The Season 3 Pass is coming

Hey Anno Community,

Yesterday, we answered the question that had been on many of your minds recently: What does the future hold for Anno 1800? And since pictures can say so much more than mere words, we answered with our Season 3 Teaser, which you can watch once more right here:

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We are very happy to confirm that Anno 1800 will be back for a third Season of content in 2021! While we don’t want to give too much away, there a few things we can share:

  • Season 3 will once again consist of three new DLCs, all of which have been inspired by community feedback and wishes
  • Season 3’s DLCs thematically represent something of a homecoming after your globetrotting adventures in the Arctic and Enbesa, and won’t be adding a new session to the game
  • Each DLC release will once again be accompanied by a Free Game Update that will further improve the game for all our industrial pioneers

We look forward to sharing much more about our plans for Season 3 with you all in early 2021, and to reach new heights of city-building with you all.

Stay safe,

The Anno Team

We have travelled far…

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Union Update: City Lights release & Community Spotlight

Today marks the release of the “City Lights Pack” Cosmetic DLC which adds plenty of smaller ornaments as well as the eponymous city lights to your game, allowing you to further customize parks, build markets, and more. If you missed our dedicated blog last week about the development and the contents of the DLC, you can find it right here.

Beautify your city with the new Steelwork Fences with lanterns or the grand Clearwater Pool with swan paddle boats and provide your hard-working residents with fish sandwiches and even delicious pizza!

The DLC will release later today at 6 PM CET for the price of 4,99€.

We’re looking forward to seeing pictures of your redesigned city parks!

A concept drawing for the Clearwater Pool

Game Update 9.1

Alongside the “City Lights Pack”, we’re also releasing Game Update 9.1, which addresses various issues you have reported to us since the release of Game Update 9.

As always, you can find the full release notes on the Anno Union in the “Updates” section.

 

Since we’re still seeing reports from players missing some of their Ubisoft Club (now Ubisoft Connect) rewards since the switch in late October: We’re aware of this problem and are currently in contact with the Ubisoft Connect team to find a solution. As soon as we have news on the topic, we will let you know.

“Gamings Sounds” concert live stream

Originally planned as a live concert, the WDR (a German public-broadcasting institution) is holding a live stream concert on November 20th, 7 PM CET, playing parts of the soundtrack from various video games! This includes for example “Grandiose Magnificence” from Anno 1404 or “Next to the Throne” from Anno 1701 – both composed by our friends at Dynamedion.

Links to the stream will be provided by WDR at a later date and we will share them as soon as possible 🙂

December Livestreams

With the end of 2020 drawing near, we think it’s a good time for another livestream or two and having a nice chat before the holidays.

Since we had a lot of fun visiting some of your cities earlier this year, we’d love to do so once more and see what you have been building over the year.

If you want to send us your savegame for us to check out live on stream, please send it to anno-community@ubisoft.com

Community Spotlight

As we like to do it, let’s end this Union Update with another Community Spotlight, featuring some of the cool screenshots, art or community projects our great community is working on.

For example, there’s this awesome chess field Tonton_lp built – the statue variety might create some confusion while playing, though…

Over on Reddit, Nanmab shared some impressions from their Enbesan capital, using the canals in a creative, decorative way.

Dulcamarra returns with a new Anno 1800 comic strip about her experiences in the world of Anno:

Finally, we want to highlight a great fan project by schwubbe, which was recently completely translated into English (other languages are also available for most parts of the website) and also includes all goods and resident tiers of “Land of Lions”. On his website, you not only find details to all buildings and their production chains but also a handy calculator (which now uses houses instead of population numbers, we’ve been told) to figure out exactly how much your residents consume and how many production buildings you will need to construct.

You can check out the calculator yourself here – maybe the “modding” section is also interesting for some of you.

If you want to share screenshots with us or are working on a project of your own, tag us on Twitter or post it over on Reddit or the official forums where we’re regularly reading through the stories, screenshots and discussions you share.

DevBlog: “City Lights” Pack Cosmetic DLC

Hey Anno Community!

In this blog we want to give you some insights into the development of the “City Lights Pack” Cosmetic DLC, how it got its final name and what kind of ornaments you’ll soon be able to build in your city.

