Dear Miss Paloma Valente,

We are delighted to invite you to the first Grand Postal Derby. This special competition – organised and exclusively covered by the Daily Courier – promises to be the greatest competitive event in the history of humankind – surpassing even the 1806 Sausage-Making Championship.

Victory will require a dedication to deliveries, a mastery of mail-routes, and pre-eminent postal prowess! We at the Daily Courier have no doubt that your airships will thrill the public and provide stiff competition for even the slickest of mail delivery operations.

We eagerly await your arrival.
Yours sincerely,
The editorial board of the Daily Courier

Hard to pass up such an opportunity, wouldn’t you agree? – Obviously Paloma took this opportunity head-on. Both to prove the qualities of her new airship as well as cause the premise of a challenge built around stamps sounded just too intriguing.

Collecting stamps? Oh yes, since “Clash of Couriers” is sponsored by the Royal Philatelic Society, stamps will be at the center of the competition.
If you want to learn a bit more about Paloma, we have a neat little character introduction in our previous DevBlog.

You can get a quick overview of the scenario via the video below:

Getting Started

We know you’re eager to get right into the mail business, but let’s first survey the situation you’re starting in.

This time around, you’re given a starting island (Grassy Point) with a reasonable starting town – including a hangar and landing platform. While you will certainly have to expand this settlement over the course of the scenario as well as expand to new islands – to support your growing postal empire – this way you can almost immediately dive into the quests of the scenario.

You also start with an airship: The “Landroval”, Paloma’s flagship. This way you can quickly survey the map, find traders, islands to settle and whatever else there might be.

As with all our scenarios, expect some changes to the regular mechanics – especially when it comes to the needs of your residents. They’re less demanding than usual, meaning you can fully focus on the tasks ahead.

Mail & Stamps

At the center of the scenario and almost all its challenges is the distribution of mail. This works very similar to the mail system in the main game which we have talked about previously – with the difference, that there’s no “Overseas Mail”, and that “Regional Mail” (mail sent between two islands) has been renamed to “Airmail”. Additionally, fulfilling the mail need will result in you receiving stamps from the delivered mail: two types of stamps for two types of mail. While it can be sold to traders, you will certainly need it for the challenges to come, so we’d recommend holding on to them for a while longer.

Make sure to set up a functional mail system on your starting island, then it’s time to join the Grand Postal Derby!

Goals & Challenges

Alright then, let’s dive into the details of your scenario objective: How do you win the Grand Postal Derby?

Similar to any other type of tournament, you will proceed through several brackets, facing competitors in order to win the derby. Winning two out of three challenges in each bracket will promote you to the next one – but of course, the competitors in each subsequent group will also be significantly stronger.

You can freely pick any of the 3 competitors to challenge but be aware: Each challenge comes with its own tasks for you to fulfil (and a time limit).  These tasks will involve selling previously acquired stamps, and various other objectives like fulfilling needs to a certain percentage, finding people, increasing your population or decreasing your people’s happiness.

There are also individual debuffs connected to each of them. Because… your competitors might not always play fair. For example, the “New World Express” will simply switch around all your workforce requirements while another competitor reduces the bonuses you receive by providing your people with mail. There are more effects, of course – we’ve been very creative!

Throughout the competition, radio messages will comment on all events while remaining extremely professional in their coverage, of course.

The World & Discovery

What we haven’t touched on yet is the world all this is taking place in.

As usual, the scenario map is a specifically created world with its own rules and challenges. For example, only your starting island has some coastal area, all other islands are plateaus with steep cliffs.

That means, that you’ll have to settle them by air, adding an additional logistical challenge since you will need to resupply them by air from your main island with regular deliveries. To settle new islands, you first need an official island charter; you gain those by advancing in the competition, allowing you to slowly expand your postal empire across the whole session.

There also is lots to discover on the map and we heavily recommend you to explore! You will meet some familiar faces to trade or make business with. You will find treasures and previously lost mail shipments. And you may stumble upon some pirates! (Okay, maybe you should be a bit careful while exploring.)

Some of the people you meet might become relevant in quests later on while some of the objects you find may help you with certain tasks or improve your finances. Have a look around when you got some time in between the derby’s challenges.

Similar to the previous scenarios, there’s a certain element of persistency when you restart the scenario: If you have settled on some of the plateaus, the Airship Platform will stay when you decide to restart to, for example, go for higher medal.

Winning the scenario will not only make you and your airships world famous but also give you new skins for the Pegasus Class cargo airship!

And coming with Game Update 15, there’s another reason to play the new scenario…

The Grand Gallery

… introducing: The Grand Gallery!

In the Grand Gallery, you will be able to trade Golden Tickets for various ornaments, items and more. But wait, Golden Tickets?

This is the scenario connection we mentioned: Playing the scenarios and fulfilling certain scenario-related achievements will give you Golden Tickets. Anno 1404 veterans might remember such a mechanic: Back then you received Gems for certain achievements with which you could then unlock ornaments, portraits and more. For you, the Grand Gallery should feel very familiar.

