Category: Union Update

Union Update: “Land of Lions” release

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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

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

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

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

Part 1: “Land of Lions” Overview

Part 2: Shepherds and Irrigation

Part 3: Elders and Story

Part 4: Scholars and Research

 

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

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

 

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

Ubisoft Connect and the Club Rewards

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

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

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

Anno 1800 board game release

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

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

Union Update – Land of Lions & postcard contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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!

Of Lions and Lights

Posted on by Ubi_MarcelH

Hey Anno Community,
we know that many of you have been patiently waiting for more news on our next major DLC, “Land of Lions”. We also know that we had previously promised to have more information on this feature-packed content in September. Unfortunately, due to some additional feedback we have been working to implement, we won’t be able to honor that promise, and there will be no news from Enbesa this month. On the bright side, we will not only release “Land of Lions” itself in October but are also working on several DevBlogs to give you an in-depth look into Anno 1800’s biggest DLC prior to release.

Enjoy the “City Lights”
Speaking of releases- another frequently asked question was whether the runner-up from our Cosmetic DLC vote, the “Bustling City Life Pack”, would make its way into your cities in the future. We are happy to say that the answer is “Yes!”, with a small “but…” attached. While the concept is very much the same many of you voted for earlier this year (vending booths, playgrounds and other things you will find in daily city life), the pack has undergone a name change to “City Lights Pack”, to account for the new streetlamps! This latest Cosmetic DLC will be coming to Anno 1800 later this year, after the release of “Land of Lions”.

We are looking forward to sharing much more about both DLCs with you all in the weeks to come!

The Anno Team

Teaser
Teaser

Union Update: Community spotlight and postcard contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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!

Union Update: Fan art showcase and gamescom

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Welcome back to another Union Update, this time with some handcrafted Anno goodness, bustling Amusement parks from aspiring community screenshot artists and an update from our streaming front.

Anno 1800 Fanart Showcase

Let`s kick off the update with a brilliant art-piece from Twitter Annoholic Asia Larkin, who put in some serious hours (about 70 to be precise) to create a cross stitch version of our 1800 logo!
And the result is truly marvelous:

From paintings to cross stitch artworks, fan creations display true dedication and artistry. If you are a hobby crafter, musician, artist, or story writer with a passion for Anno, let us know! We love to showcase your creations and you cannot underestimate the moral boost your work has on our development team.

 

Show off your Amusement Pack Screenshots

Since launch, countless Annoholic`s shared their screenshots of picturesque landscapes, busy metropolitan streets, or industrial panoramas. With our new “Amusements Pack”, many beauty builders went to town immediately and overhauled their city centre with new stalls, rides and not to forget the main attraction: the roller coaster!
Here are some of your wallpaper worthy Amusement screenshots and we cannot wait so see more of your creations. Who knows, we might get inspired to run a new contest.

Big thanks an Theves, Giant Mountain, Hawkar Qadir and Nitram for sharing their wonderful screenshots!

And with the “Amusements Pack” going down so well with our communities out there, there is a good chance for some nice additions to your bustling city life in the future!

gamescom digital and live streams

Finally, let`s talk about streaming. 2020 was a wild ride for us and while our Season 2 goes as planned, the work on our brand new streaming room had to be delayed. As a result of that, we had to pause dev streams as well as our AnnoCast community podcast. While our community streams enjoy great popularity, we plan to bring the dev streams back to the channel and are working on some ideas for some brand new shows to give you a closer look behind the scenes of our studio.

It will take more time until our new room is done and we can return our classic shows, but we will continue to bring you more community streams and with gamescom, we are going digital with our Anno 1800 masterclass show this Friday. While the masterclass and our gaming career panel will be held in German, we are curious if you would love to see more panel formats where our developers dive deep into a specific topic or where we demonstrate how our developers bring games to life.

Here comes an overview of our Gamescom streams this Friday. As mentioned, they will be held in German but rest assured we will share Game Update 9 details with all of you on the Anno Union after the stream.

 

We are curious, what would you love to see more on our Twitch channel and maybe your feedback sparks the idea for a brand-new show.  Your voice matters, so share your thoughts on our Twitch channel in the comments below.

Anno News & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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

Welcome to the new Anno Union!

Posted on by Ubi_MarcelH

Hey Anno Community,

and welcome to the all-new Anno Union, your #1 source for any news and updates on Ubisoft’s series of strategy games- straight from the dev team here in Mainz!

When we first launched the original Anno Union alongside Anno 1800’s announcement at gamescom 2017, we did not quite know what to expect. We still remember that after we finished our first press demo of the game, everyone immediately grabbed their phones to see if we already had some comments on our new website. Turns out there were: with several hundred comments during that first week, the Anno Union was immediately off to an incredible (and slightly intimidating) start. Since that hot August day, the Anno team and community have been equally busy, as we published close to 500 items on the Anno Union, which you discussed in almost 20k comments! Thanks to all of your feedback and input, we not only completely reworked the New World into the iteration you see in the game today, but also added features like co-op, statistics or the popular day-and-night cycle. And that’s just a few examples of the many ways the community has shaped the development of the game. All of which contributed to making Anno 1800 the fastest-selling game in the series’ 22-year history!

As mentioned above, we initially did not know what to expect from the Anno Union, and how the community would react to it. As a result, it was all focused on the “here and now” of Anno 1800’s development, with the layout only being intended to support one game.
Going forward, we want the Anno Union to be better suited to supporting the full franchise, starting with the release of the four History Edition version of Anno 1602, 1503, 1701 and 1404 last week. To support a wider range of games and help discoverability, we have put an emphasis on categories and tags, making it easier for you to find the blogs and release notes you want. The entire Union should also be much faster and responsive, in addition to its design.
Keep in mind that this is just day 1 of the journey, and the Anno Union idea has always been about working alongside our community to improve things. You will initially notice some funkiness as older blogs haven’t all been properly tagged yet (did we mention we have almost 500 already?) , and some things may not be fully adapted to the new design and layout yet. Despite this, we wanted to already launch the new version of the Union in preparation of upcoming Game Updates for the History Edition releases, and to be able to incorporate your feedback as we fine-tune things over the coming weeks.
It’s been an amazing journey over the past three years, and we are very excited to have you all with us- hopefully for many years to come!

The Anno Team