The livestream starts today at 10:30 EST on our Twitch-page.
You can also let Twitch remind you of the Stream start, by clicking “Remind me” on the Event-site.
Alternatively, you can also follow the Stream here on our blog. After the Stream, we will replace the Stream with the VOD.
After reading through dozens of creative, smart, surprising and sometimes funny expedition events, we are ready to open the next Anno Union vote!
However, before we present our final entries, a few words about the amazing work of everyone who participated. Once again, we had a tough time making the final decision which events should make it into the voting. Some stories amazed us with their incredible love for detail while others impressed us with their visual design and representation.
At the end, we had many favorites, so our narrative and design team had to come together to make a tough call: deciding for the finalists for the community vote. Decisions were made based on the general idea, flair and design of the event, while we also had to take into account if the entry would fit into the game and whether they would make a great addition to the existing roster of expedition events.
Therefore, without further ado, here are the final entries:
Argurino: “Darwin Expedition” or “The Voyage of the Beagle”
Follow the footstep of great scientific adventurers like Charles Darwin, on a curious hunt for mother earth’s last great secrets. In a seemingly unknown and wild archipelago, will your discoveries cause furor among fellow scientists back home or will your curiosity take its toll among your comrades? If you want to change the world, you have to be willing to take all risks necessary.
Editor’s note: As Anno is merely inspired by history, but does not use actual personalities, we renamed the event to “The voyage of the Beagle” to keep the reference to Charles Darwin.
Our team thinks:
“Interesting to have the crew face the different dangers related to the exploration of a tropical island in a single event. Moreover, it is related to a real life discovery.” – Marie Rouzié, Narrative Designer
Hexagon19: “Isla de los Muertos”
A tale of old legends and auspicious treasures. This event leads your crew to a mysterious island, haunted by the ghostly remains of the last unlucky soldiers of fortune who tried to unravel the island’s mystery. Are you brave enough to press forward into the depths of an old pirate cave and will you be able to reap the riches and to uncover the truth about the “Isla de los Muertos”?
Our team thinks:
“This one convinced me as Hexagon19 clearly understood the Expedition system and how it works which evidently shown in the structure. It’s a “classical” pirate story and reminds me of Treasure Island.” – Sebastian Knietzsch, Senior Game Designer
Hojny87: “The forgotten civilization.”
With great power comes great responsibility. In an age of exploration, where the old world taps into the last unknown corners of the world, you brought something with you that might decide the fate of a once untouched paradise. A dramatic event with high stakes where your actions will decide the destiny of an old civilization.
Our team thinks:
“Great idea to have the event starting with a disease carried by the local population, probably caused by the crew spending time with them. This feels really different from other events we have already created and provides an interesting look at a very real problem: discovering new cultures at the risk of endangering them.” – Marie Rouzié, Narrative Designer
The voting will be open until January 2nd, giving you ample opportunity to cast your vote in favor of your preferred expedition proposal.
We say thank you to all members of the Anno Union who participated in the contest. While we had to decide on three final entries based on a variety of factors, including how they would fit into the existing game, we are proud that there is so much creative power in our Anno community.
And before we go, a small reminder for all Admirals out there: save the date for the upcoming AnnoCast this Thursday at 4.30pm CET, if you want more details and answers to your questions on our Naval combat system – twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
We hope that you like our brief look into the new naval combat feature in Anno 1800. Please be aware that the content shown is from the latest development version of the game and as we are still in Alpha state, it does not represent the quality of the final product.
The feature, as demonstrated in the video, was not part of the Technical Test version and was fully captured in-game. We are still working with full force to bring you a great Anno 1800 experience at launch and therefore, there will be more updates and Devblogs to look forward to until February 26th.
To give you a direct follow up on that matter, we will provide further insides on Anno 1800’s naval combat and answers to some of your questions in the next episode of our AnnoCast livestream, going live next week Thursday, December 13th at 4.30pm CET on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
We are looking forward to your feedback and questions in the comment section below.
Our big Technical Test of Anno 1800 has concluded, so today we want to give you a brief production update on how the test will help us in the final months of development leading up to our launch on February 26th.
First things first: We want to thank all members of the Anno Union who participated in the test.
Once again, you demonstrated that getting you in as early as possible on the game’s development was the right call, with thousands of comments providing constructive feedback and reports during the Technical Test week.
While we will be busy checking all your comments to filter out actionable feedback, what were the biggest takeaways for us? And how will they help us to improve the game?
A first brief look at our learnings
Besides reporting bugs, balancing was a very important topic for Anno veterans out there. Ranging from the “vicious Schnapps cycle” to fierce discussions about how demanding production chains should be in a classic Anno title, your voices will help us to find the right balancing for the game. Our vision is that Anno 1800 will be a callback to old classics such as 1404, offering great complexity and replayability while also allowing a satisfying first experience for players new to the series.
The new workforce feature was also a welcome change for most players, as it offers many new intricate ways to play around with Anno 1800’s mechanics. However, as the content was limited to Tier 3, players spent a lot of time playing the same game loop again, settling and expanding their empire to various islands without being able to transfer their workforce. To shed some light on that matter, workforce transfer will be available via the commuter harbor, which becomes available with Tier 4 (the Engineers).
In the full game, we expect players will likely advance to tier 4 earlier, instead of heavily expanding during tier 3. In order to get more quality feedback across the entire gameplay loop (including the late-game portion of Anno 1800), we will continue to make use of our focus tester program.
So what’s next for the development of Anno 1800?
As mentioned, we have received a ton of feedback, so these are just a few examples. But there are still new things to look forward even for our stalwart testers who played Anno 1800 during our Technical Test.
What could those things be? Well, how about our naval combat system- which we will unveil and explain in our next DevBlog towards the end of this week! We are very much looking forward to giving you an exclusive first look at our new naval and siege combat.
With that said, please keep in mind that the NDA for the test is still active, so please refrain from making any comments about the content of the Technical Tests in the comments.
Hi, my name is Andrea, and I’m the Game Designer for Anno 1800’s Diplomacy feature. I’m pretty new to the Anno team, as I only joined in January of this year. Since I grew up with Anno, starting with Anno 1602 when it came out, I am still super thrilled to now work on this series myself! How cool is that?
I love city builders and management games, and adventures in the broadest sense. Recently I played They Are Billions, Project Highrise, The Red Strings Club and Deltarune.
The 19th century – a century of back-room politics
Creating a metropolis from rags to riches is one thing, doing that while competing with other characters over territories is where the Anno series stands out. During your journey through the world of Anno’s depiction of a 19th century, you will meet many different ambitious or even ambiguous personalities. It is up to you if you approach them as an opportunist seeking a profitable trading alliance or as a ruthless warmonger trying to dominate the other factions.
To breathe life into the world of Anno 1800, every single character not only has a standing with the player character, but also with each other, ranging from love triangles to hate relationships.
Every non-player character populating your island world has its own unique personality traits, and our diplomacy system allows you to interact with them in various ways: from forging alliances to raging relentless war campaigns.
How will the world remember you? – Anno 1800’s reputation system
The motor of our system is fueled by reputation, which represents your standing among the various second party characters as well as Anno’s ruthless pirates. Neutral factions are an exception as they are not in an active competition with the player and therefore are not part of the diplomacy system.
But more than just a rating for the players standing, reputation also takes the relationship between the non-player characters into account. The rating itself is in constant flux, as war driven actions of one character will constantly affect the opinion and therefore the reputation with another second party who dreams of a peaceful economic utopia. The longer the game goes, the more likely it is both characters will break their treaties, and even start their own personal war against each other.
Reputation is also the deciding factor for any diplomatic action in the game, which allow you to negotiate different treaties with the second party characters or pirates.
Here a quick look on our Anno 1800 diplomacy window.
Raging war or forming alliances – Treaties
There are four different treaties in Anno 1800. The success of signing a treaty depends on the reputation between characters as well as on their personality. A leery character might be way more open in engaging in a trading agreement than a selfish baron. Let’s have a look:
“Alliance” – Allies will protect your ships and harbors when under attack. When you declare war on somebody, your allies will follow you into war. Forging an alliance usually requires a high reputation between the involved parties.
“Trade Rights” – Easier to achieve as an alliance, this treaty allows you to trade goods with the involved party.
“Peace” – A peace treaty ensures that both parties are not engaging in any combat actions against each other. The treaty is effective until one of the two factions breaks the peace condition, namely by declaring war.
“War” – When declaring war on a party, your ships can attack all vessels of the other party. Any trading relationships cease with immediate actions, and other parties who might be in an alliance with your now declared enemy might also support the war effort of their ally. So you better check twice who might be your enemies!
In addition, there are pacts in the game which are agreed on only for a limited amount of time. While such a temporary pact is effective, both parties are unable to declare war on each other. This pact cannot be broken by either of the parties before time runs out. This is very helpful when you know that for the next minutes a surprise war declaration of that double-minded brute Alonso would ruin your day.
Family ties and popularity contests – Diplomatic negotiations
The likeliness of negotiations being successful is determined by the reputation rating. Naturally, it is in the interest of the player to change the standing with a character to have a higher chance for negotiations to result in the desired trade agreement or even an alliance.
The other party might just agree, or just say no. As a third option, the other party might request money in addition to the new treaty. This depends on the other character’s traits and his or her own “point of accepting” this treaty.
Depending on the character themselves, they might also ask *you* for a treaty instead. This will of course only happen with friendly characters that want to make progress through this treaty – or who only want to protect themselves via a Non-Aggression Pact for example.
For all decisions, depending on it being a military or an economic issue, the diplomacy parties will consider how much stronger or weaker they are than you. Friendly and easy characters will not deeply care how much wealthier they are than you when thinking about accepting trade rights. Strong and stern characters on the other hand will carefully think about a request for peace, and only accept it if they are way inferior to you.
Changing your reputation – Diplomatic actions
So how do you influence the other parties’ reputation towards you? There are four direct ways:
Apart from these direct actions, there are also some several passive, let’s say “hidden” actions. That’s also why we are not going to spoil too many examples here…
Artur Gasparov, the visionary architect, will love the effort you put into an impressive museum. On the other hand, his standing to you will sink if you build a lot of factories – pollution is a gross and detestable thing for Artur.
As a visionary architect, Gasparov is not really a fan of your unsightly factories!
Alonso, the war-hungry maniac, will grow to like you more when you start a war with another party. And Beryl O’Mara, the lady of organized crime, will not like it if you declare war on her underling Willie Wibblesock.
“You want to declare war on my dear Willie? NOT WITH ME!” In Anno 1800, different characters have various relationships or even feuds linked to their backstory.
What kind of diplomat are you in the Anno games? Do you want to be friends and allies with everybody, or with just the ones you like the most? Or are you excited for the challenge of war and want to fight everyone? Tell us in the comments!
Brace for the Anno 1800 Technical Test
As previously alluded to, we are currently preparing a much larger Technical Test than our previous Diary Studies. And if you are be one of the chosen many, you won’t have to wait much longer, as this test will take place end of November!
A few things to keep in mind:
– It’s a Technical Test: You should expect that some things in the game will (and sometimes even should!) break. This test is intended to give us valuable insights into topics like balance and game performance. It won’t be representative of the final polished game you will be able to enjoy next year (and which will be even better thanks to all of you helping us with this test).
– NDA: Should you be selected to participate in the Technical Test, you will have to agree to a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). That means that you are not allowed to talk about the game outside our special Technical Test forums, and you are not allowed to post any pictures, videos or to stream the game. We appreciate that you are excited to play the game and to share your experience with others, but given that this is a Technical Test where we know things will break, this is not the time to do so.
– The Technical Test won’t include the entire game. Players will be limited to Citizen Tiers 1-3, and the Campaign won’t be playable.
We will send out invites to Union members a few days prior to the Test’s start, so keep an eye out to see if you are among the chosen ones. We look forward to seeing many of you in the game, and are thankful for your help in making sure Anno 1800 will be the best possible experience for all Anno fans when it ships on February 26th.
Update:
Registration
As we are seeing a lot of questions around the registration process for the Technical Test: Anyone who has registered here on the Anno Union using their Uplay-Account has a chance to be invited. You can do so here: https://www.anno-union.com/en/register/
This is also true for new registrations. So if you haven’t registered for testing yet- now would be an excellent time to do so 🙂
System Requirements for the Technical Test
We have also been asked a lot about the system requirements for the Technical Test. So here is what we recommend for participating in the test:
Current Minimum Specs:
CPU: Intel i5 3470 or AMD FX 6350
RAM: 8 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 670 GTX or AMD Radeon R9 285
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (all 64-bit)
Hard Drive: 46 GB
Current Recommended Specs:
CPU: Intel i5 4690k or AMD Ryzen 5 1400
RAM: 8 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 970 GTX or AMD Radeon RX 480
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (all 64-bit)
Hard Drive: 46 GB
DISCLAIMER: THERE ARE NOT THE FINAL REQUIREMENTS! As Anno 1800 is still in the middle of development and performance optimization, you should not consider these specs to be representative of the final game. This test specifically should help us to find some areas where we can further improve the game’s performance.
