- Anno 1800
- History Collection
- Union Update
Anno News & Community Spotlight
- 31.07.2020
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.
I have been trying to buy the Amusement Park DLC for about two weeks, but everytime I click it just stays in loading mode. Have tried several times, don’t know if it;s a bug our something else. Thanks for your time.
Hello,
Only 1 week left for the Technical Test.
So far no email. 🙁
I guess that I am the only active union member that is not participating in this test.
Very disappointing. 🙁
Best regards,
Katje-Katrien
Looking forwards to the updates coming soon. Hope the testing is going well for the Land of The Lions. As always keep up the great work ANNO Team! Keep doing what you love. Keep doing what you all do best! 😀
Thank you for featuring me in the ANNO UNION. I totally agree with the Developers that there is a lack of community made content in the union. I would love to see what other community members come up with for their own content. I am glad that I and my good friend Wolfi Hitory can contribute something to help bridge that gap.
Also thanks for the awesome ANNO 1701 stream! It was fun and entertaining. I am glad that I made it in time for the stream. The time difference isn’t convenient, but I made it. It was a lot of fun to watch and chat with Thorlof and Hanbi. You guys are awesome! 😀 I still feel sorry for those poor elephants that ended up as a gourmet dinner. Too bad there where no cows though. I have to agree with Hanbi on that one. But maybe we should be thankful that the cows weren’t there this time, since this scenario we did wasn’t a vegan one. They would have ended up on the menu too. 🙁
I look forwards to the ANNO 1404 Multiplayer ANNO Afternoon Stream. I will definitely try my best to make it in time for that. ANNO 1404 is obviously my favorite game of the series. So this is going to be awesome to play multiplayer with the developers. I am very excited for this one! I love playing ANNO 1404, but with the devs its even more awesome! Total awesomeness! 😀
Stay safe and stay healthy! Look forwards for more ANNO 1800 content and really looking forwards to the multiplayer stream!
Best Regards,
Feruda
(ReComment) Frankly, I expect a few natural disasters to be added to the game for the DLC, which will come as a cosmetic supplement to the game. Apart from that, it would be nice if you can make an arrangement on the island sizes that I persistently mentioned. this is all I want from you Please
The “A day at the amusement park” theme is not bad, but I am still hoping that the other cosmetic pack themes will also get a release. After all, I voted for the “Bustling City Life” theme, which came in second by a very close margin.
Hello,
I am losing hope now. I didn’t receive any email yet. 🙁
Cheers,
Katje-Katrien