Category: Cosmetic DLC

Union Update: “Industrial Zone” Pack CDLC teaser and more

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hey Anno community,

Now that we reached early June, we think it’s a good opportunity to update you on a few things Anno: The two remaining Cosmetic and DLC 11.

Cosmetic DLC 8

As revealed in May, Cosmetic DLC 8 is called the “Industrial Zone Pack” and will release at the end of this month – more precisely: June 28th!

True to its name, you can expect ornaments focusing on construction and industry, the dirtier but nevertheless necessary parts of a city. The CDLC is split into two themes, the first is construction and adding things like scaffolding ornaments.

The second is focusing on your railroad system, one of the lifelines for any advanced city in Anno 1800. Fans of miniature railroads will certainly enjoy beautifying their islands with ornaments like a railway guard hut with its own little platform.

 

As usual, you can expect more details and a DevBlog with further insights and the full list of all ornaments in the coming weeks.

Cosmetic DLC 9

About a month ago, the community vote for this year’s third Cosmetic DLC was in full swing and in the end, it was the “Old Town Pack” that won the race. Going by the comments (and you left a lot of them), there’s also quite a bit of nostalgia connected to the theme of the CDLC.

After the end of the vote, our Art team started exploring the topic, incorporating both their own ideas as well as the feedback we received from our community. It is still a bit too early to talk about details, but we should have a first glimpse for you in July regarding what you can expect for this Cosmetic DLC.

DLC: Empire of the Skies

Lastly, there’s of course DLC 11 – Empire of the Skies.

The release of the second DLC of Season 4 is still further in the future (late summer) and will then allow you not only to expand your trading and war fleet with new airship variants but also profit from the advantages of the new mail system as well as other features to make your New World as well as your empire overall grow closer together.

Right now, we’re still in the production phase of the DLC, meaning assets are still being worked on, features (like the behaviour of the new airships) are finalized, and UI elements created. Soon, we will enter the polishing and fixing phase during which we can show you some first teasers of the new content – so keep an eye on our social channels!

Goodbye, Marcel

So much for the news on the upcoming content, however, there’s also a change in the team we want to inform you about:

At the end of June, we’re saying “goodbye for now” to one of our Anno veterans, our dear Senior International Brand Manager Marcel Hatam – also known as Com_Raven. Having joined in 2017 during the early production of Anno 1800, he has since steered the Anno ship on the Brand side successfully through the game’s release and till now 4 years of post-launch content.

You could also see him in many of our live streams and trailers – most famously playing the role of the architect in the “The High Life” trailer (however, we can confirm he’s not starting an acting career).

“One last time: Hey Anno Community! When I bought 1602 24 years ago, I would not have dared dream that I could one day help to develop a new Anno game myself. I am eternally grateful for the past 5 years, and proud how all of us together – you in the community and us on the Anno-Team – made 1800 not only the most successful, but also the best Anno ever. I know this incredibly talented team has a very bright future ahead, and I cannot wait to cheer them on as a fan myself.”

– Marcel

And while Marcel is sailing towards new adventures, his brand-sceptre has been handed to Lisa, our Junior International Product Manager, who you surely already know from previous live streams. 

Please give him a round of applause for his role in making Anno 1800 the success it is! We wish him all the best for his surely magical new adventures. 

Union Update: CDLC Vote Winner, Game Update 14.2 and Community Spotlight

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hello Anno Community,

The voting has just ended, and it is time for us to reveal the winner of the Cosmetic DLC Community Vote! Furthermore, we will take this opportunity to speak about Game Update 14.2 and share our favourite screenshots in the Community Spotlight.

Cosmetic DLC Community Vote: The winner!

And the winner is…

[drumroll]

The Old Town Pack!

It became quite obvious since day one of the vote that this was going to be the Community’s choice for the third Cosmetic DLC of 2022. A great choice, Anno Community! The Old Town Pack will be released in autumn of this year, as the third and last CDLC of 2022. Just like other CDLC, it will be a standalone purchase for the price of 4,99€ and is not be part of the Season 4 Pass.

