DevBlog: Land of Lions – Shepherds & Irrigation System

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
None are more faithul to this creed, laid down in contemplation by philosopher Mawlānā Rumi than the selfsame Shepherds of Enbesa. The Meniga, as they are known by other populations in Enbesa, revel best in the open heartlands, the bountiful beauty of Enbesa, stretching across valleys and dells, with boundless horizons across the water.

A people of the land, respectful of all that came before them but ever intrigued by new opportunities, new prospects of peace and betterment for their peers. Kind-hearted and hard-working, Shepherds look to those who rule to guide Enbesa to a united future, one of justice and consideration for all. Long centuries of unhindered pastoral life draw to a tantalizing close as the Emperor raises his mighty capital from the ground, drawing all in Enbesa to him, birthing a new culture and a novel way of life.

Though they relish the deceptively simple arts of landwork and animal care, Shepherds are well aware that a new age is dawning upon Enbesa, one which they hope will see mirth and tenderness and friendship be held high in the hearts of the mighty –manifold lights to guide and heal the people of Enbesa.

Earlier this week we gave you an overview of what you can expect regarding Anno Union content up until the release of Land of Lions. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise therefore that this week we’ll be talking about the beginnings of your Enbesan settlement: The Shepherds and the irrigation system!

Shepherds are the first of two residential tiers in the Enbesa session (the second being the Elders). Similar to the farmers in the Old World, they live in smaller houses, usually a main dwelling with a stable, outbuilding, storage hut or small workplace attached. Together these houses form small communal places where the Shepherd population can, for example, gather around a fireplace.

The Shepherds loves nature and stories by the campfire. City life and politics seems to tire them, much as it does the game’s Farmers and Artisans in the Old World.

Instead they prefer to spend time out in nature with their animals, because the Shepherds’ skills lie in agriculture and animal husbandry; for example, herding goats and sanga cows for milk and meat or growing linseed to darn clothes and hibiscus flowers for hibiscus tea. The Shepherds rely solely on the goods they produce locally, and do not require any imports from the other sessions. Though they have many talents and much wisdom, they are always quick to play these things down, being modest and humble.

To satisfy their needs for community and culture outside of the company of family and friends, they will, however, ask you to build a musicians’ court to enjoy some music together with their fellow Enbesans.

At the heart of all construction and expansion in Enbesa is the new building material Wanza Timber. The Wanza trees do not require fertile soil but their wood is needed for most buildings in the new session. This means you cannot rely on old-world timber imports but must plan for sufficient local production to fuel your construction needs. Later on, will you also need to produce mud bricks for advanced buildings… but the Elders and their production chains will get their own DevBlog.

And while the use of these local goods and the Enbesan architectural traditions influence the construction and style of all buildings, you will see and easily recognize familiar buildings like the Trade Union, various harbor buildings or the Fire Station, which are buildable at the first residential tier. The last building already does provide us with a good segue to the next topic, since the Fire Station now has a special requirement: it needs a water connection!

So, let’s talk about Land of Lions new irrigation system.

Veterans will remember the irrigation system of Anno 1404 in which norias were responsible for pumping water up from below ground and watering the desert or savannah in a certain radius around them. This created fertile green spots in otherwise dry land that allowed for the cultivation of e.g. dates, indigo and almonds. Some might also remember that these norias had to be refilled manually, creating a lot of busywork.

Therefore, when approaching the design for Land of Lions, we knew that a) we wanted to include an irrigation system as a regional challenge due to its popularity with our community and b) we wanted to improve on Anno 1404’s system, reducing unnecessary micromanagement, while on the other hand providing another kind of challenge.

In Enbesa this challenge comes in the form of water canals, using the various rivers crossing the islands as a source for irrigation. Under their Emperor Ketema, the Enbesans use self-developed water pumps that are placed on dedicated river slots. The water taken from the rivers is then distributed via the canals, which fertilize the soil within a certain radius. The lush green areas that have been watered can then be used to grow Hibiscus or Indigo flowers, among other things.

This of course brings with it the challenge of creating an efficient canal system, squeezing in your farms and fields, and making the most of what little fertile ground you have, in addition to the usual limitations of building space on the islands. We’re sure min-maxer will have a great time working out the best layouts.

Each water pump can only pump its water so far, so there’s a limit to how many canal tiles you can place. However, combining two pumps also combines their irrigation capacity, allowing you to build a much longer canal than a single pump would’ve been able to support.

