Tag: Union Update

Union Update: Results of Narrative Vote & end-of-year stream

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Anno Community,

It’s November, going outside is becoming increasingly uncomfortable and 2024 is slooowly nearing its end. Before that, however, here are some updates and announcements from us for the end of the year: Let’s talk about the two previous Community Contests and the upcoming livestream.

Quest Design Contest

We’re excited to announce the winner of the second Community Contest.

You have spoken, and with a small but decisive lead, the “Weapons from the Stars” quest concept (link) took first place! (30% of the votes, followed by In Vino, Veritas with 24%) Clearly, the hunt for special metals to forge something unique for the people of Albion grabbed your attention.

A round of applause to its creator, Nathanael, and a big thank you once more to everyone who sent in their stories for the contest.

 

So, what’s next? – Our colleagues in the Narrative Team will take the winning concept and might start making some adjustments to make it fit the constraints of the game. We’ll also reach out to Nathanael in case of questions or before we would make any bigger changes to the quest structure.

The quest will then be implemented in the coming months to be ready for Anno 117: Pax Romana’s release in 2025.

Statue Contest Update

We also want to use this opportunity to give an update on the first content we held back in summer.

You might remember, “Annocius” by HiddenMoon79 won the community voting. Since then, our Art Team has been working first on a concept and then the 3D model for the in-game statue. The 3D model actually is finalized already, but misses some polishing. We’ll have a screenshot for you in the next Union Update.

End-of-year Livestream

As mentioned in the intro: we are planning one last livestream for the year – both as a way to recap what happened in 2024 as well as to showcase Anno 1800’s final Cosmetic DLC.

Community Developer Oliver is joined by two returning guests for this adventure: Artist Laura and Game Writer Jannika, who both poured their creativity into this last cosmetic pack.

Join us on Thursday, November 28th, at 5PM CET / 8AM PT / 11AM ET over on the Annogame Twitch Channel.

Union Update: Vote for your favourite Quest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Anno Community,

Here we are, at the end of October, ready to launch the final phase of our second Community Contest: the voting!

Back in September, we challenged you to write a little in-game quest for Anno 117: Pax Romana – tied to the region of Albion and featuring buildings, people and themes of this region.

 

We ended up receiving so many entries that we had to adjust our internal timeline for the start of the voting. It took us longer than planned to settle on our five favourites from the far over one hundred quests that we received.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who submitted their story, we could clearly see that you all added what you wanted to see in Anno 117: Pax Romana into those stories: from references to Anno 1800, pop culture or ancient mythology to stories with dramatic turns and humour-filled episodes.

 

To ultimately settle on the five finalists our main criteria were: originality, feasibility within the game features and narrative tools at our disposal and if the quest/story fits within our world.

So, after going through your submissions, we chose our favourite entries. Find below a short summary for each quest and a link to a PDF with the full quest.

IMPORTANT: Entries have been annonymized for the voting and translated into English if needed. Otherwise, the content has not yet been adjusted to fit the exact realities of the game. That means that any characters, features, buildings etc. mentioned in said quests that have not yet been confirmed by us are pure speculation by these authors The winning entry will be adjusted afterwards if necessary.

  1. In Vino, Veritas

A teacher at the local Grammaticus requires the assistance of the governor to prepare a meeting with scholars, including the delivery of suspiciously large quantities of wine.

Link to full quest

 

  1. Weapons from the Stars

A local smith argues the metal from a fallen star could be used for some very special weapons – assuming you can assist him finding and retrieving a piece of the fallen star in the first place.

Link to full quest

 

  1. Traditional Beer in Danger

Do Romans not also deserve beer? Balance the worries and needs of the local population with those of traditionalists and your requirements as a governor when it comes to the age-old tradition of brewing beer.

Link to full quest

 

  1. Spatha, no, Spathae!

New weapons for the Romans sound like a lucrative business – but the smith will need the support from the governor to start their ambitious project.

Link to full quest

 

  1. Intercultural Exchange

Find the right balance on the topic of Romanization by intervening in the education in Albion and providing the Grammaticus building with the means to teach the young and old.

Link to full quest

Had a thorough look and picked a favourite? Well, then it’s time to vote and have the concept of your choice turned into an actual in-game quest!

The voting is open until November 5th, end of day – you have one vote and your vote is completely annonymous.

 

Once again, a big shout out and thank you to everyone who participated, from all of us – and the Narrative Team specifically.

Have a fantastic week!

Union Update: Contest, upcoming blogs and a spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

It’s been a week since the release of the Pirrrate Cove Pack for Anno 1800 – we couldn’t resist the urge to release it on “Talk Like A Pirate Day”. We hope you’re having a great time bringing some pirate-spirit into your settlements!

We have one more, one last, Cosmetic DLC releasing at the end of this year. It’s the end of an era for us – and we’ll have more information on this last cosmetic pack in the coming months.

Community Contest: Quest

The submission phase for our latest Community Contest ended last Sunday and we were blown away by the number of emails we received. Clearly, we struck a chord with this quest design contest!

Right now, we’re in the middle of going through all the quests we received and picking our favourites. We’ll update you, when the voting is about to start.

Thank you to everyone who participated. Amongst the ones we already went through, we have seen many creative ideas, humorous little stories and epic tales!

Upcoming

So, what’s coming up in terms of DevBlogs for Anno 117: Pax Romana in the coming months?

With a little bit of delay due to time constraints, the next blogs will go behind-the-scenes and look at how we develop games, starting with the development of the original vision for the game, followed by a look at the work of the Game Design department and the Production team.

The first of these blogs is planned for early October.

Community Spotlight

Let’s end today’s blog with a Community Spotlight!

First, we simply had to share this forged “A” by Kleseus. The coolest part is that he started with his project before we revealed that we had done the same thing with Owen from Gate Foot Forge, as previously shared. Great project, we love seeing our logo come to life like that!

And we have two massive construction projects we simply had to highlight here

The first one is by Erasmuze, the city of “Wienna” with its many palaces, museums and plenty of places to relax. And let’s not forget about the neighboring spa town of Karlshower. An impressive and beautifully detailed project inspired by the real cities of Vienna and Karlovy Vary.

More recently, he also shared an overview of his city of Santa Cruz in the New World – in case you’re looking for further inspiration.

Finally, with many Lego fans in the team here as well, we can’t help but direct your attention to this project on Lego Ideas for an Anno 1800 diorama. It’s a cute build of a harbour scene – and even includes the World’s Fair. If you like TangTaizong’s creation, you can support it on Lego Ideas.

Union Update: Community Contest – Write a Game Quest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

We are here, once again, with a brand-new Community Contest for you! This is the second contest dedicated to Anno 117: Pax Romana, where we ask you to use your creativity and imagination to create something that will make its way into the game.

Your second quest

Whilst for the first contest we’ve asked you to sharpen your pencils and draw your own statue, this time around we challenge you to write a quest set in Albion, one of the twin provinces under your stewardship.

Just like the previous contest, you will need to follow some rules for your submission:

  • For the structure of your quest, please follow this template
  • Entries can be submitted in English, French or German
  • The quest giver must work in one of these buildings:
    • Farms (wheat, flax, sheep, …)
    • Mines (iron, copper, …)
    • Market
    • Brewery
    • Bakery
    • Mill
    • Hosier
    • Grammaticus (Roman school)
    • Shipyard
    • Brooch and Torc Maker
    • Cloak Maker
    • Smith
    • Eel catcher
  • The theme should clearly fit the setting
  • The quest must be set in Albion, the Celtic province
  • The quest can have up to 5 objectives maximum (objectives = what the player has to do to progress in the quest)
  • Each person can submit only 1 quest
  • You have time until 22nd September to submit your entry
  • Entries must be submitted to this e-mail address: anno-community@ubisoft.com using the subject “Community Contest: Quest“
  • Entries must not infringe on any copyrights of third parties
  • Entries that have been created using AI tools will be excluded

And here are some recommendations from the Narrative Team:

  • Make sure there is motivation for the quest giver, and importance for the Governor (you!) to care about the quest and act on it.
  • Remember that for the objectives you can use different quest types: goods delivery, decision, picture puzzle – you choose!
  • If you feel like have an amazing idea revolving around other professions or places that were not mentioned above, feel free to add them in your questline, we might be able to adjust it to fit the game afterwards

Here’s an example for you:

Title: Where’s my wheat?
Quest giver: Mill – Miller

Intro dialogue: [Miller] Governor, I need your help. My last wheat delivery has mysteriously disappeared, but I urgently need a new batch in order to get the flour ready for a special delivery to Rome.

Objective 1: After the last cargo of wheat has mysteriously disappeared, a local miller asks for your help in gathering and delivering the wheat needed for the mill to prepare flour for an important delivery to Rome [goods delivery]. Once you deliver the wheat, the miller thanks you and gifts you a reward.

Objective 2: However, it seems that overnight the new cargo has mysteriously disappeared again and the miller asks once more for your help, this time to investigate and search for the culprit. The miller gives you some hints, but it’s your time to search for the wrongdoer who has been stealing the wheat [picture puzzle].

Objective 3: You find the culprit and by all surprise it’s a flock of sheep! The overly demanding (and extremely smart) sheep had grown bored of the food provided by the farmer, and took advantage of the night and the sleepiness of the farmer to sneak out, looking for food. It’s now your turn to decide whether to punish the careless farmer or let them go with a warning [decision]. If you decide to punish the farmer, the miller will give you a reward [option A]. If you decide to let the farmer go with a warning, the farmer will have a reward for you instead [option B].

Outro dialogue:

  • Option A (miller): A fair punishment, Governor. Take this, as a sign of my gratitude!
  • Option B (farmer): You’re too kind, Governor! I promise I will take better care of my flock. Take this, as a sign of my gratitude!

If you’re looking for some inspiration to get your creativity flowing, check out this DevBlog on the world of Anno 117, or this deep dive on Romanization!

Once the submission time is over, we will review your entries and select our favourite quests with the help of the Narrative Team. The finalist entries will then be published on the Anno Union, and it will be your turn to decide the winner of the contest by voting for your favourite quest. Voting will take place at the end of September.

We hope you are as excited as we are for this contest and, most importantly, have some fun while writing your quest – we cannot wait to read your entries! In the meantime, for any questions feel free to comment or reach out on our social channels listed below.

*We reserve the right to make adjustments to the winning story in order for it to fit the narrative of Anno 117: Pax Romana.

Union Update: Winner of the statue design contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

 

We have a winner! And against all our internal predictions, it has nothing to do with the Jorgensens.

No, you chose Annocius, the new god of Anno, as your favourite in a quite exciting, but ultimately decisive vote. Congratulations to HiddenMoon79 who designed it!

Combining 32% of the votes, “Annocius” won the Community Vote, ahead of “Latona” by Lucianus with 24% of the votes in second place.

 

Well, and what’s next? – We’ll sit together with our colleagues in the Art Team and discuss how to translate the drawing by HiddenMoon79 into a first concept art – checking with its creator to make sure we don’t stray too far from the original. This we will then later follow-up with drafts of the 3D model.

On all this progress, we’ll keep you updated here on the Anno Union. Congratulations once more to the winning design!

Below you can find a collection of all valid entries to the contest. A big thank you to everyone who sat down to create their vision of an Anno statue. We very much enjoyed going through all the entries and hope you also had fun creating them.

Q&A

As the second part of today’s blog, we’re tackling some recent questions related to the upcoming Community Event in Cologne.

 

When will you send invites to the Community Event in Cologne?

We sent out the first round of invites on Monday to a randomly selected group of people. Please make sure to check your inboxes and spam folders, just in case. As mentioned in said email as well, we would need confirmation by Sunday.

Should several people drop out for whatever reason, we will send out more invites over the next days.

 

Are you showing something exclusive at the Community Event?

Yes… and no. Attendees will get the information of our next DevBlog a little bit earlier than the rest – and delivered in person by Lead Game Designer Andrea and Senior Game Writer Matt.

However, we will follow this up in the days after with an article covering the same topic here on the Anno Union for everyone.

When is the next Anno 117 DevBlog coming?

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to push the blog planned for early August back to a later date – which, unfortunately, creates a little gap in terms of content here on the Anno Union. The next DevBlog will therefore release on the 22nd/23rd of August as mentioned above.

After that we’ll talk about Game Design and Game Production.

 

Do you have news on the last two Cosmetic DLC for Anno 1800?

Two more Cosmetic DLC are planned for Anno 1800 and will still release this year. The next one is not that far off anymore, and we might have a first teaser later this month, then the full details in early September – the release-month.

The other one will be released at the end of the year and is still in development, information on that will still have to wait a little bit.

 

I have problems with adding comments below articles, how do I fix that?

Some of you reached out to let us know you’re experiencing problems with commenting on blogs on the Anno Union since the update.

Due to the website update, this often seems to be related to browser caching. Please try deleting your cache (and potentially cookies) and try again. Should the issues remain, please reach out to us e.g. via Discord and we’ll investigate.

Union Update – Vote for your favourite Statue

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Anno Community,

Here we are, ready for the next phase of the first Community Contest dedicated to Anno 117: Pax Romana! In case you’ve missed it, here’s a little refresher for you all.

Back in June, we challenged you to design your own statue based on a silhouette we provided and submit your creation for a chance of your design to be transformed into an ornament for the upcoming Anno game.

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to each of you who submitted their statue – we were extremely happy to see our inbox getting filled with your art!

In fact, there was so much cool stuff, we didn’t have an easy time choosing. Our main criteria were: originality within the given constraints and how well it fits within the (narrative and artistic) vision for Anno 117.

So, after going through your submissions, we chose our favourite entries – 5 in total:

1 – The Jorgensen Fountain

Bente and Leif reimagined as Venus and Amor. We loved the idea of romanising two existing Anno characters – not sure the Romans know what a “Jorgensen” is, though.

2 – Mysterious Figure

A trusty advisor? A time traveller? We don’t know, but it piqued our interest!

3 – Latona

In reference to the myth related to Latona and her children: Apollo and Diana. We loved the creative potential of having 3 characters “merged” into one statue.

4 – Annocius

Doesn’t Anno deserve its own divine representation? Turning Anno into “Annocius”, the god of the 9, sounded good to us.

5 – Ocean Figure

Of course, the sea is a major element in any Anno game. If this is a monument to brave fishermen or more – we loved the statue casually holding the squid’s arms.

Well, Annoholics, it’s now up to you to decide which entry will make its way into the game as an ornamental statue – that you will be able to personalise your cities in Anno 117: Pax Romana with! You can submit your vote here.

The voting is open until August 4th, end of day – your vote is completely annonymous.

A big shout out and thank you to everyone who sent their entry – it really means a lot to us, and it shows the love you have for the Anno series (we will share all of them after the voting is over).

If your entry wasn’t selected this time, or if drawing is not your favourite creative outlet, fear not – there will be more contests coming up! In the meantime, don’t forget to vote for your favourite statue and share with us any question or feedback you might have in the comments below.

Union Update: Anno Community Event 2024

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Salvete Anno Community,

We’re excited to announce Anno’s first Community Event!