Many of you have also voiced what kind of content you would like to see for this theme, and we’re planning to give you a status update on our rough plans in summer.

Game Update 14.2

Today we released Game Update 14.2. This patch retroactively fixes the problem with all achievements being unlocked after GU14 and the missing Clay Pits in the “Seasons of Silver” scenario. You can find the Release Notes here.

Community Spotlight

For today’s Community Spotlight, we decided to go with a collection of screenshots that perfectly capture the beauty of the warm and soft tones of the New World. Here are our picks, enjoy!

Mydriase shared this amazing collection of screenshots, with the first one capturing a snapshot of their New World city. We love the contrast between the orange tones of the building and the fresh and lush green trees all around the city!

Aestris seems to have also spent a significant amount of time on beautifying his New World island using DLC 10. The Hacienda, its farms and residence areas are all surrounded by the new ornament wall, hopefully keeping some of the noise and smoke of the railway.

While modded, we love Ionovia’s layout – and the tilt shift effect really creates a miniature world atmosphere. Very cool screenshots.

Meanwhile, Carpo_VP has greatly enjoyed the “Seasons of Silver” scenario and shared some of their impressions on Twitter.

You might have already noticed, but we’re entering a slower period right now when it comes to news while the team is busy working on DLC 11 – Empire of the Skies – right now. You can expect more news in the second half of June when we start talking about the “Industrial Zone Pack” Cosmetic DLC.

Vote for 2022’s third Cosmetic DLC!

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

 

As we announced earlier this year when we talked about Cosmetic DLC plans for 2022, we still want to leave the third of this year’s CDLCs up to your vote!

While the first released on February 15th (the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack) and the second one (the “Industrial Zone” Pack) will release in June, the third one is planned for Autumn.

And for this, we are planning to once more put the decision on the topic into the hands of you, our Anno Union community!

 

In total, we’re presenting you with three possible Cosmetic DLC topics. As you will see, we also considered your feedback on topics that you would like to see more ornaments about.

And now enough of the introduction, here are the 3 themes you can vote on! Keep in mind that those are only our current plans for the Cosmetic DLC topics. The exact content and scope depend on the theme of the pack which we will further explore as soon as the result is clear.

And now enough of the introduction, here are the 3 themes you can vote on! Keep in mind that those are only our current plans for the Cosmetic DLC topics. The exact content and scope depend on the theme of the pack which we will further explore as soon as the result is clear.

 

 “Nature Pack”: Ornaments that can be used in larger inner-city parks or maybe as part of a bigger recreational nature park outside the city. It would focus on nature objects like special trees, natural monuments, rock formations and maybe places for hikers to rest.

“Eldritch Pack”: Century-appropriate gothic elements for your cities with darker and potentially slightly spooky ornaments. These could be gargoyles, twisted trees, graveyard pieces and other gothic architecture.

“Old Town Pack”: The age of industrialization is upon us, but that doesn’t mean forgetting about the more medieval roots of your cities from previous Annos. This pack would focus on leftovers from older times for your city centres.

Of course, all of us on the Anno 1800 team have our own favourites that we are crossing fingers for (did someone say “Eldritch Pack”?) and we sat down to discuss our Cosmetic DLC plans and this year’s candidates:

 

That’s not all, though: Three Anno characters will do their best to convince you for their personal favourite – keep an eye on our social channels Twitter and Facebook for their takes!

As before, the Cosmetic DLC will be a standalone purchase for the price of 4,99€ and will not be part of the Season 4 Pass to give our players maximum flexibility over their Anno 1800 experience.

 

The voting will run for two weeks and end on Monday, May 16th at 11:59pm CEST / 5:59 PM EDT. You can click on any of the images to view them in full size. Happy voting, and stay safe!

[totalpoll id=”16703″]

*Please note that as before, all content will be cosmetic and will not change Anno 1800’s gameplay. The names of the packs are “working titles” and might change later on.

Union Update: Release of the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack and GU 13.2

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Annoholics!

After much teasing the day has finally arrived: It’s release day! Our newest Cosmetic DLC “Seasonal Decorations” Pack and Game Update 13.2 are now live. Let’s have a quick look at both.

“Seasonal Decorations” Pack

Today we released the first Cosmetic DLC of 2022 and if that doesn’t give you enough cause for celebration, the content of the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack sure will!

With the newest Cosmetic DLC, your citizens’ celebrations can now extend throughout the year! Colorful flower decorations in Spring, sunny wine bars in Summer, cozy bonfire nights in Autumn, and magical Winter wonderlands – the “Seasonal Decorations” Pack has it all!

Excited? Then don’t forget to check out our latest DevBlog for a detailed overview of all the new ornaments as well as a short Q&A with Raphael, the Lead Artist of Anno 1800.

The Cosmetic DLC is now available in the Ubisoft Store for 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent).

You’ll have a chance to earn it for free through our upcoming Refer-a-Friend program – more details on this and our Season 4 plans will be shared soon!

We can’t wait to see how your cities change with the seasons!

Game Update 13.2

Alongside the Cosmetic DLC we are also releasing Game Update 13.2 today which will, amongst other things, fix the missing consumption statistics for several goods and activate the fisherman’s quest in the Eden Burning scenario. You can find the full Release Notes here.

Stream Announcement

Before diving into this week’s community spotlight we have one final announcement to make: We will be doing another Anno Afternoon live stream on Friday, February 18, at 5PM CET. Join Celeste and Oliver as they continue on their co-op save and challenge their inner beauty-builders with the new “Seasonal Decorations” Pack.

We can’t wait to hang out with you guys again so we hope to see you then!

Community Spotlight

We wanted to finish off this week’s Union Update with another form of celebration: A celebration of you! As always, we were blown away by the amazing creations that you have shared with us and the community and we wanted to take the time to highlight a few.

First up we have this stunning creation by Spacer176 on r/anno. Using Engineer and Investor houses to enclose historic Artisan quarters is a great way of adding more discoverability to your cities. Thank you Spacer176 for this awesome beauty-build tip!

Next, we have this wonderful side-by-side of JackedKermit’s city on Reddit. Despite its small beginnings, the city is now booming with life! What a transformation!

Although we love a big city, there’s something special about small village life. AlexButterworth’s creation on Reddit made us feel right at home with its dense green forests and adorable little town centre. We know where we will go next time we need a break from the hustle and bustle of the city!

Feeling inspired after seeing all these amazing screenshots? Well, why not take part in the ongoing community challenge on the Annoverse Discord? In this latest challenge, you will take on the role of railroad baron on your mission to create your beautiful railway empire. Submissions close on the 28th of February so head over to the Annoverse Discord now to share your creations!

To finish off this week’s community spotlight we have another great creation by the one and only Dulcamarra! We have to admit that it made us giggle quite a bit (sorry Willie!). Great work as always and if you haven’t already, go check more of her art on her Deviantart page!

Those are all our community spotlights for today! We just love seeing all the amazing creations you guys come up with and cannot wait to see what you will do with our newest Cosmetic DLC. Make sure to share some screenshots with us!

And that’s it for today’s Union Update! As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to share them below or contact us on Twitter, Facebook or our official forums.

DevBlog: “Seasonal Decorations” Pack Cosmetic DLC

Posted on by UbiCecce

Hello Anno Community,

As you might have seen already here on the Anno Union, last week we communicated on our overall Cosmetic DLC plans for 2022. Today, instead, we would like to focus on the first Cosmetic DLC of this year: “Seasonal Decorations Pack” Cosmetic DLC!

Back in 2019 we released the first “seasonal” CDLC, the “Holiday Pack”, which gives you the chance to fully embrace the holiday spirit and decorate your cities with Christmas markets (and more!). You loved it, and we heard it. However, it does feel slightly out of place in summer or spring, doesn’t it?

Well, with the “Seasonal Decorations Pack” you will be able to decorate your cities with fitting ornaments to any of the four seasons. Spring, Summer, Autum, or Winter: it is your choice!

In total, the “Seasonal Decorations Pack” contains 24 brand new ornaments, that means 6 themed ornaments for each season of the year. Let’s have a look at them more closely, shall we?

Spring

Flowers, flowers everywhere! Let your city bloom with fresh, springtime colours and flowers. We think these ornaments would go in perfect harmony with the Colourful Theme of “Vibrant Cities Pack”, don’t you think?

Summer

Would you like some wine? Summer’s the perfect time to hold a Wine Fest in your Anno cities. Just make sure not to drink too much! With the Summer-themed ornaments, you can place wine stands and tables all over your cities. There is even a May Pole!

Autumn

Bring your biggest pumpkin – Autumn is here! Nothing can beat the warm colours of this season. Leaves start falling, the air gets colder and colder: it is the perfect time to build some bonfires around your cities and drink some warm cider by the pumpkin competition stand.

Winter

Grab your skates, time to have some fun on the ice-skating rink, after grabbing some roast chestnuts from the stall. We think this will be the perfect way to get your cities into the Holiday mood and fight some of the cold brought by Winter.

Q&A

Now, it is time for our favourite part of the DevBlog: the Q&A! This time, we had a chat with Raphael, Lead Artist on Anno 1800.

What were your main “real world” references?
Mainly markets and street festivals that are happening during the different seasons. For example, being in Mainz, the wine festival theme was an obvious choice because it is rooted deeply in the culture of this area.

What was the hardest ornament to work on and why?
The ice rink, because we had to make sure the ice looks good. It was a bit tricky to get the glossiness right with our shader. In the end it turned out very nice, especially during the nighttime and with all the feedback units running.

How hard was it to decide on the final ornaments when covering 4 entire seasons has SO MUCH potential? ?
Of course we had many more ideas because it is such a rich topic. In the end it came down to making a nice package for each season, taking things like ornament size and variety into consideration.

What is your favourite Season theme and your favourite ornament for this CDLC?
I really like the summer season, if I look at the wine stand, I immediately want to sit down with some friends and have a good time.

As an Anno player, do you consider yourself a beauty-builder?
Yes absolutely, I love making my cities look pretty and adding little details wherever I can.

Outro

The “Seasonal Decorations Pack” will be available for purchase for the usual 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent) starting from February 15th.

If you have further questions related to the Cosmetic DLC, feel free to ask them in the comments below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or our official Forums.
Happy city-building!

Full Ornament List

Spring:

  • Flower Pavilion
  • Flower Shop
  • Balloon Stand
  • Flower Sculpture
  • Blumenbogen
  • Flower Gate

Summer:

  • Small Wine Stand
  • Large Wine Stand
  • Wine FestivalTable
  • Wine Barrel
  • May Pole
  • Wine Festival Entrance

Autumn:

  • Pumpkin Cart
  • Pumpkin Barrels
  • Bonfire
  • Pumpkin Competition
  • Cider Stall
  • Autumnal Gate

Winter

  • Chestnut Stall
  • Ice Rink
  • Christmas Pyramid
  • Christmas Arch
  • Snow Globe
  • Winter Gate

Our Cosmetic DLC plans for 2022

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

In January, we gave you a first short preview of our plans for 2022 and as also already communicated last year, we’ll have a looot of information about Season 4 in late March.
In the preview we also already revealed that we’re planning more Cosmetic DLC this year after the success and the extremely positive reception of our previous CDLC.

Generally speaking, we will follow a similar strategy as we did last year: We’re once again planning with 3 Cosmetic DLC spread over the year and there will be once again a Community Voting for one of the themes. Let’s take a closer look:

The very first CDLC is going to be the “Seasonal Decorations Pack”, giving you multiple options to celebrate each period of the year in your game. We’ll go further into our DevBlog next week, no worries. The release of the “Seasonal Decorations Pack” as well as Game Update 13.2 is planned for February 15th.

For now, we’ll leave you with a small teaser:

In May, we will hold this year’s Community Voting for the third and last Cosmetic DLC of this year. We haven’t quite agreed on the four candidates yet but can already tell you that the Circus will not make a return after clearly losing both previous votes while Marcel’s beloved Eldritch Pack will most likely be part of this year’s voting again. We’re looking at providing a mix of different types of Cosmetic DLC, more on that in May.

The release of the winning CDLC is currently planned for autumn, more details to come later this year.

You may have noticed we skipped the second Cosmetic DLC in our chronological order: That’s because it will release AFTER the voting mentioned above but BEFORE the winner of said vote.

A big part of video game development is planning (one of the main tasks of our Production Team) and with the Season 4 DLC also in development we ultimately decided it’s making our lives significantly easier to decide on and start working on the first two Cosmetic DLC.

The voting in May is too late for us to start working on two CDLC afterwards, while we figured that having a voting directly in January would have seemed rather rushed considering we haven’t even gone into detail on the Season 4 content.

So, with that out of the way: This year’s second Cosmetic DLC is scheduled to release in June and will focus on more ornaments for your industrial and production districts – something we have seen discussed and requested multiple times in the past.

This should provide you with even more ways to beautify the… not so beautiful parts of your islands 😉

Those are our rough Cosmetic DLC plans for this year, with more details still to come in the next months. – Or, in the case of the “Seasonal Decorations Pack”: Already next week!

It’s Game Update 13 Release Day!

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

We have just released Game Update 13, our last big update for the year, and it should be available for you momentarily.

The full Release Notes with all changes and bug fixes can be found here.

 

That’s not all, though, since GU13 also includes Anno 1800’s first scenario, “Eden Burning”, which is the result of our participation in the Green Game Jam. Learn more about it here in this DevBlog and visit the Play4Forest website to sign the petition to protect our Earth’s forests.

Another part of this project is our collaboration with Ecologi to support reforestation efforts: By buying the “Plant a Tree” DLC in the Ubisoft Store you’re supporting the planting of more trees since we’re forwarding all net proceeds (i.e. everything after taxes and other fees are deducted) to Ecologi. On top, you’re getting a new Ceiba Tree ornament to place in your cities.

 

Also releasing today is Cosmetic DLC 6: The “Vibrant Cities Pack”. Change the look of your cities by providing your residence buildings with a fresh coat of paint!

Be it a colorful paint job, a more traditional brick theme, or the neon-lit nightlife version for Investors and Engineers – each allows you to further individualize your cities.

More details about its development can be found in this DevBlog – and you can purchase it here in the Ubisoft Store.

We’re nearing the holidays but are not quite done yet – we do have one more blog and a little Holiday gift for you Tuesday next week. So stay tuned!

 

Until then: Enjoy the new content!

We can’t wait to see screenshots of your vibrant cities, so please share them with us on Reddit, Twitter or any other of our platforms.

And of course, let us know your thoughts on the “Eden Burning” scenario: How many attempts did you need? How is your eco balance looking like? Share it in the comments!

Community Spotlight

We also want to use today’s Union Update for a small Community Spotlight, considering we have once again seen some great content created by you!

First comes this absolutely stunning beauty building attempt by Laudica, once again, creating architectural marvels out of Skyscrapers:

Following our Season 4 announcement, we greatly enjoyed following the various speculations, for example on Reddit, as to what the teaser trailer did show – and what it didn’t. An interesting watch in this regard is also the video by Takarazuka featured below:

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And with 2021 slowly coming to a close, Johnnyvanderzwaag shared some early Holiday greetings on Reddit:

If you worked on a cool video or have a great screenshot to share, we’d be happy to share it in a future Community Spotlight!

 

Until next time, and enjoy today’s Game Update!

DevBlog: “Vibrant Cities Pack” Cosmetic DLC

Posted on by UbiCecce

In the past weeks we have shared some teasers after the Reddit Community challenged us. Now it is time for a deep dive into the upcoming Cosmetic DLC, Vibrant Cities Pack!

This is the second Skins Pack released for Anno 1800, with the first being the Vehicle Liveries Pack last Spring.

Why the Vibrant Cities Pack? – you might ask. In Spring 2021, we opened the votes for five possible Cosmetic DLC. The choice was in your hands, and the Vibrant Cities Pack resulted to be the winner of the poll together with the Pedestrian Zone Pack. What a great combo, don’t you think?

With this brand new Cosmetic DLC, we will add some great skins to Anno 1800, that will make your cities look livelier and more vibrant than ever: three new skins for each residence building of each resident tier.

“We wanted to create different skin sets and some new models as variations. So, introducing it on the residence buildings was the logic step because these are the most important and most frequently placed building in every city.”

– Tim, Lead Artist

In total, the pack includes 69 skins – three new skins per building model of each population tier (Tiers 1, 2 and 3 each have four models, Tier 4 has six models and Tier 5 has six models, each receiving three new skins). Furthermore, the skins can be divided into four different themes.

Different themes

Now, let’s have a look at the different themes that will be available in the Cosmetic DLC.

Colourful Theme (Tier 1-5)
A great way to make your city pop with some pastel colours. Whether you like blue, red, green, pink, or orange… feel free to use all of them to experiment and express your creativity. This theme will be available for Tier 1-5.

Brick Theme (Tier 1-5)

If you prefer to go with a more “classic” look for your cities, then the brick theme is the one for you. It is something you see often on old buildings in American cities (like Boston, for example). Just like the colourful theme, the brick one will be available for Tier 1-5.

Inverted Theme (Tier 1-3)

This theme can be considered as a counterpart of the unique and new looks, like the Colourful Theme for example. It uses the same materials and colours as the regular asset, but in an inverted way. The roof colour is swapped with the colour of the walls. In this way you will be able to add more variation to the regular buildings, without changing their look too much.

Casino Theme (Tier 4 and 5)

Did anyone say neon signs? Oh yes. But first, a bit of a history class: neon was discovered by Sir William Ramsay in 1889, while the first neon sign was installed outside a barber shop in Paris in 1912. By the 1920s-1930s the first neon signs started glowing in the streets of Las Vegas. Well, now it is time for you to make your Anno 1800 cities shine with some bright and colourful neon lights. The Casino theme will only be available for Tier 4 and 5 residence buildings.

Eager to know more? Tim, our Lead Artist, answered our questions and let us have a peek behind the scenes of this Cosmetic DLC:

In terms of creation workflow, what is the difference between ornaments and skins?

With regular skins we provide texture variations for the already existing assets in the game. Therefore, we create new texture maps (diffuse, normal maps etc.) for these buildings. For the new marketplace variations for example, the workflow is quite the same as for the ornaments, for which we create completely new assets based on our Concept Art.

Speaking of inspiration and reference, have you looked at something specific?

For the colourful theme for example, you can find colourful houses all around the world: Burano (Venice, Italy) or La Boca (Argentina). Also, a lot of old fishing villages are often very colourful.

How did you decide on the different styles for the themes?

For the different themes, we wanted to have some unique ones, like the colourful skin for example, and some themes that add slightly different variations, to make sure you can decide how unique you want your city to be.

Now on a more personal note, what is your favourite skin?

I like the colourful skin the most. This really brings a very new and fresh look to your cities.

The marketplace

Last but not least – yes, there is even more! – three new alternative models for the Marketplace have been added, more fitting to Tier 1, 4 and 5.

The original Marketplace we have in the game is a great asset, but it did not work too good in the late game from a visual point of view, especially with the content of The High Life DLC, like the Skyscrapers. With the new Marketplace alternative models, we wanted to create new markets that fits every tier, from the farmer’s Market to the city Market Hall.

The Vibrant Cities Pack will be available for purchase for the usual 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent) starting from December 14th.

We cannot wait to see your cities come to life with the Vibrant Cities Pack Cosmetic DLC. If you have further questions related to the Cosmetic DLC, feel free to ask them in the comments below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or our official Forums.

Happy city-building!

Union Update: Pedestrian Zone Pack & Game Update 12.1

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Annoholics, today we released the “Pedestrian Zone Pack” Cosmetic DLC! 

In addition to canals for both your cities as well as your industrial areas, the DLC is also adding several pedestrian-focused ornaments like an underpass, public toilets, a pavilion and new groundplanes.  

We went into detail on all ornaments and the development of the canal system in last week’s DevBlog, click here to check it out or quickly recap the content while waiting for the download to finish. 

We can’t wait to see your transformed cities! 

Game Update 12.1 

Together with the “Pedestrian Zone Pack” we’re releasing Game Update 12.1 and address several issues you have been reporting to us. If you haven’t done so already, check out the full Release Notes. 

 

Since we noticed some questions regarding some points of the Release Notes and some issues which did not make it into this Game Update, we also want to use this opportunity to address your questions: 

Starting with some bad news, but it’s something we have seen multiple comments about recently: We have investigated the issue with Anno 1800’s achievements having been unlocked for some players at the beginning of September during the technical issues with Ubisoft Connect. Unfortunately, this issue cannot be fixed retroactively, and we are not able to reset your achievement progress. 

 

A point from the Release Notes that has been discussed and asked about since yesterday is the tree planting feature: As stated in the Release Notes, trees can now not be placed next to roads and buildings anymore (i.e., the places where they would disappear from after loading). 

The reason for this is, that the game automatically removes trees etc. close to buildings to make sure they’re not “growing” into the building model itself. You can already see that when you place a building or a road somewhere: Vegetation nearby is automatically removed. Upon loading, the game does this check again and removes vegetation that is too close to a building. So, to avoid that you can place trees in these spots which would lead to them disappearing after loading, these spots are now blocked automatically. 

We are investigating options to add more ornamental trees in a future update. 

 

Further Issues

Furthermore, we’re still investigating more issues you have reported to us, for example, the one regarding rewards from Anarchist defector quests, which does not seem to be solved for all affected savegames, and that for some players the Orchards are not unlocked even when reaching the requirements.

We have also received reports about more quest issues which some players are facing, some related to resident quests and others like for example the Skyline Tower construction being stuck during the “barbecue event” (as a workaround, demolishing the tower and rebuilding it will allow you to finish it, albeit without the related questline). 

 

As usual, we will keep you updated on future Game Updates. 

Until then, we hope you continue to enjoy Anno 1800 and have a lot of fun with the newest Cosmetic DLC!

DevBlog – “Pedestrian Zone Pack” Cosmetic DLC

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

We have shown you some first pictures of the “Pedestrian Zone Pack” Cosmetic DLC in late August at gamescom – but now, with release less than a week away, it’s time to take a closer look at the contents of this CDLC. Did anyone say “canals”?

What’s in the pack?

A quick recap: In April this year we once more presented you with several potential themes for Cosmetic DLC, with “Pedestrian Zone” winning the vote together with “Vibrant Cities” (to be released at the end of the year).

With this Cosmetic DLC we’re adding a bunch of ornaments to your game that focus on your downtown area to help you improve the daily life of your inhabitants there. Public toilets, convenient during long shopping trips and market halls, especially useful for the traders from the “City Lights Pack” Cosmetic DLC.

“With this DLC, we wanted to create a set of ornaments, that is focusing on the city centre again. With our last Season 3 DLCs, we introduced a lot of new city centre focused content like the hotel or the skyscrapers, so we wanted to provide ornaments that are fitting the cities with are getting even bigger and more modern now.”

– Tim, Lead Artist

A busy downtown area with railroads for electricity and streets for the transport of goods to the Restaurants and Shopping Arcades can be a dangerous terrain for pedestrians in these early industrialized times. Help them out with a Pedestrian Bridge or go below ground with an Underpass.

Generally, we focused on ornaments that fit the city centres and the now more advanced look of our players’ cities. That also meant using more modern construction materials, for example for the underpasses or the market hall. You could find a lot of these structures in big cities back in the days.

There was something several of you have mentioned you would love to see in Anno 1800 and also our Art Team was very keen on implementing: Canals for your cities!

In addition to various ponds and fountains, your population will now be able to take a stroll along the new canals which you can use to decorate your cities. And not only that: The “Pedestrian Zone Pack” does include two types of canals. One fitting to your population centres, a much more decorative and elegant design filled with fresh and clean water. The other for your industrial areas in a darker, dirtier design with sewage pipes to complete the look.

Add to that new ground plates and ornamental trees to create and decorate plazas in your cities with, as well as Pavilions to relax and the Enclosed Greenery system for little park areas and you have a packed bundle of ornaments for your pedestrian zones.

(As with previous Cosmetic DLC, please note that they’re purely ornamental and do not serve any gameplay purposes. While your inhabitants, the “feedback units”, will interact with the ornaments, your transports will not, for example, use underpasses or bridges.) 

Canal System

We already mentioned the new Canal System above, but with it being the highlight of the “Pedestrian Zone Pack”, it certainly deserves some special attention. We once again brought Tim, our Lead Artist, onboard to provide some insights for this section and answer some questions, like:

Were two types of canals planned from the beginning?

I remember we initially had only planned the urban version that fits the city centre. While discussing and scribbling the first ideas how the canals could look like, there was also this one more industrial-looking canal as an idea. So, we ultimately decided to do both, one more city-themed, and one more fitting the industrials areas.

The system gives you a lot of freedom to be creative with the look of your city. You can decide the whole look by yourself: Do you want to build small, tight canals or big rivers or even lakes? – It’s up to you, with the tiles (like you might be used to from “Land of Lions”) automatically combining themselves to larger water areas when placed next to each other. You will even see some of your citizens enjoy a boat trip on the canals (not the sewers, though, brrrrr). 

Designing and creating a system like the canals is always more challenging to create than single ornaments because we need to create a whole set of assets (different canal tiles, different corners, “open” tiles for when multiple canal tiles are combined etc.), so you can build any shape you want with them. On the other hand, there are a lot of technical constraints. It takes a lot of time to test this feature in game, because with all the other assets and the corresponding game mechanics it can create a lot of issues and edge cases we need to find and fix (e.g. crossing with roads, with the new bridges, …). 

Defining the style, on the other hand, was very much straight forward. There are a lot a real-world references we used as inspiration. The most famous one is probably Venice. But there are also a lot of other European cities like Birmingham, Amsterdam, Bruges or Annecy, for example, that are iconic for their canal systems. 

What is left to say? Well, below you can find a full list of all ornaments included in the “Pedestrian Zone Pack”. Stay tuned for Tuesday next week at 6PM CEST, when the Cosmetic DLC will be available for purchase for the usual 4,99€ (or your regional equivalent). 

We can’t wait to see how you’re incorporating these new ornaments – and especially the canals – in your cities!  

List of all ornaments: 

  • Pedestrian Zone Entrance Gate 
  • Pedestrian Bridge 
  • Archways (3 total: one with a lamp, one with flags, one with a clock) 
  • Underpass 
  • Underground Toilet  
  • Toilet House 
  • Market Hall 
  • Pavillon 
  • City Canals (consisting of multiple elements) 
  • Sewer Canals (consisting of multiple elements) 
  • Canal Bridges (a small, a medium and a large one) 
  • Groundplanes 
  • Enclosed Tree 
  • Enclosed Greenery