 

While most Enbesan farms require fertilized ground to function, animals can also graze on the dry savannah – though they prefer fresh green grass, which will directly improve the productivity of the relevant building.

Given the importance of water for agriculture, make sure to check for the number of available river slots on each island: it’s worth keeping in mind that aside from the irrigation pumps, these slots can also be occupied by clay collectors, and later, paper mills – prioritization of the valuable river slots is another water-related challenge you will face in Enbesa – just to ensure you won’t get bored!

 

Finally, when talking agriculture: Owners of the Bright Harvest DLC will also be able to bring the knowledge and advantages of modern farming to the lands of Enbesa by constructing silos and using tractors. However, this does require the import of oil.

Next week we’re going to look at the second residential tier, the Elders, and present you a bit more about the setting and story of Enbesa which sets it apart from previous DLC.

 

Land of Lions livestream

But wait, don’t leave quite yet. We still have one more announcement!

Next Thursday, October 15th, we will be holding a Land of Lions livestream, showing you the beginnings of an Enbesan settlement and talking about what’s currently happening in the world of Anno.

Join Ubi-Volty and Ubi-Thorlof at 5PM CET over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

We’re looking forward to chatting with you!

DevBlog: A “Land of Lions” overview

Hey Anno Community,

If countless comments and questions are anything to go by, some of you are rather keen to learn more about our final Season 2 DLC, “Land of Lions”. So, you will be delighted to hear that we will finally start revealing more today, starting with this first DevBlog. “Wait a minute”, I hear some of you shouting, “what do you mean starting and first?”.

See, the thing is that “Land of Lions” is by far our biggest DLC for Anno 1800, including a lot more content than “The Passage” last Fall! To properly present all the good news and to tide you over until its release on October 22 we will instead have…four DevBlogs for you all!

Part 1: “Land of Lions” Overview

Part 2: Shepherds and Irrigation

Part 3: Elders and Story

Part 4: Scholars and Research

 

And that’s it for toda…wait, you wanted more of an overview? Alright then…

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New Residential Tiers in Enbesa

Let us first talk about Enbesa, the eponymous “Land of Lions”. Enbesa will be a session in the Southern part of the world map once you have unlocked access to it via an expedition (as with our other additional sessions).

The similarities to sessions like the New World and Arctic do not end there; much like them, Enbesa is also the home of two residential tiers, with their own associated housing, production chains and trade goods!

First, we have the Shepherds. The Shepherd’s representative is humble and loves nature, but he is also a keen poet and storyteller who will share his insights into the events around him with the player. In gameplay terms, Shepherds are focused on the agricultural production of new goods like Teff Grass or Hibiscus. As such the Shepherds will of course also play a central role in the new irrigation system.

Enbesa’s second resident tier are the Elders. They are represented by a devout but stern widow, who is an appreciated leader in the community and key to its social life. The Elders are focused on the crafting in Enbesa, producing important goods such as lanterns or tapestries for their people.

Making the Savannah fertile

As hinted at during the announcement of Season 2, “Land of Lions” is revisiting a classic element from Anno 1404: making the land bloom via irrigation. Instead of using the Noria again, the trick to making things grow in Enbesa are rivers and irrigation canals. Rivers on islands have a limited number of river building slots, which you can use not only for some production buildings, but also as the starting point of a new canal. Whereas the land of Enbesa is often dry and infertile, tiles next to water will become green and fertile, allowing you to grow fields on them.

A land of culture and history

Beyond all the sandbox game elements mentioned above, “Land of Lions” is also offering a lot to any players who want a side of story with their city-building gameplay. This starts with the main storyline, which sees you enter the services of Emperor Ketema of Enbesa, who enlists you to construct his mighty new capital, Taborime. As with previous DLCs, the main storyline will introduce you to all the new gameplay elements in the DLC, while also giving you insights into the people of Enbesa.

Besides the traditional story, we are going a step beyond to deliver one of our most elaborate narrative experiences in an Anno game yet, which will give curious players ample opportunity to learn much more about Enbesa’s culture and history. To achieve this, we have created three unique story islands that will serve as quest hubs and may even pose some tough decisions for the player to make.

Old World? New Research!

When we released “The Passage”, we received a lot of feedback from players who said that while they loved the atmosphere and vibe of this frozen session, they wished that it had been more closely entwined with the Old World, and the rest of the game outside the arctic. When we set out to come up with ideas for “Land of Lions”, we knew that we wanted Enbesa to be more closely entwined with the rest of the game. Meet the Scholars!

