Bright Harvest, a board game and contest winners

Let the “Bright Harvest” begin

Last Tuesday, June 2, marked the release of the “Bright Harvest” DLC and Game Update 8!

Boost your agriculture by building silos and state-of-the-art tractors, and beautify your islands with additional farming and industrial ornaments. The farming revolution is already well underway!

Game Update 8 additionally provides you with a convenient item overview, bigger warehouses, the Great Eastern steamer and many smaller improvements and fixes which you can find here.

YouTube has been deactivated. Do you accept the use of cookies to display and allow you to watch the video content?
Set Cookies

I acceppt Cookies

Always unblock YouTube

Thanks to your feedback following the release, our team is currently working on Game Update 8.1 to address some of the concerns you voiced. We will have more info on it closer to its release around Mid-June.

Get ready for analogue Anno 1800

And another kind of announcement was made last week which we are extremely excited about: On Thursday Kosmos Spiele (whom you may be familiar with from games such as “Catan” and “Legends of Andor”) announced “Anno 1800: The Board Game”, releasing this autumn.

Famed game designer Martin Wallace, who has proven his industrial expertise with award-winning games such as “Age of Steam” and “Brass: Birmingham” will be handling this version of Anno 1800, which we are very excited about ourselves. Follow Kosmos’ Instagram channel for updates if you’re interested in developing your island and competing with friends or family around a table.

The “Seat of Power” Screenshot Contest

We also have some winners to announce! In late April we started the “Seat of Power” screenshot contest and asked you to share the most epic pictures of your palaces with us – and wow, we received a lot of stunning examples of our community’s creativity! From smaller coastal palaces to enormous inner-city complexes. From palaces with vast parks and flower beds over palaces with an integrated zoo or museum, broad triumph and parade streets and intricate hedge-mazes to dedicated courtyards for specific events and functions.

Understandably, we had a hard time deciding on the winners and want to thank all participants for sharing their creations with us.

Let’s then get to the winners who can look forward to some great gear from our friends at Corsair.

First place, a CORSAIR VOID Headset, CORSAIR IRONCLAW Wireless Mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad, goes to justVera.

This massive palace complex not only incorporates a Zoo, Museum and Botanical Garden, but does so in an extremely elegant way with plenty of green to separate the different modules and paths inviting for a stroll through the vast park. Directly connected to the World’s Fair on the other side of the park and a broad street and park leading to the palace from the harbour our team was deeply impressed by the amount of planning that went into the creation of it.

In second place, the lucky owner to be of a CORSAIR IRONCLAW mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad, comes ChrisX86!

We really liked the symmetry of his palace complex which at the same time still including variety like the hedge maze or differently styled flower beds and courtyards. While less green and more focused on mosaic and plaza tiles than others, the palace does not feel stuffed with decoration but provides plenty of space, offering a calm oasis with resting spots in a busy city.

In third place we have adam5909’s lake palace on Crown Falls which won him a CORSAIR HARPOON mouse and MM300 mousepad.

Far from the bustling, noisy city, this palace sits on Crown Falls’ large lake and offers a spectacular panorama thanks to the waterfalls in the distance. While smaller in size than some other palaces, plenty of parks, hedge mazes and other botanical arrangements make this a calm and quiet retreat for any ruler or magnate with a perfect view in all directions.

All winners will be contacted by us via direct message or forum PM so please keep an eye on your inbox!

Believe us, it was a tough choice to make and our team decided to add two honourable mentions for their different approaches to the topic of palace-building.

One is gntherfrank for his not only idyllically calm and green but also very realistically looking palace and garden. You can easily imagine coming across such a palace in real life, a retreat for a local count or duke while over the years the nearby city has grown closer and closer, slowly integrating the palace into the cityscape.

The other is Moppelkotze09 for the sheer insanity when it comes to the scale of the city design. While the palace itself is not as big as others, city and palace are directly interwoven in their design with the latter not only being at the centre of it all but also dividing the former into four districts. The amount of ornaments and parks built into this project impressed us so much that it indeed deserved an honourable mention.

Finally, again, a big thank you to everyone who sent us screenshots of their palace or posted them on the forums! We can’t wait to see what you manage to create with more ornaments and buildings of the following updates.

And now for some education with Fatherlorris

Last but not least we’re excited to share another comic strip by Fatherlorris of The Chapel with you.  Learn about Dr John Rae’s Arctic expedition and his discovery of the lost Franklin expedition: