Hey Anno Community,

it’s Tuesday, and release day! The new Cosmetic DLC National Park Pack is now available on all platforms (on Steam it will be available from 7PM CEST onwards as usual).

• Ubisoft Store
• PlayStation Store
• Xbox Store

Build dedicated parks for your citizens or simply add hiking paths and picnic opportunities to already existing forests on your islands – and create lakes and little streams. This CDLC is all about being outside in nature. For your people used to ever-growing cities and industrial smog, this should be the ideal opportunity to relax and unwind.

 

There’s more releasing today than just the National Park Pack, so, let’s take a look:

Release Notes

Together with the National Park Pack, we’re also releasing patches for both PC and Console.

On Consoles, it addresses an “out of memory” issue on PS5 and potential causes for desyncs on all consoles.

On PC, aside from addressing two exploits, the loading times of the game with mods have been drastically reduced and we fixed the unbuildable area on one of the New World islands.

You can find the full Release Notes for Consoles here and for PC by following this link.

Mod Browser

Very importantly, players on PC will now also be able to make full use of the new integrated mod browser thanks to mod.io!

Scroll through the available mods either on the mod.io page in your browser or – even easier – in the game directly! Subscribing to any mod of your choosing will trigger the download. Check for each savegame which mods are used and leave an update or a nice comment on the mod pages for their creators.

For you mod creators, we’d love to spotlight your creations ingame and on the Anno Union, so, don’t hesitate to upload them to mod.io, too!

Read more about the mod browser here.

We also set up a subpage right here on the Anno Union with the mod browser itself as well as links to FAQs with more information and redirections for further resources. Check it out: https://www.anno-union.com/mods/

Hey Anno Community,

Happy Friday! As you are getting ready to jump into the weekend, we thought of giving you one last recap on the latest news. On the menu today: a quick overview of the timeline for the upcoming CDLC after this week’s teaser, an update on the Anno Union Survey, and a Community Spotlight for dessert.

In terms of livestreams, we will take a short (summer-)break after having featured the first four Anno games in the recent months on our Twitch channel. We’ll likely resume our streams in late August or early September and keep you updated on this topic here.

A first teaser for the upcoming Cosmetic DLC

Some of you might have noticed this on Twitter and Facebook – last Tuesday, we shared a cheeky little sneak peek of the upcoming Cosmetic DLC:

 

A trail sign? A mysterious path leading to… the Lake District? Well, if you want to find out more about the new ornaments, keep your eyes on our social channels and the Anno Union: there’s one more teaser coming up next week, as well as a dedicated DevBlog on Wednesday 26 July, that will reveal the release date of the CDLC.

For the Game Update 18 Release Notes you’ll need to wait just a little bit longer, as we will have them ready for you in early August. Stay tuned for those!

In the meantime, we would like to know your guesses about the theme of the upcoming CDLC, so feel free to share them in the comments below. Let’s see who gets the closest to the correct one! 😉

Anno Union Survey

As you might remember, a couple of weeks ago we asked for your feedback about the Anno Union, your experience with the website and our communication over the last years in general. We have received so much valuable feedback from the survey you completed – and we would like to thank everyone who participated! Today, we would like to touch on a few topics that were highlighted a few times.

Forums – Well, not entirely surprising, but you made it pretty clear that you loved the forums and are missing a comparable platform right now, even if you’re using Discord and Reddit. As you know, Ubisoft is currently not planning to operate forums anymore, but we have taken note and will look into communication channels, old and new, as well as improvements to existing ones for the future and our next project.

Blogs (cadence/length) – From your answers, we learned that while the length of our (dev-)blogs seem to be just right for the majority of you, some would like to see more digestible blogs and would prefer to rather have more but shorter articles. We will keep this in mind for the future and see if certain topics can be split into different chapters, to give each article a stronger focus. In terms of cadence there will always be periods (like right now, for example) in which we won’t have too much to share with you and when news will be rarer, but we will do our best to give you a better overview and info on what’s coming in the immediate future. See the paragraph regarding the upcoming Cosmetic DLC.

Dark Mode – We were happy to read that the dark mode for the Anno Union is widely used, but we acknowledge that there are a some areas that could see some improvements. Thank you for pointing this out, we put those points on our list.

Q&As – We have always enjoyed doing Q&As with the Community, as it always was a great way for us to reply to your questions directly but also to connect with you all around the world. And clearly, you enjoyed them, too, since this topic was brought up several times in your answers to the survey. So, while we have to ask you for just a bit of patience: When the time comes, we will resume Q&As for our next project.

Community Spotlight

Now it’s time to focus on the creations of our beloved Community. We have seen quite a few outstanding screenshots lately, and we can safely say that your beauty building skills never cease to amaze us.

Speaking of beauty building, let’s start with this “beautiful” and maybe a bit abstract (???) creation by Aestris, shared on the Annoverse Discord. Three Christmas trees, and a panoramic wheel in the middle of a spiral made of canals and wheat fields. What’s the symbolic meaning behind all this? Is it a visual representation of the rule of the golden section? We have so many questions.

With summer heatwaves hitting quite hard in many parts of the world, we thought we could share a video by AnnoEffect, that feels quite… refreshing – but also looks great! After watching this video, we can confirm that Anno 1800 perfectly combines with scenic summer storms. We recommend watching this with earphones on, the sound of the rain feels so relaxing!

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If you’re new to beauty building and would like to give it a try, Taka has shared a super interesting and useful video on how to combine the game content and some of the most popular mods out there, in order to create the cities of your dreams. Enjoy!

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Finally, Laudica has shared this amazing creation on the Annoverse Discord. While still a work in progress, we were amazed by the creativity (combined with a lot of patience, too!) of this screenshot. We cannot wait to see the finished work! If you are curious to see how this evolves, do not forget to check the Annoverse for updates!

Hey Anno Community,

Today’s Union Update will mainly focus on a selection of great community creations in the “Spotlight” but first we want to announce two upcoming Annoversary livestreams:

• The first will be an Anno 1503 livestream on this Friday, June 2nd, starting at 5PM CEST.
• And next week Friday (9th) we’ll be following it up with an Anno 1602 livestream.

Our 1701 stream will likely happen towards the end of the month – we’ll keep you updated!

Community Spotlight

Today we have a very diverse Community Spotlight for you with multiple different pieces of community creations.

Let’s start with screenshots of the latest Cosmetic DLC: The “Fiesta” Pack.

First we have Tom D. who turned into a big fan of the purple Jacaranda trees and promptly distributed them all over his growing settlement on Manola:

Following that, we want to share Ionovia’s night-time screenshots (one of which we also used as a banner for today’s post)– including celebratory fireworks:

We also really loved Johnnyvanderzwaag’s “Deer in the forest” artwork they shared on Reddit:

A very cool surprise was recently posted by Taubenangriff, who shared almost 10min of alpha gameplay footage from their “New Horizons” mod for Anno 1800:

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To change things up, we’re travelling to the moon with AnnoEffect’s picture of their moon crater settlement from Anno 2205:

Finally, to prove that you can have Anno-related fun even outside the game:

We received an email with a fantastic recreation of the palace from “Seat of Power” – in Lego! The two Anno fans spent multiple months of turning over 100,000 stones into a 80kg heavy palace complex – complete with statues, park elements and a fountain. We were thoroughly impressed!

Last but not least, we have a piece of Anno 1602 nostalgia: Moebius created a rock version of the track “In the Beginning” which you veterans will surely recognise immediately:

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Hey Anno Community,

It’s mid-April, the Anno 1800 Console Edition has been already out for one month, Game Update 17 is released… let’s give you a short news recap and a fantastic Community Spotlight in today’s Union Update.

 

Firstly: What about those Cosmetic DLC we mentioned earlier in the year? – Excellent question. As communicated previously, we still have 3 Cosmetic DLC releasing this year (both on PC and console), each focusing on aspects that may have been a bit neglected so far, when it comes to beautification.

We’ll have news and first pictures about the upcoming one (to be released in May) in the coming weeks – stay tuned!

Console & PC: Patches

We’ve also seen some questions about a patch for both the Console Edition as well as the PC version.

Right now, we’re working on a patch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S to tackle some of the reports you sent us over the last weeks, like issues with the diplomacy menu, some crashes and graphical glitches.

On PC, while Game Update 17 was the last major update, we are investigating reports you sent us after the recent release to iron out problems like the always-visible version number or that some stamps are getting created with special characters which subsequently corrupts their file. We are planning to still address these, as well as any high-priority issues, with a patch.

We’ve also received some reports on desyncs on PC. As a workaround for the time being, please make sure that each players of your multiplayer match has started the game once after Game Update 17 and either changed some settings (graphics, audio, …) or loaded and saved the game. If you afterwards regularly close the game, the chance for desyncs should be significantly lower. Please also make sure that all participants either use exactly the same mods or have all mods deactivated before playing.

Keep an eye on the Anno Union and our social channels for news on the upcoming patches!

Annoverse Quiz Event

Finally, the team of the “Annoverse” Discord is soon holding an Annoversary event on their server, with quizes to all Anno titles – and you can win prizes if you can prove your knowledge! Head over the their Discord server and read more in the news and dedicated giveaway channels. It all starts on Monday, April 17th!

Modloader (PC)

Let’s also not forget about our “happy little accident” last week, when we released the integrated modloader for Anno 1800 on PC. This means, the game will now automatically recognise mods in your mod folder and load them for you. This means you won’t need the other one anymore – please delete the files and then verify your game files to prevent any conflicts.

We want both credit and thank meow/xforce (GitHub link), who created the original modloader you have been using for the last years – and whose code formed part of the basis of what we now added to the game. Your work has been an immense factor in enabling the modding community for our game as it is right now, thank you!

 

We take this opportunity to remind you that mods might cause issues with the game (bugs, glitches, potential blockers), especially when they haven’t been updated in a while. Therefore, please check for potential incompatibilities or ask around on the Modding Discord Server.

Community Spotlight

As you might already know, with the Annoversary Update we added the Stamp Feature to Anno 1800 (PC). In case you missed it, you can check out this blog  to better understand how it works. If you created your own stamps already, don’t forget to share them with the rest of the Community! For example, the Annoverse Discord server has created a dedicated channel where anyone can share their Stamps.

The Anno Community is very dedicated, as we already know for a long time, and reallymilo has created a portal where you can share your Anno Stamps with the rest of the community: https://annostamps.com/

Speaking of Annoversary Update, we’ve seen some of you have been celebrating with fireworks and and lovely decorations in your cities. We hope you keep the celebrations going for a while and keep sharing those screenshots with us!

Let’s start with Qurphi, who shared on Reddit this lovely composition for the celebration. Why a 4 in the middle, you might ask? Well, Anno 1800 turns 4 this Sunday!

Mithaldriel has shared quite a few screenshots on the Annoverse Discord to show off the ongoing celebrations. We chose the one portraying the lovely skyline by night, with the Annoversary fireworks brightening the night sky. What a view!

Would you like to see more Annoversary fireworks? MaxiMALER effekt shared this screenshot on Steam, with a stunning view of the Research Institute and the Iron Tower, while fireworks burst with colours in the starry night. Bravo!

That’s it for this week, dear Annholics. We wish you a great weekend!

Hey Anno Community,

It’s release day: the Annoversary Update is now available on PC! If you missed the Release Notes for Game Update 17 or simply would like to brush up the (very long) list of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements that come with today’s update, then feel free to check our dedicated blog.

At the end of last year we shared our plans for 2023. Today, we would like to take the opportunity to remind you all that the Annoversary Update will be the last update for Anno 1800. Of course, we still have three Cosmetic DLC releases this year (more news on those later this month)- but no major update is planned besides necessary bug fixes if needed.

We can tell you that it’s a strange feeling for us, too, speaking of “the last update” after having worked on Anno 1800 for such a long time.

Even more important for us therefore was this Annoversary Update, to leave our “baby” in state we can be happy with. So, no reason to be sad, since the update includes a bunch of great improvements. And in today’s blog, we would like to give you an overview on the Stamp Feature and the Creative Mode – the two brand new additions to Anno 1800 on PC.

The Stamp Feature

The Stamp Feature enables you to save layouts and use them again later or even in a different savegame. You can even share the Stamp files with other players!

How to create a Stamp

Like with the copy tool, you select a number of buildings, streets, ornaments etc. that are then saved as a “stamp” in a separate menu.

You can rename each stamp and select an icon (from any of the buildings included in the stamp, or one of the default ones). To do this, right click on the Stamp to open the edit window.

You can also rename each folder, just click on it and edit the name. Please be aware that the icon for each folder is chosen automatically based on the first Stamp in the folder. The Stamps in a folder are organized alphabetically.

Folders

If no folder is open, newly created Stamps are added to the “New Stamps” folder. If such a folder doesn’t exist, it gets automatically created. You can rename the “New Stamps” folder at any.

You can add a new Stamp into an existing folder by opening said folder before creating a new Stamp.

What you can’t do in-game, however, is moving Stamps between folders.

Folder Management

To organize your Stamps you can also use your Windows file explorer.

You can create new folders, rename both the folders and Stamps and move Stamps between folders there. Just keep in mind that any changes are not applied to a running game. So, either restart the game after doing your edits or simply organize the Stamps while the game is not running.

Other Notes

Stamps are organized by region and scenario by default and can only be used in their respective environment. You can find all your Stamps here, in the order described above: \Documents\Anno 1800\stamps

It’s possible to share and use Stamps from other players. Just drop the file in the respective folder.

If a Stamp includes content that is either limited to the Creative Mode or part of a DLC you don’t own, you can still place it, but the unavailable objects are placed as blueprints and cannot be upgraded (or, in the case of DLC content: not until you own it).

The Creative Mode

This one goes out to all the beauty-builders out there. The Creative Mode is a brand-new and separate mode that allows you to focus on your city building creative skills without feeling the pressure of AI requests or the constant worry of running out of money. Yes, you heard that right! There are no restrictions when it comes to the Creative Mode: money is unlimited, you can forget about incidents, construction costs, input goods, workforce and road connections. Just unleash your creativity and share your masterpieces in beauty-building with us! We cannot wait to see you your awesome creations.

Keep in mind that this is not the intended way to play Anno 1800, since it does not simulate a regular game you would normally play in sandbox or campaign. Plus, keep in mind that it can only be played in single player.

Well, Annoholics – this is all for today’s blog. We hope you enjoy the new features and are satisfied with the quality-of-life-improvements and balancing changes added with the Annoversary Update. Share some screenshots of your Creative Mode builds with us and don’t forget you can share your Stamps with other players! We are looking forward to seeing your creations!

Looking into the future, we have a few more things planned to celebrate this quarter-century journey with you all. Speaking of, have you noticed our 25th Anniversary logo in today’s clip?

 

Stay tuned for more. 😉

Happy city-building!