The Scholars are a new late-game residential tier based in the Old World (but unlocked as part of the “Land of Lions” storyline in Enbesa). So, who is the Scholar? As stylish as he is gifted, he is representative of the well-educated international students coming to the Old World to work in the newly founded Research institute.

Which brings us to the Research Institute itself. Not only is this impressive new building our latest monument in the game (which means that it is being built in several lengthy stages), it also fits in well with our existing university, which served as the artistic touchstone for the Scholars and all related buildings. The Research Institute also serves to tackle several issues we have seen come up in your feedback since launch. For once, it allows you to research and subsequently craft almost every item in the game, giving you an endgame alternative to hoping to get lucky with rewards. It also allows you to use your research points to make “Major Discoveries”, which are powerful abilities such as moving a claypit across your island to another spot!

And that’s just the overview!

As you can see, we were not bluffing when we said that “Land of Lions” is the biggest DLC for Anno 1800, bringing with it not only a ton of new content, but also the much requested research feature many of you have been asking for. We look forward to revealing much more to you all over the coming blogs and weeks.

Until then, stay safe!

The Anno Team

Union Update – Land of Lions & postcard contest

We know a picture says more than a thousand words, so how many words does a video count as? Anyway, here you go, watch the brand-new Anno 1800 – “Land of Lions” teaser trailer!

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We’re excited to announce that Anno 1800’s biggest DLC yet will release on October 22nd, 2020 (a date which coincidentally has the checksum 9) on the Epic Store, the Ubisoft Store and on Steam.

“Land of Lions” will feature a completely new session, the land of Enbesa, with its own story, new population tiers, production chains and goods… but we don’t want to go into detail just yet!

Instead we’ll start… hmmm… let’s say: Monday!

Stay tuned for the first wave of information starting next week.

Winners of the Postcard Contest

In early September we asked you to send postcards from the world of Anno, showing off your cities and islands to create some vacation feelings. And we received a lot of amazing cards from places we’d love to go on vacation to! Naturally, making a decision was tough but after plenty of deliberation, we managed to decide on our 5 favourites. You should still check out the English and German forum threads for the other cards or look up the ones posted on Twitter with the #annoholidays hashtag.

Congratulations to Amoury.Montfort, Lethanii, NinoRoelofs, Wiwio (front and back side) and Sakrisch.EZ for winning a stylish Anno 1800 t-shirt!

We will contact all winners on the platform they’ve posted their postcard on, to get their contact details. So please keep an eye on your inbox!

Please be aware there might be delays later on with shipping due to the current world-wide Covid-19 situation.

An update for the Anno Union

After the update to the new Anno Union in June we received plenty of feedback from you as to which parts you’d like to see changed or added.

Today we not only want to say thank you for your constructive input, but are also happy to announce that an update was deployed this mornig with some great changes:

You can now switch between dark and light mode, as requested by several community members, by clicking the round button right next to the language selection.

We’ve also improved the language buttons, making it easier to see if you’re on the German or English version of the page. All non-German users should now also be directed to the English version of the Anno Union automatically. We hope this avoids future language confusion 🙂

From now on you will also find all trailers and streams listed in the new video page – of course including the new “Land of Lions” teaser trailer!

In addition to these features, some smaller changes were also implemented, for example, the front page has been optimized to require less scrolling to see all the content and the box to write a new comment is now right below the article – you won’t have to scroll to the end of the comment section anymore.

There are some more, minor improvements and we still have a few ideas what else we want to add and will keep you updated. In this regard we’re of course open to your feedback, so let us know if you have suggestions or ideas for the Anno Union!

Union Update: Community spotlight and postcard contest

Game Update 9 details

Due to the current circumstances, the annual gamescom video game convention was a purely digital event this year.
And while our streams from this digital gamescom were German only, no worries: You can also find all information about the features of the free Game Update 9 which will release alongside Land of Lions in October in this blog. You can of course also take a look at the VOD of the video by clicking here and we want to thank everyone who tuned in to the stream and shared their thoughts and questions.

 

Talking about livestreams: Currently we’re discussing the best format for exciting dev streams to introduce you to the land of Enbesa in Land of Lions in the next weeks.
But we’re also already thinking ahead for ways and new formats to keep our Twitch channel active in the time after that and provide you with not only entertainment but also insights into the world of Anno. For this, we’re also curious to hear from you what you’d like to see from us regarding streams and shows. So, share your thoughts on our Twitch channel in the comments below!

Anno 2070 update

As several attentive players have already noticed, we recently deployed a small update for Anno 2070 with the goal of fixing the issues with the autopatcher which previously resulted in an infinite restart loop for several players. Together with the removal of the Solidshield DRM a few weeks back, we hope this fix will help you continue to enjoy Anno 2070 and its Deep Ocean addon.

Community Spotlight

After an absolutely brilliant cross-stich art piece in the previous Community Spotlight, today we’re able to feature this stunning artwork of Hannah Goode by libby_sharp. Thank you for sharing it with us!

Clearly you’ll never get tired of sharing screenshots of your cities and islands with us – and we’re not complaining!

This time we have Cruse10’s park and gardens around their World’s Fair, Grieswurst’s atmospheric but also kinda sad industrial fires and CrzdHaloman’s self-sustaining mini-island:

Your questions about the Anno 1800 boardgame

The official Anno 1800 board game is set to release in October (in German, English release is planned for next year) and we know several of you are already excitedly waiting to get your hands on this offline version of Anno 1800. We want to give you the opportunity to ask your questions about the board game to its designer, Martin Wallace!

Just leave them in the comments below and we will select a few to forward to Martin Wallace. The replies will then be featured in a future Union Update.

Postcard contest

Doesn’t everyone love to receive some post cards from friends and family around the world? Or maybe YOU want to share some of the wonderful experiences you’re having during your time off.

Over on Twitter, Ruud adapted to the current slightly vacation-unfriendly situation and instead shared beautiful postcards from the world of Anno 1800, as you can see below.

With this as an inspiration, we’re now asking you to send us your postcards from Anno 1800 to advertise why people should definitely visit your city or island: Long sandy beaches? Vast parks and cultural buildings? Plenty of shopping and entertainment opportunities? Architectural marvels? Prepare your public mooring, clean the city’s streets and get ready for the tourist swarms!

 

To create your postcard, you have complete creative freedom and can – besides of course the screenshots of your islands – also use official artworks, assets and logos to let your magical vacation spot shine. Please do not use any images or assets you don’t have the rights for; the main part of your postcard should be screenshot(s) from your cities or islands.
Screenshots from modded savegames are allowed.

 

Use the hashtag #annoholidays on Twitter or head over to the forums and share the postcard in the dedicated thread.
Entry deadline is September 27th.

 

The team’s 5 favourite holiday destinations will each win a Anno 1800 t-shirt and will be featured in a future Union Update.
We’re looking forward to your mail!

DevBlog: Amusements Pack Cosmetic DLC

Hey Anno Community,

Today we want to take you a bit behind the scenes and magic of your very own future amusement park, which will open its doors next week thanks to the release of the eponymous “Amusements Pack” Cosmetic DLC.

Before we dive into the process of bringing these new ornaments to life, let us go far afield to talk about ornamentation and the concept of Cosmetic DLCs in general. One thing that makes the Anno community so special is that the games manage to attract many different types of players, who all manage to carve out enjoyable niches within the games’ plethora of systems to find what they are looking for. Traditionally, two of the most prominent tendencies within the community have been the min-max-ers who don’t mind their citizens living in abject squalor as long as they can manage to cram just a few thousand more onto an island to reach that next record- and then there are the self-styled “beauty builders” who use Anno games as interactive dioramas to realize their wildest modelmaking fantasies without too much worry about the efficiency of it all.

When coming up with ideas for our post-launch strategy and DLCs, we always have these different playstyles in mind, and try to think up with new content that will offer something for everyone. Both of our currently available Season 2 DLCs, “Seat of Power” and “Bright Harvest” are good examples of this philosophy, as they offer new gameplay mechanics for the economically-invested crowd, and add stunning new sights to the beauty builder’s toolbox.

The downside is of course that such fully featured DLCs will take several months to develop, which inevitably means that there are always some lulls between new Anno 1800 content coming out. This is where Cosmetic DLCs come in, as they allow us to deliver some new Anno 1800 content in-between the major DLCs. Where a DLC like Land of Lions takes months of work from a sizeable team, the Cosmetic DLCs will take a few artists a couple of weeks to design and implement. This also gives us the opportunity to create some strongly thematic content that may not appeal to everyone (for example, anyone who is not into Christmas themes id unlikely to enjoy the Holiday Pack).