“City Lights” is the third Cosmetic DLC for Anno 1800 and focuses on giving you plenty of smaller ornaments to beautify your cities with markets, plazas and other recreational opportunities. Coming in close second after the “Amusements Pack” in the community vote in spring, your feedback as well as the success of the previous Cosmetic DLCs lead to the decision to also work on the back then still called “City Life” pack.

As we are aware of the big number of min-maxers and record builders who would rather cram a few more houses in the last corner of the island than “waste space” by building parks, Christmas markets or rollercoasters, the Cosmetic DLC can be purchased separately – à la carte, as we called it in the past. We think this flexibility allows every type of player to focus on the kind of content they want to see in their game.

Let’s now talk a bit about the development of the “City Lights Pack” Cosmetic DLC. The focus this time was on providing a variety of smaller ornaments to enable you to beautify spots all over your city, create markets and bring more variety to inner-city parks – instead of using the ornaments to create one or two big areas filled with ornaments, like the “Amusements Pack” often tempted players to do.

This meant that it was clear for the team that for example market stands needed to be part of this pack, together with food stores, tables and other objects that you will find all over any city, to improve the “City Life” feeling (hence the original name).

This brought with it its own challenges, since even seemingly unimportant objects like fences or a phone booth had to be designed in a way that enables players to give their city its own special character. The regular presence of phone booths, for example, will give a city a more modern, technologically advanced feeling – even if the object itself is merely decorative.

 

As you’ve noticed, during development we renamed the Cosmetic DLC, with “City Life” being replaced by “City Lights”. This happened rather organically, since it was during development, that one of our artists decided to attach lanterns to the new fence elements. After playing around with it, we quickly realized that adding additional light sources to the city was too cool to not implement – especially considering the awesome day and night system!

With these fence elements as well as stand-alone lanterns you can now bring some beautiful light sources to your cities’ parks and public spaces – and light up darker areas, to make sure your citizens do not get lost on their way home from the Pub.

Even though the “City Lights Pack” primarily consists of many smaller ornaments which can be placed in bigger numbers across your city, we knew we had to also create a big showpiece, an ornament that can be the centre piece of a vast park – or just stand on its own in a busy city centre, to help the residents relax from the busy world around it.

In contrast to for example the “Amusements Pack”, where it was clear pretty much from the start that a Ferris Wheel simply had to be part of the DLC, the “City Lights” showpiece idea (the large pond with swan paddleboats) only developed over time. In the end it combined several elements: decorative parts like statues and fountains, paths for your citizens to stroll along, a pond to not only bring a feeling of nature into your cities but also open up densely packed city environments and the paddleboats as a recreational activity for your residents.

Both the idea of an inner-city pond as well as the swan boats are not new, but inspired by real developments of the 19th century.

Now that they developed three different Cosmetic DLC, we had to ask our art team: What’s your favourite of the three, which did you enjoy the most creating? The answer came quickly: The “Amusements Pack”. Not only did they like the theme itself, we also have amusement park enthusiasts in the team, who enjoyed creating an Anno 1800 counterpart to the modern ones they’re usually visiting. Additionally, this DLC gave them more creative opportunities concerning the design of the individual buildings – while for example the look of a Christmas market is much more set in stone in comparison.

Now that you learned about the development of “City Lights”, you might want to have a full list of all ornaments of this DLC? We can help with that:

  1. Farmer’s Stall
  2. Florist’s Stall
  3. Grocer’s Stall
  4. Fishmonger’s Stall
  5. Cheesemonger’s Stall
  6. Pizzeria
  7. Bread Confectionary
  8. Drinks Shack
  9. Sandwich Shack
  10. Couples’ Table
  11. Solitary Table
  12. Family Table
  13. Steelwork Fence (5 different elements)
  14. Sandpit and Slide
  15. Children’s Playground
  16. Water Trough
  17. Public Timepiece
  18. Steel Clockhouse
  19. City Light
  20. Telephone Box
  21. Clearwater Pool

 

The last thing to cover in this blog is the exact release… and we’re happy to announce that our third Cosmetic DLC will release next Thursday, November 12th, at 6PM CET/12PM ET for a price of 4,99€.