All previous and upcoming scenarios will award you with Golden Tickets for:

• Finishing a scenario for the first time
• Finishing a scenario with a specific medal
• Completing any of the “badges”, special scenario-related achievements

And before you ask: We tracked your progress since Eden Burning, meaning you will already start with a certain number of Golden Tickets if you finished the scenarios and fulfilled some of their achievements prior to this update.

Completing a scenario multiple times will reward you with Golden Tickets each time based on your performance.

Let’s talk about what you can unlock with those Golden Tickets!

Currently there are four categories: Ornaments, Character Portraits, Skins and Items. That means, on September 20^th you will be able to get various kinds of ornaments related to Nate’s scrapyard or use the Paloma as your new portrait.  If you own DLC 11 or DLC 3, there are airship skins (for the for the Zephyr and Boreas Class) you can unlock, too.

And finally, we added a few items we think are popular with our players, for example the Fjordbuster MK VI. or the Gritty Gas Extractor.

All content is available account-wide, meaning it can be used in all your savegames simultaneously.

It’s also important to note that this feature is part of the Free Game Update, meaning you can receive Golden Tickets via the free “Eden Burning” scenario, even if you don’t own any of Season 4’s DLC (and therefore scenarios). We are planning to expand the Grand Gallery with more content in the future.

After unlocking something via Golden Tickets, how do you get access to your new content?

If you played Anno 2070 and loved having the Ark, you will like this: At any time during playing, you can call on Paloma to deliver your unlocked items to your island. She will always deliver all items you unlocked. And maybe this inspires you to start a fresh game: Construct your Trading Post and immediately get your unlocked items delivered for a quicker start!

These item deliveries are only available in singleplayer. Portraits, ornaments and ship skins are immediately unlocked for you, without Paloma’s help.

We hope you find this new feature useful.

That’s it for our DevBlog about the “Clash of Courier” scenario as well as the scenario system overall with the introduction of the Grand Gallery.

We’re not only curious what you think but also can’t wait for you to try your luck with winning the Grand Postal Derby yourself!

Until the release of DLC 11 on September 20^th, you can, as usual, expect the full Release Notes for Game Update 15 as well as details about the Twitch Drops event and early access phase. So, keep an eye on our channels!

Development of Anno 1800 – Season 4 is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action within the framework of computer games funding.

Hey Anno Community,

Welcome to the first DevBlog for DLC 11 – Empire of the Skies! Today we’ll be talking about the new airships: The design process, the new airship types and their balance, how to build them and which roles they fulfill in the game.

You can expect two more DevBlogs following this one: One will give you an overview over all of DLC 11’s features and go into a bit more detail on them – and the other will be dedicated to the new scenario, “Clash of Couriers”.

Let’s dive right in (or up!) and answer the one big question first: Why airships in the New World?

Well, Season 4 is all about the New World and its people, specifically: Their efforts and successes in developing new technologies and processes in all sectors – agriculture, technology and culture. And with air travel and airships in particular also being a big step in transportation in our world in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, it was a perfect fit for this year’s content for Anno 1800.

Creating new airships

Next, we want to dive a little bit into our workflows: What’s the process for creating an airship?

We’ll start directly at our Art Team: How did we approach designing new airships? First, historical references were used to get a feel for the look of designs from the “golden age of airships”. Based on this, our concept artist created a large number of scribbles of (sometimes wild) ideas, from traditional to very fictional designs – you might remember them from the Season 4 trailer. Two that actually made it into the game with some changes are the number 8 and 9 from the image below.

One important part was, that these new airships should be more modern, and therefore also look more sophisticated than the one you were able to build in the Arctic. To quote our Senior Artist Carsten:

“None of the designs are completely realistic, neither for the time nor in general, but they look like they could have been created during that period. Like the steam ships in the game, they had to be far smaller than they realistically would be, while still looking correct in size, compared to the buildings and the other vehicles. This compromise between hard realism and changes to make the assets look more epic or just more interesting for the good of the game is a common theme in the Anno asset creation.”

Below you can see two rough 3D tests for the look of the model. Our Art Team created a kit with many 3D elements and then built airships from it. This way they could get a feel for how the airships would look within the game world. It was especially important to have shape variety and clear distinction between smaller agile airships and the larger cargo models.

All this eventually led to the final model of the large cargo airship:

That’s the Art perspective, so let’s now talk Gameplay: What kind of airships can you expect and how do they behave?

An airship for every occasion

Alright, with a few points on the initial development of the airships established, let’s look at the results: The different airship types you will have available in-game.

In total, you will get access to five new airship classes, split in two categories: Rapid Airships and Cargo Airships.

Rapid Airships are, as their name suggests, significantly faster than the rest but only come with limited cargo space. Useful for urgent deliveries but not so much for big trade routes. There are two types of rapid airships, a small and a medium one. Both come in an unarmed and an armed variant – the latter making these types perfect for trade route raids or to protect your own islands from enemy airships.

Cargo Airships are your go-to vessels for trade routes. The three types (small, medium, large) are unarmed but are more useful when you want to carry out drop actions – more on that a bit later. They can also carry far more cargo – the large Zephyr Class (which you could admire at the beginning of the blog) has a total of 8 cargo slots!

Zephyr Class? – Yes, we’re paying tribute to several (mostly wind-related) mythological figures for the airship names.

For example, the Harpy Class is named after the half-human and half-bird creature from Greek mythology. The Hermes Class is named after the ancient god of travellers and merchants. And the already mentioned Zephyr Class is named after the Greek god of the west wind.

Now, we have seen some comments on questions on the usefulness of the existing airship from the The Passage DLC and how it’s going to be handled now that new types are introduced.

Generally speaking, the “old” airship is still useful and falls somewhere in between the small and medium cargo airships in terms of speed and cargo capacity. You will also be able to use both the Arctic Gas as well as the new Helium for airship construction (including the new airships). The Arctic Gas gives your airships a speed boost, but on the other hand results a higher cargo slowdown and in it taking more damage when attacked.

Additionally, you will find a few new items that use Arctic Gas beyond the previous requirements of electricity and airship construction.

Also, on the note of the airship from “The Passage” (now called the Boreas Class): We have slightly resized the old airship to 90% to its former size to make it fit in better with the new airships. Just in case you wonder if your airship looks different 😉

On the topic of balancing, we also want to talk about speed.

The new airships are impacted by wind, but thanks to their engines not quite as much as your regular sailing ships – but more than steam ships. The Boreas Class receives the strongest penalty and all new airships get a speed boost when going WITH the wind. Especially the “Rapid Airships” will be true to their name!

Of Hangars and Helium

As established, the airships of “Empire of the Skies” are more modern than the one you were able to construct with “The Passage”. Therefore, the production is slightly more elaborate and requires more advanced materials.

First, however, you’ll need a hangar. It’s constructed in multiple phases and can be built in the New World and the Old World, with the OW variant being a little bit more expensive. It’s worth keeping in mind that the new construction materials can only be produced in the New World, requiring you to transport them to the other region if you want to make use of this option.

Which construction materials? Well… first, there is aluminium, the basis for not only the new airship types but also several of the new production buildings. For this purpose, we introduced new Bauxite mine slots in the New World. An Aluminium Smelter then creates the finished product with Bauxite and Coal.

Next is Helium: A new and significantly safer gas than the one you have extracted in the Artic. It can’t be used in Gas Powerplants but only for airships and has its own new mine slot.

Add some sail cloth, steam machines and (if required) some cannons and you’re ready to build your first modern airship!

Airships and Combat

Now it’s time for action, since we’re introducing a big change: Airships can now be damaged and shot down. For owners of The Passage this is new, since previously, airship routes had the big advantages of being safe even in times of war.

We have already mentioned that the Rapid Airships are equipped with cannons. These can be used to attack your opponent’s airships, protect your islands from enemy raids or cover your larger cargo airships – but they are unable to attack ground targets.

Further means to combat enemy airships are the new Flak Emplacements for your harbour as well as the Flak Monitor ship, giving you multiple options to counter the new potential threat from the air.

Finally, you can use any of your airships for drop actions, allowing you to sabotage your opponent from the air and aid your fleet in island sieges. Read on for more details.

Putting airships to good use

Let’s get to the last part of today’s DevBlog: How to use the new airships in your game and which new features we’re introducing with DLC 11.

Of course, you can use them – as before – like regular trade vessels, delivering cargo to your islands via trade routes. Plus, you can now also use them to raid your opponents’ airship trade routes when using one of the armed variants.

There is more, though: Airships are needed for a new feature that fulfills new needs and provides additional buffs – mail! At the centre of all this, however, is the Landing Platform that first has to be constructed. It acts as a regular warehouse, but also has 3 modules that allow you to make use of the mail feature, which requires a new Airship Route to be set-up. We will expand on both these topics as well as the use of the other two modules in our next DevBlog.

Another use of airships is the new drop feature we briefly mentioned earlier.

This allows you to load certain drop goods on your airships that can be dropped via a new interface on both your own as well as your competitors’ islands. These goods will first need to be produced in their dedicated factory and then allow you to:

• Drop sea mines on your competitor’s trade routes,
• Fight large fires by dropping water from the air,
• Cause damage by bombing your opponents’ harbours during war,
• Create unrest with well-aimed propaganda drops,
• Or raise the mood of people by dropping care packages.

You will learn more about the feature and the production of the drop goods in our next DevBlog – we’re sure you still have more questions.

There’s one more thing, of course, that we promised in our livestream last week: The release date!

“Empire of the Skies” will release on Tuesday, September 20th. That’s slightly later than we originally planned, but we wanted to have a bit more time for polishing and testing for this DLC.

And while this blog was focused on the airships, in the upcoming articles until release you will get many more details on the remaining features of “Empire of the Skies” – some of which we only briefly touched on today. For example, the exact functioning of the drop system and all its possibilities, the mail system and remaining features of the landing platform, and finally also the free Game Update.

So, stay tuned for the next DevBlog!

In the meantime, we’d be happy to see your comments on the new airships below. Do you have any questions that weren’t answered in today’s blog? Let us know!

Development of Anno 1800 – Season 4 is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action within the framework of computer games funding.