Dear Madame,
Ever since you arrived in the New World, your name has become a synonym for exquisite taste.
It is no secret that you deal in some of our greatest treasures. While this practise is perfectly legal, we regret that our people were unable to place a bid for what is rightfully theirs.
We, the Artista Collective, want to encourage the repatriation of these objects and hope to enlist your help in this matter.
Rather than intrude on your time uninvited, we have an offer to make, one that is well-suited to your talents as a trader.
We await your presence at the Atelier Insólito, graciously hosted by the Yaosca Research Centre.
Respectfully,
The Artista Collective

Another challenge awaits you, Annoholics, in Season 4’s third scenario: Pride & Peddlers.

As you may have already deduced from the intro, this time you will be taking on the role of Madame Kahina, a trader dealing in exotic artefacts, spices and more. Hired for just these talents, Pride & Peddlers is all about producing and trading goods and amassing significant sums of money.

The goal: Buy back three valuable artefacts from three Old World traders and exhibit them in your still-to-be-constructed museum.

 

Check out our video below to get a quick overview:

Gameplay

You’ll be starting off with a small fleet of four ships and are free to settle any island you want. The production chains and needs largely follow the regular ones in the New World, with only a few modifications. Building a first settlement and – importantly – getting your production started to have goods to export should be your first objective.

There is a twist, however: Since all your workers are volunteers in this mission, you will not be able to tax them. Accordingly, your only source of income is trade. We’ve adjusted the balance calculation to show you if you’re making a plus or not in this scenario. For this, you will either have to set up trade routes or approach a trader manually. Possible trading partners are both the already mentioned three traders (Margaret Hunt, Vicente Silva, Carl Leonard von Malching) or some familiar faces from the New World (Yaosca, Isabel Sarmento, Paloma Valente).

The Old World traders also offer goods your residents might be willing to pay you for (Black Market goods), but those are expensive, and you’ll have to think twice if you can afford them.

Some other changes to your regular gameplay sessions include the randomization of the map, meaning mines and fertilities are not consistent on restart. Additionally, mines are finite and cannot be “refilled”, and there’s no military component to the scenario.

You can and will need to settle multiple islands to produce the large variety of goods and stay prepared for all eventualities – but expansion is expensive. Make sure you can compensate the costs via your trading.

 

Additionally, there are some optional story events around Madame Kahina herself – and you’ll occasionally find valuable goods in the wreckages or less fortunate trading vessels.

The Market

After this general overview over the scenario, let’s dive into one of the core features: The Market.

Similar to the “Seasons of Silver” scenario, the market situation changes in irregular intervals (meaning not all events have the same duration), providing you with modifiers to your production, population and trade. The market is rather unregulated – which can be a great way to turn a big profit, if you manage to get ahold of the products affected by the market trends. Events can be positive or negative, see these two examples:

• “A fishy business”: fish oil can be sold at 250% its normal price.
• “The fields lie barren” | Negative event: Farmer protests that affect all crop farms, all new world orchards and all animal farms. Farmers everywhere have decided to protest harsh conditions and falling prices –> -50% productivity, +75% chance of riots

You’re provided with a forecast as to what the next market event will be, allowing you prepare. It might not be profitable forever to focus on agricultural goods, but you might want to branch out and also get some more advanced factories going.

The market trends are randomized to a degree, and there are quest-related special events with their own effects. Additionally, the market trends are both influenced by with whom you are trading (Old World traders or New World traders) and how far you have progressed in the scenario.

Victory Conditions

As mentioned previously, your goal is to repatriate the three artefacts in question and then exhibit them in your museum. This grants you the Bronze Medal.

Silver and Gold will additionally challenge you to end the scenario with a certain amount of money for the “heritage fund” and Gold requires you to be a real export master (which actually was our internal name for the scenario) by selling a total of 500.000 tons of goods during your playthrough.

This time around, there is no timer attached to any of the objectives, which means that in theory you have as much time as you want.

Practically, due to the changing market situations described above, you will still want to tackle your goals in a timely manner

The rewards for finishing the scenario are new skins for your museum modules.

 

As introduced with DLC 11 and Game Update 15, Pride & Peddlers is also coming with its own set of badges. These extra challenges grant you additional Golden Tickets for the Grand Gallery if fulfilled during a playthrough. There are three in total:

• Win the scenario with 180t of scooters in storage.
• Win the scenario with 100K coins in stock.
• Win the game with a population of at least 3.000 after surviving one hour in volatile markets.

An update for the Grand Gallery

Finally, we’re also updating the Grand Gallery with Game Update 16. For your Golden Tickets earned through the scenarios you can unlock several additional items, the selection is a mix of specific feedback you provided us with as well as a general community favourites. For example, you can now find Ermenegilda di Mercante, the Mole Master and Master Craftsman Franke in the Grand Gallery.

Additionally, you unlock the Artista portraits for your profile as well as a variety of cemetery-themed ornaments like graves, a crypt or an angel statue.

 

And that’s all for “Pride & Peddlers”, the new scenario coming with the “New World Rising DLC”. How will you fare without taxes as primary income source?

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.

Hey Anno Community,

In this second DevBlog for “New World Rising” we will take a closer look at what we only briefly mentioned before: The expansion of the New World region and the new islands that are getting added.

While Anno games tend to give players relatively large freedoms to build as much and how they want, there are still a few limiting factors. One main factor, of course, is space. There are only so many islands in a region and the islands have only so many tiles.

While some of you have proven over the years, that one can squeeze many more people on those islands than we originally thought, eventually a ceiling is hit, and either space for residences or space for production runs out. Space management therefore also is a key challenge of the Anno games – even more so if you’re playing with opponents.

In Anno 1800, the New World itself also acted as a limiting factor to a certain degree, considering the goods that other regions, primarily the Old World, needed. Season 4’s focus on the New World therefore meant a) to provide engaging new mechanics and b) simultaneously offer additional ways to increase efficiency and save space (e.g. Hacienda farms or workforce commute via the Airship Platform).

A larger New World

New World Rising is adding an additional population tier as well as several new production chains, as we detailed in the previous blog, and the Lifestyle Needs may also require additional production capacities in this southern region. It accordingly made sense to take an additional step to address the above-mentioned space topic, a “simple” one, actually: Giving you more building space!

And that’s what we’re doing with this last DLC of Season 4: The New World region expands on its two northern borders, adding another strip of space for more islands. That’s an increase of about 30%, making the map now larger than the Old World. There are of course still some general limiting factors for map size, first and foremost it’s performance.

New islands to settle

To increase island variety, especially now that the New World is quite a bit bigger than before, our Level Art team also created several new islands that are getting added to the overall map pool for the region. You can expect 3 new small islands, 4 new medium islands and 3 new large islands.

By popular demand, we added additional riv… no, just kidding, we reduced the number of rivers on these new islands. Plus, we’re also adding riverless variants of the existing islands to the overall map pool.

In existing savegames, these new islands will be placed in the expanded area in the north, giving you fresh building challenges to face. The exact number of islands (5 to 7) depends on your chosen region size for your savegame. Therefore, some of the new islands you may only see if you start a new game.

When you start a new game, the islands will be randomly placed together with the already existing New World islands. There is one twist, though: While only owners of DLC 12 will profit from the expanded region, the new islands and riverless island variants will be added to the general map pool, and therefore be available for all players, regardless of which DLC you own.

Our process for creating islands has not changed drastically from what we described a looong time ago back in 2018 in a blog before Anno 1800’s release. We recommend checking out the mentioned DevBlog by our Level Artist Simon if you want some more insights in our processes.

Space for your New World capital

But wait, we talked about new islands, but haven’t mentioned Mānola yet! In addition to the new regular islands that we talked about in the previous section, New World Rising is also adding a larger landmass in the very North of the map. Similar to Crown Falls in Cape Trelawney, it offers you more building space on a single island as well as some unique details – but it also comes with its own monument! This monument gets its own section below, so, let’s first talk about the island itself.

First, the name: As you can see on the screenshot above, Mānola is an island with many waterfalls! The name then was inspired by the Manoa Falls on the Hawaiian island of Honolulu, an impressive 46m waterfall surrounded by rain forest. There were additional inspirations for some of the island’s geographical features, of course: We have long beaches framed by mountain peaks (inspired by Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and many, many waterfalls (inspired by the Iguazu Falls, Argentina/Brazil).

Considering this is the finale of Season 4, we wanted to give you a similar place to create your capital city as we did back in 2019 with Crown Falls – especially since the New World also is one of the regions that are part of the base game.

Aside from the waterfalls, you of course get plenty of building space on this island – making it a great candidate for your New World capital. While there’s a large mountain chain further inland, the area near the coast is split by a large river and slightly rises on several levels up to the mountain region. Several beaches provide space for your industry and harbour area, but also for the new beach module that we introduced in our previous DevBlog.

Several large rocks dot both the landmass itself as well as the coastal area, and a part of the island on the left is semi-detached from the mainland but can be connected via bridges. In addition to coasts and building space, Mānola offers multiple mine, clay and oil deposits to suit your needs.

Our Level Artists also added a few environmental details (and secrets?) as well as stories into this island, we heavily recommend taking the time to take a closer look yourselves.

 

Note, that this continental island is (in contrast to the other new islands) only available for owners of “New World Rising” with the expanded New World map.

Green Energy – The Dam

The monument you can construct on Mānola is a giant dam, that you might be familiar with when you played the “Eden Burning” scenario. Since the island has plenty of water(-falls), as you’ve seen, you can use this dam to harness the water’s energy to provide electricity to your people on the island.

First, you will have to construct the dam in multiple phases – as you’re used to from other monuments – which will require you to import some goods from the Old World, namely: concrete. Upon completion, the dam provides electricity on the island just like a Power Plant does – but without needing any input goods and with significantly higher range: all of Mānola profits from the electricity generated. No need for power plants and intricate railroad networks.

Additionally, there’s no pollution penalty, making the dam a decidedly more environmentally friendly solution. And it just looks really cool!

That’s it on the topic of New World expansion that’s part of “New World Rising” and the new islands that are getting added alongside it. Next week you can expect a DevBlog for DLC 12’s scenario: Pride and Peddlers – it’s gonna be all about trading!

Do you have any additional questions on the topic of islands and world creation? Leave them in the comments!

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.

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.

Dear Miss Paloma Valente,

We are delighted to invite you to the first Grand Postal Derby. This special competition – organised and exclusively covered by the Daily Courier – promises to be the greatest competitive event in the history of humankind – surpassing even the 1806 Sausage-Making Championship.

Victory will require a dedication to deliveries, a mastery of mail-routes, and pre-eminent postal prowess! We at the Daily Courier have no doubt that your airships will thrill the public and provide stiff competition for even the slickest of mail delivery operations.

We eagerly await your arrival.
Yours sincerely,
The editorial board of the Daily Courier

Hard to pass up such an opportunity, wouldn’t you agree? – Obviously Paloma took this opportunity head-on. Both to prove the qualities of her new airship as well as cause the premise of a challenge built around stamps sounded just too intriguing.

Collecting stamps? Oh yes, since “Clash of Couriers” is sponsored by the Royal Philatelic Society, stamps will be at the center of the competition.
If you want to learn a bit more about Paloma, we have a neat little character introduction in our previous DevBlog.

 

You can get a quick overview of the scenario via the video below:

Getting Started

We know you’re eager to get right into the mail business, but let’s first survey the situation you’re starting in.

This time around, you’re given a starting island (Grassy Point) with a reasonable starting town – including a hangar and landing platform. While you will certainly have to expand this settlement over the course of the scenario as well as expand to new islands – to support your growing postal empire – this way you can almost immediately dive into the quests of the scenario.

You also start with an airship: The “Landroval”, Paloma’s flagship. This way you can quickly survey the map, find traders, islands to settle and whatever else there might be.

As with all our scenarios, expect some changes to the regular mechanics – especially when it comes to the needs of your residents. They’re less demanding than usual, meaning you can fully focus on the tasks ahead.

Mail & Stamps

At the center of the scenario and almost all its challenges is the distribution of mail. This works very similar to the mail system in the main game which we have talked about previously – with the difference, that there’s no “Overseas Mail”, and that “Regional Mail” (mail sent between two islands) has been renamed to “Airmail”. Additionally, fulfilling the mail need will result in you receiving stamps from the delivered mail: two types of stamps for two types of mail. While it can be sold to traders, you will certainly need it for the challenges to come, so we’d recommend holding on to them for a while longer.

Make sure to set up a functional mail system on your starting island, then it’s time to join the Grand Postal Derby!

Goals & Challenges

Alright then, let’s dive into the details of your scenario objective: How do you win the Grand Postal Derby?

Similar to any other type of tournament, you will proceed through several brackets, facing competitors in order to win the derby. Winning two out of three challenges in each bracket will promote you to the next one – but of course, the competitors in each subsequent group will also be significantly stronger.

You can freely pick any of the 3 competitors to challenge but be aware: Each challenge comes with its own tasks for you to fulfil (and a time limit).  These tasks will involve selling previously acquired stamps, and various other objectives like fulfilling needs to a certain percentage, finding people, increasing your population or decreasing your people’s happiness.

There are also individual debuffs connected to each of them. Because… your competitors might not always play fair. For example, the “New World Express” will simply switch around all your workforce requirements while another competitor reduces the bonuses you receive by providing your people with mail. There are more effects, of course – we’ve been very creative!

Throughout the competition, radio messages will comment on all events while remaining extremely professional in their coverage, of course.

The World & Discovery

What we haven’t touched on yet is the world all this is taking place in.

As usual, the scenario map is a specifically created world with its own rules and challenges. For example, only your starting island has some coastal area, all other islands are plateaus with steep cliffs.

That means, that you’ll have to settle them by air, adding an additional logistical challenge since you will need to resupply them by air from your main island with regular deliveries. To settle new islands, you first need an official island charter; you gain those by advancing in the competition, allowing you to slowly expand your postal empire across the whole session.

There also is lots to discover on the map and we heavily recommend you to explore! You will meet some familiar faces to trade or make business with. You will find treasures and previously lost mail shipments. And you may stumble upon some pirates! (Okay, maybe you should be a bit careful while exploring.)

Some of the people you meet might become relevant in quests later on while some of the objects you find may help you with certain tasks or improve your finances. Have a look around when you got some time in between the derby’s challenges.

Similar to the previous scenarios, there’s a certain element of persistency when you restart the scenario: If you have settled on some of the plateaus, the Airship Platform will stay when you decide to restart to, for example, go for higher medal.

Winning the scenario will not only make you and your airships world famous but also give you new skins for the Pegasus Class cargo airship!

And coming with Game Update 15, there’s another reason to play the new scenario…

The Grand Gallery

… introducing: The Grand Gallery!

In the Grand Gallery, you will be able to trade Golden Tickets for various ornaments, items and more. But wait, Golden Tickets?

This is the scenario connection we mentioned: Playing the scenarios and fulfilling certain scenario-related achievements will give you Golden Tickets. Anno 1404 veterans might remember such a mechanic: Back then you received Gems for certain achievements with which you could then unlock ornaments, portraits and more. For you, the Grand Gallery should feel very familiar.

All previous and upcoming scenarios will award you with Golden Tickets for:

• Finishing a scenario for the first time
• Finishing a scenario with a specific medal
• Completing any of the “badges”, special scenario-related achievements

And before you ask: We tracked your progress since Eden Burning, meaning you will already start with a certain number of Golden Tickets if you finished the scenarios and fulfilled some of their achievements prior to this update.

Completing a scenario multiple times will reward you with Golden Tickets each time based on your performance.

Let’s talk about what you can unlock with those Golden Tickets!

Currently there are four categories: Ornaments, Character Portraits, Skins and Items. That means, on September 20^th you will be able to get various kinds of ornaments related to Nate’s scrapyard or use the Paloma as your new portrait.  If you own DLC 11 or DLC 3, there are airship skins (for the for the Zephyr and Boreas Class) you can unlock, too.

And finally, we added a few items we think are popular with our players, for example the Fjordbuster MK VI. or the Gritty Gas Extractor.

 

All content is available account-wide, meaning it can be used in all your savegames simultaneously.

It’s also important to note that this feature is part of the Free Game Update, meaning you can receive Golden Tickets via the free “Eden Burning” scenario, even if you don’t own any of Season 4’s DLC (and therefore scenarios). We are planning to expand the Grand Gallery with more content in the future.

After unlocking something via Golden Tickets, how do you get access to your new content?

If you played Anno 2070 and loved having the Ark, you will like this: At any time during playing, you can call on Paloma to deliver your unlocked items to your island. She will always deliver all items you unlocked. And maybe this inspires you to start a fresh game: Construct your Trading Post and immediately get your unlocked items delivered for a quicker start!

These item deliveries are only available in singleplayer. Portraits, ornaments and ship skins are immediately unlocked for you, without Paloma’s help.

We hope you find this new feature useful.

That’s it for our DevBlog about the “Clash of Courier” scenario as well as the scenario system overall with the introduction of the Grand Gallery.

We’re not only curious what you think but also can’t wait for you to try your luck with winning the Grand Postal Derby yourself!

Until the release of DLC 11 on September 20^th, you can, as usual, expect the full Release Notes for Game Update 15 as well as details about the Twitch Drops event and early access phase. So, keep an eye on our channels!

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.

Today I saw a most remarkable thing. We gathered, the whole town, filled with anticipation. A breathless silence settled on us, broken only by the clicking of pocket-watches repeatedly checked.

And then, rising beyond the distant mountains, silhouetted against the morning sun, it came: immense and majestic; thunderous and forbidding. A titan of the sky, its lungs enclosed by ribs of metal. I must say, I had the impression more of some noble antediluvian beast, grazing the sky, than of a man-made craft.

I sense a new age dawning, the possibilities stretching as far as the limitless horizon. Untethered from the capricious sea, we can accomplish vast voyages in record time; melt away the distances between nations. But fear grows in me, too; visions of what violence we might wreak on one another, of these vessels we worked so hard to launch into the sky falling to earth once more, screaming plumes of gas bleeding from their ruptured sides.

A new age, indeed. To stand on the threshold between epochs… It is a vertiginous sensation.

Hello Anno Community,

Welcome to our second DevBlog dedicated to DLC 11, “Empire of the Skies”! Previously, we (hopefully) delighted our players and readers with a DevBlog dedicated to Airships, heart and soul of this DLC. Today, instead, we will focus on the whole content and mechanics of the DLC.

Come on aboard, fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the flight: we will be cruising through game mechanics, dev insights and more!

A quick recap on Airships

As mentioned in our Airships DevBlog, with DLC 11 you will have access to two types of Airships: Rapid Airships if you prefer speed over cargo space, and Cargo Airships if you need more space to transport your goods. Airships present different capabilities and features: from transporting goods on your designed trade routes, to worker commuting and drop actions on islands. The first step of your journey into the sky starts with building a Hangar on your island: that is where your airships will be constructed. The Hangar is a monument that needs to be built in 4 phases, each one requiring various materials and quite a bit of workforce – so you will need to be prepared!

New Production chains

Two new elements will be essential for the construction of your airships: aluminium and helium. Of course, this implicates the need for two new production chains.

The new airships are surprisingly lightweight thanks to the aluminium frames that help maintain their structure. Not only is aluminium used in airship constructions, but also for many of the buildings used by airships. Two elements will be required to start your aluminium production: coal and bauxite, with the latter only available in the New World.

These Airships also require a new type of gas, helium, another element that can only be found in the New World, where numerous helium-rich gas pockets have been discovered. The production chain for helium is a bit more complex than the aluminium one. The Helium Extractor, unlike other mines, needs input goods to function and start extracting the gas. The first is lubricant, produced by the Palm Oil Press, which uses two input goods, fish oil and saltpetre, in addition to needing space to plant palm trees. We know you like a good challenge, so you will need to set a trade route to get that precious saltpetre, as the saltpetre works is only available in the Old World. Together with the lubricant, add some clay, and the helium extractor is ready to begin its work!

Airship Platforms

Once you have built your first airship, it is time to build an Airship Platform to maximise the airships’ potential – plus, this way, you will always know where you parked! You can build only one platform per island which can then be expanded with various modules to unlock unique features and capabilities on your island. Platforms can only be built in the New World and the Old World.

There are in total 3 modules that can be built from the Airship Platform menu.

Item Transfer

It allows you to quickly transport items between different islands and sessions. Once the Item Transfer module is built, you will be able to drop any item in an empty slot. The dropped item will then be available after a cooldown on any other island that has an Airship Platform with an Item Transfer module built – however, be aware that the cooldown varies based on the rarity of the item you are dropping. The more Item Transfer modules you build, the more your global storage capacity will increase. Each module you build will supply two additional slots, up to 24 in total.

Airmail Module

This module represents the main mail sorting centre present on your island. It allows you to send and receive mail through airship and their routes. Mail is produced passively by your residents and collected by Post Offices and Post Boxes. Once collected, the mail will be then distributed via airship to other islands and regions. But let us stop here for now, more on Mail and Air Mail Routes later in the blog, just be patient!

Airship Commuter

Shared workforce, anyone? Just like the Commuter Pier, it will allow workforce to commute between islands on which you have built an Airship Platform with an Airship Commuter module.

 

Based on what your airships are transporting, they will direct themselves to an Airship Platform or other trading spots. When it comes to Mail, airships will unload their precious epistolary cargo on Airship Platforms only, whilst when it comes to other goods, they will approach Airship Platforms, Piers, Trading Posts, etc.

You’ve got mail!

One of the most interesting aspects of “Empire of the Skies” is the Mail System. Nowadays, we live in a hyperconnected world, where everything and everyone is just one click away. However, nothing beats the joy and charm of receiving a handwritten letter from an old friend living on the other side of the world, doesn’t it? An envelope carefully sealed, with stamps methodically placed on the back, or a care package full of our favourite treats thoughtfully picked and placed together…

Mail is a Lifestyle Need for your Residents, and it provides additional income and resident influx. In total, there are three tiers of mail:

• Local Mail – distributed locally on the same island
• Regional Mail – distributed between islands within the same region/session
• Overseas Mail – distributed between different regions/sessions

As mentioned before, Mail is passively produced by your residents and then collected by Post Offices and Post Boxes. Both buildings have a radius, therefore you should place them strategically in your residential districts: the more Residents in the range, the more Local Mail will be gathered. While the Post Boxes are easier to place as they take very little space (only one tile), their range is also smaller than the Post Office. Another thing to keep in mind is that radiuses cannot overlap between each other: time to use those Tetris skills!

As the name suggest, only Local Mail will be consumed by your Residents on a specific island, while to obtain Regional and Overseas Mail, you will need to transport Mail via the Airmail Module and, therefore, Airships. In terms of numbers and percentages, about half of the Local Mail produced by your Residents will be needed to fulfil their Lifestyle need for local mail. This means that the remaining will be used to produce Regional and Overseas Mail.

Once you start producing enough Local Mail to get to second and third Mail tier, the next step is to transport it to other islands: this can be considered as the next step in the “production chain” of Regional and Overseas Mail. This distribution will start once you set a Trade Route through the Airmail Module. Once the Mail reaches its destination, it will convert to Regional Mail when reaching another island within the same session, or Overseas Mail when reaching another island in another session (except for Old World – Cape Trelawney, sending mail between them will only count as Regional Mail). We called this conversion process Route Alchemy. This does change a few things to how you are used to trade routes to work. First, mail will always be completely unloaded at target, it will not be unloaded in steps. If you cancel a trade route or throw the mail overboard, the mail will be unloaded and lost.

What about the Arctic, you might ask. Well, while the Arctic platform on the plateaus follows the same rules as when it was introduced back in 2019 with “The Passage” DLC, a special stand-alone mail module has been added for them with “Empires of the Skies”. For the regular islands in the Arctic, a modified Airship Platform has been added that also has this one module.

In short: You will still need to have a platform and a module on any Arctic island or plateau that you want to connect to your mail system. The existing Post Offices will now handle two tasks: Fulfilling the regular need of the Technicians and collecting as well as distributing mail in the context of DLC 11’s mail feature.

Drop Goods

Air-Drops are another important feature of the new Airships, allowing you to drop different goods on your islands, based on your needs. To produce them, you will need a Drop Goods Factory where you can choose your preferred good from the recipe list. Once produced, you can load the goods onto your airship.

There are 5 distinct types of drops available: pamphlets, care packages, bombs, sea mines and water. For each drop production, the Factory will require specific input goods but will use the same amount of workforce and have the same maintenance costs for each.

Pamphlet Printer

By dropping pamphlets on your opponents’ islands, you will create unrest, affecting residences and production by distracting your opponents’ population with propaganda.

Care Package Factory

An effective way to boost your own, your allies’ or neutral factions’ production and happiness! After all, who does not like a thoughtful care package dropping from the sky?

Water Drop Factory

When fires are too extended and firefighters are struggling to keep a fire under control, you will be able to take out fires with water drops from your airships.

Bomb Factory

As you have learned from our previous DevBlog, airships can now be armed with bombs and attack your opponents’ harbours and fleets.

Sea Mine Factory

An interesting way to sabotage your opponents’ trade routes and fleets would be dropping sea mines in the open sea.

Ornaments

Let’s not forget the most important part for the beauty-builders out there: ornaments! In total, there will be 8 brand new ornaments that will go perfectly with the whole DLC 11 theme. They will help you create the perfect atmosphere around your landing platforms and, of course, make your people feel comfortable and ready for their flights: a nice refreshing drink from the Airport Café, café tables to sit in the shadow, an airport clock to make sure not to miss their flight and much more!

Free Game Update: Military Changes

DLC 11 will also come with a free update, available for all the Anno 1800 players. We mentioned some of the changes already, like the resizing of the Passage Airships, for example, or the Lifestyle Needs and several new items. Alongside of those changes, there will be some free military improvements: for example, new weapons will be available for your harbours, such as an anti-armour gun or a flame tower. Following this, we did some changes to the different damage types, which means that based on the weapons you will build, there will also be distinct types of damage – e.g., wooden ships will take more damage from fire attacks from the flamer tower.

The full list of changes will as usual be shared close to the Game Update’s release – so watch this space to know more!

 

This brings us to the end of today’s DevBlog, Annoholics. We explored quite a few topics and had a taste of what awaits you in “Empire of the Skies” on September 20th. We hope you enjoyed the read and are ready for the next one, as soon we will share our third and last DevBlog dedicated to DLC 11: the “Clash of Couriers” Scenario DevBlog!

As usual, if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, and our official Forums.

Until next time, 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.

Hey Anno Community,

Welcome to the first DevBlog for DLC 11 – Empire of the Skies! Today we’ll be talking about the new airships: The design process, the new airship types and their balance, how to build them and which roles they fulfill in the game.

You can expect two more DevBlogs following this one: One will give you an overview over all of DLC 11’s features and go into a bit more detail on them – and the other will be dedicated to the new scenario, “Clash of Couriers”.

Let’s dive right in (or up!) and answer the one big question first: Why airships in the New World?

Well, Season 4 is all about the New World and its people, specifically: Their efforts and successes in developing new technologies and processes in all sectors – agriculture, technology and culture. And with air travel and airships in particular also being a big step in transportation in our world in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, it was a perfect fit for this year’s content for Anno 1800.

Creating new airships

Next, we want to dive a little bit into our workflows: What’s the process for creating an airship?

We’ll start directly at our Art Team: How did we approach designing new airships? First, historical references were used to get a feel for the look of designs from the “golden age of airships”. Based on this, our concept artist created a large number of scribbles of (sometimes wild) ideas, from traditional to very fictional designs – you might remember them from the Season 4 trailer. Two that actually made it into the game with some changes are the number 8 and 9 from the image below.

One important part was, that these new airships should be more modern, and therefore also look more sophisticated than the one you were able to build in the Arctic. To quote our Senior Artist Carsten:

“None of the designs are completely realistic, neither for the time nor in general, but they look like they could have been created during that period. Like the steam ships in the game, they had to be far smaller than they realistically would be, while still looking correct in size, compared to the buildings and the other vehicles. This compromise between hard realism and changes to make the assets look more epic or just more interesting for the good of the game is a common theme in the Anno asset creation.”

Below you can see two rough 3D tests for the look of the model. Our Art Team created a kit with many 3D elements and then built airships from it. This way they could get a feel for how the airships would look within the game world. It was especially important to have shape variety and clear distinction between smaller agile airships and the larger cargo models.

All this eventually led to the final model of the large cargo airship:

That’s the Art perspective, so let’s now talk Gameplay: What kind of airships can you expect and how do they behave?

An airship for every occasion

Alright, with a few points on the initial development of the airships established, let’s look at the results: The different airship types you will have available in-game.

In total, you will get access to five new airship classes, split in two categories: Rapid Airships and Cargo Airships.

Rapid Airships are, as their name suggests, significantly faster than the rest but only come with limited cargo space. Useful for urgent deliveries but not so much for big trade routes. There are two types of rapid airships, a small and a medium one. Both come in an unarmed and an armed variant – the latter making these types perfect for trade route raids or to protect your own islands from enemy airships.

Cargo Airships are your go-to vessels for trade routes. The three types (small, medium, large) are unarmed but are more useful when you want to carry out drop actions – more on that a bit later. They can also carry far more cargo – the large Zephyr Class (which you could admire at the beginning of the blog) has a total of 8 cargo slots!

 

Zephyr Class? – Yes, we’re paying tribute to several (mostly wind-related) mythological figures for the airship names.

For example, the Harpy Class is named after the half-human and half-bird creature from Greek mythology. The Hermes Class is named after the ancient god of travellers and merchants. And the already mentioned Zephyr Class is named after the Greek god of the west wind.

Now, we have seen some comments on questions on the usefulness of the existing airship from the The Passage DLC and how it’s going to be handled now that new types are introduced.

Generally speaking, the “old” airship is still useful and falls somewhere in between the small and medium cargo airships in terms of speed and cargo capacity. You will also be able to use both the Arctic Gas as well as the new Helium for airship construction (including the new airships). The Arctic Gas gives your airships a speed boost, but on the other hand results a higher cargo slowdown and in it taking more damage when attacked.

Additionally, you will find a few new items that use Arctic Gas beyond the previous requirements of electricity and airship construction.

Also, on the note of the airship from “The Passage” (now called the Boreas Class): We have slightly resized the old airship to 90% to its former size to make it fit in better with the new airships. Just in case you wonder if your airship looks different 😉

On the topic of balancing, we also want to talk about speed.

The new airships are impacted by wind, but thanks to their engines not quite as much as your regular sailing ships – but more than steam ships. The Boreas Class receives the strongest penalty and all new airships get a speed boost when going WITH the wind. Especially the “Rapid Airships” will be true to their name!

Of Hangars and Helium

As established, the airships of “Empire of the Skies” are more modern than the one you were able to construct with “The Passage”. Therefore, the production is slightly more elaborate and requires more advanced materials.

First, however, you’ll need a hangar. It’s constructed in multiple phases and can be built in the New World and the Old World, with the OW variant being a little bit more expensive. It’s worth keeping in mind that the new construction materials can only be produced in the New World, requiring you to transport them to the other region if you want to make use of this option.

Which construction materials? Well… first, there is aluminium, the basis for not only the new airship types but also several of the new production buildings. For this purpose, we introduced new Bauxite mine slots in the New World. An Aluminium Smelter then creates the finished product with Bauxite and Coal.

Next is Helium: A new and significantly safer gas than the one you have extracted in the Artic. It can’t be used in Gas Powerplants but only for airships and has its own new mine slot.

Add some sail cloth, steam machines and (if required) some cannons and you’re ready to build your first modern airship!

Airships and Combat

Now it’s time for action, since we’re introducing a big change: Airships can now be damaged and shot down. For owners of The Passage this is new, since previously, airship routes had the big advantages of being safe even in times of war.

We have already mentioned that the Rapid Airships are equipped with cannons. These can be used to attack your opponent’s airships, protect your islands from enemy raids or cover your larger cargo airships – but they are unable to attack ground targets.

Further means to combat enemy airships are the new Flak Emplacements for your harbour as well as the Flak Monitor ship, giving you multiple options to counter the new potential threat from the air.

Finally, you can use any of your airships for drop actions, allowing you to sabotage your opponent from the air and aid your fleet in island sieges. Read on for more details.

Putting airships to good use

Let’s get to the last part of today’s DevBlog: How to use the new airships in your game and which new features we’re introducing with DLC 11.

Of course, you can use them – as before – like regular trade vessels, delivering cargo to your islands via trade routes. Plus, you can now also use them to raid your opponents’ airship trade routes when using one of the armed variants.

There is more, though: Airships are needed for a new feature that fulfills new needs and provides additional buffs – mail! At the centre of all this, however, is the Landing Platform that first has to be constructed. It acts as a regular warehouse, but also has 3 modules that allow you to make use of the mail feature, which requires a new Airship Route to be set-up. We will expand on both these topics as well as the use of the other two modules in our next DevBlog.

Another use of airships is the new drop feature we briefly mentioned earlier.

This allows you to load certain drop goods on your airships that can be dropped via a new interface on both your own as well as your competitors’ islands. These goods will first need to be produced in their dedicated factory and then allow you to:

• Drop sea mines on your competitor’s trade routes,
• Fight large fires by dropping water from the air,
• Cause damage by bombing your opponents’ harbours during war,
• Create unrest with well-aimed propaganda drops,
• Or raise the mood of people by dropping care packages.

You will learn more about the feature and the production of the drop goods in our next DevBlog – we’re sure you still have more questions.

There’s one more thing, of course, that we promised in our livestream last week: The release date!

“Empire of the Skies” will release on Tuesday, September 20th. That’s slightly later than we originally planned, but we wanted to have a bit more time for polishing and testing for this DLC.

 

And while this blog was focused on the airships, in the upcoming articles until release you will get many more details on the remaining features of “Empire of the Skies” – some of which we only briefly touched on today. For example, the exact functioning of the drop system and all its possibilities, the mail system and remaining features of the landing platform, and finally also the free Game Update.

So, stay tuned for the next DevBlog!

In the meantime, we’d be happy to see your comments on the new airships below. Do you have any questions that weren’t answered in today’s blog? Let us know!

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.