This is also why we do not include the Cosmetic DLC Packs in the Season Passes, as we do not want to drive up the price with content that we know won’t appeal to a big part of the community (the min-max’ers). That is why we think that an à la carte approach is the best way to go with the cosmetic packs, allowing everyone to get exactly the content they want to see in their cities.

These were some of the considerations we had in mind when we came up with the Holiday Pack last December, which was the first such DLC for Anno 1800. Following its release, a few things quickly became clear from your feedback: 1) Anno players love more ornaments but would 2) prefer content that would feel right at home throughout the year, rather than just in the run-up to the Holidays. We also immediately received lots of feedback and long wishlists for future cosmetic packs (these lists were the origin of the agricultural and industrial ornaments that were added to the Bright Harvest DLC).

As a next step, we took this list of community ideas to our artists to see where they saw the potential for a nice themed pack of 15-25 ornaments (depending on their size and scope), and to check the feasibility. For example, we saw a lot of players asking for some form of harbor ornaments, and we actually did some technical tests to see what form these could take, but found the idea clashing with the general lack of harbor front building space.

In the end, the team came away with three topics that we could see making for visually interesting Cosmetic DLCs: a circus, general props for urban life, and the amusement park. With this list, we decided that it would be cool to give the Anno Union who has been so supportive of the game throughout its development the choice of which pack we should tackle next.

That’s why we launched our latest Anno Union vote in April, to give you all the deciding vote between the tentatively named “Bustling City Life, “Trip to the Big Top” and “A Day at the Amusements” DLCs. Of course, every one on the team had their own favorite they were rooting for, so rest assured that we kept close tabs on the voting, and every change at the top of the polls was immediately shared in various chats! In the end, the Amusements Pack took the day, with the slimmest of margins over the City Life Pack.

With that decision out of the way, our artists immediately got to work on ideas, starting with a series of quick concept scribbles. These sketches are intended to quickly produce a wide range of potential ideas, allowing the team to get a feeling for what things could look like inside the game.

When selecting which scribbles, we want to take to the next stage, we consider a few things:

  1. Player fantasy: What are things that players expect based on the chosen topic? For example, it was obvious from the start that the Amusements Pack should include a ferris wheel, so we even put it into the artwork for the vote.
  2. Variety: We want our Cosmetic DLCs to have a good mix between different sizes of ornaments, to give players flexibility in how they can use them. In general, we want to have 1-2 big showpieces (like the Holiday’s Pack’s merry-go-round), a few medium sized ornaments, and several versatile small ornaments you can use to fill any gaps between other buildings.
  3. General fit: Despite rumors of an alleged first-person mode, Anno is of course played from an isometric perspective. This is of course also something we need to keep in mind, as not everything that looks cool when standing before it in real-life will translate well into an isometric game perspective.

It was during this phase that the idea for a rollercoaster as the second centerpiece of the DLC alongside the ferris wheel first came about, with everyone loving the idea of having such a massive ornament (one of the biggest in Anno history).

Next come the first rough 3d models for the chosen concepts. While very rough around the edges and untextured, they give the team a good feeling for how well they fit into the game world, and alongside already existing buildings and ornaments (see #3 in the list above). Once an idea passes this final hurdle, it is in for good, and we can get to finishing and polishing to be ready for its grand debut in the game.

Of course, it would not be Anno if the world weren’t bustling with life, so of course the Cosmetic DLC packs also call for some customized feedback units. If you are unfamiliar with the term, “feedback unit” is our internal term for any kind of citizen walking around your city to give you visual feedback for how things are going (like the groups of tourists gathering around the rarest zoo exhibits). For example, our Christmas market from the Holiday Pack just would not have been the same if the man himself, Santa Claus, hadn’t been making an appearance in it!

Once all ornaments and their respective feedback units are finished, all that is left to do is to create the thumbnails for the construction menu to allow you to place these all over your burgeoning industrial empires, which is where our UI team comes in to help get the DLC over the finishing line. Speaking of the build menu, some of you may be curious about what exactly is included in the Amusements Pack? If so, look no further:

  1. Ferris Wheel
  2. Rollercoaster
  3. Ticket Booth
  4. Ice Cream Stand
  5. Cotton Candy Stand
  6. Tin Can Alley
  7. Shooting Game
  8. Food Stand
  9. Beverages Stand
  10. Strongman Game
  11. Face in Hole
  12. Barrel Organ Player
  13. Balloon Seller
  14. Portrait Painter
  15. “Welcome” Gate (with a second variation of it)
  16. Bar Table

And the best thing is that you won’t have to wait very long at all for your very own amusement park to open, as our second Cosmetic DLC will already be out on August 11, at 6pm CEST/ 12pm EDT/ PDT, for a price of 4,99€/$.