As we tend to do it, alongside the DLC we will release Game Update 9.1, addressing several issues you reported since the release of “Land of Lions”. More on that early next week.

Stay safe,

The Anno Team

Union Update: City Lights

Since the release of “Land of Lions” last week we received a looot of feedback from you. A big thank you from the Anno team for all the lovely comments, for the praise, the stories of the little surprises you found while playing and all the videos and screenshots you shared.

We’re happy that you’re enjoying the lands of Enbesa and the features of Game Update 9 as much as we hoped you would.

 

Of course, we also kept track of the reports some of you posted about bugs and technical issues you are facing and your feedback about certain mechanics or balance decisions that you would like to see changed.

While we’re still going through plenty of your suggestions and ideas, we can confirm that our team is currently working on Game Update 9.1 to address the issues some of you are dealing with at the moment.

Game Update 9.1 is scheduled for mid-November, and we will soon share more details with you.

City Lights

Another topic for November will be the release of the “City Lights” Cosmetic DLC Pack which we already teased a few weeks ago. As before, we will introduce you to the content of this DLC and tell you a bit about the creation and ideas behind it in a dedicated DevBlog.

Expect more details including the exact release date soon.

Community Spotlight

We mentioned the number of screenshots earlier in this post, so what better place to post them than in this very Union Update? Thank you for the great shots, keep them coming ?

Discovering Enbesa via airship or using it for a touristy sight-seeing tour? SirQuestinghood had the right idea.

Of course, figuring out the best layouts incorporating the canals of the new irrigation system is one of the challenges of “Land of Lions”. Both archibeaver and Apfelcreme shared some for Sanga Cow, Goat and Linseed Farms:

Leaving Enbesa and returning to the Old World, the new Research Institute and Scholar Residences change the cityscape of the settlements there, as Seilofo and Eremon485 show:

Last but not least, we simply had to include Laudica’s circular city. You can already see the preparations for where the Scholars are supposed to go.

Union Update: “Land of Lions” release

It’s time! Yesterday we launched “Land of Lions” and you can now set sail to the lands of Enbesa, discover the Land of Lions and assist Emperor Ketema in building a new capital for his empire.

What better way to celebrate the DLC release than with a proper Launch Trailer!

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Over the last weeks we published several DevBlogs detailing the content of the “Land of Lions” DLC and the mechanics and challenges it will bring to your Anno 1800 experience.

If you missed any of them or just want to refresh your memory before jumping into the game – here you go:

Part 1: “Land of Lions” Overview

Part 2: Shepherds and Irrigation

Part 3: Elders and Story

Part 4: Scholars and Research

 

As usual, we are releasing a packed-full free Game Update together with the DLC. Game Update 9 not only includes various bug fixes and adjustments, we also implemented a variety of feedback points from our community (like selecting an island for your ship to sail to when switching sessions) to further improve your overall experience with Anno 1800.

You can find an overview over these quality of life improvements here, and the full release notes here (beware, it’s a long list!).

 

Since Monday you’re also able to get two additional “Land of Lions” ornaments via the Twitch Drop event currently ongoing. We’ve prepared all details in this dedicated article, including a list of all streamers participating.

Ubisoft Connect and the Club Rewards

A few of you already noticed it on Wednesday: All regular Ubisoft Club rewards for Anno 1800 were unlocked for everyone for free!

This is related to the rebranding of the Ubisoft Club and Ubisoft Uplay into Ubisoft Connect – so no worries, you can keep them.

Since this is not a topic solely related to Anno 1800, we recommend following this link for more information on Ubisoft Connect and what it means for you as players.

Anno 1800 board game release

As a final bit of news: The Anno 1800 board game is now released! (in German; an English release is planned for next year) In this physical version of the game, published by KOSMOS, you need to manage your workforce and fulfill your citizens’ needs while facing off against your competitors directly across the table. Have a look at our interview with its designer Martin Wallace.

Additionally, accompanying the SPIEL.digital online trade fair, a replacement for the usual physical event in Essen, you can test a digital (albeit German) version of the Anno 1800 board game for free. More details can be found here.

