo, we had the chance to present the game on stage during a live-stream and if you missed it, you can watch the recording of that presentation here:

YouTube

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Our Expedition blog raised some questions in the Anno Union, let us finish this week’s Update with another Community Q&A

ako199
I am curious how you manage the availability of expeditions and how many different missions you will have in the game?
Answer: Reaching residential tier III will also unlock the Expedition feature. At that point, the captain will notify you about available ventures in the expedition menu. Expeditions will be randomly generated and spawn in intervals, while harder ventures will be available in the late game. You will be able to take on as many expeditions as you like, only limited by the currently available adventures.
We have currently four main types of expeditions: zoological, archaeological, rescue missions and pirate hunts. For every type, we have a large amount of various events you will encounter, with the challenge and amount of the events based on the difficulty of the expedition. All together, we have a large amount of events with many branching choices, depending on which items you brought along the journey or how a previous encounter turned out. The expedition window will only give you an idea about the difficulty, type and likeliness of challenges you might encounter during an adventure, which gives you a chance to prepare, but only hints on the various possible encounters.

AmpeImann
I really like the idea of the expeditions, but I have a couple concerns about how they will exist in the game. Are the expeditions going to be necessary to core gameplay? Or will they just be an extra thing you can do if you want some rarer items? Will expeditions be as useful or interesting in the late game? Are the rewards potentially game changing?
Answer: There will be various alternative ways to get your hands on items, such as trading with neutral factions, quests, the tourist harbor or the world fair exhibitions. The items you can acquire through expeditions are based on their various types, with the focus being animals, cultural artifacts, specialists and military equipment from pirate hunts. While you will have alternative ways to get your hands on all these item types, expeditions will be the only way to get the rare animals and artifacts for the zoo and the museum specifically. That means that if you want to have a collection of the rarest exotic animals in the game, you will need to take on challenging expeditions.
Drop rates of items are based on expedition type, climate, rarity stat and difficulty of the Expedition. Which means that a rare black panther have always the same chance of dropping in a hard zoological expedition to the new world. Furthermore, you will always get three items from the loot table with every expedition.
Bottom line: they will be a risk to acquire but you have an idea about what items you can get when choosing an adventure. We don’t want that expeditions are a necessary feature for Anno’s core gameplay and we will also make use of our Union focus testers to see if the feeling and the balancing is right.

Der3ine
How will you notice that you already got a reward from an expedition before finishing it?
Answer: The rewards for the expedition will be always granted at the end of an adventure. First, your ship will travel to its destination and when arriving at the marker, encounter various events, which you have to go through.  During the events, your morale bar will sink but you will be always able to send your ship back after every encounter. If you send your ship back, you will not get any rewards from the expedition itself but will keep items you acquired from succession in special event encounter. These rewards will be immediate granted after the specific event encounter and therefore, you will be always aware if you got already items, which might be worth saving before finishing your expedition.

BfVorsteher
Is it possible that an Expedition has a negative effect such as bringing back an illness to your island. Imagine you don’t have enough doctors in your city which leads to 20% of your residents dying while if you have a good medical supply, only 5%?
Answer: Expedition events won’t influence your city, economy or have any other effect on gameplay elements outside the expedition itself other than the items you get as a reward and can use in your city. While Expeditions are an exciting feature to explore the world of Anno and to refine your gameplay with items, we do not want that they become the central gameplay element for Anno 1800.

Schminky
I think it would be interesting if various original scenarios from the expedition which actually happened back than would be used for inspiration such as the competition to reach the South Pole of the Asmussen and the Scott. Will the background artworks for the expeditions represent the specific region and climate?
Answer: Many of our Expedition events are inspired by actual adventures, scientific journeys and stories from the 19th century. We will send you to various climate zones, represented by the markers on the world map, artwork and their own specific encounters.

CreatureotS
You often talk about difficulty levels, which was a thing in many Anno titles before. Will we be able to customize our own difficulty by altering parameters, such as the likeliness of fire, or will the game just have preset difficulties?
Answer: We will have three difficulty levels in the game: Easy, Moderate and Hard. But as the sandbox experience is part of our core DNA, you will be able to create your custom game rules affecting many different parameters of the game world and the AI. How does the idea of an own blog showcasing the customization options of a match sounds to you all?

Union Update: Union Fan Initiative

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Union Fan Initiative
Many of our fans have been travelling with us on the Anno journey for the past 20 years. And as the Union has clearly shown, our communities are not only amazing at providing impressive amounts of invaluable feedback, but they also run many cool projects like fan sites or Discord channels, or create entertaining videos, fan art or whole short stories.

No matter what you do, the Union Fan Initiative is here to support fan creations with spotlights on our upcoming Anno Union fan creation list, streamer and Youtube highlights as well as offering general support for projects through visibility on Anno Union and on our social media channels, hosting for Anno streams on Twitch and much more.

Interested? Everyone who creates frequent Anno related content can apply for the initiative. You can find further details in our dedicated Union Fan Initiative thread here: >LINK<

You missed AnnoCast05? The VoD is now available!
Got held up in the office or were lost on an expedition in uncharted waters? Do not worry; the VoD of last week’s AnnoCast is now available:

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After the big gamescom reveal, we are considering bringing you these developer streams more frequently. What do you think about that and are there other formats on our Twitch channel which you would like to see?

Livestream from Eurogamer Expo next week
You want another chance to see more of Anno 1800 on Twitch? Then we have good news, as some members of our team will be travelling to Birmingham next week to present Anno 1800 at the Eurogamer Expo. If you can’t make it, the presentation will be live streamed on September 20th at 2pm CEST/ 8am EST/ 5am PST at https://www.twitch.tv/egx

Report: Star Player at gamescom
We have another small throwback to this year’s gamescom for you. Here is a small personal report from our Anno Star Player and avid Union member Swimming-Paul, who was invited by Ubisoft to enjoy gamescom 2018 and to celebrate the games with us!

I have been playing Anno for over a decade now and an active member of different community platforms, but I would have never imagined that my love for this franchise would get me invited to join Ubisoft´s Starplayer Program or to visit Gamescom last August.

One of the biggest highlights was of course to try the new demo of Anno 1800. Any other fan out there will agree with me when I say that 20 minutes is a ridiculously small amount of time to test a game like Anno, but believe me: it was a satisfying and rewarding experience. If I´m completely honest with you, I was so thrilled to see that rivers are coming back to Anno that I spent a considerable amount of time building bridges everywhere! But I also reached the 2nd population level, created a small industrial district, and admired the extreme beauty of this new title. I can promise you that Anno has never looked any better!

It was also very special to witness the official presentation of Anno 1800 in the Gamescom´s main stage. I don´t really speak German, so I couldn´t understand much, but that didn´t stop me from being the proudest fan in the crowd, enjoying the impressive new trailer and watching Bastian doing his thing.

Finally, the Anno Union dinner was probably the best moment of the week for me. I would have never thought that awkward glances or uncomfortable silences are an option if you put together a bunch of Anno fans, and I was 100% right. After five minutes the conversations were bustling, the glasses were rising in a toast to the Best PC Game Award, and you could feel a shared passion and excitement in the air.

It was a beautiful experience and I will never forget the people I got to know during my time in Germany. We do have many reasons to celebrate Anno 1800!

Our Ubisoft StarPlayers gfrew, Swimming-Paul and Freeway enjoying Anno 1800 at out big gamescom booth.

This week’s DevBlog and upcoming content
Of course, we have more planned than just supporting fan projects and content creators: you can also look forward to the first Anno 1800 wallpaper and more material for fans in the weeks to come. This week’s upcoming DevBlog “The New World” will answer many of your questions about the second session, and we are already curious about your thoughts.

The focus of next week’s Union Update will be a bigger Community Q&A panel, which will cover questions from the Union, our communities, the stream and what might come up during next week’s DevBlog.

And as always, give us all your feedback, wishes, suggestions or just good Anno vibes in the comments below.

Anno Cast 05 – gamescom aftermath

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Our gamedev live-stream will go live today at 4.30pm CEST at twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
Alternatively, you can just watch the stream here in the Anno Union!

