The most prominent and central element of “The High Life” – both visually as well as from a gameplay perspective – of course is the Skyscrapers. So, in this first DevBlog for the upcoming DLC, let’s take a look at how the Skyscrapers came to be and which challenges we faced during development.

The topic of Skyscrapers came up when we initially started planning content for Season 3 and decided on the Old World focus. While “Docklands” and “Tourist Season” were supposed to be DLC to accompany and support Anno 1800’s midgame, “The High Life” would focus on the lategame with its Skyscrapers as a way to maximize population in existing cities – and without a need to expand further, going up instead of wide – and more needs to provide an additional challenge.

Skyscrapers – The historical references

Skyscrapers already visually present the start of different times – away from a city where buildings are not differing much in height, to the architectural challenges of constructing buildings multiple times the size of normal houses.

Let’s check with our Narrative Team, Game Writer Intern Lotta and Lead Narrative Designer Matt, for some historical context on the Skyscrapers first:

The High Life DLC is strongly inspired by the dawn of American Skyscraper construction during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In particular, the arrival of the hydraulic elevator, and iron-framed buildings enabled these new feats of skyward construction.

Many of the early skyscrapers were built in New York and Chicago, spurred on by large-scale fires that destroyed existing housing, in combination with a population boom. The iconic look of the early skyscrapers was shaped by the Chicago school of architecture by combining the French Beaux-Arts or Renaissance style with practical and commercial elements. Influential examples include the 1908 Singer Tower, the 1910 Woolworth Building and of course the 1930 Empire State Building. Constructing these behemoths was a difficult and expensive undertaking and numerous unsung workers made them possible, many of them were Native American ironworkers, their hazardous work referred to as ‘walking iron.’

The points above might lead to a question we have seen occasionally pop up in discussions about “The High Life” across various channels: Does Anno 1800 slowly move forward in time in the course of its DLC?  Aren’t skyscrapers too modern for a game titled “Anno 1800”?

Anno has always played fast and loose with time and connections to real history, spanning entire eras, which in our game go unaccounted (i.e., you don’t see any dates fly by as in titles that try somehow to simulate history). Of course, the downsides of this approach are exaggerated in Anno 1800’s century because there is so much rapid technological progress. We began with sail and ended with steam— but to tell the story of the industrial revolution, we had to make each resident tier feel like progress. Our production goods begin with fish and end with the first steam cars— so before we get to DLC we can say the game spans the entire 19^th century, with “1800” as its starting point – which also nicely fits in with our tradition of having the checksum 9. What then are an extra few decades on top of that? Ultimately the passing of time is more connected to the resident tiers than the DLC, which is why the Skyline Tower at Tier 5 is one of the last things you are likely to build at this point.

The following graph visualizes this quite well – and does in fact date back to the time before Anno 1800’s release.

The visuals, creating the Skyscrapers

By now, you have already seen some concept art for the new Skyscrapers, so let’s talk visuals with Tim, our Lead Artist: Did you have specific inspirations for the skyscraper design? How did you make sure Investor and Engineer Skyscrapers are easily distinguishable?

The regular Investor and Engineer houses already have their own designs and color palette to be easily distinguishable. We just followed their rules for the design of the Skyscrapers to make sure on the one hand they are easily distinguishable and on the other hand, they are always fitting the design of the houses they’re placed on. When looking over your vertically expanded city after release, you shouldn’t have any troubles telling Engineers and Investors apart.

Additionally, we used a lot of old photographs and reference images of early skyscrapers (you can for example get some impressions on this Wikipedia page) to get some inspiration for their visual design.

Below you can find an early 3D blockout of the Engineer skyscraper we shared not too long ago.

A modular approach

The Skyscrapers in “The High Life” can be upgraded, having five levels total (or three, for the Engineers). Each level adds one “module” to the building, adding to its size and increasing the maximum population as well as the number of needs the residents have. These modules come in different shapes and sizes and are randomized when upgrading the building.

But: If you don’t like a specific module, you can simply change it by going into the customization menu of each building. The only restriction is, that you cannot add bigger modules on top of smaller ones – but the UI will tell you that when you start playing around with the system 😉

All this proved to be a challenge since a new system was required: This is the first time for Anno 1800 that you can build assets upwards. On top, it’s a modular system, which offers lots of different combinations. This system had a couple of new challenges for us to solve, graphical as well technical, like making sure the module system is working no matter which combination you will use.

New Mechanics & Challenges

Only offering an upgrade to your existing residences resulting in space for more people would be boring, of course. So, there are some challenges attached to it:

1. Each building costs maintenance and especially the bigger ones can quickly become expensive.
2. Counter this by making use of the Panorama Effect (see further below in this blog) where your skyscrapers receive buffs based on their placement and surroundings.
3. And, of course, fulfill new needs with several new production chains and buildings to further increase resident numbers and tax revenue.

Phew, lots to keep an eye on – only to increase your population numbers? But no, aside from tax revenue, Skyscrapers also provide you with additional influence points depending on their level.

Talking with our Game Designers, the new systems did not come without their challenges during development: The way the game handled consumption turned out to be a problem when the same population class lives in different types of houses.

This is a premier for Anno 1800: With the old system of “one house type per tier” we could set the needs per population based on the house they would live in, so one residence would consume X amount of a specific good depending on the house type they live in (e.g. cause both Workers, as well as Artisans, consume Bread).

(That’s also the reason why Tourists are so hungry for Bread, one already eats for 500 people instantly – hungry fellows).

This was good because this reduced fluctuation in consumption. Upgrading a residence and unlocking a new good would instantly trigger the maximum demand and would not change until more houses are upgraded.

However, that had to change because of the Skyscrapers and the Skyline Tower: Both buildings can have their maximum population changed after being built (in contrast to regular residences) by getting additional needs added.

For you as the player, this has no impact on your gameplay experience: When we previously assumed “residence type X consumes Y amount of good Z”, we are now calculating the same consumption via the maximum possible population of said building by adding up the population each need provides (e.g. for Artisans we now calculate: 6 residents for Sausages + 6 for Bread + 4 for Soap + 4 for School + 4 for Canned Food + 2 for Sewing Machines + 2 for Fur Coats + 2 for University = 30 total. And those 30 people consume the previously mentioned goods by a certain factor). As you probably noticed, for regular residences the results are the same and we still assume this maximum number when you construct a residence or upgrade one. But a Skyscraper receiving new needs which increase the maximum population after being upgraded – that’s a different story.

In fact, we already did this kind of calculation whenever an item or buff increased the maximum population, basically an exception to the previous system.

To streamline it and cause we needed it for the new residences anyway, all residences now use this new calculation, making balancing the new features significantly easier for us, without causing any gameplay changes for you. So yes, a single Tourist will still eat cartloads of bread 🙂

In addition to consumption, the maintenance costs of the Skyscrapers were another point of balancing.

During development and testing, we had both hard balancing (Dark Souls of city-builders!) and gentle balancing, but in the end, we found a compromise and even added a new difficulty setting, similar to the one for the Influence system, which lowers or increases the maintenance costs.

So now each game (including old save-games) can be customized according to your preferences.

A UI solution for Skyscrapers

Since both Engineer, as well as Investor residences, can be upgraded to Skyscrapers, Engineers, however, also have the upgrade option to Investors, we had to come up with a solution that allows you to choose either action. We tried two different variations, the classic and the split button. In the end, we decided to go with the split button as the information is more discoverable and consistent. Both buttons also have their own tooltips with additional gameplay information.

Not only the buttons but also the rest of the Skyscraper UI went through multiple iterations, like every time we have to design new UI elements. You can see some early tests for the UI below.

“We start our decision process with how prominent the information needs to be displayed. From there we try out layouts with different information hierarchies.”

– Farah, UI Designer

For example, in Variation B, the panorama and level information have the same priority as the upgrade button. Players could process the information faster when upgrading or downgrading the building, while variation C might have suggested a connection between the needs/happiness tabs and the panorama effect/skyscraper level below and was therefore discarded.

In addition to the split upgrade buttons in the building’s UI, you also have a separate general toggle that highlights all skyscrapers that can be upgraded – like you’re used to from the already existing upgrade button.

Another issue we ran into during development was the general size of the building’s object menu:

In the beginning, the height of the object menu is tailored to correspond with the number of residence needs. But due to the number of buffs players could potentially have with the new monument as well as the increased number of needs, the object menu grew so much in size it started overlapping with the speed bar in the top right corner.  During our Technical Test, we received feedback that players want to see more needs simultaneously.

Our first solution was to keep the current size and implement a scroll bar. However, player feedback on the visibility of said bar eventually led to the decision to increase the number of columns for needs from two to three to fit all the new icons and thereby reduce the amount of scrolling players need to do.

Panorama Effect

One important thing to keep in mind when building and upgrading your Skyscrapers is the Panorama Effect. This effect gives a boost to your Skyscraper’s maximum number of residents, reduces maintenance costs, and provides bonus residents – as long as the skyscraper in question is not surrounded by other Skyscrapers of the same height or higher.

For you to quickly spot if nearby skyscrapers have a positive or negative influence on the Panorama Effect of the respective building when selecting it, we went for a color-coding solution: Positive influence is marked in green while a negative influence is marked in brown.

This was, however, not our first choice: We tested several different solutions before we ended up with the final version.

Initially, some icons were also tested on top of the skyscrapers, but these weren’t easy to match with the corresponding buildings, especially when zoomed out. We also tweaked the colors a few times, to indicate the positive/negative effects while also making sure it’s color-blind friendly and easily readable.

Left – testing icons that would clump up when zoomed-out, and a radius indicator.
Centre – one version of colours we tried.
Right – current colours for the Panorama Effect

The panorama effect has a few more nuances and is of course also reflected in the building’s object menu as it comes in different intensities. More on that topic in the second DevBlog.

On that note, we’re at the end of the first of our two “The High Life” DevBlogs and have hopefully provided you some exciting insights into the development of the Skyscrapers! This leaves us with one final piece of information to share today: The release date! You can expect “The High Life” to release on Tuesday, August 31st, at 6 PM CEST (9 AM PST).

Do you still have more questions or want to know about a specific aspect of the Skyscrapers? Let us know!

*Please be aware that many screenshots or images in this DevBlog show “work in progress” states of the DLC and are not representative of the final version.

Bente Jorgensen appears to have set a precedent. Young men and women all over the world are setting out on travels of their own— ravenous for art, culture and some proper grub— only the most exquisite of destinations will do!

Fresh off the boat they hit the Hotels, springing open their cases, before jollying on down to the riverside for an Éclair, hoping to advance their broad-brims into all the most bijoux pockets of the Old World. Street mimes, artists, sophisticated-looking backgammon players drinking Montmartre 75s.

And then they see it… through the heaving crowds… a glimmer high, high above— a tower of iron, so wild and audacious, it could only be here, right here…

Tourists and Hotels

Tourists are a new Resident Tier in the Old World who stay in your city over night – in contrast to Visitors who only arrive for a day trip to see the most exciting cultural spots of your city.

First, you need to attract them and the basis for this is upgrading your Public Mooring. This can be done when reaching 500 Engineers.

Which means, that the next thing to do is building Hotels. These are imposing, elegant establishments which are expensive in construction and take up quite some space with their size of 9 by 7 tiles, but make up for it not only with their impressive looks but also with a capacity of up to 500 Tourists each.

In order to attract more Tourists and fill your Hotels to the brim, you will need to fulfil their exquisite needs. These are again split into Basic Needs and Happiness Needs and are a mix of existing and new products, the new food and drink venues, as well as cultural buildings like the Variety Theatre, the Zoo, or the Museum.

While you can easily spot the status of each need via the Hotel’s UI, there’s a change on how happiness impacts your new Tourist population:

The fulfilment of a need can be limited by their happiness. This is marked with an unhappy red icon next to the respective need and the info, to which percentage a need can be currently fulfilled. Possible causes for limits can be low island attractiveness or a lack of variety when it comes to Hot Spots like Museums. Solve these issues to make sure Tourists are willing to visit your island and to maximise the number of potential Tourists in your city.

Happy Tourists spend more money in your city – and since the pockets of these wealthy individuals are well-filled, it’s definitely worth fulfilling their demanding needs.

We said above that Tourists are a new Resident Tier. As part of that mechanic, they’re also providing a sort of “workforce” which we called “Customers”. These are essential for your Restaurants, Bars and Cafés which thrive on tourism. For them to work at 100% capacity, a certain number of Customers is required. If a venue lacks Customers, the buff to the surrounding residences is decreased – more on that in the next paragraph.

Lastly, we need to warn you that Tourists are a spoiled, demanding bunch (let’s not say “lazy”) and absolutely no fans of long walks. So, in order to fulfil their needs, you will need to set up a complete bus network on your island with Bus Stops next to all important places. We’ll go into detail on the bus system later in this DevBlog.

Restaurants, Cafés and Bars

So, we created a place to stay for our Tourists. But as mentioned above, they’re rather more demanding than your regular Visitors, and having an attractive island with a Zoo or a Museum is not enough.

When staying for several days, culinary needs naturally become a matter of great import, which makes the Tourist’s request for Restaurants, Cafés and Bars quite understandable.

All three buildings function in a similar way to Public Service buildings but in a more challenging way since they use the new recipe system and therefore combine production and public service. Based on the recipe you choose, the building will prepare a dish, dessert or drink and fulfil the Tourists’ needs while also providing a boost to regular residences in a certain area. Let’s take a closer look:

“We had Flour, Sugar and Chocolate but could not bake a cake – that always floated around in our heads when thinking about new content. The recipe system solves this and allows us to combine goods to new products that would otherwise be too specific for our normal needs system.”

– Dominik, Game Designer

As you can see, each recipe requires certain ingredients – so make sure you got a Warehouse not too far away. Some recipes might require ingredients from different sessions, while others have ingredients that are easier to obtain. Since we’re always looking for a) new systems to try out and b) ways to spice up your gameplay with new features, we came up with the recipe system as a new challenge.

All recipes fulfil the Tourists’ need for Restaurants, Cafés or Bars in the same way – they will enjoy any of the delicious dishes you can present them with. However, the aforementioned boost to the surrounding residents varies: If your Restaurant, for example, serves the “Archduke’s Schnitzel” then your surrounding residents will receive a +3 boost to their happiness while consuming less Bread, Fish and Chocolate. If you choose the “Stroggof Goulash”, nearby residents receive a +2 happiness boost and consume less Fish, Sausage and Canned Food.

Restaurant placement as well as choosing recipes based on the required ingredients and the surrounding residences (with their respective needs) should provide you with a nice puzzle challenge if you love optimization.

Selecting any of these three types of buildings will display their influence radius with a circle, while the affected residences are additionally highlighted.

More recipes are unlocked either via quests from the Tourist or by fulfilling certain conditions: Have a look at the recipe book for details.

Orchards and Chemical Plant

Of course, using only existing goods to fulfil the needs of your Tourists and for the creation of delicious new dishes would be… boring? So, let us introduce you to two new production buildings: The Orchard and the Chemical Plant.

Orchards produce new agricultural goods which are either directly fulfilling the Tourists’ needs (Jam) or are functioning as input goods for recipes. They function similarly to your Lumberjack’s Huts by planting trees in an area around them. You do not have to build fields like you do for a Red Pepper Farm or a Vineyard, which would have required a rework of the existing system so that modules or farm fields can be upgraded or would automatically change. Lumberjack huts already had such a system in place where they modify their surroundings by growing trees, the new goods all required trees, and so using this system was the much more fitting way.

Not all the special new ingredients can be grown in the Old World, though, so you will have to make some space in the New World to also build Orchards there. Only then can you produce goods like Cinnamon, Camphor Wax or Citrus Fruits for new products like Shampoo or Lemonade. More on that in a second.

Similar to Restaurants, Orchards are also using a recipe system, where you can select the seed you want the respective Orchard to grow from a catalogue. However, Orchards don’t need any input goods.

Also using the recipe system is the Chemical Plant. Patents for three new consumer goods are available to you, all three products are highly requested by your Tourists. Produce fruity Lemonade (using Saltpetre, Sugar and Citrus Fruits), soapy Shampoo (using Soap, Cinnamon and Coconut Butter) and Souvenirs (using Glass, Camphor Wax and Cotton) to make your Tourists happy.

Both the Orchards as well as the Chemical Plant need a Warehouse nearby to gather input goods and deliver their finished products.

Bus System

As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, it’s not enough to simply have a great Zoo or a five-star restaurant: Tourists are demanding and don’t want to travel too far on foot. This is where the bus system comes into play.

Bus Stops have to be placed at all important places in your city which Tourists want to visit. This starts with your Public Mooring and Hotels and extends to places like Variety Theatres, Restaurants, Bars and your Museum. When placing a Bus Stop, you will have to pay attention to two influence radiuses: For a building to be reachable by the Tourists, it has to be in the circle radius. This means, if your Zoo is outside this circle, it’s not part of your Bus Network and the Zoo need for your Tourists will not be fulfilled.

The second indicator you have to keep an eye on is the green street overlay: This marks the overall reach of your Bus Network. For a Bus Stop to be connected to the network, its green overlay has to overlap with the existing network.

Since tourists aren’t fans of long travels when seeing all your city’s marvels, a need’s fulfilment level can be reduced if the distance between Hotel and the respective venue is too far. Keep an eye on the needs overview of each hotel to spot these kinds of problems.

We have covered the bus system in detail in last week’s blog. So, if you want to get some additional insights, make sure to check it out!

The Iron Tower

Nothing impresses your Tourists more than monuments (except maybe for an Archduke’s Schnitzel), so it’s only logical to give you a completely new monument to build: The Iron Tower. Like other monuments, it’s constructed in three stages and, when finished, not only increases your island’s attractiveness but also provides another option to buff surrounding residences. “La Reine”, the finest restaurant in the land, offers three unique recipes to choose from, each providing a strong buff and reducing the consumption of specific goods, but requiring four ingredients each instead of the usual three. Who could say no to the “Trifle Tower”, the probably most majestic of all desserts?

There’s one more special feature about the Iron Tower: By assigning additional Tourist Customers to it, you can greatly increase the influence radius of its buff. When placed at a central location, it might even cover your whole city…

And let’s not forget that such an extravagant monument might indeed attract royal attention.

Last but not least…

As it is now tradition, “Tourist Season” will also come with a beautiful bunch of themed ornaments fitting to the setting. Build a Souvenir Shop, Lookout Point, Signposts, Flowerbeds, and more to turn your cities into authentic tourist hot spots.

And as usual, we will release a free Game Update alongside the “Tourist Season” DLC featuring several quality-of-life improvements as well as bug fixes. We’ll have the full Release Notes for you next week, so stay tuned for more details on that.

Finally, for your chance to get some first-hand info from the devs, you should not miss our live stream on the “Tourist Season” release day, May 25^th, from 5 to 6 PM CEST (11 AM – 12 PM EDT). Mark it in your calendars!

Hey Anno Community,

Today we want to give you some first insights into the upcoming DLC “Tourist Season”, specifically: the bus system.

When we presented Season 3 in February of this year, we already gave you a first overview as to what you can expect, we mentioned restaurants, recipes and the aforementioned buses. We want to dedicate a separate blog to this specific feature and give you some development insights since it’s the mechanic connecting all other parts of this DLC.

Buses are a new mechanic which is needed to connect your guests, the Tourists, with their Hotels and all amenities of the city: Restaurants, Bars, Variety Theatres, the Zoo and more.

“The Tourists should not feel like a new working class, they demand more services and need to be more pampered, they won’t walk to the Museum: they expect a transit in style.”

Specifically, you will need to free up some space to build Bus Stops, a 2 by 3 building, on various points of your city in addition to the other new buildings.
Each Bus Stop has a certain radius, displayed by a circle, indicating which public buildings are in reach of each bus stop. Only when a building like a Restaurant or a Zoo is inside this radius does the game consider it being part of your bus network. Your Tourists are not willing to walk too far from the Bus Stop to the Zoo, after all.

Let’s just visualize this with a simple screenshot, showing the upgraded Public Mooring with a Bus Stop to the left and the Hotel with its dedicated Bus Stop on the right:

Connecting your Hotels on one end of the island to a Museum on the other, however, isn’t optimal, since your Tourists aren’t fans of long bus rides. So, if the distance is too long, the fulfilment of the “Museum need” (in this example) for the respective Hotel can be reduced. More on the topic of needs in the next DevBlog.

By clicking on a Bus Stop, you can see which public buildings are part of your island’s bus network and how good the connection is. Our UI Team made sure to provide you with the necessary information at first glance:  A new icon above buildings will inform you when they are missing a bus connection. Buildings that are frequented by Tourists (for example a restaurant or a theatre) received a little bus marker inside the construction bar.

For improvements like these, the feedback from the testers of the last Diary Study organized by the User Research Lab in Düsseldorf has been a great help.

Additionally, like for “Docklands”, we implemented a Tutorial Panel directly in the game that explains the underlying mechanics for all new “Tourist Season” mechanics – including the bus system. Just select one of the new buildings and click on the “?” icon in the building’s menu.

What made you choose buses over trams, you might ask. Well, as with so many things in game development, it comes down to prioritization.

Cause a first check made it clear for us that creating a second railway system would require a very high development effort combined with an increased risk for issues. Two separate railway systems but both using the same general rules are tricky and can lead to problems – take something as “simple” as crossings for example. Another approach, a street/railway hybrid, on the other hand, has also not been done by us before and would need a lot of initial effort.

So, in this case, the questions were: How many work hours would developing this new feature take? Is it worth spending several weeks on a completely new feature that will only make up a portion of the new DLC? Is there a different solution that provides a similar logistical challenge and fulfils the same gameplay requirements? All the while, of course, there’re still plenty of other features being designed and developed for “Tourist Season” to create the “complete package” that our team has in mind for the DLC.

The decision to not have buses use fuel, however, was an aesthetic one: While requiring you as players to supply your buses with fuel – like the tractors – would be a nice additional challenge, having polluting buildings inside your cities would not quite fit the tourist fantasy we want to present.

Dealing with this new logistical layer adds a new challenge for your city planning skills considering the already packed inner cities. Making sure your Tourists can reach all important spots in your city is a key component to “Tourist Season” next to satisfying your Tourists’ needs with extravagant new products.

“The logistical challenge would have been interesting, of course, but the resulting Fuel Stations next to the parks and Museums did not fit the theme of the DLC.”

Finally, we are happy to announce that “Tourist Season” is already releasing in a little bit more than two weeks – on May 25^th at 6PM CEST (12PM EDT). Expect more news, a detailed DevBlog and the full Release Notes in the weeks leading up to the release.

Until then: Stay safe and keep an eye on our channels to not miss any news.

The Anno Team

Export/Import Contracts

Now, we have mentioned these “Contracts” often enough, time to explain one of the core new features of the “Docklands” DLC.

Captain Tobias not only serves as your guide, but primarily is a traveling merchant by trade. Via the Docklands you can make use of a new trade mechanic that lets you exchange one good for another. Instead of selling or purchasing goods using money, you can create Export/Import Contracts by selecting one good to export and one good to import.

The exchange ratio partly depends on the “value” of the good (calculated via the complexity of the production chain and the amount of building space it requires), meaning, for example, that a single ton of sewing machines is worth several tons of raw fish. This opens up completely new strategies and, for example, allows you to specialise in certain goods based on local fertilities or deposits and trade them in for other goods you don’t produce enough of. Or even substitute whole production chains with imports – the choice is yours.

If you own “The Passage” or “Land of Lions”, you can also set up contracts with goods from those DLC.

By building Exports Office modules, you can increase the number of  Export/Import Contracts you can have active at the same time and the Captain will do his best to fulfill them all – based on how many goods (or how much free storage) you have left.

Tobias will enter your region at regular intervals and fulfill current contracts at each of your Docklands. His ship is a massive vessel and its stocks basically unlimited.

The second factor to impact the exchange ratio is your export volume. When you produce and export large numbers of a specific good, you will establish yourself as a serious business partner in this product and see it gain an “exporter level”. That means that this good becomes one of your export “specialties” and its exchange ratio against other goods improves— you will now receive more tons of other goods in exchange! Take a look at these specialty goods in the pyramid below— the higher the total export volume of a certain good, the higher the good will rise in the pyramid, and the better its exchange ratio will become. You can move and even remove goods from this pyramid to fill the limited bonus slots to your preference.

Even if all slots are filled, you can still export other kinds of goods of course, but you won’t profit from an improvement to the exchange ratio.

Better ratios are not the only advantages of mass-exports, though:

The more your reputation as a respectable trader grows, either via the number of active trade contracts or your exporter level, the more goods will unlock for you to import. You can see the requirements you need to meet to unlock a good in the overview on the right of the Export/Import screen.

Furthermore, you will also increase the building limit of each module by unlocking more “specialty” slots in the pyramid, allowing you to add more and more modules to your Docklands and create a massive trading district.

It’s worth keeping in mind that you can build a complete Docklands on every single island, allowing for potentially vast amounts of imports and exports of goods that you can then still transport within your empire via normal trade routes.

Don’t want to produce soap but prefer to have a clean population? Then Import soap in exchange for that beer you’re producing and make your citizens (and most likely Tobias’ crew) very happy!

Since we know this new feature might need some getting used to, we’ve developed a completely new type of in-game help. Clicking on the “question mark” icon at the top of the Export/Import Menu will open a tutorial screen with explanations of all steps involved in setting up Export/Import Contracts.

Ornaments

Now, we all know how much you all love ornaments and we may have seen one or two comments about having a lighthouse in your own city – maybe…

The “Docklands” DLC is a great opportunity to combine both, so we’re happy to announce that you can look forward to not just one, but two types of lighthouse and a sea of additional ornaments for your harbour – both in the Old as well as in the New World!

We’re excited to see your new harbour layouts with Docklands and its new ornaments!

As announced in our Season 3 live stream as well as the Season 3 Pass trailer (you should re-watch them, just in case), all DLC releases will be accompanied by a Free Game Update. Game Update 10, which is going to release alongside “Docklands”, will for example make changes to your trade route menu and allow you to build streets onto the water in your harbour area.

We’ll go into detail on all these topics later this week.

This leaves only two questions, right, “when” and “how much”?

Well, the “Docklands” DLC will release on February 23^rd at 6PM CET / 12 PM EST in the Ubisoft Store, the Epic Store and Steam for 6,99€ and is also included in the Season 3 Pass which is available for 19,99€.

Make sure to check out our blog with an overview to the Season 3 Pass and last week’s live stream where you can already see some gameplay from the DLC.

Stay safe, take care – and keep an eye on the Anno Union for the latest news.

*Please be aware all screenshots of the Export/Import UI are taken from a development-in-progress version of the game and may contain unfinished elements and placeholders.

Hello once more, dear Anno Community!

In this last DevBlog for Land of Lions we will focus on the influence of Enbesa on the Old World.

If you have missed any of our previous blogs, have a look at the dedicated ones for:

1. The Shepherd population tier and the irrigation system

2. The Elder population tier and the story of “Land of Lions”

Already in our overview blog we mentioned that besides creating a new world for you to explore and a new story for you to discover, we also wanted to incorporate a specific point of feedback we received from you after the release of “The Passage”: Having closer connections between the different sessions to offer more than just a one-region-specific challenge.

With “Land of Lions”, this comes in the form of the Scholars.

When you’ve upgraded your first Shepherd Residences and the initial Elders are moving in, you unlock the last new feature of the “Land of Lions” DLC: With an influx of students from Enbesa and the rest of the globe to the Old World, first the construction of the Research Institute (requires 300 Elders) and later housing for the new Scholar population tier (requires 1500 Elders) is unlocked.

The Research Institute is a new, 3 stage monument that can be constructed once per player in either the Old World or Cape Trelawney. It is a place of study and research, a place where your eager scholars analyze artefacts and plants – and where they come up with technological breakthroughs known as Major Discoveries.

Aside from requiring plenty of workforce for the construction, you will need large amounts of building material – but will be rewarded in turn with a beautiful new landmark for your city which in addition unlocks the new research feature, allowing your brightest minds to engage in what they like doing most: science!

Before we jump into the details of the research system, let’s first take a look at the Scholars.

Being a separate population tier, they will require their own appropriate housing. Scholar Residences have a size of 4×4 fields and – due to their love for academic research – require immediate access to a university. Due to their larger size, these residences also house significantly more people (120 eager students of science) than, for example, an Investor residence does.

It takes time and effort to build up a reputation as a Research Institution. Scholar Residences are tied to permits: Only by acquiring more permits via research in the Institute will you be able to build more of them and be able to invite more Scholars. This will also open up further research options, and unlock additional needs for Scholars.

The scholars represent a typical international student: hailing from distant Enbesa and other parts of the world, but living in the Old World. The duality is reflected in the Scholar’s needs: They will ask for fancy Old World clothes, requiring you to build new production chains for Leather Boots and Tailored Suits, as well as increasing your output of Bombin Hats. And while as students they enjoy a social Rum and the convenience of Canned Food, nothing tastes better than a memory of home. Their loved ones in Enbesa will only be too glad to ship Seafood Stew and Hibiscus Tea over to the Old World to assuage any feelings of homesickness.

The Scholars’ keen interest in new technologies and inventions means they also desire gramophones, the newly developed telephones and a cutting-edge new public building: The Radio Tower.

With their needs fulfilled and the construction of the Research Institute finished, your scholars will get to work and generate a constant stream of research points. The more Scholars you have attracted, the faster they accumulate research points and the more research points you can “store”. More advanced research requires points in large quantities, a feat, small research groups simply won’t be able to accomplish.

Another way of acquiring research points is by donating items – for science! The amount of points received depends on the rarity of the respective item.

Researching items and especially Major Discoveries takes time, even for such a talented bunch as your Scholars. To speed things up, you can assign parts of your Engineer workforce – the Scholars’ tutors. Just make sure they’re not needed elsewhere.

Now, a variety of exciting research options are opened up to you, providing plenty of advantages for your empire. Let’s go over what kind of options the bright minds in the Institute came up with.

First, the item research. A recurring feedback since the release of Anno 1800 has been the wish for more direct ways to get items for specific purposes. Item crafting with Old Nate in Cape Trelawney and the Artic provide one alternative to purchasing and questing, while the item overview with details about the sources gives you a clearer idea where you need to look for that last missing zoo animal. Game Update 9 will change the number of items offered by AI parties from 8 to 12, which means less re-rolling to get the one you want. Owners of “Land of Lions” will have to live with a small restriction here, though, to balance the option of donating items for research points: Only 20 items can be purchased from a single NPC trader in a 30-min window.

With the Research Institute you can now develop almost any item in the game and this way specifically focus on the ones that make the most sense for your islands and for your overall strategy.  The items have to be discovered and analysed by your researchers first, requiring research points, and you can choose between Cultural Science (Animals, Cultural Items and Plants), Technological Advancements (all kinds of machines and tools) and Talent Development (Specialists).

Secondly, there are the Major Discoveries. These present you with more ways to specialise aspects of your economy, but they also address existing community feedback.

For example, the appropriate research allows you to move Oil Springs and Clay Deposits to another place on the island, change the fertilities to grow hops instead of paprika or change the ore of a mineral deposit to one you need more of. This will help you to further specialise existing islands and e.g. move that one oil spring just in range of the refinery, while also helping with layout creation and city beautification.

Furthermore, via a Research Kit you can directly identify items you already own and then develop them in the Research Institute, while additional Great Eastern Permits allow you to… well, build more of these magnificent ships!

Pier Upgrade Permits let you upgrade existing piers to Advanced Piers, increasing their loading speed and allowing you to specialise them: You can now dedicate these piers to a single type of good which helps you with directing your trading ships to specific places on your coast.

And don’t worry: If you, for example, create a dedicated coffee pier, all other goods on trade routes transporting coffee to your island will of course also be handled by the Advanced Pier.

Finally, to continue with the coffee topic from above, there’s something for all coffee lovers on your islands: Modern technology will enable you to produce New World goods in the Old World, by using replacement products. Specifically: You can unlock Advanced Coffee Roasters, Rum Distilleries and Cotton Mills to help you with any shortages.

Running out of space for high quality coffee beans in the New World? Don’t worry, just mix in some locally produced malt coffee – your investors won’t notice!

To round off, Land of Lions will of course also bring new item sets for your cultural buildings, for example a Lion (quelle surprise) or a Giant Snail for your zoo. On top of that, there will of course be some region-specific items for Enbesa, to for example boost local production, like the Tea Selector for your Tea production or Flood Gates to increase your pump’s irrigation capacity.

All of this will be open for you to explore as part of the “Land of Lions” DLC on October 22^nd, available via the Ubisoft Store, Epic Store and Steam.

As usual, we will release a free update alongside the DLC including a bunch of quality of life improvements alongside plenty of bug fixes and tweaks. The full release notes will be posted next week, but if you haven’t done so, you should definitely check out our DevBlog detailing all the improvements of Game Update 9 which we posted a few weeks ago.

Hey Anno Community,

and welcome back to the third installment in our series of DevBlogs about “Land of Lions”. This time, we want to focus on Enbesa’s Elders, and the strong narrative elements of our final Season 2 DLC.

If you missed them, you can catch up on our previous blogs here:

DevBlog 1: A “Land of Lions” overview

DevBlog 2: Shepherds and Irrigation

Always respect your Elders

The Elders are the second of Enbesa’s new residential tiers and represent a completely different aspect of life in their region from the Shepherds. Whereas the latter enjoy their time in nature and work the land with the freedom of youth, the Elders’ experiences in life have given them an altogether dourer outlook on things. This is especially true for their representative, an elderly widow who has seen her fair share of grief in life. While she can be harsh and judgmental (especially towards outsiders like yourself), her poignance belies a caring nature towards those who manage to earn her respect.

A long life of working hard has taught the Elders many useful skills which they apply to seven new production chains such as Ceramics (a basic need), Tapestries (a luxury good contributing to their happiness) or Seafood Stew. Unlike the self-sufficient Shepherds, some of the Elder’s production chains also require goods from other sessions, requiring you to expand your network of trade routes to supply them. The Elders also produce the Mud Bricks needed for more advanced construction in Enbesa, alongside the Shepherd’s traditional Wanza Timber.

In total, the Elder tier will introduce 17 new buildings, including of course some public buildings like the Monastery, which contributes to their Happiness.

Let me tell you a story…

While last week’s DevBlog and this one have so far focused on the new gameplay Elements that Enbesa will introduce to Anno 1800, there is a lot more for you to experience. So, let us talk about story and narrative elements. This is one aspect of the game we have steadily been honing and improving throughout the development of Anno, starting with the original campaign, across the “Sunken Treasures” story and up to the icy world of “The Passage”. This DLC specifically received a lot of praise for creating an atmosphere that was quite unlike the usually bright and cheerful Anno world, taking on a more somber and tense tone. Basing the story on the infamously tragic events of Franklin’s ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest passage (albeit with a slightly happier ending, and less cannibalism) and the introduction of heat as a quintessential replacement for the happiness of other sessions helped to create an atmosphere unlike anything else in Anno, replacing the usual cheerfulness with a grim fight for survival. Seeing player reactions to the Arctic emboldened us to try to go one step further when it comes to creating a believable, breathing “Land of Lions”.

To put it simply: The story of Enbesa presents one of the biggest narrative efforts the Anno Team has ever undertaken (and we are not just talking about 1800, either)! We expect that first-time players will take a good 10-15 hours of playtime to experience all the story threads introducing the cultures and people of Enbesa. These story elements come I two distinct flavors: the main story, and story islands.

For the Emperor!

The concept of the main story should be a familiar one to Anno 1800 players, as it follows the same structure as previous DLCs like “Sunken Treasures”, slowly introducing you to all the major new characters, as well as gameplay elements like residential tiers, irrigation and the Research Institute. As with these other new sessions, your journey to Enbesa begins with an Expedition that becomes available at the Artisan tier.

It is during this expedition that you will meet one of the key characters, Biniam. A gifted young academic, Biniam serves as a diplomat to the ruler of Enbesa, Emperor Ketema. Through his service, he hopes to one day bring abut his dream of a research institute in which the brightest young scholars from around the world can work. It is Biniam who introduces you to Emperor Ketema, based on your proven credentials as a skilled city-builder.

Ketema is a warm-hearted yet ambitious ruler, who dreams of Enbesa entering a long-lasting era of peace and unity through diplomacy and trade, earning the recognition of other powers.  As a symbol of these efforts, he asks the player to enter his service as the architect of Enbesa’s new capital city, Taborime. This leads to a unique setup among the islands of Anno 1800: while we normally separate player and Ai islands, you will actually be building Taborime for Ketema on his island, surrounding his already existing magnificent palace (which will also visually evolve throughout the story). Of course, it would not be an Anno story if things ended there, and you can expect a few plot twists. We will leave it at that, as we don’t want to spoil any surprises for you…

Unity, but at what cost?

As mentioned earlier, this classic story structure is only one part of “Land of Lions”’ storytelling, with the other being our three “story islands”. These are essentially lovingly crafted, visually unique islands that each offer an additional optional storyline, all of which are entwined with the larger history of Enbesa (for example, one of them is the birthplace and home of Biniam). These islands will not only offer new quests for you to undertake to help their residents, but will also call upon you to make some tough decisions, which can have some dramatic consequence (including, but not limited to, these islands looking very different from how they started out…).

With that said, let us introduce you to these three locations and their people:

Angereb is a mighty fortress rock on a rocky island, inhabited by a fiercely independent people who see no reason to join forces with Emperor Ketema.

Kidusi Anitoni is an ancient monastery and library, home to a group of religious scholars who are doing archaeological work to uncover Enbesa’s past.

Waha Desher was once a flourishing Oasis and center of commerce that has since fallen on harder times but may yet be reawakened.

The quest structure of these islands is much looser and non-linear than the main story, leaving it up to you how and when you want to meet the residents of these three islands. We will leave it up to you to find out much more about them come October 22. Between DevBlog 2 and this one, you should now have a good idea of all the new content awaiting you in Enbesa. But, as you know, that is not all, so make sure to tune in next time for a deeper look at our new Old World goodness: The Scholars and their Research institute!

In the meantime, why not let us know your thoughts in the comments?

Stay safe,

The Anno Team