There is one last question to cover, and that is the “Bustling City Life” Pack, which put up a very brave effort in our Anno Union vote and came in an extremely close second. We have been receiving lots of questions about the possibility of doing this second pack as well ever since. The answer is that we would love to do so! Should the Amusements Pack prove to be as popular with players as we all hope, we would be very excited to do the City Life Pack for you all for release after Land of Lions, towards the end of the year, including a small pond with pedal boats to help your citizens cool down in the heat. For now, we cannot wait to see all our beautiful screenshots of the Amusements Pack next week!

Stay safe,

The Anno Team

Anno News & Community Spotlight

Time for another Union Update to keep you, dear community, up to date on what’s happening in the world of Anno!

Status of the Land of Lions Technical Test

The Technical Test for Game Update 9 and Land of Lions is still ongoing and will last till August 14th. In fact, we sent out another wave of invites yesterday, so make sure to check your inboxes and spam folders!

We’re extremely happy with the amount and quality of feedback we received so far and based on that our team is working hard on making your trip to the Land of Lions this autumn a memorable experience.

This also means that you will unfortunately have to wait till after the conclusion of the Technical Test until we’re able to share more details on Season 2’s last DLC and the improvements which are part of Game Update 9.

If you’re part of the Technical Test and haven’t shared your feedback with us yet, please join us on the dedicated forum.

Amusement parks opening soon

While Land of Lions is still a little further away, we can announce that the release of the “A Day at the Amusements” cosmetic DLC pack is drawing near. Stay tuned for more details to come soon, for now, we leave you with this little teaser:

Game Update 1.3 for the History Collection

Today we also want to give you an update on the situation regarding the Anno 1404 History Edition’s performance. When we first released the Anno History Collection a month ago, many of you reported less than satisfactory performance, which was sometimes much worse than in the original release. In addition, it was not possible to select DirectX 10 as your preferred API, instead being forced to use DirectX 9 (which also meant that some graphics options were not available).

The good news is that we have been busy investigating these issues since then and will be addressing them with the release of Anno 1404 History Edition Game Update 1.3 soon. First of all, DirectX 10 is working correctly again, meaning that you can enable the Transparency option in the game’s graphics options.

We have also made huge strides with game performance, and most users can expect the 1.3 performance to be on par with the original game. In many situations, you will find the History Edition to be exceeding the original game, sometimes by a significant margin. One area we have put a special focus on during our optimization work has been late game cities with more than 100k residents. And, as a welcome side effect of our work on Anno 1404 HE, we have also been able to apply some of the improvements to Anno 1701 HE, which is also receiving some (more modest) performance improvements with Game Update 1.3.

We are expecting to release Game Update 1.3, which is the last planned update for the time being, in August. Keep an eye out for the full release notes at the time.

Community Anno Afternoon with Anno 1404

Anno 1404 is also the candidate for next Friday’s Anno Afternoon livestream where we’re planning to dive into a community multiplayer match. More details, as usual, to follow next week.

Community Spotlight

Finally, it’s about time for another Community Spotlight where we share some of the creations and stories you posted across all our channels.

We’ll start with this amazing Anno-dragon artwork by FerudaFarstaria and Wolfi Hitory which was shared on the English Anno forums.

There are still new players regularly joining the Anno community and working on building their island empire. Luckily you, the awesome community, has worked on so many fantastic tutorials and guides helping new players learn the ropes and all the tricks they might need for a sprawling mega-city. We want to share two more recent ones here, but feel free to share your videos or written guides with us and we’ll happily feature them here in a future Union Update or on our social channels.

The first one is by perafilozof with a collection of 9 tips and tricks:

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The second video is by Takarazuka who besides his Let’s Plays has already created several other handy guides in the past:

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Finally, some impressions and stories shared by community members on the forums and on reddit:

Over on the forums SirQuestinghood has shared impressions from his city with us, always wrapped into a little story, like the opening of the Grand Central Station:

On reddit, ArtavaZzd shared a recreation of the palace of their home town:

And with the current summer heat, what better place to cool down than the Arctic, which offers romantic views like this one by Muesli_pmzjs:

If you’re an Anno veteran, why not jump into this discussion revolving around “I want to take a break from Anno 1800, which other Anno title would you recommend to play?”