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Watch live video from ubisoftbluebyte on www.twitch.tv

Union Update: recap, stream and things to come

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Another gamescom is in the history books – and what an amazing show it has been for Anno 1800 and the team here at Ubisoft Blue Byte! With so much going on, let us recap all the things you may have missed and give you peak on upcoming content!

Anno 1800 releases February 26th, 2019
Let’s start with the biggest news coming out of gamescom 2018: Anno 1800 will ship globally for Windows PC on February 26th, 2019! To properly celebrate this news, we also had a new trailer that gave you a first glimpse of a new world to explore.

Pre-Orders for all our editions are now live
With the release date out in the open, many of you have been asking how and when you could be buying Anno 1800. And the answer to that is… you can pre-order it now, in up to three different editions (based on your location).

No matter if you just want the base game itself, are looking for some digital goodies, or you want a proper physical art book on your shelf, we have you covered. Regardless of which editions you are going for, your pre-order from participating retailers will earn you the Imperial Pack, including a statuesque throwback to Anno 1602, and exclusive alternate models for your command ship and train. Find the full edition breakdown here: https://www.anno-union.com/en/anno-1800-release-date-and-pre-order/

We won some awards!
gamescom started in the best possible way for Anno 1800, with an expert jury awarding us the prestigious “Best PC Game” award. As you can see, we were rather excited! And to cap it all off, Saturday saw Ubisoft win the fan-voted award for the best developer of the show. Thank you so much for your support and votes, we couldn’t be happier with the reception of our game!

Anno 1800 is great – but do not just take our word for it!
A large number of previews (both written and of the video variety) from influencers and press from around the globe have been hitting the web. So if you want to learn more about what we showed behind closed doors at our pre-gamescom events as well as the show itself, here’s your chance! Press were able to play up to three hours of the game, including most content of the first three citizen tiers. And they also got their hands on some all-new features, which brings me to…

The Anno 1800 booth, UbiLounge masterclass and stage presentations
But probably more exciting than anything else during the convention was our big Anno 1800 booth, where fans could get their hands on the game for the first time and take their own special gamescom memento with a 19th century style photo.
Chris aka Ubi O5igther from the community team was also at gc2018 and we found some time for a relaxing foto session.
And the booth was packed – with queuing times starting immediately to ramp up as soon as the convention opened. Even with long waiting times, thousands were able to get their first impressions for the seventh Anno title in the series and we tried to get as much feedback as possible. If you visited us and played the game, feel free to share your take on the gamescom demo in the comments!

Playing the game was obviously a highlight but we had some more Anno cards up our sleeve.
On our big Ubisoft stage, we gave you a glimpse on our newly announced features such as the expeditions, the museum and blueprints. Hundreds of Anno fans gave us not only great company during the daily shows, even in that loud environment of a packed convention hall everyone could hear the “Anno Union” battlecry of the Anno fans (seriously I was surprised how loud you guys can get).
Love Island, our throwback to the story “mutiny on the bounty”, became quickly a running gag during the convention.

During our UbiLounge presentations, we not only gave you a live gameplay demonstration of the actual savegame shown to the press, you could also ask questions in the roughly 1 hour long panel – all in the spirit of the Anno Union. While we mentioned in advance that you should be early, you guys managed to pack the Ubilounge to its absolute max of sometimes 60 and more people attending each master class. Altogether, several hundred Anno fans watched, listened and asked questions during the presentations.
The Union community dinner
A very special highlight for us was the Union community dinner on Thursday evening, where we invited almost 30 Anno fans to come together to enjoy the company, the food and chatting about Anno 1800 and the Union. Even after the restaurant closed its doors, we all had a hard time to call it a day, so it went on until almost 1am. A truly brilliant Anno evening and we are thirsty for more, it might now have been the last time we host such an event?

We compeletly missed to get all attendees on one picture, must have been the nice atmosphere which distracted us. 

But how about the Anno Union members being unable to attend?
To give you a chance to see what we have shown to press and fans for yourself, we decided to will host an AnnoCast stream this Thursday, where we will not only recap the convention but also show you the actual gameshow build in action, including the content we have shown to the press and to fans in the UbiLounge. Last week, we asked you for questions and as this Union Update is already quite long, we decided to answer many of them in this Thursday’s stream.

You also remember that we talked about some nice Anno 1800 goodies during gamescom? To give you a chance to get your hands on the Anno 1800 gamescom loot, we will raffle out several of the pieces during the show, including also some nice giveaways from our friends at Corsair Gaming.
Let us come together this Thursday at 4.30pm CEST for our post gamescom stream at twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

What’s to come in September and beyond
With gamescom 2018 behind us, there is a lot to talk about. In the upcoming weeks, we will dive into detail about the new world, expeditions and the museum and we start with putting the second session under the looking glass next week. We know that you have a lot of questions and we will make sure that the DevBlogs tackling the new features will answer many of them:
In upcoming Union updates, we will start to kick off a new fan initiative and present you the finalists of the Union ship vote.
But rest is for the wicked and there is still a lot to talk about up to February 2019. With a big Naval combat highlight in the making, more frequent streams, the next round of our Union focus test and even some not yet revealed features – there is a lot of things to look forward to so keep a close eye on Union Updates and Devblogs to come.

UnionUpdate: One year Anno Union!

Posted on by Bastian Thun

It was a hot late summer when we announced the Anno Union at gamescom 2017 in Cologne.  Since then, a project born out of passion from our team slowly developed into the community program we know today. The last 12 month has been an exciting ride, we published over 100 blogs, including over 70k words and hundreds of screenshots of a game which was over a year away from release when we started. With over 10k comments full of valuable feedback, hundreds of amazingly creatively entries and striving fan projects we think it was worth the effort, and the Anno Union is here to stay.

We want to say thank all of you for your passion in sharing countless thoughts, ideas and. Your voice had and will continue to have an impact on many features of the game. The combination of feedback comments, discussions, votes and focus tests has proven incredibly helpful for the development of Anno 1800.

With the release of the game in February 26th 2019, there are still many topics on our checklist and we will not only continue to bring you devblogs, votes and live streams; we will further invite more and more Annoholics to our focus test groups in the weeks and months ahead.

The one-year anniversary of the Union was also the perfect moment for us to launch the new version of our Anno Union website, including many improvements in visuals and usability.
Expect new content on the website to show up in the near future, as we will provide you with fan assets such as wallpapers and will also give fans and fan creations a proper spotlight. But more about that in Union Updates to come!

What is your verdict for Anno Union year one? We put a lot of work and love into the project, which will accompany Anno 1800 up to the launch and beyond.

Devblog: New features at gc2018

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Today, we want to give you a brief look over four new features shown at gamescom 2018. While only a glimpse at the content we present in Cologne, the new features will get their own dedicated and detailed blogs in the weeks ahead.


Travel the world for fame on a fortune with expeditions
Expeditions are an exciting new addition to the series that will bring your Anno world to life like never before. Send ships crewed with specialist characters out on a variety of adventures as they seek fame and fortune, with gameplay that is a throwback to classic “choose your own adventure” books. Will your zoological expedition return with an exciting new addition to your zoo’s menagerie, or will your crew succumb to one of the many perils they will face on their journey?


Welcome to a new world
Once your European industrial revolution is in full swing, you will soon be able to expand your growing empire to the lush jungles of South America, where all new challenges await. Discover separate resident tiers, master new production chains and race your opponents as you seek to secure the gold and oil reserves needed to power your industrial arms race.


Welcome to the era of archeology!
Listen up beauty builder and explorer; a museum opened its doors in town. With the second big cultural project, the museum will allow you to display the wonders of the world, from fossil findings to artifacts from times long gone. As with the zoo, the museum allows you to place various modules to display your rare items, which your adventures acquired from expeditions to lands far away or from trading deals with other characters.


Blueprints – plan your utopia
With the blueprint mode, you will be able to plan your city layout ahead to create your truly visionary metropolis. With the toggle of a button, you can place buildings before actual construction, which makes it easier to map out your city center or industrial districts before investing your construction material.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to the new features and what is your favorite of all four?