DevBlog: Land of Lions – Scholars and Research

To the hallowed motto of the Old World’s greatest university, « Ardua Veritatem » many a young, aspiring Scholar has amended their own witty epigraph, one of which remains, etched in pale strokes, to this day: « Ex sapientia immodus ». Through hardships, truth; from wisdom, immoderation.


Though these ambitions have never failed to leave a trail of flustered supervisors and browknitted deans in their wake, there is no arguing the spirited genius of the countless young prodigies whose tireless labour and many sleepless nights consistently push against the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding for the greater glory of Science – and a modicum of personal glory, naturally.


Scholars are infused with the passions and trailblazing fire of youth. To live, to dream, perchance to inspire or set a trend, whether in the quest for knowledge or that for a fashionably dandified wardrobe – these are the waters within which a Scholar’s heart blooms. To these fascinations and wild ambitions, they have sacrificed much, leaving families, friends and lovers behind, in their distant homelands, to heed the call of that Magna Mater – Science!


Easily smitten with novelty and extravagance, Scholars are nonetheless remarkably hard workers, readily expending much of their time and energy to the pursuit of the tantalizingly obscure minutia of wisdom and progress, working together towards a brighter, better and sharper-dressed future.

Hello once more, dear Anno Community!

In this last DevBlog for Land of Lions we will focus on the influence of Enbesa on the Old World.

If you have missed any of our previous blogs, have a look at the dedicated ones for:

  1. The Shepherd population tier and the irrigation system
  1. The Elder population tier and the story of “Land of Lions”

Already in our overview blog we mentioned that besides creating a new world for you to explore and a new story for you to discover, we also wanted to incorporate a specific point of feedback we received from you after the release of “The Passage”: Having closer connections between the different sessions to offer more than just a one-region-specific challenge.

With “Land of Lions”, this comes in the form of the Scholars.

When you’ve upgraded your first Shepherd Residences and the initial Elders are moving in, you unlock the last new feature of the “Land of Lions” DLC: With an influx of students from Enbesa and the rest of the globe to the Old World, first the construction of the Research Institute (requires 300 Elders) and later housing for the new Scholar population tier (requires 1500 Elders) is unlocked.

The Research Institute is a new, 3 stage monument that can be constructed once per player in either the Old World or Cape Trelawney. It is a place of study and research, a place where your eager scholars analyze artefacts and plants – and where they come up with technological breakthroughs known as Major Discoveries.

Aside from requiring plenty of workforce for the construction, you will need large amounts of building material – but will be rewarded in turn with a beautiful new landmark for your city which in addition unlocks the new research feature, allowing your brightest minds to engage in what they like doing most: science!

Before we jump into the details of the research system, let’s first take a look at the Scholars.

Being a separate population tier, they will require their own appropriate housing. Scholar Residences have a size of 4×4 fields and – due to their love for academic research – require immediate access to a university. Due to their larger size, these residences also house significantly more people (120 eager students of science) than, for example, an Investor residence does.

It takes time and effort to build up a reputation as a Research Institution. Scholar Residences are tied to permits: Only by acquiring more permits via research in the Institute will you be able to build more of them and be able to invite more Scholars. This will also open up further research options, and unlock additional needs for Scholars.

 

The scholars represent a typical international student: hailing from distant Enbesa and other parts of the world, but living in the Old World. The duality is reflected in the Scholar’s needs: They will ask for fancy Old World clothes, requiring you to build new production chains for Leather Boots and Tailored Suits, as well as increasing your output of Bombin Hats. And while as students they enjoy a social Rum and the convenience of Canned Food, nothing tastes better than a memory of home. Their loved ones in Enbesa will only be too glad to ship Seafood Stew and Hibiscus Tea over to the Old World to assuage any feelings of homesickness.

The Scholars’ keen interest in new technologies and inventions means they also desire gramophones, the newly developed telephones and a cutting-edge new public building: The Radio Tower.

With their needs fulfilled and the construction of the Research Institute finished, your scholars will get to work and generate a constant stream of research points. The more Scholars you have attracted, the faster they accumulate research points and the more research points you can “store”. More advanced research requires points in large quantities, a feat, small research groups simply won’t be able to accomplish.

Another way of acquiring research points is by donating items – for science! The amount of points received depends on the rarity of the respective item.

Researching items and especially Major Discoveries takes time, even for such a talented bunch as your Scholars. To speed things up, you can assign parts of your Engineer workforce – the Scholars’ tutors. Just make sure they’re not needed elsewhere.

 

Now, a variety of exciting research options are opened up to you, providing plenty of advantages for your empire. Let’s go over what kind of options the bright minds in the Institute came up with.

First, the item research. A recurring feedback since the release of Anno 1800 has been the wish for more direct ways to get items for specific purposes. Item crafting with Old Nate in Cape Trelawney and the Artic provide one alternative to purchasing and questing, while the item overview with details about the sources gives you a clearer idea where you need to look for that last missing zoo animal. Game Update 9 will change the number of items offered by AI parties from 8 to 12, which means less re-rolling to get the one you want. Owners of “Land of Lions” will have to live with a small restriction here, though, to balance the option of donating items for research points: Only 20 items can be purchased from a single NPC trader in a 30-min window.

With the Research Institute you can now develop almost any item in the game and this way specifically focus on the ones that make the most sense for your islands and for your overall strategy.  The items have to be discovered and analysed by your researchers first, requiring research points, and you can choose between Cultural Science (Animals, Cultural Items and Plants), Technological Advancements (all kinds of machines and tools) and Talent Development (Specialists).

Secondly, there are the Major Discoveries. These present you with more ways to specialise aspects of your economy, but they also address existing community feedback.

For example, the appropriate research allows you to move Oil Springs and Clay Deposits to another place on the island, change the fertilities to grow hops instead of paprika or change the ore of a mineral deposit to one you need more of. This will help you to further specialise existing islands and e.g. move that one oil spring just in range of the refinery, while also helping with layout creation and city beautification.

Furthermore, via a Research Kit you can directly identify items you already own and then develop them in the Research Institute, while additional Great Eastern Permits allow you to… well, build more of these magnificent ships!

Pier Upgrade Permits let you upgrade existing piers to Advanced Piers, increasing their loading speed and allowing you to specialise them: You can now dedicate these piers to a single type of good which helps you with directing your trading ships to specific places on your coast.

And don’t worry: If you, for example, create a dedicated coffee pier, all other goods on trade routes transporting coffee to your island will of course also be handled by the Advanced Pier.

 

Finally, to continue with the coffee topic from above, there’s something for all coffee lovers on your islands: Modern technology will enable you to produce New World goods in the Old World, by using replacement products. Specifically: You can unlock Advanced Coffee Roasters, Rum Distilleries and Cotton Mills to help you with any shortages.

Running out of space for high quality coffee beans in the New World? Don’t worry, just mix in some locally produced malt coffee – your investors won’t notice!

 

To round off, Land of Lions will of course also bring new item sets for your cultural buildings, for example a Lion (quelle surprise) or a Giant Snail for your zoo. On top of that, there will of course be some region-specific items for Enbesa, to for example boost local production, like the Tea Selector for your Tea production or Flood Gates to increase your pump’s irrigation capacity.

 

All of this will be open for you to explore as part of the “Land of Lions” DLC on October 22nd, available via the Ubisoft Store, Epic Store and Steam.

As usual, we will release a free update alongside the DLC including a bunch of quality of life improvements alongside plenty of bug fixes and tweaks. The full release notes will be posted next week, but if you haven’t done so, you should definitely check out our DevBlog detailing all the improvements of Game Update 9 which we posted a few weeks ago.

“Land of Lions” Twitch Drops

Over the coming week we will give you the opportunity to already take a closer look at the contents of the last and biggest DLC of Season 2, “Land of Lions”, as well as Game Update 9, by watching some of your favourite streamers during another Twitch Drops Event.

The whole event takes place from Monday October 19 until October 28.

During the event, you will be able to watch how a variety of selected Twitch streamers discover the lands of Enbesa and its stories – and maybe also construct their very own Research Institute in the Old World.
Anyone watching them fertilize the dry lands of Enbesa and assisting Emperor Ketema can grab two brand new ornaments, the Land of Lions Flag and Land of Lions Billboard. The only thing you need to do is link your Uplay to your Twitch account and watch the streamers during the event for up to 3 hours to receive your loot. You don’t have to watch these hours consecutively to receive your drop; watching them accumulated on participating streamers will also grant you the ornaments.
If you haven’t already done so in the past, to link your Ubisoft- and Twitch-account, just follow the steps outlined on this website.

You can find the full list of all participating Streamer here:

DevBlog: Land of Lions – Elders and Story

“He is the shepherd of the flock, Who gives life and age. Tell me now: Yes, His laws are boundless.” To these tenets of the spiritual poem Al-Muthallathu none are more faithful than the Elders of Enbesa. Shaped in the crucible of indomitable belief, wrought by the creeds of a culture older than the time of legends, they know much and ordain more.

The Irenya, as they are referred to in Enbesa, are the ever-vigilant guardians of their land’s storied traditions and history. Stalwart in their faith and their conviction that the fundamental truths of Life can only be sought across the span of ancient laws and a millenial religion, they care little for the bustle and blare of progress. Why seek to change that which has seen generations past live a devoted and orderly life?

The Irenya command great respect from the people of Enbesa, though there are those who would resent the harshness with which they hold to tradition, toiling away fervently at the crafting arts while the ‘lower’ Shepherds work the land and more menial charges. Few complaints ever reach the keftanya moots – the city-ruling, Elder-held councils – however, as Elders seldom fail to show compassion and care to the people of Enbesa under duress – so long as they respect the Ancient Ways.

Hey Anno Community,

and welcome back to the third installment in our series of DevBlogs about “Land of Lions”. This time, we want to focus on Enbesa’s Elders, and the strong narrative elements of our final Season 2 DLC.

If you missed them, you can catch up on our previous blogs here:

DevBlog 1: A “Land of Lions” overview

DevBlog 2: Shepherds and Irrigation

Always respect your Elders

The Elders are the second of Enbesa’s new residential tiers and represent a completely different aspect of life in their region from the Shepherds. Whereas the latter enjoy their time in nature and work the land with the freedom of youth, the Elders’ experiences in life have given them an altogether dourer outlook on things. This is especially true for their representative, an elderly widow who has seen her fair share of grief in life. While she can be harsh and judgmental (especially towards outsiders like yourself), her poignance belies a caring nature towards those who manage to earn her respect.

A long life of working hard has taught the Elders many useful skills which they apply to seven new production chains such as Ceramics (a basic need), Tapestries (a luxury good contributing to their happiness) or Seafood Stew. Unlike the self-sufficient Shepherds, some of the Elder’s production chains also require goods from other sessions, requiring you to expand your network of trade routes to supply them. The Elders also produce the Mud Bricks needed for more advanced construction in Enbesa, alongside the Shepherd’s traditional Wanza Timber.

In total, the Elder tier will introduce 17 new buildings, including of course some public buildings like the Monastery, which contributes to their Happiness.

Let me tell you a story…

While last week’s DevBlog and this one have so far focused on the new gameplay Elements that Enbesa will introduce to Anno 1800, there is a lot more for you to experience. So, let us talk about story and narrative elements. This is one aspect of the game we have steadily been honing and improving throughout the development of Anno, starting with the original campaign, across the “Sunken Treasures” story and up to the icy world of “The Passage”. This DLC specifically received a lot of praise for creating an atmosphere that was quite unlike the usually bright and cheerful Anno world, taking on a more somber and tense tone. Basing the story on the infamously tragic events of Franklin’s ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest passage (albeit with a slightly happier ending, and less cannibalism) and the introduction of heat as a quintessential replacement for the happiness of other sessions helped to create an atmosphere unlike anything else in Anno, replacing the usual cheerfulness with a grim fight for survival. Seeing player reactions to the Arctic emboldened us to try to go one step further when it comes to creating a believable, breathing “Land of Lions”.

To put it simply: The story of Enbesa presents one of the biggest narrative efforts the Anno Team has ever undertaken (and we are not just talking about 1800, either)! We expect that first-time players will take a good 10-15 hours of playtime to experience all the story threads introducing the cultures and people of Enbesa. These story elements come I two distinct flavors: the main story, and story islands.

 

For the Emperor!

The concept of the main story should be a familiar one to Anno 1800 players, as it follows the same structure as previous DLCs like “Sunken Treasures”, slowly introducing you to all the major new characters, as well as gameplay elements like residential tiers, irrigation and the Research Institute. As with these other new sessions, your journey to Enbesa begins with an Expedition that becomes available at the Artisan tier.

It is during this expedition that you will meet one of the key characters, Biniam. A gifted young academic, Biniam serves as a diplomat to the ruler of Enbesa, Emperor Ketema. Through his service, he hopes to one day bring abut his dream of a research institute in which the brightest young scholars from around the world can work. It is Biniam who introduces you to Emperor Ketema, based on your proven credentials as a skilled city-builder.

Ketema is a warm-hearted yet ambitious ruler, who dreams of Enbesa entering a long-lasting era of peace and unity through diplomacy and trade, earning the recognition of other powers.  As a symbol of these efforts, he asks the player to enter his service as the architect of Enbesa’s new capital city, Taborime. This leads to a unique setup among the islands of Anno 1800: while we normally separate player and Ai islands, you will actually be building Taborime for Ketema on his island, surrounding his already existing magnificent palace (which will also visually evolve throughout the story). Of course, it would not be an Anno story if things ended there, and you can expect a few plot twists. We will leave it at that, as we don’t want to spoil any surprises for you…

Unity, but at what cost?

As mentioned earlier, this classic story structure is only one part of “Land of Lions”’ storytelling, with the other being our three “story islands”. These are essentially lovingly crafted, visually unique islands that each offer an additional optional storyline, all of which are entwined with the larger history of Enbesa (for example, one of them is the birthplace and home of Biniam). These islands will not only offer new quests for you to undertake to help their residents, but will also call upon you to make some tough decisions, which can have some dramatic consequence (including, but not limited to, these islands looking very different from how they started out…).

With that said, let us introduce you to these three locations and their people:

Angereb is a mighty fortress rock on a rocky island, inhabited by a fiercely independent people who see no reason to join forces with Emperor Ketema.

Kidusi Anitoni is an ancient monastery and library, home to a group of religious scholars who are doing archaeological work to uncover Enbesa’s past.

Waha Desher was once a flourishing Oasis and center of commerce that has since fallen on harder times but may yet be reawakened.

The quest structure of these islands is much looser and non-linear than the main story, leaving it up to you how and when you want to meet the residents of these three islands. We will leave it up to you to find out much more about them come October 22. Between DevBlog 2 and this one, you should now have a good idea of all the new content awaiting you in Enbesa. But, as you know, that is not all, so make sure to tune in next time for a deeper look at our new Old World goodness: The Scholars and their Research institute!

In the meantime, why not let us know your thoughts in the comments?

Stay safe,

The Anno Team

Anno 1800 – The Board Game – Interview

October surely is all about Anno 1800, with not only the release of “Land of Lions” for your PC, but also a physical version of the game for your table: Yes, this month will see the release of the Anno 1800 board game!

Designed by Martin Wallace and published by KOSMOS, Anno 1800 – The Board Game let’s build up your industry, fulfill your people’s needs and settle new islands. Similar to the PC game, you’ll need to manage your workforce, produce the right goods and can trade with other players for resources you urgently need.

The release of the German version is planned for later this month while an English version is planned for 2021. If you’re interested in the board game, you might want to keep an eye on the upcoming SPIEL.digital online trade fair, a replacement for the usual physical event in Essen,  where KOSMOS will provide you with additional additional info around the game.

To give you a bit more background on the development of and the ideas behind the game, we approached Martin Wallace with several questions. Enjoy the interview below!

Hello Martin, before we start with the game-related questions, could you tell us a bit about yourself?

I have been designing games for nearly thirty years now, self-publishing my first game, Lords of Creation, in 1993. Since then I have designed games for other companies or published through my own companies, which were Warfrog then Treefrog. Some of my designs have become well-known, such as Brass, Age of Steam and Discworld: Ankh Morpork. My wife and I emigrated to Australia in 2017 and now live north of Brisbane, on the Sunshine Coast.

How much time did you spend with the Anno 1800 video game before starting to work on the board game?

To be honest I never played the game as I never play video games. I got a friend of mine to play the game extensively and then gained the necessary information from him. As he is also a board game designer, he had a good idea of what details would be useful to understand.

Did you work on board games based on video games before?

I have worked on a couple of other games based on video games, but none have been published yet.

Do you think there are there aspects in game design for both types of games which are comparable and where game designers could learn from the respective other type?

It’s easier converting a video game into a board game than something like a film or book as you are already dealing with something that has game-like properties. However, video games and board games are very different beasts. In a video game all of the rules and economics are hidden beneath the surface, which allows for as much complexity as you want. With a board game everything is on view, which means you have to keep things as simple as possible. I think video game designers do not have to worry about elegance or simplicity as they are not constrained by those factors. For me this makes video games feel very loose. In a board game you can often to see the connections between a decision and a consequence later on, whereas in a video game you are making many micro-decisions and are not always aware of the long-term impact of them.

When translating features of the Anno 1800 video game to the board game, which aspects did you find the most challenging?

The main issue was the number of different resources available. Normally you would have to physically represent these with counters, which would have been a mess. Fortunately, this challenge forced me to come up with a simple solution, which is to have the resources represented by factories and have them produce only when you place a worker of the correct colour on them. This simple mechanic drives the whole game.

How are the city-building and economy aspects the Anno series is so well-known for reflected in the boardgame?

Anno 1800 is largely about production chains, where you have to go through a number of steps to get the resource you desire. Although I had to chop out a lot of the different resource types for the board game I think enough remain for there to be a close connection with the original video game. You gain a sense of city building as you add factories to your island display. To gain more building land you have to discover islands. These elements are handled in a very simple manner but still reflect the actions within the original game. The only major element not represented is warfare, which would not be suitable in a highly deterministic economic game.

For which aspects of the game did you work together closely with the development team in Mainz and where did you take a bit more creative freedom?

As I’m based in Australia it was not easy to work closely with the development team. My first aim was to come up with something that worked as a board game. We had a very productive meeting at the Spiel show in Essen where we discussed what elements were still not represented well. From that I came up with a simple mechanism of having objective and rule change cards to include these missing bits. This added a lot to the game play. However, at all times my focus was on making sure the game worked as a board game. If there were certain parts of the game that could not be included easily then I ignored them. Overall, I would say I had a lot of creative freedom.

The Anno 1800 boardgame seems to be not focused on direct players vs player actions, e.g. destroying other players’ ships or buildings. Which elements anyway add to the competitiveness of the game and which interactions between the players are possible, be it competitive or cooperative?

If I had included the option to attack other players then the game would have become a wargame, which would not have the same appeal. In a long video game, you do not mind setbacks due to warfare. In a board game lasting two hours you do not want to suffer setbacks due to the actions of other players. Thus, direct warfare was removed from the game. Interactions between players are mainly through trade, where you can gain a resource from another player. In this case both parties gain, so it does not feel like you are stealing a resource from somebody. There is also some interaction in trying to achieve certain objectives before other players. These vary from game to game. As some are based on gaining factories and there are only a limited number of each then you have to decide which ones you wish to compete for. Overall, the level of interaction is pretty gentle, not quite solitaire, but you can get on with your own plans without worrying too much about other players.

You have previously worked on other industrial era games like Brass: Birmingham. What fascinates you about the setting and how do you ensure your games play differently?

Brass Birmingham and Lancashire came about because I used to live in that part of the world and so had some knowledge of the history. For me the challenge with these games is to create a realistic feel for how different industries interact. With these games variety grows from the random allocation of cards, plus random markets in Brass Birmingham. For Anno 1800 the variety comes from the objective and rule change cards. These are known at the beginning of the game and players have to adapt their strategy to them.

Thank you very much for the interview, Martin!