 

On Wednesday, August 21st, we’ll be holding the very first Anno Builder Event in Cologne, Germany – and we’re inviting you to join us at the Roonburg (Roonstraße 33, 50674 Cologne) for an Anno-themed evening. The event will start at 6pm and last until 11pm.

There will be food and drinks as well as dev panels with:

  • Andrea Fricke (Lead Game Designer)
  • Lisa Wittmann (International Product Manager)
  • Matt Cook (Senior Game Writer)
  • Manuel Reinher (Creative Director)
  • Oliver Walz (Community Developer)

Special guest: Owen Phillips, the artist blacksmith, will share his experience on what it was like crafting Anno’s new logo out of steel! The behind-the-scenes video will also be revealed.

Plus, of course, plenty of opportunities to chat with both us and other members of the Anno community!

 

Note: The event will be in English and German.

How to sign up?

Due to the location’s capacity, there is limited space. You can sign up for the event now by sending an email to AnnoCommunityEvent@ubisoft.com with your name, nickname (from Discord, Reddit etc., optional), and language preference.

As subject, please use “Anno Community Event Signup” to help us sort all emails faster.

Signups will be open until July 31st. If the number of signups exceeds the event’s capacity, we will randomly select people from amongst all emails we received. Confirmation emails are planned to be sent the week of August 5th.

 

Any questions? – Let us know! We’d love to meet you in Cologne next month!

Union Update: News roundup and Q&A

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

Welcome to a rather lengthy Union Update with news and information. We’ll be talking about next week’s livestream, what happened in the last two weeks and have a Q&A section at the end.

Short reminder here that we had our very first livestream, a dev talk about our vision for Anno 117: Pax Romana and the reveal itself, last week. If you missed it, you can watch the VOD here.

Let’s dive right in:

Livestream on Branding

On July 2nd, we’re tackling questions that are likely also close to the heart of many Anno veterans: What even is Anno? What makes Anno games special and what are the key aspects and emotions an Anno game has to transport?

Those questions we have to ask ourselves from a creative, and from a brand point of view every time we start working on a new game. Anno by now is a series with a long tradition, a tradition that must be upheld but that also requires occasional self-reflection.

Together with Haye, Brand Director on Anno, and Wayne Deakin, Global Principal at Wolff Olins, we’re discussing Anno’s 26-year-old identity and how it translates into the new branding and logo for the series in general and Anno 117: Pax Romana in particular. Join us at 4:30PM CEST / 10:30AM EDT / 7:30AM PDT over on Twitch.

Behind the scenes of our trailer

If you watched our livestream last week you will already have seen it: We released a little video with behind-the-scenes footage of our trailer shoot. You can watch it below:

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Scroll of Fame

While we certainly were nervous before the reveal on June 10th, we were rather sure about one thing: Our community seemed to be very keen about “ancient Rome” as a setting for an Anno game. In fact, we went and gathered dozens of comments from you and your wishes and requests for a Roman setting. Those comments are now immortalised on the Scroll of Fame, and we also asked our Town Crier to respond to several of them directly:

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Statue Contest

On Monday we launched our very first Community Contest: Design an Anno 117: Pax Romana statue!

With just a rough outline, you can decide about the look, shape and colour of the statue that we’ll later implement into the game. Find all the information here in our dedicated blog. The contest runs until July 14th.

We highly encourage you to give it a try and are excited with what kind of ideas you’ll surprise us!

Q&A

Understandably, with the reveal just having happened, you have A LOT of questions on Anno 117: Pax Romana, the story, the characters, features, tech and many other aspects.

Broadly speaking, we are only at the very beginning of our journey when it comes to telling you more about our game. Over time, we’ll give you insights into the world and setting, the player’s role as a governor, the choices you can make and much more. But – and that is no different to our approach on Anno 1800 – this will happen over the coming months until release, based on our production plans.

Today, let’s dive into some topics you asked about:

When will you show gameplay?

We very much understand your impatience to see Anno 117: Pax Romana “in action”. However, we can already tell you that we won’t be showing any gameplay in 2024. We want to make sure we show you the game in a representative state, and since we are still very much in development, there are plenty of moving parts left: features and mechanics that might change – even drastically -, or are still missing, unfinished visual elements etc. etc.

By no means does that mean that we won’t have exciting insights for you in the meantime. Both in terms of game content as well as behind the scenes information on how we develop games. Especially the latter will hopefully also give you a better understanding of our production and communication plans.

Okay, but when will you tell us more about the game??

Very soon, July is right around the corner. Upcoming topics will first revolve around the world of Anno 117 and how we approach creating an Anno world, the research we’re doing etc.

After that, we’ll take a look at the work of the Production department and the planning and organising of a project like Anno 117: Pax Romana.

Having established the basis like this, we’ll move further into the world of Anno 117 with a closer look at both regions – Latium and Albion – and the gameplay differences between the two.

There’s more to come, this is just to give you a first taste.

You said you’re not showing gameplay for now, but how do you want to gather community feedback?

Our main source of very specific gameplay and UI feedback are playtests. We’ve organised a few already over the past months to make sure we are:

  1. Fulfilling the fantasy of a builder game in a Roman setting, and
  2. On the right track when it comes to creating an Anno game that ticks all the boxes our veterans would expect.

Receiving such positive feedback was a great relief for us, and reassured us in our plans for Anno 117. Of course, there are still features or mechanics that were (and others still are) not ready and, for example, during our very first playtest, we have never seen so many of our veterans go bankrupt so quickly – the balancing very much was, and still is, a work-in-progress.

We’ll continue with such playtests until release.

In addition, we have all the input you gave us before (and are now giving us after) the reveal across all kinds of channels and here on the Anno Union – especially when we start diving into more details about Anno 117: Pax Romana.

You missed out on the opportunity to make the 9th Anno a Roman one and call it “Anno 9”!

Admittedly, it would’ve been a nice little joke – but ultimately, we really wanted to make a Roman Anno now. Plus, releasing it in 2025 still keeps the 9-joke alive, doesn’t it?

Will you have (quality of life) feature X and Y?

Ah, now we’re getting specific. For the reasons outlined above, we won’t be going into detail on Anno 117’s exact feature-set quite yet. We’re not going to reinvent the (Anno-)wheel with Anno 117: Pax Romana, and you can expect the return of many beloved core features and mechanics. You can also expect improvements and changes to said features and the addition of new ones – to fit the setting and vision of the game. Trains and electricity just don’t make a lot of sense in ancient Rome, for example.

There are also a bunch of quality-of-life features in Anno 1800 that we know you love and of course those are also on our list of things for Anno 117. Blueprint mode, anyone?

In the end, we are working with a detailed production plan and a certain limit of working hours. Which features and mechanics (and in which way) will be present in Anno 117 is something we will be able to confirm at a later date.

I love the Town Crier character, will you add him to the game?

We also love our Town Crier – and are extremely happy that both the reveal trailer as well as the scroll of fame video were so well-received by our community! We’re not quite sure yet what the Emperor has to say when it comes to commemorating someone else than himself but we’ll see.

Union Update: Community Contest – Design a Statue

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Salve Anno Community,

It’s not been long since the reveal of Anno 117: Pax Romana, but we already have something for you all to have fun with: a Community Contest! This will be the first contest of a series dedicated to Anno 117: Pax Romana, where we’ll ask you to use your creativity and imagination to create something that will make its way into the game.

Your first quest

Without further ado, let’s dive into your first assignment! As you might know, sculpture was considered one of the highest forms of art by Romans. This is why for the first contest we challenge you to create your own statue based on this silhouette gently provided by our lovely Art Team in Ubisoft Mainz.

You have full creative power for this contest: you can fill the silhouette as you wish, and even adjust the outline if you see fit. The possibilities are endless! Don’t be afraid to think outside the box – or the lines, in this case.  Here are just a few examples coming directly from our super talented Art Team, and as you can see, they go from very classical statues to… quite unconventional ones!

The rules are simple:

  • You have time until 14th July (11:59 PM CEST) to submit your entries
  • Each person can submit up to 2 entries, but only one will be selected by us during the selection phase
  • It’s up to you how you decided to create your entries, you can print the silhouette and draw on it, or you can draw on it digitally
  • The theme should mostly fit the ancient Rome setting, but otherwise feel free to let your creative juice flow!
  • Accepted files formats are .png and .jpg
  • Entries must be submitted at this e-mail address: anno-community@ubisoft.com
  • Entries that have been created using AI tools will be excluded
  • Entries must not infringe on any copyrights of third parties

You can download the silhouette files here. The folder includes both a .png and a .psd file for those of you who like to work with layers.

Once the submission time is over, we will review your entries and select 5 statues – this will be a combined effort by the Community Team, Brand Team, and Art Team. The finalist entries will then be published on the Anno Union, and it will be your turn to decide the winner of the contest by voting for your favourite statue of the 5. Votes will take place at the end of July.

And of course, the most important thing: the winning statue will become a real ornament that will be featured in Anno 117: Pax Romana!*

We hope you are excited as we are for this contest and, most importantly, have some fun while creating your statues – we cannot wait to see your entries! In the meantime, for any questions feel free to comment below or reach out on our social channels listed below.

*We reserve the right to make adjustments to the winning design in order for it to fit the art design of Anno 117: Pax Romana.

Union Update: Modder Spotlight – Hier0nimus

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

Last week we showcased Taludas’ “New Frontiers” mod for Anno 2205 which adds a whole bunch of new features and content for the game – including Mars as an entirely new region!

 

Today, we’re returning to Anno 1800 with a full spotlight on Hier0nimus who you might know from mods like the “Perfect Specialist & Items Pack” or “Music to my Ears” (a winner of last year’s mod contest!).

Hey Hier0nimus, thank you for taking the time! Before we’re diving into your different projects, how did you actually get into the modding scene for Anno 1800?

I think the trigger to get into modding came from a reference on the normal Anno Discord server. I was interested in the Anno community and what the community made for the game: tools to help with making the best layout for your city, a wiki where you could find a lot of information about the game, etc. One of those things that caught my attention was mods.

 

When I saw the link to the Modding discord in the list of resources, I was triggered and joined that server to find a warm community of people really open and helpful for people who wanted to start modding themselves. Via that server I found a website by Schwubbe with a lot of information that helps beginning modders. That was the starting point for me and the trigger to try out some things myself.

What kind of mods have you worked on so far?

The first mod I started with and that got me into modding was a specialist item mod. I’m a player in Anno 1800 that likes to lose himself in optimizing productions with specialists and items. Specialists are the perfect first thing to learn how to make a mod when you understand the basics of the modding in Anno 1800.

I spent hours and hours with a spreadsheet coming up with names, descriptions, lore and the actual use for all those specialists before even doing any coding or making graphics. The first version was released in November 2021, months after I started to understand the modding process and contained about 50 new specialists for the regions that were available at that time. The mod that was the start of my modding journey now contains 125 specialists and items and still has a special place in my heart.

After I created the specialists mod I wanted to take the next step in my modding journey and create a new production chain with new products. It was around Christmas 2021, and I decided to make a Christmas tree production chain. To this date, this mod still exists. For me, personally, it is not a big mod but it was a mod that was a step in my learning experience and one of the many steps I needed to make to learn new things.

 

After that Christmas mod, I discovered another drive inside me, which was writing tutorials and helping people who wanted to walk the same path I walked and get into modding. I found a lot of joy in helping people with the basic knowledge I myself learned from others and smacking my face to the ground multiple times. I took up the goal to help people in their modding journey and found it really enjoyable to see people grow and make amazing things.

 

In 2023, the Anno team announced a modding contest with prizes that triggered my attention. I started way too late and only one week before the contest ended, I started creating the first assets. I had an idea lying around for a while to add musical instruments to the game, but it had to have some extras, so I added the Music Hall as a building to buff surrounding residences. Which is also not the craziest, but it adds some extra flavor.

During the development of that mod, I again had way too many ideas but because of the limited time, I had to make some hard choices. It would have been nice to have the music hall be a monument and to add new music to the game as well. But those would have been things I totally did not know anything about and with only a week totally not realistic. Crunching that week to get my mod out was a really enjoyable period with again the community helping out where I got stuck or giving me ideas or improvements. In my opinion every mod I created is in some way an achievement of the whole community and not only of myself. And then the contest was over, and I was one of the winners! Hurray! A big thank you again to the Anno team for organizing this amazing event and the whole Modding community for participating and helping out!

Did you have any prior modding knowledge or specific skills (programming, 3D art, …) when starting to mod Anno?

Playing a game for me has always been a way of expressing myself. I like to play games that build / create stuff where you accomplish something towards a goal. It is a part of me and how I’m wired. Anno in that way is the perfect game for that and modding ties so well into that. Modding gives me the power to feel more connected with the game I love. When having certain skills that help build something, like creating graphics, writing code it makes it easier to feel that connection. I have a background in Web Design, graphic design and frontend development which gave me the advantage of finding that extra connection with a game a bit easier. It even gave me the ability to spread the enthusiasm for modding faster when helping people.

 

What would you advise someone who wanted to get into modding Anno?

Take your time, do not put pressure on yourself, read the documentation, start small, dive in face first, smack your face into a wall and make mistakes, learn, grow, ask questions and most importantly: enjoy the ride.

Join the modding discord and be part of the community of people that help eachother grow.

Take on small projects and do it step by step. Eventually, you will combine everything you learned into a big mod when you are ready for it.

You are about to release the “Military Attention” mod. Can you give us an overview of this mod, its goals and what inspired you to create it?

Military Attention is a mod that has a size I could not even think about when I started modding. Military Attention contains new soldier population tiers for every region, new military products, additional requirements of building ships, new monument, ornaments, etc. Way too much to put a list here.

The idea is to add an extra military aspect to the game. Originally, I would have added a lot more changes to AI, new ships, etc. but during the past years a lot of other modders already added so many military things that I skipped a lot of those. I would rather be compatible with them and be a piece of the Military puzzle and make a complete puzzle together with those other mods.

So, I focus on the logistics part of the military. If you want to have a more challenging AI or more ships, there are so many other mods already that have even done a better job than what I could probably would ever have done. At the moment I released it as a BETA to give people the opportunity to test it out, find bugs, check compatibility with mods I would maybe never use but I want to be compatible with, etc. A lot of feedback was already given which I really appreciate! Big thank you to everyone! I hope to release it as soon as possible. At the moment I’m polishing the last steps so it should be ready before the summer! After that I will probably dive back into the Arctic mod again!

Are there any other mod projects you’re currently working on and that you already want to tease?

Again during those last years I worked on a lot of things, but 2 bigger things are still the two things ranked 1 and 2 (sometimes pushed to 2 and 3). Years ago, I started to work on an Arctic mod. We all want the Arctic to get some extra love. I created new population tiers, new buildings, new production chains, new mechanics, ect. It is looking so good already. It even will have new skinned islands and already has a new Arctic session!

Then a topic came up on the modding discord about soldiers in Anno 1800. I was triggered by it. That is now the mod I put my full attention to (well, most of the time until I got sidetracked by something like almost 100 Hot Air Balloons, helping people, writing tutorials,…).

 

 

That’s it for today’s modder spotlight – thank you once more, Hier0nimus for taking the time to give us insights into your modding journey!

Everyone else: Check out Hier0nimus‘ mods on mod.io or search for his mods directly in the ingame mod browser.