Language
We are also in the middle of game localization, which means that the Technical Test will unfortunately only be available in English. Once Anno 1800 launches next year, you will be able to lead the industrial Revolution in the following languages:
Fully localized text and audio: English, French, German, Russian
Fully localized text: Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Chinese (simplified and traditional)
Has it really only been a week since last week’s Union Update? Time sure flies when you are as busy as we are. The final months of game development can be an exhilarating roller-coaster ride, but there is something quite magical about seeing the different strands of your game finally all coming together. And believe us, with a game as feature-rich as Anno 1800, that means a lot of strands to work with!
Between the actual development and the travel that is often necessary for various team members in the lead up to a big release, we unfortunately sometimes have less time to bring you new insights on the Union (though we have a feeling that you agree that we should first focus on finishing the game).
To cut to the chase – we will not have a new DevBlog for you all this week. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming next week with a look at Diplomacy in Anno 1800.
Community Spotlight
This week, we want to put the spotlight on the Facebook Group “Anno Polonia“, a polish-speaking Community:
Hej Annoholicy z Polski,
Znacie język polski i checie poznać innych fanów Anno z waszego kraju? Sprawdźcie Anno Polonia na Facebooku! Jest to nowa, ciągle rosnąca grupa, dzięki której będziecie nie tylko na bieżąco z Anno-News, ale również będziecie mieli szansę porozmawiać z innymi fanami Anno.
Stream Highlights
However, as we do not want to leave you completely devoid of any Anno-tainment this week, you can relive your favorite memories from last week’s AnnoCast 6 with us:
The livestream starts today at 10:30 EST on our Twitch-page.
You can also let Twitch remind you of the Stream start, by clicking “Remind me” on the Event-site.
Alternatively, you can also follow the Stream here on our blog. After the Stream, we will replace the Stream with the VOD.
For centuries, pirates acted as privateers for aristocratic powers; henchmen that were often handsomely rewarded in blood money for their merciless deeds. But in the wake of the industrial revolution, the influence of the noble families was slowly dwindling and all of a sudden, stability was a much healthier and more sustainable motor for the modern economy than the disruption caused by constant fighting over trading routes.
The once-predators of the high sea became the hunted, and over the course of a few decades their centuries long legacy became mostly relegated to bedtime stories in romanticized novels.
The age of piracy was over, but the pirates of Anno 1800 won’t fade without a fight.
Overrun, but never outdone
Pirates have always been an important part of the Anno experience and even though the 19th century was the dawn of a new age, buccaneers will still populate your sessions to pester your and the other AI character’s trading ambitions. But more than just a serious threat for your fleets, Anno 1800’s pirates are real characters with their own flair, background and even their own ambitions.
As they are a part of our diplomacy system, they offer more game interaction than just simple combat. Even pirates have their own code of honor, but forming a fragile alliance with the outlaws won’t be easy to achieve. If you are willing to pay the price, they might allow you safe voyage through their territory, but keep in mind that they will remember how you treated them in previous encounters.
At the same time, they are cunning business people, and always have to find a new buyer for their illicit goods. If you visit their islands on good terms, they will not only offer their goods and items but are also happy to sell you some of their previously captured ships – including some real rarities you won’t be able to build in your shipyards.
Anne Harlow – The Banshee of the Old World
Young Anne’s future was paved in gold as her noble lineage guaranteed her a place among the powerful families of the Old World. But fate can be as cruel as it can be generous, even to those living in the ivory tower. Overnight Anne’s once prosperous future fell into ruin as a mad aristocrat convicted her father of treason.
And so, Anne Harlow became a fallen angel roaming the seas to seek vengeance for her family.
With the determination of an avenging banshee, she gathered a following of seasoned buccaneers, willing to follow her to the end of the world.
Anne and her fleet still haunts the waters of the old world, and while her fierce nature won’t make it easy to forge a peace agreement with her, it also makes her somewhat predictable. Once thing, however, is certain: she won’t quietly fade in history before taking bloody revenge on the nobles who ruined her family’s honor.
Jean La Fortune – The Wolf of the New World
It is one thing to fight for yourself, but another to you put your life on the line for someone else. Jean’s story is not so much a personal tragedy as a passionate dream of independence and freedom. And for that, he is willing to take on anyone and everyone to fulfill this dream. But it is not easy to life the life of an outlaw, especially if your dream puts the life of your family on the line.
When sailing under the black flag, his mind is always with his beloved wife and kids at home, well knowing that every battle could be the end for him as he takes the fight time and time again to a crumbling oppressive empire. As a man with strong convictions and principles, Jean is less aggressive than the vengeful Anne, though you may find him much harder to predict.
Where we will, we’ll roam
Are you looking forward to some good ol’ swashbuckling with pesky pirate fleets? Who were your favorite pirate antagonist in previous Anno games? We are looking forward to your Anno pirate stories and of course, your feedback on Anne and Jean who raise the black flag in a time where the old legends were slowly fading.
We are sorry for last week’s interruption; we found the culprit and made sure that he is under custody for his disruptive behavior, at least for the time being. We will ensure that we keep a close eye on him in the future, but we have a bad feeling that we have not seen the last of our dear friend, the Acolyte.
With only two months until the end of the year and four months up to launch, what is going on in the world of Anno 1800 and the Union?
As mentioned in a previous blog, game production is keeping our team very busy right now. We are currently working on our big Beta milestone, which means that by January, the game will officially reach Beta state, with all game elements and content fully playable. During this busy time, we are working on many aspects of the game, from polishing up buildings, balancing quests and checking thousands of voice lines to be recorded in a variety of languages:
We are also oiling the cannons and waxing the planks in order to bring you an exciting and insightful naval warfare blog before the end of the year. To get you in the right mood for your tense naval battles, this week’s DevBlog will shine a light on the pirates of Anno 1800, who cling on to tales and legends from a time long gone. They say the age of piracy, but their last stand is yet to come…
We are also busy laying the groundwork for our previously announced large-scale technical test with many more Union members (sign up!) and reviewing your contributions to the Expeditions contest.
The next episode of our AnnoCast is on the horizon!
The AnnoCast will make its (hopefully much anticipated) return next week Thursday, November 8. We heard many of you say that you want to see some proper gameplay and therefore decided to settle on a new island to show you the Farmer and Worker lifestyle. Let us see how far we ca get during our stream! As always, we are happy to answer questions both from the chat as well as from the Union, so leave us anything you want to see answered in the comments!
Save the date and join us next week Thursday, 8th of November for the next episode of our AnnoCast show on: twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
Let’s wrap up this week’s community update with another Community Q&A:
Fightfor3dom
Will you be able to enable/disable the pirates or set a game difficulty for a pirate difficulty? Or will it be just another enemy? Which city incidents will happen on the three different difficulty levels?
Answer: Second-Party characters all have their own difficulty rating, which in many ways reflects their personality and behavior. As third parties don’t directly compete with the player in military or economic warfare, they won’t affect the difficulty of your session. However, pirates are an exception, as they work actively against the player and even other AI. You will be able to choose the pirate characters for your session or even exclude the pirate characters from your match. For now, the two pirates have a set difficulty although both characters have different personalities and therefore, react differently on your actions.
When it comes to city incidents, fire, strikes and illness will haunt your metropolis while their frequency is based on the difficulty setting of your match. We will show you that system in detail in a future DevBlog, as especially strikes are an exciting new feature in Anno 1800.
kuskram
I like that you have so many options to create your custom session. I am also happy to see that the random generator in combination with the seed codes makes a comeback. But there is one question for me: in vein of older titles such as 1701, will the game have a world editor which allows us to place our own islands, fertilities, resources or starting position?
Answer: We focus on the core features on the game, as we want to deliver true quality for old and new fans of the series. Therefore, there are currently no plans to develop a World Editor for Anno 1800. replayability is one of our top priorities, the game will release with over 50 handcrafted islands, and many of them come additionally with their own island variations.
mige0410
Where are the female characters in the old world – or will I be forced to only deal with men as long as I manage to escape to the New World in order to meet the female cast?
Answer: The world of Anno 1800 will be populated by a diverse cast of characters, among them Women and Men with their own special personality, which will mirror in their behavior when building cities or their reactions in our diplomacy system. You will also be able to choose your own player portrait, where you can decide, among other things, to choose a female or male portrait.
AyroV
Will we be able to set the map small/medium if we want to play multiplayer with multiple people? Anno 1404 does not allow us to choose map size accept huge when we try to play with 4 players.
Answer: Yes, you will be able to play on small maps with 4 players or non-player characters. But beware, on a small and densely populated map, there will be a lot of competition about the control of the more precious resources if players want to reach the fifth residential tier.
dAprillion
I like it when I have 2-4 options (easy, med?, hard, insane?) with useful defaults for the main mission?
Answer: You won’t need to dive into the custom match settings and can also choose one of the three pre-defined difficulty options:
Normal Mode: Will provide you a large world and island space, rich mineral deposits, challenging but not too hard opponents and free relocation and full construction refunds.
Advanced: Less money, harder opponents and an average world and island size. Many smaller options such as relocation of buildings won’t be free anymore.
Expert: This one will get you on your toes, only a few coins in your pocket while fighting for every single yard against the most cruel and efficient enemies on small and everything else than fertile islands.