 

 

*keep in mind that videos and screenshots from other players shown here or on the linked channels may contain mods which alter visuals or gameplay.

Technical Test start and an Anno Afternoon

The Technical Test has started!

The Technical Test for Land of Lions and Game Update 9 has started this morning and the first wave of invites have been sent out over the weekend.

If you have not received an e-mail yet, keep in mind we’ll be inviting several waves of testers over the coming weeks – just like last time. So keep an eye on your inbox!

For everyone participating in the test, please keep in mind the Technical Test is under an NDA, which means you’re not allowed to share any details, pictures or videos of the test except in the dedicated forum.

Therefore, please visit this dedicated forum and share your feedback there – and only there 😉

 

We know you’re all impatient for more news about Land of Lions to be prepared for its release in Autumn. And do not worry, after the conclusion of the Technical Test we will slowly start on the road to release.

Anno 1701 adventures in this week’s Anno Afternoon

This Friday it’s time for another Anno Afternoon. It’s Anno 1701’s turn now and Ubi-Thorlof – with very professional help from Ubi-Hanabi – will go on an adventure in the first Anno game created by Related Designs, the team you now know as Ubisoft Mainz!

If you want to offer help in building a functioning city or just want to chat with them and other community members then join on Friday 24th at 5PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

There’ll also again be an opportunity to win a key for the full Anno History Collection! 😉

Anno History Collection Game Updates

Last but not least, our team is currently working on another Update for the Anno History Collection. One of the points we’re investigating for this Update are the performance issues in Anno 1404 you reported to us.

An Anno Afternoon with Anno 1503

Anno Afternoon with Anno 1503

After taking a trip into the year 1602 last week, this week calls for adventures in 1503 – new islands want to be settled!
Ubi-Thorlof and Ubi-Trenchcoat are facing each other again in the multiplayer mode of the second game of the Anno series – and they’re bringing gifts! Like last week, you’ll have the chance to win a key for the complete Anno History Collection.

Tune in on Friday, July 10th, at 6PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Of course more streams for the remaining games of the History Collection are planned and we have a few ideas on how to spice things up a bit.

If you have feedback to past livestreams or suggestions for future ones – let us know! Are there “special guests” you’d like to see on the show or is there a specific format you wish to see, for example another stream where we’re looking at savegames from the community? Write it in the comments.

In other news…

And when we’re already talking about the History Editions: Our team us currently working on the second update for the Anno History Collection. We will soon share more details with you.

Finally, don’t forget we just announced the Technical Test for Land of Lions and Game Update 9. If you want to help us test the last big update of Season 2, sign up for the test!

History Edition updates and livestream

Hello dear Anno Community and welcome to the first Union Update on our shiny new website! We have several great news for you, so let's get started right away.

Welcome to the new Anno Union

Since Monday the now almost 3 years old Anno Union presents itself in a new, sleeker look. The new website provides several advantages like faster loading times, better optimisation for mobile devices and better support for more than just one game of the Anno series.

You might still see some issues with the layout here and there but we wanted to launch the website now to support the launch of the History Editions and get some feedback from you on the design.

Let us know and share your thoughts in the comments below the announcement.

Game Updates 1.1 for the History Editions

Talking about the History Editions: Thank you for your valuable feedback, your questions and the reports of a few issues with this re-release. Our team is currently investigating these reports and we can already announce a first patch for this week which will address several points on all 4 History Edition games like the language issue on the Steam version of the Anno 1404, the music problem when increasing the game speed in Anno 1503 and more.
We will have more details for you soon.

Currently still under investigation is for example the Anno 1404 History Edition using DirectX 9 instead of newer versions as well as other issues forwarded to us.

As with all Anno 1800 Game Updates before, you will be able to find all patch notes for the History Editions in the “Updates” section.

For the modders – a safe GUID range

As you know, we continue to being impressed and appreciate the work some our community members put into creating mods for Anno 1800. To make it a little bit easier for you when it comes to adjusting your mods to new Game Updates, we now reserved the GUID range 1337471142 to 2147483647 just for you. This range is “safe” and not used by us.

A nostalgic Anno Afternoon live stream

After a longer break, the Anno team is back with a History Edition live stream!
Ubi-Thorlof invites you to a slightly improvised Anno 1602 home office stream, joined by his colleagues Ubi-Hanabi and Ubi-Trenchcoat. To share your Anno 1602 stories and memories and get the chance to win a key for the complete Anno History Collection, tune in this Thursday at 6PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Bright Harvest, a board game and contest winners

Let the “Bright Harvest” begin

Last Tuesday, June 2, marked the release of the “Bright Harvest” DLC and Game Update 8!

Boost your agriculture by building silos and state-of-the-art tractors, and beautify your islands with additional farming and industrial ornaments. The farming revolution is already well underway!

Game Update 8 additionally provides you with a convenient item overview, bigger warehouses, the Great Eastern steamer and many smaller improvements and fixes which you can find here.

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Thanks to your feedback following the release, our team is currently working on Game Update 8.1 to address some of the concerns you voiced. We will have more info on it closer to its release around Mid-June.

 

Get ready for analogue Anno 1800

And another kind of announcement was made last week which we are extremely excited about: On Thursday Kosmos Spiele (whom you may be familiar with from games such as “Catan” and “Legends of Andor”) announced “Anno 1800: The Board Game”, releasing this autumn.

Famed game designer Martin Wallace, who has proven his industrial expertise with award-winning games such as “Age of Steam” and “Brass: Birmingham” will be handling this version of Anno 1800, which we are very excited about ourselves. Follow Kosmos’ Instagram channel for updates if you’re interested in developing your island and competing with friends or family around a table.

 

 

The “Seat of Power” Screenshot Contest

We also have some winners to announce! In late April we started the “Seat of Power” screenshot contest and asked you to share the most epic pictures of your palaces with us – and wow, we received a lot of stunning examples of our community’s creativity! From smaller coastal palaces to enormous inner-city complexes. From palaces with vast parks and flower beds over palaces with an integrated zoo or museum, broad triumph and parade streets and intricate hedge-mazes to dedicated courtyards for specific events and functions.

Understandably, we had a hard time deciding on the winners and want to thank all participants for sharing their creations with us.

Let’s then get to the winners who can look forward to some great gear from our friends at Corsair.

First place, a CORSAIR VOID Headset, CORSAIR IRONCLAW Wireless Mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad, goes to justVera.

This massive palace complex not only incorporates a Zoo, Museum and Botanical Garden, but does so in an extremely elegant way with plenty of green to separate the different modules and paths inviting for a stroll through the vast park. Directly connected to the World’s Fair on the other side of the park and a broad street and park leading to the palace from the harbour our team was deeply impressed by the amount of planning that went into the creation of it.

 

In second place, the lucky owner to be of a CORSAIR IRONCLAW mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad, comes ChrisX86!

We really liked the symmetry of his palace complex which at the same time still including variety like the hedge maze or differently styled flower beds and courtyards. While less green and more focused on mosaic and plaza tiles than others, the palace does not feel stuffed with decoration but provides plenty of space, offering a calm oasis with resting spots in a busy city.

 

In third place we have adam5909’s lake palace on Crown Falls which won him a CORSAIR HARPOON mouse and MM300 mousepad.

Far from the bustling, noisy city, this palace sits on Crown Falls’ large lake and offers a spectacular panorama thanks to the waterfalls in the distance. While smaller in size than some other palaces, plenty of parks, hedge mazes and other botanical arrangements make this a calm and quiet retreat for any ruler or magnate with a perfect view in all directions.

 

All winners will be contacted by us via direct message or forum PM so please keep an eye on your inbox!

Believe us, it was a tough choice to make and our team decided to add two honourable mentions for their different approaches to the topic of palace-building.

One is gntherfrank for his not only idyllically calm and green but also very realistically looking palace and garden. You can easily imagine coming across such a palace in real life, a retreat for a local count or duke while over the years the nearby city has grown closer and closer, slowly integrating the palace into the cityscape.

 

The other is Moppelkotze09 for the sheer insanity when it comes to the scale of the city design. While the palace itself is not as big as others, city and palace are directly interwoven in their design with the latter not only being at the centre of it all but also dividing the former into four districts. The amount of ornaments and parks built into this project impressed us so much that it indeed deserved an honourable mention.

 

Finally, again, a big thank you to everyone who sent us screenshots of their palace or posted them on the forums! We can’t wait to see what you manage to create with more ornaments and buildings of the following updates.

 

And now for some education with Fatherlorris

Last but not least we’re excited to share another comic strip by Fatherlorris of The Chapel with you.  Learn about Dr John Rae’s Arctic expedition and his discovery of the lost Franklin expedition: