Hello Anno Community,

Throughout Season 4, your New World empire has reached new heights. You started from the ground, by revolutionising the agricultural sector thanks to the Hacienda, and then took off to the sky and new horizons with Paloma and her airships. Now, it’s time for Season’s 4 grand finale: “New World Rising” opens a sea of possibilities for your Anno cities and their residents, who will experience first-hand an industrial and economic boom.

With December approaching, it means that the release of the third and last DLC of Season 4 is upon us – and what better way to set the mood than a deep dive into its content?

A new Generation: Artistas

Raw talent is both a blessing and a curse. It leads to sleepless nights, excessive ice cream consumption and truly exceptional results. The Artista has the heart of a poet and the hands of a musician, always coming up with new and exciting ways to change the world. Pursuing his endeavours with genteel manners and childlike enthusiasm, it is easy to think him a simple man at heart – but there’s a shrewd mind hiding underneath all that glitter.

At the centre of the New World revolution, a new generation is blooming: the Artistas. With refined taste and an ambitious desire to strive towards their dreams, Artistas will change the New World from the inside out, with your help. They are the new Resident Tier in the New World, coming right after the beloved Jornaleros and Obreros. Once reached 1000 Obreros in your cities, you will need to upgrade one Obrera house in order attract the first Artistas to your island. This new residence houses up to 40 Artistas, and could potentially go up to 85 with fulfilled Lifestyle Needs. Furthermore, once you have attracted the first Artistas to your island, a new building will be available to house them in the Hacienda quarters, that brings a sparkling pop of colour amid the warm tones of the New World. The Artistas Hacienda Quarters can house up to 80 Artistas, double the residents of the standard counterpart – but with Lifestyle Needs activated and fulfilled, it can get up to 165.

Of course, to attract more Artistas, you need to fulfil their needs – which can sometimes be quite out of the ordinary. As a result, new needs mean new production chains, which will require a mix of existing products and new ones.

A bright new start

The future of the New World has never been brighter! And we mean this literally, because Electricity will now be available in the New World with “New World Rising”. You know the drill when it comes to electricity: just like in the Old World or Cape Trelawney, you will need Oil Refineries, Power Plants and Oil Harbours to bring Electricity on your New World Islands. Once supplied with electricity, each factory and production building will receive a boost in productivity. But that’s not all – when it comes to New World farms, on top of the boost, something else happens: farms’ pastures will produce bonus goods. This is the case of cattle pastures, that will produce milk, whilst alpaca pastures produce saltpetre as bonus goods.

However, you should also know that oil refineries and power plants might not the only way to supply electricity in the New World. There is the special case of Manola, a large island that has been recently discovered in the northern part of the New World. We hope we got your attention with this, because you will have to wait another week to know more about Manola and its secrets. Stay tuned!

From Mezcal and Jalea…

One of the first recipe you will notice once you unlock Aristas, is a brand-new product: footballs! Quite the hint for the Monument you will build in the near future… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A new farm will be available for you to produce the leather required for the balls, the Nandu Farm. The leather will then be tooled and assembled into balls in the Ball Manufactory.

Traditions are important for Artistas, even when it comes to food. Mezcal is a traditional beverage served by the Mezcal Bar and loved by Artistas; it will require Orchards for Citrus trees, Sugar cane plantations, and Herbs from the colourful Herb Gardens. Once you reach 900 Artistas, a new recipe will be unlocked, Jalea, a gourmet dish made with Calamari, which are now produced by the Calamari Fishery. Upon reaching 1800 Artistas, a refreshing product will be available: Ice Cream! Perfect for those torrid afternoons in the New World. As a dairy product, ice cream needs milk, which is now produced by cattle farms’ pastures as a plus good, if supplied with electricity.

After all this food talk, it is time to focus on a different type of products. As we have mentioned before, Artistas have quite an exquisite taste when it comes to their needs. Among these, we can find Perfumes, produced by the Perfume Mixer: in order to get the perfect fragrance to please the Artistas’ refined taste, you will need Orchids, Coconut oil, and Ethanol.

Artistas will also demand ventilators to fight against the warmth of the New World. This is where things start to get complicated, Annoholics. This new product will see the introduction of two new factories: the Cable Factory and the Motor Assembly Plant.

Towards the beginning of the 1900s, the first motorised scooters started appearing around the world. Of course, Artistas cannot resist this marvellous piece of technology, which makes their life a lot easier. Together with the Ventilators, Electric Scooters represent the most complex product needed by Artistas: from the mechanical parts like cables and motors, to the pigments needed to create the wonderful different varnishes for the scooters.

… To the world of entertainment!

Yes, Entertainment is a huge part of the Artistas’ life: amongst their hobbies, they enjoy spending their time at the Cinema, when they are not practicing dancing in the Samba School. Obviously, for the Cinema to work, you will need to produce roll films, the recipe of which will be available in the Chemical Plant (NW), a multi-factory that you may already be familiar with if you own “Tourist Season”. For the Samba School, instead, you will need to craft colourful Costumes with cotton, pigment and nandu feathers, produced in the nandu farms, if the farm is supplied with electricity.

With the presence of Artistas in the New World, entertainment has now become a new lifestyle need for all your New World resident tiers.

Emergency Services upgrades

With higher tier residents and bigger islands, comes even greater responsibility. With “New World Rising”, you will be able to upgrade the emergency services on your island, to assure greater safety for your residents than before. By reaching the required number of Artistas, you will unlock a new button in the menu of the Police Station, Fire Station, and Hospital, which will allow you to upgrade the selected service. Once upgraded, those services will require input goods, but will become fully automated: this means that once an incident occurs, they send out all available units. Furthermore, they strongly reduce the chance on incidents and have a larger street range than the regular ones.

For example, the upgraded Fire Station will need to be supplied with fire extinguishers, produced by a new Multi-factory: the Laboratory. This building will also produce Medicine for the upgraded Hospital, and pigment, used for Costumes and Electric Scooters. Finally, the upgraded Police Station will need to be supplied with Police Equipment, now produced in the Arsenal. However, if any of these input goods are missing, the emergency services will respond to incidents like a traditional city institution – requiring your input to recruit volunteer units instead of instantly sending them out.

If necessary, you can downgrade the emergency service at any time with just one click, from the service’s menu.

By the sea

There is nothing more relaxing than chilling on the beach after a long day, enjoying the sun setting on the horizon. Well, New World residents love spending their free time on the fresh shores of their islands, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. By building the Beach House, you will provide an additional public service for your residents, whilst making your island look even more beautiful and welcoming. Just like other public services, the Beach works within a specific radius, which can be increased thanks to the beach ornaments: a parasol picnic for your residents to enjoy some food in the shadow, an ice cream parlour for a refreshing snack under the sun, a life-guard tower to keep your residents safe, and more! Each ornament you place provides attractiveness to the beach building, proportionally increasing its range.

Time to get the ball rolling: a new Monument

Back in September, during Ubisoft Forward, we let you take a small glimpse at the Monument for “New World Rising” in our CGI teaser. Many of you shared with us your guesses on the Monument, however, none of you got the answer perfectly right. Well, it is finally time to reveal what your most ambitious project will be with “New World Rising”: the Grand Stadium! Just like any monument, the Stadium will be built in phases, three in total. Be aware that, as usual, it will require a great number of materials and workforce, so be prepared! Once built, everything will be ready to host football games. To launch your first event, simply access the Championship panel in the Stadium menu. Based on your population you will unlock three different levels of events: Local, Regional and World, and they all provide additional Influence as a reward at the end. An event lasts 20 minutes, and during its preparation you have the chance to deliver goods to the Stadium to increase the quality of the reward.

We hope you enjoyed today’s DevBlog and are thrilled as we are for the release of “New World Rising” on December 8th at 3 PM CET / 9 AM ET. Keep an eye on the Anno Union, because more DLC 12 DevBlogs are coming your way – one dedicated to the New World expansion and one dedicated to our third Scenario, Pride and Peddlers. In the meantime, if you have any question on the new content or would like to know more on a specific feature, feel free to leave a comment below or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook and our official Forums.

Happy city-building!

Development of Anno 1800 – Season 4 is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action within the framework of computer games funding.