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Tag: Contest

The Anno 1800 Modding Contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

With great excitement we’ve followed the growth of the Anno 1800 hub on mod.io in particular, and the discussions about mods and modding in general that our August-Update created.

We’re very happy that both the mod creators in our community, as well as our players were so quickly on board with the mod browser we added together with the great team at mod.io.

Plenty of fantastic creations have been added since and we would love to see even more!

So, as a little incentive, we’re starting Anno 1800’s first ever modding contest!

Even better: You can win fantastic hardware prizes from MSI!

Let’s first give you a quick summary of the contest and its rules, however:

  • The modding contest will run from today (October 23rd) until November 30th
  • The theme that your mod will have to be at least partially related to is “the New World”.

Additionally, there are some restrictions for legal reasons, and we ask you to carefully read the official rules by following this link. You will need to accept these rules in order be eligible to win. In short:

  • You will need to create a completely new mod to participate and can’t enter with an existing mod.
  • Participants will have to live in Europe (see rules document for the full list of countries).
  • Participants will need to be at least 16 years old.

What can I win?

As mentioned at the beginning, MSI has graciously sponsored the prizes for this modding contest.

In total, together with our friends at MSI, we’re awarding the 5 best mods each with a mouse and mousepad combo: The Clutch GM51 Lightweight Wireless Mouse and the Agility GD72 Gleam Edition Mousepad.

In case you’re teaming up with another modder (see participation rules below) and your mod wins, each of you will get the MSI prize bundle.

How do I participate?

Below we’ve listed the requirements for participating in the modding contest and to for you to eligible for a prize.  Make sure to also check the full rules for the contest.

Step 1:
Create any type of mod for Anno 1800. The only limitation is that the mod has to be in some way related to the “New World” but in which way is up to you.

Step 2:
You can team up with up to 1 other person (i.e. you can form 2-person teams) to create your mod.

Step 3:
Within the time limit (until November 30th), send a us download link to the finished mod via email at anno-community@ubisoft.com

Step 4:
Do not publish your mod (on Nexus, mod.io, GitHub, etc.) before the winners have been chosen (afterwards you’re of course free to upload it on any platform of your choice).

The winners will be chosen by a jury within the Anno team based on creativity, use of the theme and “usefulness” of the mod for players. We’re open for any and all creations: From ornamental to gameplay mods and from serious creations to funny or silly things.

Additionally, the winners will of course be featured on our channels upon conclusion of the contest.

We’re excitedly looking forward to what you’re coming up with and once again want to thank both MSI as well as our modding community for their support.

Ubisoft Entertainment SA collects and processes your personal data to allow your participation in the competition and to send prize(s) to winner(s). Learn more about the use of your personal data and about your rights here.

Union Update – Land of Lions & postcard contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

We know a picture says more than a thousand words, so how many words does a video count as? Anyway, here you go, watch the brand-new Anno 1800 – “Land of Lions” teaser trailer!

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We’re excited to announce that Anno 1800’s biggest DLC yet will release on October 22nd, 2020 (a date which coincidentally has the checksum 9) on the Epic Store, the Ubisoft Store and on Steam.

“Land of Lions” will feature a completely new session, the land of Enbesa, with its own story, new population tiers, production chains and goods… but we don’t want to go into detail just yet!

Instead we’ll start… hmmm… let’s say: Monday!

Stay tuned for the first wave of information starting next week.

Winners of the Postcard Contest

In early September we asked you to send postcards from the world of Anno, showing off your cities and islands to create some vacation feelings. And we received a lot of amazing cards from places we’d love to go on vacation to! Naturally, making a decision was tough but after plenty of deliberation, we managed to decide on our 5 favourites. You should still check out the English and German forum threads for the other cards or look up the ones posted on Twitter with the #annoholidays hashtag.

Congratulations to Amoury.Montfort, Lethanii, NinoRoelofs, Wiwio (front and back side) and Sakrisch.EZ for winning a stylish Anno 1800 t-shirt!

We will contact all winners on the platform they’ve posted their postcard on, to get their contact details. So please keep an eye on your inbox!

Please be aware there might be delays later on with shipping due to the current world-wide Covid-19 situation.

An update for the Anno Union

After the update to the new Anno Union in June we received plenty of feedback from you as to which parts you’d like to see changed or added.

Today we not only want to say thank you for your constructive input, but are also happy to announce that an update was deployed this mornig with some great changes:

You can now switch between dark and light mode, as requested by several community members, by clicking the round button right next to the language selection.

