Category: Union Update

Ubisoft is partnering with Epic Games Store for Anno 1800

Posted on by Ubisoft

Following the successful launch of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 on PC on the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games store, we are announcing today that we are partnering with Epic Games on Anno 1800 as well. Players can now pre-order the Deluxe and Standard editions of Anno 1800 on PC on the Epic Games store. Moreover, all players will be able to try Anno 1800 via the Open Beta, scheduled from April 12 to April 14, by downloading the game on Uplay or via the Epic Games store. Once the game has been released on April 16, 2019, Anno 1800 will only be available digitally on the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games store. Pre-orders on Steam can be made until the release of the game. Everyone who pre-ordered Anno 1800 on Steam will be able to play the game upon release and will automatically get all future updates and content.

Frequently asked questions

Will the game stay in Steam libraries for those that have preordered?
If you pre-ordered the game via Steam, it will remain in your library. You will be able to launch the game through your Steam client, and you will receive all content and game updates at the same time as players on other digital storefronts. Ubisoft is committed to provide the same experience to all Anno players regardless of their point of purchase.

Can I preorder Anno 1800 on Steam?
Yes, while the game will be available for digital purchase only on Uplay and the Epic Games store after April 16, Anno 1800 can be preordered on Steam until this point. If you preorder the game on Steam, you will be able to play with others who purchased the game on other digital storefronts and get all the upcoming content and patches that will be released after launch.
Whether you have preordered or not, we hope you will join us for the Open Beta on April 12th.

Will Steam players be able to play with all other players?
Yes, Steam players will be able to play online with the same players as Uplay or Epic Games store players. Anno 1800’s multiplayer modus is handled via Uplay regardless of your chosen digital storefront, and will always allow all players to play with and against each other.

Will Steam CS still support players if the game will not officially be on their platform anymore?
As usual, for any support inquiries concerning the Steam store environment, you will still get in contact with the Steam customer support team. For any game related issue, such as technical problems with the game itself, our Ubisoft customer support will provide assistance.

Will the experience for Steam players be the same as Uplay players?
Everyone who pre-ordered Anno 1800 on Steam will be able to play the game upon its release on April 16 2019 and will receive all future content and game updates at the same time as players on other digital storefronts.

Will future patch and content be available to Steam players?
Steam buyers will receive all future content and game updates at the same time as players on other digital storefronts.

Will the previous Anno titles still be on Steam?
There are currently no plans to remove any of the previous Anno games from Steam’s storefront.

Will my Steam preorder be cancelled?
All pre-orders on Steam will be fulfilled. Everyone who pre-ordered Anno 1800 on Steam will be able to play the game upon its release on April 16 2019, and will receive all future content and game updates at the same time as players on other digital storefronts.

Will Steam receive updates/patches like the other platforms?
You will receive all content and game updates at the same time as players on other digital storefronts.

Will the Open Beta be available on Steam?
The Open Beta will be available to all players through Uplay PC and Epic Games store.

Union Update: Meet your rivals!

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Welcome to another week in the Anno Union, this time with an introduction to the cast of Anno 1800 second party characters as well as an update to the streaming schedule.

Meet your rivals!
Originally planned for the end of last week, we prepared a video for you showcasing the variety of AI opponents which will be able to choose as your dire enemy or future to be ally.

Every single rival will have their own character, which will not only define their general difficulty rating but also influence their playstyle.
Since the Closed Beta, we improved their behaviour in many ways and while old chap  Willy will remain let’s say, a slow and simple fella, the AI’s capabilities of defending islands or deciding on various tactics fitting to the situation has improved a lot. As an example, especially war savvy characters will make decisions such as attacking your Harbour directly, engaging your war fleet or launching attacks on your trading routes based on the current situation.

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Are you looking forward to testing your skills in naval warfare against the Psychopath Graves or are you more interested in Tea parties with Bente Jorgensen? We are curious to know how important the second party opponents are for you and if you are more the player who likes to challenge themselves with the most fierce of opponents?

Streaming Schedule – 2 streams on the horizon!
As promised during our special German episode of our Community Corner last week, we will have another English episode this week Wednesday at 5pm CET.
While we won’t have a special guest this time, our Community Developer Bastian will not only give you further insights into the fourth tier but also answering your chat questions.

And as one stream is not enough, our Anno Afternoon community crew will return this Friday 5pm CET – Not only Guddy is back on board, we will also jump from the trusty old Closed Beta ship to a newer development version of the game!

We plan to bring you more live-streams in future, from development insights with our AnnoCasts to community focused shows like CommunityCorner and AnnoAfternoon.
If you do not want to miss a show, make sure to follow out twitch channel to receive notifications as soon as we are online.

Union Update: Anno 1800 at EGX London

Posted on by Bastian Thun

This week in the Anno Union, we have some exciting news about the upcoming EGX Rezzed convention in London and more live-streams on the horizon with the return of the Community Corner. We do not want to withhold you a teaser for this week’s DevBlog: this time, we will give the cast of our second party characters a spot in the limelight.

Anno 1800 will be at Rezzed London
We will bring Anno 1800 to this year’s EGX Rezzed 2019 in London on April 4th-6th. EGX Rezzed is London’s best-loved and biggest games event: a festival of independent gaming that celebrates one of the world’s greatest pastimes. Every year they bring thousands of gamers together in the unique setting of London’s historic Tobacco Dock to play a fascinating variety of games and meet their creators, from tiny student startups to the world’s biggest developers.

You will not only be able to play the game at the convention, but our Community Developer will also be there on Thursday to give you some exclusive insights into the game and answer your most burning questions during the Anno 1800 panel April 4th at 4pm!
And if you are not able to visit the EGX Rezzed in London, we will host the panel on our Ubisoft Blue Byte Twitch channel.

German Community Corner Special
And while we at the topic of streaming, we will have a German episode of our Community Corner stream this week Thursday at 6pm CET, with the German strategy gamer The Writing Bull as a special guest!
As you know, we want to bring the world of Anno to as many fans as possible and therefore, we will have another English episode of the Community Corner as well as of the AnnoAfternoon in the upcoming week.

We are really happy how many of you watching our streams and sharing your thoughts in the live chat. Keep in mind that we are always looking for feedback and ideas for our live-streams from our community. Let us know what you think of our streams and what you would love to see in the future in the comments below.

Community Creations – a stunning centerpiece for the dining room!
g00fy’s Anno 1800 table, created by his talented friend Martin, is a real eye catcher in any kitchen or dining room! With the 19th century setting, is there anything your will or would like to build, paint or just use to decorate your PC desk for the big release on April 16th?
The setting begs for creative community creations and we are curious if we will see more crazy creations in the future:
You can check out the original post here:
https://twitter.com/thkg00fy/status/1104459721795358720

Union Update: Streaming and multiplayer Q&A

Posted on by Bastian Thun

As the release date of Anno 1800 draws closer, we are in the final sprints to polish and balance the game. Creating the DevBlog takes a lot of time and much of the games content has been highlighted in some shape or form already, the game developer insights will take a short break this week. We brought you dozens of DevBlogs since launch of the Anno Union in 2017 and we still have some articles in our pocket leading up to the launch of the game.

But we won’t be lazy as we will ramp up the amount of Anno 1800 live-streams on our twitch channel with the AnnoAfternoon stream returning this week and the Community Corner coming back in the week ahead with a German episode including a special guest.

Livestream: AnnoAfternoon
It’s time once more for our Community team takes you on another Anno 1800 Twitch adventure! In the next episode of our AnnoAfternoon community stream, we will venture forth into the new world together, when we listen to your suggestions as to how we should build and name our cities.

When: March 8th, 4pm GMT
Where: twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Annoverse Roundtable recordings
Last week’s Annoverse roundtable was an absolute blast! Over the course of two hours, we made a challenge out of answering as many questions as possible and thanks to the Annoverse team and community member Domo, you can listen to the recorded German and English session here:
Annoverse Anno 1800 Roundtable German
Annoverse Anno 1800 Roundtable English

Last but not least, we have prepared some answers to your most burning multiplayer questions in today’s community Q&A.

FerudaFarstaria
When we add friends from our friends list. Does this include the Steam friend list and Uplay? Or do you have to find your friends in the game, and add them to your friends list? I’d really like to know if this does link to friends lists in Steam, and Uplay.
Answer: Anno lists steam friends as well as your Uplay friends. In case you invite someone from you friend list, Anno does automatically select the right backend (Steam or UPlay) for the invitation and also receive and handle the invitations from both systems.

Mattly
We did find that once we had expanded into the new world we had to give up due to constant desync’s. As we are all on fibre and all in the same country (New Zealand) could this have been caused by the need to communicate with the host server where ever that is located or was it a known issue that has been worked out in these final weeks?
Answer: We identified and fixed many reasons for de-synchs thanks to the great participation of Closed Beta. This also includes many de-syncs related to the South America session. It is not very likely, that your desynch problems as described where caused by network issues, as because Anno tries to keep the connections “as local” as possible. Only if the NATs of the participants are not compatible, we are forced to route the traffic over Ubisoft servers to enable the players to join. But this also can be resolved by players by adding Anno to the exception list of your router.

elmoh1one
I would be interested in a whole Devblog about the topic synchronization. Which kind of data is exactly synchronized? How is the system checking if there are disparities between the different computers and how does that coherent with the simulation of the game?
Answer: Simply speaking, every single player action will get recorded and synchronized before the system shares all input data of for the simulation with every other participating player (every PC in the session calculates all steps of the simulation for every player in the match).

Drake-1503
Does that mean that saved multiplayer matched can be continued with different players? That would mean it would be possible to create a staged savegame with already established cities instead of an empty map.
Answer: You are able to continue mutliplayer savegames even if the original players are not available anymore. When new players join, they can “overtake” an empire and continue to progress and expand with that game state. While it is technically possible to create scenarios that way, you would need to have a dedicated player for every single party as you cannot take control over two or more empires.

The_Waith_Lord
I would love to see that you could also do a search for players based on language and region to make it easier to communicate with the other players.
Answer: When looking for a player, our matchmaking takes the region as well as language into account. Should the system be unable to find a player after a while, it will expand the search for players with the same language across the globe. If the system is still unable to match you with someone, it will also widen the search to global players with any language.

Union Update: Conquer together

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Welcome to another Union Update, with our latest news from our Anno communities as well as an outlook on this week’s content.

Upcoming DevBlog: Multiplayer
For some a neat extra while for others vital for the gameplay experience – playing with your friends in Anno 1800’s multiplayer mode can add countless hours of fun when competing over islands or going on a joint venture to end the regime of the tyrant Alonso Graves. The classic multiplayer experience celebrates a return to the series and we want to give you insights how the system works, what options and game modes we will provide while also give you a brief outlook on the future.

Community Roundtable AmA happens this Wednesday!
It is time for the next round of our Anno Union Community Roundtable. The Roundtable is a Community AmA where we, the Community Developer and Community Team, answer your most burning questions, hosted by our Annoverse Discord fan community. Everyone is welcome to join us and to ask questions about Anno 1800 and the Anno Union in chat.

To allow everyone to participate, we will have two sessions Wednesday evening, one in German and one in English. The German session will start at 18:30 GMT while the English panel begins at 19:30 GMT.

When:  Wednesday, 27th of February
German session: 18:30 GMT
English session: 19:30 GMT

Where: Annoverse Discord

We will take a short break from live streaming this week but do not worry, we will return as early as next week with more live streams from our Community team.

The Anno Union started as an idea and grew to a huge platform providing tons of Anno relevant information and details for players and fans out there. Is there anything you would like to see more in future or is there anything you miss on the Anno Union and specifically the Union Updates?

As always, we are eager to hear your feedback in the comments below!

Anno 1800 Closed Beta Screenshot Challenge

Posted on by Bastian Thun

While the Closed Beta is understandably on every Annoholic’s mind right now, we are already setting our eyes on the future to ensure that some of you can enjoy the full game in style come April 16th. To this end, we have joined up with our friends and fellow sailship-enthusiasts at CORSAIR, who are providing some of their great gaming peripherals as prizes. Introducing- the Anno 1800 Closed Beta Screenshot Contest!

To participate in the contest, all you have to do is play the game all the way up to tier 3 (the Artisans), cross the ocean and share your most beautiful New World screenshot with us. Moreover, if you did not get the chance to get an Anno 1800 Closed Beta code yet, CORSAIR got you covered.

Get all the details on the contest and code giveaway here!

The screenshot challenge starts today and ends February 5th at 23:59 CET. To give our team some time to browse through your scenic New World shots, we will announce the winners on Friday,  February 8th.

And here is the loot table for the New World screenshot challenge:

1st prize:

  • K70 RGB MK.2 keyboard (Cherry MX Red switches)
  • IRONCLAW RGB mouse
  • MM800 RGB Cloth Edition mousepad
  • VOID PRO RGB Wireless headset

2nd prize:

  • STRAFE RGB MK.2 keyboard (Cherry MX Silent switches)
  • IRONCLAW RGB mouse

3rd prize:

  • IRONCLAW RGB mouse
  • MM800 mousepad

Thanks again to our friends at CORSAIR for sponsoring this contest. Enjoy the Closed Beta, give us feedback aplenty and good luck for all participating photographers!

Union Update: Closed Beta Information

Posted on by Ubi-O5

Keeping it short and sweet today, as we’re in the middle of preparations for the Closed Beta! And we got a few details that could be of interest to you. Plus a small tease at the coming DevBlog! 

Get ready for the Anno 1800 Closed Beta
The Closed Beta will be a bit bigger than last years Technical Test. And if you were one of the lucky selectees, then you won’t have to wait too long. Invitations will be sent out in the coming days, so check your inbox (and spam folders 😉 ).

A few things to note:

  • As with the Technical Test, this Beta is not representative for the finished game, which we’re currently finishing and polish so it’s ready for the big launch in April. Some things won’t work occasionally or outright break. This is intentional, as the Beta gives us important insights into topics such as Balance and Performance of the game. So please use the Closed Beta Forums (which will be opened on the english Ubisoft Forums soon) to provide us with Feedback and Bug Reports.
  • No NDA: This Closed Beta won’t have an NDA. That means you can stream, record and share videos and discuss your experiences in public. And we urge you to do so! If you’re on Social Media, make use of Hashtags such as #Anno1800, #AnnoUnion, #AnnoUnionCB und #Anno1800CB, so other Annoholics and ourselves can find your messages.
  • The Closed Beta won’t encompass the full game. The campaign won’t be playable and you can only reach the third residential tier in Endless Mode. Additionally, you’ll be able to challenge or cooperate with other players in Multiplayer, as well as explore and build in the New World.
  • The Closed Beta will run from 31. January 2019 to the 4th of February 2019.

Registering for the Closed Beta
If you’re still wondering how to get a chance to participate in the Beta: Log into the Anno Union with your Uplay Account or register a new Uplay Account if you don’t have one. You can do that using the buttons in the upper right corner of this website.

So if you haven’t yet logged into the Union for whichever reason, now’s the time to get that sorted. 🙂

System Requirements for the Closed Beta
There are only minimal changes from the specs since the Technical Test, but please keep in mind that these still aren’t final, as we’re still optimizing the game.

Current Minimum Specs:

  • CPU: Intel i5 3470 oder AMD FX 6350
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 670 GTX oder AMD Radeon R9 285
  • Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (jeweils 64-bit)
  • Hard Drive: 60 GB

Current Recommended Specs:

  • CPU: Intel i5 4690k oder AMD Ryzen 5 1400
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 970 GTX oder AMD Radeon RX 480
  • Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (jeweils 64-bit)
  • Hard Drive: 60 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 still in the middle of localisation of texts and recording voiceovers. Therefore we’ll only be able to offer this Closed Beta in English only. Sorry about that!

When we release in April, the following languages will be available:

Fully localised Text and Audio

  • English
  • German
  • French
  • Russian

Fully localised Text

  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Polish
  • Chinese (traditional and simplified)

Livestreams and Videos
If you have no opportunity to play yourself or need to take a break from being at your computer, then you can still get some impression from the Anno 1800 Closed Beta. You can check out what other players show from the game on Youtube, Twitch and Mixer.

Last but not least, we’ll want to show off the Closed Beta Trailer here. It was first revealed during last weeks AnnoCast and gives you an idea about the Feature we’ll showcase in this weeks DevBlog.

YouTube

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And that’s it for this weeks Union Update. We wish you all good luck to get a Beta invite!

Anno 1800 releases April 16th

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Today we have an important update for all our Anno Union members: The release date of Anno 1800 will now be April 16, 2019.

This wasn’t an easy decision for us because we know how much you are looking forward to the release, and we ourselves can’t wait to have you all experience the full game. Since the announcement of the game at Gamescom 2017, we have always been committed to deliver the best Anno experience possible at launch.
We are very happy with where the game and its wide mix of new and classic features are today, but we know that it can be even better with a little additional polish and tuning. These extra weeks will allow us to deliver a game that fully lives up to its potential.

Of course, you don’t have to just take our word for it! Starting next week on January 31st, our Closed Beta test will allow many of you to get your hands on the game to see for yourself how we are bringing the world of the industrial revolution to Anno. On that note, we are also happy to confirm that the Closed Beta won’t have any NDA- so feel free to discuss, create videos or to stream the game to your heart’s content.

In the coming weeks to launch, you can look forward to more news and details regarding Anno 1800 right here on the Union, as we discuss an all-new feature, give you more details on the multiplayer, lift the curtain on Anno 1800’s campaign and preview the game’s orchestral soundtrack. You should also keep an eye out for previews from a variety of websites who recently got their hands on the game.

Finally, we wanted to let you know that the Anno 1800 journey won’t end at launch. We will share more details closer to April 16th but can assure that we have some cool ideas for future post-launch content for the game.
We are humbled by your excitement and passion for the game, and hope you support our decision to take a little more time to make it as polished as it can be.

Best regards,
The Anno 1800 Dev Team

Union Update – Streaming Week

Posted on by Ubi-O5

Welcome back to the newest Union Update, this time a bit shorter than usual to leave us enough time to prepare the upcoming Closed Beta.

DevBlog: City Incidents – Moved
This week we planned to publish a blog taking a closer look at the City Incidents that you’ll have to deal with when creating your cities. We are still going to publish this blog, however, due to some workload caused by the  preparation of the upcoming Beta of Anno 1800, we decided to move the blog to February. That way, we have time to prepare the Closed Beta starting January 31st and bring you the hot insights about the incidents right after the test has concluded.

We teased to reveal another new feature for Anno 1800 last week and even though we had to move the City Incidents blog, rest assured that we will still raise the curtain on the new content before the Closed Beta starts!

AnnoCast moved to Thursday 24th & AnnoAfternoon this Friday 25th
A reminder that this week we’ll hold another AnnoCast and AnnoAfternoon that you can watch live on https://twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte.
As a headsup from last weeks announcement, we had to move the date of the next episode of our AnnoCast gamedev stream to this Thursday instead of Wednesday and we hope that despite the change in times, you’re going to watch because we have some interesting infos prepared and lot’s to show you!

AnnoCast: Quests and Expeditions – January 24th at 5pm CET / 11:00AM EST
AnnoAfternoon – January 25th at 5pm CET / 11:00AM EST

Follow our channel if you haven’t done so and use the links to the Events to receive a reminder when the Streams are about to begin.

That’s it for this week. Next week, we’ll have a huge chunk of information regarding the coming Beta and a DevBlog, so make sure you bookmark the Union and follow us on Social Media so you’re not missing out.

Union Update: Winter QnA

Posted on by Bastian Thun

While some of us enjoy the snowy surprise and the resulting winter themed skin applied in many parts of Germany, we bring you another round of our Community questions and answers and streams for the cozy winter days.

With this week’s DevBlog: Ornaments, our blog series revolving the development of Anno 1800 returns from its winter hiatus. Next week, we will conquer the winter season with some heat: we hope that you look forward to city incidents such as firestorms, strikes and the season appropriate illness before we raise the curtain for the big feature reveal before our Closed Beta at the end of the month.

The next episode of our AnnoCast and Anno Afternoon
Save the date as our Twitch devstream will return next week Wednesday January 23rd. This time with Narrative Designer Marie who will demonstrate us how we applied some fresh paint to the quest system in Anno 1800. Nevertheless, that is not all as next week Friday, January 25th, Chris and John will be back with their aspiring Anno 2070 utopia.

Annocast: Quests and Expeditions – January 23th at 5pm MEZ
AnnoAfternoon – January 25th at 5pm MEZ

Watch it live on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte – and follow our channel if you never want to miss a show!

[vc_single_image image=”3726″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”]

iyamaShiro
Will it be possible to change specific sound slider, such as voice, music and effects? I love to tune up the effects and dial down the rest of the game audio.
Answer: You will be able to change the following audio levels individually: Master Volume, Menu Sounds, Voice Volume, Music Volume and SFX Volume. Enjoy!

Ceib0
Will we only be able to exhibit artefacts in the museum or also art pieces such as statues or paintings?
Answer:Exhibits will mainly include cultural artefacts and sets will include statues. Bigger exhibits are displayed in open-air modules and come with their own unique asset while smaller artifacts will be showcased in museum wing modules. By the way: You will be able to place ornaments between your zoo and museum modules freely, which will allow you to create beautiful vistas with statues, fountains or other ornamental structures.

adriankowaty
Will there be a statistic overview like in 2205 which allows us to see how many units of a certain good we produce at a time?
Answer: We won’t have a statistic feature such as the one in Anno 2070 at launch of the game. But we are aware that many of you wish to see a comprehensive overview and statistics of your production, especially when reaching the end-game. We will keep continue to keep an eye on such feedback after the launch of the game.
The tooltip of each production building allows you to see how long it takes to finish one good and you will be further able to change the production speed with things like the working condition slider. If you compare the time it takes to create a good compared to the production time of the production of the needed resources, you can easily calculated the most effective rate of production and resource buildings.
Furthermore, you can check the overall amount of goods and if their stock is currently rising or declining in the kontor and warehouses.

g4mer901
Will it be possible to build sole production islands or will I need to create a new settlement with each island expansion?
Answer: Reaching the fourth residential tier unlocks a new building: the commuter harbor. This new building allows you to connect different islands, which also have a commuter harbor and once linked; islands will share their workforce as one global pool. This means that you will not need to create settlements to support your production islands. But beware: an economy which mainly relies on a commuter network is an easy target during war, as one well-directed blow to your commuter harbors can cripple your whole production pipeline.

prgbrowne
I have read reviews on Anno 1800 where one of the downsides is the small size of land masses to build your empire. Is that a valid concern? It probably would be nice to have the choice of the size of the land mass you get to colonise, much like Civilization I guess. I don’t really want to see small islands close together. Varied terrain type options would also be good.
Answer: Anno 1800 will not only have the biggest maps in the history of the series, but also islands with vastest construction space. In the custom game options, you will be able to change the type of island world (which affects the arrangement of islands, such as atolls and archipelagos) and how frequents large islands are on your map. As naval exploration was always an essential game pillar of the Anno series, we further expanded on the ocean space to give you more room for trading networks or open water battlefields for tense ship fights on the high sea.

denNes_
Is a return of the research planned for the game? I loved it in 2070 and 1701 and would like if it celebrates a comeback to the series.
Answer: We currently have no planes for a self-contained research feature in Anno 1800. We followed many community discussions revolving research closely and want to provide a few insides how Anno 1800 will cover that topic. In previous Anno titles, research served as an item generator and further allowed you to customize your playstyle with various perks and special abilities. Anno 1800 covers said options with several new features and as player freedom is important for us, we decided against a classic and often restricting “RTS” style research tree.
There are many different ways how to acquire items. In addition to quests or trading, you will be able to generate items with the new city attractiveness, the variety of expeditions or the world fair monument.
When on a zoological expedition, you will not only be able to acquire animals for your zoo, you can also get your hands on some cultural items or even hire specialists during events, which come with abilities which might not be related to the zoo at all. As an example, a specialist might join you who is able to boost one of your battleships with a special ability. If you want to focus on your fleet of warships, you can run naval themed exhibitions in your world fair or do bounty-hunt expeditions, which will reward you with naval related items such as weaponry or combat savvy specialists.
If you prefer to use the power of science to benefit your society, get marvelous new machines from the world fair, which you can slot in your guild houses to boost your factories with various effects.
Furthermore, you can make use of the influence system to get bonuses which suit your custom playstyle which are, in contrast to a research tree, are reversible at any time.
Add more elements such as electricity; Anno 1800 adds various layers, which allow you to optimize or to get experimental with your own unique playstyle.