Union Update: New Milestones

We are back with a short update from the development front, the winners of our #annophony contest and a new episode of our AnnoAfternoon community show.

Many of you have heard it already: thanks to your relentless support is Anno 1800 the fastest selling game in the franchise’s history! And to celebrate that milestone, we decided to honor your first week achievements in a special way:

Improvements and future updates for Anno 1800
We entered week three after the big maiden voyage and we are busy bees here in our studio in Mainz. The game had an incredible start thanks to our communities out there and our current main objective is to finish the second patch for Anno 1800.
And since launch of the game, we browsed through an incredible amount of discussions and reports from our own forums as well as community platforms out there. Backed up by our own game analytics, we got together a lot of valuable data which helps us to improve Anno 1800 step by step.

But Anno is a true giant when it comes to the amount of features and simulations running in the back ground. And because of that, any changes to the game (if it is a QoL improvement or a bugfix) have to be validated to make sure that not one fix does not result in a new although different issue to appear.
But we got together a handy checklist for the second patch which we will share with you, together with an ETA
for the next patch, next week.

And if you are curious about upcoming content, Dr. Hugo Mercier will soon appear on the big Anno stage and we will reveal his background but also interesting gameplay twists in a future DevBlog.
We can already tell that the Anarchist is not only a visionary; he has quite unconventional tools to force his ideas onto his people.
We know that you are also curious when the first free content updates in form of the statistic building and the coop mode will go live. We have to ask you for a bit more patience here, as we think that balancing, improvements and bugfixes have the highest priority right now. As always, we will give keep you in the loop as soon as we have news to share.

Anno Afternoon May 3. at 3pm UTC
How about a trip back to Waffletown, the peaceful village John and Guddy created during our AnnoAfternoon community stream! How did the residents fare in the last few weeks of stream abstinence? Is there still enough schnapps or has everything exploded in the meantime? Find out in the next Anno Afternoon and help us to get everything back on track!
Tune in this Friday, May 3^rd at 3pm UTC on: https://www.twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Annophonics and other community creations
We asked you to create a love letter to the Anno series and today, we are happy to announce the winners of our #annophony contest! And so much love went into your submissions of the contest that we cannot wat to channel your creative energy in future contests.

And the winner of the first place is: HolyDaDeViL’s very special Anno Sanctum

True craftsmanship and passion came together to create something truly special: a marvelous Anno 1800 sanctum. We seriously have to re-think our decorations in our streaming room after seeing this one! Congratulations for the first place, we will get in contact with you via forum DM to send the vinyl soundtrack on its way to you.

And without further ado, the second place goes to: Lord_Janok and one day in the life of an Annoholic!

This one made us chuckle many times but beside the great humor, the video is a true display of dedication and passion of fans who follow our series for two decades now.
We will also get in contact with you via forum DM so that you soon can call the signed Anno 1800 t-shirt your own!

As we are already working on new concepts for future contests, what are the Unions idea for small and big creative or other competitions?

Help and tips from Crinricts Gaming World
You say that this gaming and support blog is a staple in many gaming communities for years now. Thankfully, Crinrict seems to have found a liking in the 19. Century flair and we are happy to see that the first Anno 1800 help articles found a new home in Crinrict’s Gaming World.

And for today’s Union Header, grabbed a moment captured in a wonderful angle by by user @We3kend

Until next time!