We’ve also improved the language buttons, making it easier to see if you’re on the German or English version of the page. All non-German users should now also be directed to the English version of the Anno Union automatically. We hope this avoids future language confusion 🙂

From now on you will also find all trailers and streams listed in the new video page – of course including the new “Land of Lions” teaser trailer!

In addition to these features, some smaller changes were also implemented, for example, the front page has been optimized to require less scrolling to see all the content and the box to write a new comment is now right below the article – you won’t have to scroll to the end of the comment section anymore.

There are some more, minor improvements and we still have a few ideas what else we want to add and will keep you updated. In this regard we’re of course open to your feedback, so let us know if you have suggestions or ideas for the Anno Union!

Bright Harvest, a board game and contest winners

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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.

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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:

 

 

Seat of Power Screenshot Contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

With all the tools necessary to construct a palace worthy of an industrial magnate at your disposal, we are sure that many of you have already created some amazing and lavish palace complexes! The ideal time to start another creative contest and ask you to share pictures of your architectural marvels with us.

Simply share your screenshots with us on Twitter using the #seatofanno hashtag or post them in this dedicated forum thread.

And while it is not mandatory and will not be part of the selection process, feel free to tell us more about your palace! Did you model it after any real-world monument? Is there any cool story behind it? We want to know!

The submission deadline is May 8th, 11:59pm CET. We will announce the winners in an upcoming Union Update after our team had some time to browse through all your magnificent screenshots.

Of course, palace-building is hard work, and needs the right tools. Thankfully, our good friends at CORSAIR (no business or family relationship to Anne Harlow) have once again volunteered to sponsor some of their great gaming hardware for the Anno Union, allowing us to offer these prizes:

 

Grand prize: CORSAIR VOID Headset, CORSAIR IRONCLAW Wireless Mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad

2nd prize: CORSAIR IRONCLAW mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad

3rd prize: CORSAIR HARPOON mouse and MM300 mousepad

Given current circumstances, we have to add a small disclaimer: Once we have selected the winners, we will undertake every effort to send them their prizes as soon as possible, though there may be some delays depending on the Covid-19 related regulations at the time.

Good luck to all palace builders out there, we are looking forward to your creations! And as always, stay healthy and safe!

Botanica, the Anno Soundtrack and the Winner of the Day Night Contest

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Today marks the release of our second season pass DLC “Botanica” and Game Update 5. We are eager to see your comments on our latest content update and if you plan to share your marvelous gardens or just want to create content with the free Game Update 5, do not forget to let us know by commenting or mentioning our official social media channels such as @Anno_EN.

 

https://youtu.be/u_oq8Lfj9JQ

With five big updates as well as three DLC’s in total, the journey of Anno 1800 is far from over yet. With “Passage” sending you on a venturesome journey to the cold north and free updates like the upcoming Coop Mode and Statistic Overview, we will continue to expand the world of Anno 1800 until the end of the year. You will not have to wait too long, as we will share some details about our plans for the next big game update soon.

 

Anno 1800 Piano Suite

Our new Botanica Music Pavilion is a throwback to old classics and the perfect occasion to celebrate over 20 years of Anno history. And as a thank you for all the support over the years, we want to share something special with you. In partnership with the Anno 1800 composer Tilman Sillescu and Dynamedion, we present to you the music sheet to the original Anno 1800 piano suite.

Get the Anno 1800 Piano Suite notes here

 

If just for the collectors heart or for talented musicians (or the ones striving to become one) in our community, the music notes of the piano theme give you some exclusive insight in the work of the talented composer and invite you to create your own Anno 1800 music piece. Let us know if you are hungry for more, and don’t forget sharing your interpretations of the Anno 1800 music with the Anno Union. On that special note, how do you like the idea of a dedicated music stream, maybe with the composer Tilman himself as a special guest?

 

Anno 1800 vinyl and digital soundtrack

Our special vinyl edition of the soundtrack was in high demand since launch. And we are happy to tell you that this well looked after collector’s item is still available on the store of our friends from Black Screen Records.

And if you just can’t get enough of the Anno 1800 soundtrack, we also made it digitally available on various platforms.

• Soundtrack on Spotify
• Soundtrack on Youtube
• Soundtrack bei iTunes
• Soundtrack bei Google

 

 

Day Night Contest

With our free Anno 1800 week during this year’s gamescom, we allowed everyone to try out Anno 1800 and experience the new day night cycle, which is now available for everyone in Game Update 5, for the first time. Anno 1800 is already a dreamland for screenshot artists and we realized quickly: the new day night cycle is the perfect feature to challenge you with a contest.

Together with Corsair Gaming, we asked you to use the new lighting options to capture your city in a new light. And today, we happily announce the winner of our big Corsair Day&Night contest!

First place goes to: Karacolidea’s sunset in the new world!
Like in real photography, it is all about the right time of the day to get a painterly shot like this one, where the last light of the day transforms this new world settlement into a scene right out of a fairytale. Congratulations Karacolidea for this wonderful shot and the first place of our contest.
You will never be left in the dark with your new Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse, MM800 RGB Mousepad and the ST100 RGB Headset Stand.

 

Second place goes to: Neckarmann’s under the full moon
It is almost too quite in that moody harbor piece and it is hard to tell if the scene is romantic or if the glooming full moon creates a feeling of unease. But that is the magic about Neckarmann’s screenshot and why we decided it is a well-deserved second place! The Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse and MM800 RGB Mouspad will find its way to you!

 

Third place goes to: Carpo’s rising inferno
A quite scenery, villagers peacefully resting under the dark night sky….and a full on catastrophe in the making! We had a few great entries with spitting flames in the night but this one captivated us most.
Congratulations for the third place and for winning the Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse.

 

Keep an eye out for a DM in the forum or on twitter from our community team, as we will need your address to send the Corsair gear and your Anno goodies on the way.

And without further ado, happy gardening everyone and until next time!

 

Union Update: Live Streams and City Promotion Winner

Posted on by Bastian Thun

We are currently testing the content of the new DLC “Sunken Treasures” with a selected group of players from the Anno Union and will provide the exciting details about the big update and the DLC in an upcoming DevBlog and AnnoCast livestream.

 

We have started to implement a few changes to the Anno Union page, which should it make easier for you to keep track of all our Anno 1800 updates (and soon upcoming content).

In the top menu, you will now find a new category called “Game Updates”. Hovering over the category will give you a drop-down including pages for all of our Game Update notes.

 

For our latest round of the Community Corner AMA stream, many of you followed the call once more and the result are two hours full of fun, gamedev insights and answers to your questions.

You can watch the recording of the AMA stream now here:
Community Corner AMA July

But behold: the next streams are on the horizon. This Friday, we bring back our Anno Afternoon stream with Ubi Guddy and Ubi John, this time with 100% more anarchy and backseat gaming.
Beside community streams, we will also return with our AnnoCast development show later in July.

Anno Afternoon – Right into Anarchy!
Friday 5th of July at 4pm CEST
Watch it live on: twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

 

We were amazed by the amount of videos, the level of quality and crazy ideas behind some of your City Promotion Contest submissions. Dr. Hugo Mercier would be proud of you, or depending on your message, truly offended. Deciding for our favorite three entries was an incredibly tough choice.
We want to encourage everyone in the Union to check out all the entries of the contest and we will continue to put your contributions into the limelight of our social media channels.

Without further ado, let’s lift the curtain on the winners of our big City Promotion contest.

First Place – Radlerauge – Utopia

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-lTyvYyMU4&feature=youtu.be

Combining a speech inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s best performance with powerful visuals of a sprawling 19th century metropolis and industry was a truly moving experience. Radlerauge created a strong message not only for fans of the Anno series, which relates to the world back then, of today and probably of tomorrow. The video has English subtitles available!

Second Place – Tutadventures – The Anarchist Competition Film

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIpmCDwWCs&feature=youtu.be

This one took us by surprise: a skillfuly executed blend of real life camera footage, 3D animation and game footage. Short, powerful and impressive, Tutadventures’ movie managed to become one of the team’s favorites.

Third Place – BixelBG – Island Propaganda Weekly News

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shiuBH_Gh8c

A fittingly classy one-pager, hot off the press of Bixel Daily News, gave us ideas for future contests or even a whole section of community contributed Anno news articles. The best in the west, surely worth more than 2 cents.

We could only pick three winners but we won’t end the contest without one honorable mention, even though every single entry deserves attention. Our Honorable Mention goes to: Lord_Janok – Stadt Propaganda

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6KsefafJwk

Once again, Lord Janok died his best in displaying true passion for the series. A great speech combined with stunning city backdrops, well done Lord Janok!

We will soon get in contact with the winners of the contest to send them their Gaming Gear sponsored by our friends at Corsair.


And until we are back with another contest, what kind of competition would you love to see us doing here in the Anno Union?

 

Union Update: Anarchist and City Promotion

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Dr. Hugo Mercier just arrived in the world of Anno 1800, bringing with him not only a lot of new content for owners of the Digital Deluxe Edition, but also the free Game Update with its more than 200 improvements to the game.

Owners of the Anno 1800 Pioneers Edition or Digital Deluxe Edition can now include the Anarchist, who comes with new content such as 50 additional quests and items as well as new propaganda and a defection system, as a second party character when creating a new sandbox game.

And if you don’t want to miss out on Mercier, owners of the Standard Edition can also upgrade to the Digital Deluxe version to get access to the DLC as well as digital items such as the soundtrack and additional company emblems.

But there is more: Just in time for Game Update 3 and the Anarchist, you can save 20% on your Uplay purchase of Anno 1800’s Standard and Digital Deluxe Edition, thanks to the Ubisoft E3 Sale! If you have been on the fence, now is the perfect time to dive into the industrial revolution!

And in celebration of Mercier’s arrival, we also invite you all to participate in our new City Promotion Contest! Together with our friends of Corsair, we ask you to create a video to promote your metropolis.

Here are the rules:
– No time limitations but it must be at least 15 seconds long.
– It should include gameplay content
– Additionally, you can use video footage of yourself, text mockups or other graphics, audio effects or anything you can think of. Get crazy!
– It must be a retro style promotion of your city, such as a nice invitation for tourists to visit your city or a full-blown propaganda piece demonstrating that your empire is the one to rule them all!
– Deadline is June 21, and you can link your submissions in the City Promotion thread in the forum or via Twitter mentioning @Anno_EN and the hashtag #Anno1800Anarchy

So what’s at stake? For the best three entries of the contest, you can win top gaming gear from Corsair to stay ahead of the competition.
1st Place: K70 RGB MK.2 Keyboard Low Profile
2nd Place: GLAIVE RGB Gaming Mouse
3rd Place: MM800 Pro Mousepad

Good luck everyone!

Yesterday, we hosted another session of our Community Corner live-stream, a streaming format where we showcase content while also answering your questions. If you missed the show, you can watch the VOD here:

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Watch Community Corner – Anarchist Preview and AMA from ubisoftbluebyte on www.twitch.tv

And to follow up on questions from the stream, here are the answers:

Question: Do the new sea mines cause friendly fire when blowing up, causing damage to your or allied ships?
Answer: Sea mines are not causing damage to your own or allied/neutral ships. In Anno 1800, where you have a variety of neutral or allied characters and the game world is heavily used for trade by all these factions, friendly fire could cause many issues affecting the player’s enjoyment. Harbor areas would be inaccessible and players would likely soon stop using the item, as the chances of entering an unintended state of war with the AI or damaging their own ship would be too high. However, even without friendly fire, the sea mines add a lot of strategical variety to the naval combat, allowing you to expand your harbor defense or to blockade areas of the map.

Question: If I wipe Dr. Hugo Mercier from the map, will I lose access to all his items and propaganda news articles?
Answer: If you wipe the Anarchist from your map, you will not have any access to his item pool anymore nor able to use his propaganda articles. When the music is over, turn off the lights.

Anno 1800 Closed Beta Screenshot Challenge

Posted on by Bastian Thun

While the Closed Beta is understandably on every Annoholic’s mind right now, we are already setting our eyes on the future to ensure that some of you can enjoy the full game in style come April 16th. To this end, we have joined up with our friends and fellow sailship-enthusiasts at CORSAIR, who are providing some of their great gaming peripherals as prizes. Introducing- the Anno 1800 Closed Beta Screenshot Contest!

To participate in the contest, all you have to do is play the game all the way up to tier 3 (the Artisans), cross the ocean and share your most beautiful New World screenshot with us. Moreover, if you did not get the chance to get an Anno 1800 Closed Beta code yet, CORSAIR got you covered.

Get all the details on the contest and code giveaway here!

The screenshot challenge starts today and ends February 5th at 23:59 CET. To give our team some time to browse through your scenic New World shots, we will announce the winners on Friday,  February 8th.

And here is the loot table for the New World screenshot challenge:

1st prize:

  • K70 RGB MK.2 keyboard (Cherry MX Red switches)
  • IRONCLAW RGB mouse
  • MM800 RGB Cloth Edition mousepad
  • VOID PRO RGB Wireless headset

2nd prize:

  • STRAFE RGB MK.2 keyboard (Cherry MX Silent switches)
  • IRONCLAW RGB mouse

3rd prize:

  • IRONCLAW RGB mouse
  • MM800 mousepad

Thanks again to our friends at CORSAIR for sponsoring this contest. Enjoy the Closed Beta, give us feedback aplenty and good luck for all participating photographers!