Tag: Union Update

Union Update: Vehicle Liveries Pack release

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

 

last week we talked about our Cosmetic DLC plans for 2021 and the upcoming “Vehicle Liveries Pack”. The latter is now available via Prime Gaming and can be claimed by following the instructions at the end of this article.

 

The following pictures give you an overview of all available skins, just click on an image to see it in full size.

As mentioned last week, the “Vehicle Liveries Pack” will later this year become available via the Ubisoft Store, Epic Store and Steam (for owners of the Steam version) for the price of 4,99€.

Make sure to also check last week’s post for more details on our Cosmetic DLC plans.

 

You can already look forward to Thursday, when we will launch the vote for the remaining two Cosmetic DLC for this year. We’re already curious, which topics will end up being your favorites 😉

How to claim your “Vehicle Liveries Pack” with Prime Gaming:

  • Subscribe to Prime Gaming (https://gaming.amazon.com/)
  • Visit the Prime Gaming rewards page (https://gaming.amazon.com/anno1800)
  • Log in to your Amazon account
  • Link your Ubisoft account with your Amazon account
  • If you accidentally linked the wrong Ubisoft account to your Amazon account and you haven’t yet claimed the “Vehicle Liveries Pack”, go to https://primegaming.ubisoft.com to unlink your accounts
  • Visit https://support.ubi.com/ to troubleshoot any issues with your Ubisoft account
  • Visit the Prime Gaming FAQ for any questions about Prime Gaming

 

You will receive your “Vehicle Liveries Pack” automatically in-game. Keep in mind it can take up to 48 hours for the content to be delivered in-game!

Union Update: News and a 1602 livestream

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Annoholics,

in this week’s Union Update we’ll give you a quick round of news for the upcoming days:

 

Update on Wednesday 24th

We received some reports about issues with certain antivirus programs and will therefore replace the current Anno.exe in an update tomorrow. This update does not include any fixes or other changes.

Anno 1602 Livestream

Might feel like yesterday for some, but Anno 1602 is turning 23 on Wednesday next week! This calls for a livestream (and maybe a History Collection giveaway?), but with next week cut short due to the Easter weekend, we decided to celebrate a bit earlier:
This Friday at 5 PM CET we invite you to join us on Twitch when we dive into an Anno 1602 multiplayer match!

Game Update 10.2

We’re currently in the process of testing Game Update 10.2. We’ll share more information and the Release Notes with you next week.

Anno 1404 (legacy) Online Services

We have to inform you that the decision was taken to shut down the services for some older Ubisoft games with smaller online audiences on May 22nd. This includes the legacy version of Anno 1404.
The reason for this is that it allows the Ubisoft IT and service staff to better focus on newer titles with bigger active player numbers. We understand that the multiplayer of Anno 1404 is still popular with parts of our community and that some of you may therefore be disappointed by this news. Until May 22nd the online services including the multiplayer will still be fully available, the singleplayer experience is not affected.
A list with all games for which the online services are or will be disabled can be found on the official Ubisoft Forums.

Union Update: A packed Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

While we’re in a slightly quieter period right now, you’re all definitely not quiet at all when it comes to sharing impressions and stories from your games. So, we’ll dedicate this Union Update to a variety of art, screenshots and videos created by our awesome community!

 

There’s just one thing we wanted to mention first based on the results of the Reddit AMA we did a few weeks ago:

We’ve seen many really interesting questions but some of them would’ve required much more detailed explanation than we were able to give on Reddit to provide the full picture. So, there are a few points we want to get back to in dedicated articles in the coming months.

If there are any topics you’d like to hear about or development insights you’d love to know more about, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Community Spotlight

 

Let’s start things off with a quite relatable comic by the great Dulcamarra – we’re sure her city is absolutely fine.

Talking cities, Breadom created a wonderful cinematic video for his current savegame. Definitely worth watching!

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Over on the Anno 1800 subreddit, painter Virginie shared a photo of the artwork she created at her brother’s request.

To round things off, some idyllic screenshots from our community like this busy coffee production area by Poppytat…

… this little farming village below the old castle on Crown Falls by Neptun_VII.…

… and the “Imperial Gardens” by YameroReddit.

Finally, in collaboration with Ubisoft’s “gTV” channel, Simon from ClayClaim recreated the Docklands in polymer clay. Something for all model-making fans out there.

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*Note: Screenshots and videos in the Community-Spotlight can include elements like buildings from mods that are not available in the regular game.
Please be aware that the use of mods happens at your own risk and can lead to technical issues or bugs.

Union Update: Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

A little bit over a week ago we’ve released “Docklands” alongside Game Update 10, giving you all the option to build a massive Docklands district in your harbour. We’ve already seen plenty of examples as to what kind of designs you came up with the Docklands themselves and the new ornaments – you can find some impressions at the end of this post.

We’re happy to see the new DLC as well as the quality of life improvements we added with Game Update 10 are so well-received. Additionally, we want to once more add a big thank you for everyone who participated in last week’s AMA on the Anno subreddit – we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! 🙂

 

Game Update 10.1

While the reception overall was very positive, we were also made aware of a few new bugs that affected your enjoyment of the game. We’re currently working on an update to address the most pressing of these issues. While we’re planning to release the update in the near future, we do not have a precise date yet. Keep an eye on our channels for news.

 

Community Spotlight – Docklands

We promised some impressions from our community’s Docklands designs, so follow along:

Kaankaan7 combined their “wishlist” with a screenshot of their redesigned harbour area.

Quite a few different layouts were tested by MichaelEugeneLowrey.  You can find one example below but might want to check out the full Reddit thread for additional inspiration:

For a super symmetrical solution, look no further, Wardinary got you covered:

All new content of course has to be “night mode tested” – thank you to Grieswurst for providing some beautiful impressions of the Docklands by night:

And finally… we can see that TheUnbrokenCircle’s shipbuilders were very excited when they managed to get their hands on the new blueprints. Maybe a little bit too excited…

 

 

 

 

*Note: Screenshots and videos in the Community-Spotlight can include elements like buildings from mods that are not available in the regular game.
Please be aware that the use of mods happens at your own risk and can lead to technical issues or bugs.

Union Update: It’s “Docklands” release day!

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello Annoholics!

 

It’s release day for “Docklands”! You can now download and play the first DLC of Season 3!

Not only will this allow you to construct your very own modular warehouse district to make more efficient use of your harbour area, but also give you access to the new “Export/Import Contracts” feature. With those you can exchange goods at specific rates, even in large quantities, which allows you to specialize your economy and even focus exclusively on certain goods while importing the rest via contracts.

The Docklands and its modules allow you to turn your harbours into global trade hubs which you can make shine additionally by various new harbour ornaments like *drumroll* two different kinds of lighthouses! We know you’ve been waiting for those 😉

More details and screenshots can be found in our extensive DevBlog from last week!

 

Alongside the new DLC, we’ll be releasing Game Update 10, with various improvements as well as some new features free to all players. We have published the Release Notes yesterday and you can find them here.

 

 

Both “Docklands” as well as Game Update 10 released today at 6 PM CET (12 PM EST, 9 AM PST) and the DLC can then also be purchased as individually for 6,99€ in the Ubisoft Store, Epic Store and on Steam (for owners of the Steam version of Anno 1800).

“Docklands” is also part of the Season 3 Pass – you can read all details about it here.

 

We’re excited to see you create your very own Docklands and are looking forward to your feedback on the new features! Don’t forget to share some screenshots!

 

 

 

Union Update: Twitch Drops & Reddit AMA

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

The release week is drawing near, and we have some final announcements to make to help you prepare for what’s to come ?

 

Reddit AMA

First, since there seems to be a great demand for knowledge, we thought a proper AMA (“ask me anything”) would be a nice idea, to give you all the opportunity to ask whatever question you want to the Anno 1800 dev team.

This AMA will happen over on the Anno subreddit where we’ll start a new thread on Monday. From the 22nd till the 25th, members from various departments of the Anno team will be active on Reddit to reply to your questions posted in said thread.

There might of course be a few questions we can’t answer (yet) for various reasons, but we’ll do our best to address as many as we can.

We will share the link to the AMA thread on Monday via our social channels, so you don’t have to repeatedly refresh the subreddit page to look for it.

We’re looking forward to a great release week with interesting questions!

“Docklands” Twitch Drops

Over the coming days, we will give you the opportunity to already take a closer look at the contents of Season 3’s first DLC – “Docklands” – as well as the improvements coming with Game Update 10, by watching some of your favourite streamers during another Twitch Drops Event.

The whole event takes place from Friday, February 19 until Sunday, February 28.

During the event, you will be able to watch how a variety of selected Twitch streamers turn their harbors into massive trade hubs with the new Docklands district and the Export/Import Contracts. Oh, and don’t forget about all the new ornaments!
Anyone watching them construct the modular Docklands and exporting thousands of tons of fish for a handful of Steam Carriages can grab two brand new ornaments, the “Docklands” Flag and the “Docklands” Lamppost. The only thing you need to do is to first link your Ubisoft account to your Twitch account and then watch the streamers during the event for up to 3 hours to receive your loot. You don’t have to watch these hours consecutively to receive your drop; watching them accumulated on participating streamers will also grant you the ornaments.

After receiving a drop, you need to claim it via the Twitch inventory.
Please be aware that all rewards will only be delivered to you after the end of the Twitch Drop Event.

If you haven’t already done so in the past, make sure to first link your Ubisoft- and Twitch-account by following the steps outlined on this website.

You can find the full list of all participating Streamer below:

Union Update: Season 3 announcement – FAQ

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community!

 

It was great to see your reactions to the Season 3 announcement on Tuesday, the excited comments, the speculations – and the questions.

We’ve seen a few questions pop up repeatedly over the last days and instead of answering them on an individual basis again and again, we though the Anno Union is the perfect place to reach all of you at once ?

 

How are the Export/Import Contracts integrated into the statistics menu?

Via the “Storage” tab you can get an overview over all previous contracts fulfilled by Captain Tobias. Just like you can with your regular trade routes.

Like all trade, however, the goods exported and imported are not included in the production overview, as production and trade are two different systems in the game which work differently. The production tab checks for constant production and consumption, it presents absolute, reliable values.

Trading, however, is unreliable and therefore can’t be properly calculated into the production tab. Ships have differing traveling time, can be sunk, wind may affect their speed, they may have to wait to fulfil their trades etc. Incorporating goods from these sources as guesses would make the production tab unreliable, and therefore not useful anymore.

 

The new Docklands buildings and ornaments look like they might put yet more strain on my limited harbour space. Could you increase the harbour space?

Generally, with the introduction of the harbor street and being able to place certain buildings in the water instead of only along the coast, you will already be able to use the available space of your harbour area a lot better – especially if you like to play around with buildings to get the perfect layout. Add to that the modules of the “Docklands” like the depot, which are more space efficient than their regular counterparts.

However, we are not planning to increase the size of your islands’ harbour area. All maps are separated into island and ocean areas. The harbour area is always part of the island area and designed to expand from a certain line along the coast outwards to a certain limit. Reworking and expanding the construction space in the harbour area for all islands would have a significant impact on the game’s balancing and can further lead to issues impacting the stability of the game, AI navigation, and in certain cases, even corrupt savegames.

 

“Docklands” let’s you import goods from other DLC like “Land of Lions”. Will “Tourist Season” and “The High Life” provide similar interconnections between the DLC?

Yes, all 3 DLC will provide a certain level of interconnectivity with previously released content. Our goal with Season 3’s DLC is to offer you multiple paths to reach your goal. Owning another DLC will not make your life easier or be the “best” solution, but it will provide you with more options as to how to approach certain challenges.

 

“Tourist Season” sounds like it’s rather focused on beauty builders. As a record builder, will I also enjoy the contents of this DLC?

All DLC of Season 3 offer options for both beauty builders and record builders. The restaurants you’ll build to satisfy your tourists’ needs will also have an impact on the residents living nearby. Just like you might also order a burger at a restaurant nearby and won’t just leave it to tourists and other visitors. This might lead to residents e.g. consuming less bread or beer. Making the most of the bonuses provided by restaurants can be a great strategy to reduce the consumption of certain goods and instead focus on the production of other wares.

 

The skyscrapers in the gameplay footage to “The High Life” look strange, just like extended Investor residences.

Many of you have pointed out that the skyscrapers prototype footage seen in the Season 3 trailer and stream look suspiciously as if someone had just “stretched” our existing investor residences higher- which is coincidentally exactly what they are! It is very common in game development to try and reach a playable prototype state for experimentation as quickly as possible by “kitbashing” any existing assets and features you already have, so you can first test a feature’s potential before wasting valuable time only to find out later that it wasn’t much fun in the first place.

This is an aspect of development that is rarely seen outside of perhaps “making of” videos and usually never makes it into a proper trailer, though in this case we chose to do so as we thought it would be cool to give you a glimpse at our third DLC that is coming this Summer. One of the challenges we have when presenting a new Season to you is that, contrary to many other games, all DLCs for Anno 1800 are being developed by the same core team here in Mainz – which means that by the time we announce a new Season Pass, we are knee-deep in the development of our first DLC, but don’t have any polished gameplay from DLCs 2 and 3 to share (this was also true for Season 1 and 2).

TL; DR: The skyscrapers seen in the Season 3 trailer are just early prototypes based on existing assets, and do not represent the final quality of the feature, which will allow you to build truly modular high rises of various shapes and looks.

 

 

We know there’re many more questions out there and we’re currently planning to give you a Q&A opportunity soon. Keep in mind, though, that some answers will have to wait a bit until we’re closer to the release of the respective DLC.

 

Current technical issues

We have seen reports from players still having their Ubisoft Connect Rewards locked in the game. In that case, please verify the game files of Anno 1800 and then restart Ubisoft Connect. This should solve the problem.

If you’re missing your Chess Table ornaments: no worries, our team is currently looking into this.

 

Additionally, our team is currently investigating possible causes for the freezes and lags some of you have been reporting since Game Update 9.3. We will keep you updated on this topic and are hoping to have more news soon.

 

Winners of the “guess a DLC name” contest

Finally, it’s time to announce the winners from our last contest where we asked you to guess the names of the 3 DLC of the Season 3 Pass: “Docklands”, “Tourist Season” and “The High Life”.

Among everyone who guessed correctly, we have randomly selected 3 winners from both the German and the English comment section. Congratulations to:

marc1808

IDDDS

Killangel42

VaIhaIla_Rising

Sycend

Justin_One_Shot

We will contact you over the next few days via the e-mail address you’re using for your Ubisoft account to send you your Season 3 Pass key. So please keep an eye on your inbox ?

 

We wish all of you a great week, stay safe!

Union Update: Anno 2205 live stream & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

While this is not yet the week for Season 3 news, the waiting clearly inspires some people to write creative short stories about their impatience – maybe we should do a story contest later this year…

You will still have to wait a little bit longer until we start with news about Game Update 9.3 – and of course Season 3.

 

In the meantime, the Anno Afternoon livestream with Anno 2205 originally planned for last week will happen this Friday! Join Thorlof when he’s taking his first-ever steps into the city-building world of Anno 2205 on the 29th at 5 PM CET (11 AM EST) over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Community Spotlight

As usual, we love to share some impressions from our community in our Union Spotlight, so let’s dive right in:

If you’re looking for gameplay tutorials or know someone who could use some, there are by now a vast amount of video guides, tips&tricks collection and written explanations out there. This week we want to showcase itroo’s channel who is producing various tutorial videos for a few weeks, ranging from a statistics overview to trading.

 

Is Anno 1800 the hardest Anno title yet? This discussion was recently started on the Anno subreddit – maybe you want to jump in? 😉

 

 

It’s always hard to just pick a handful of screenshots for this section, so we encourage you to check platforms like Reddit or the Annoverse Discord for even more fantastic pictures!

Starting with Paw who shared a very moody screenshot of their Arctic settlement on Discord:

Kaluginmir shared screenshots of his Crown Falls city on Reddit – we especially liked the harbour area with the diagonal quays!

 

“Some love for the New World”, as Wyder_ out it when sharing their big New World settlement:

 

And finally, since we showed this city before this update is definitely worth sharing – Laudica’s circle city is finished!

 

As always, we love seeing more screenshots, clever videos, record attempts and interesting stories that we can share here on the Anno Union! 🙂

 

*Note: Screenshots and videos in the Community-Spotlight can include elements like buildings from mods that are not available in the regular game.
Please be aware that the use of mods is at your own risk and can lead to technical issues or bugs.

Union Update: We are back & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

A happy belated New Year to you all!

We hope all of you made it safely into 2021.

 

By now, the full team is back at work after their holiday break and we’re eager to continue working on Anno 1800 and Season 3.

We’re excited to soon share more details about what we have planned for 2021 with you – but for those details, you will still have to wait a little while longer 😉

 

What we can tell you already, is, that Game Update 9.3 is in the works and will – amongst others – including a fix for everyone affected by the missing Ubisoft Connect Rewards.

 

If you’re looking for some entertainment to bridge the waiting period, what would you say about a little time travel next Friday? In this upcoming Anno Afternoon, Thorlof and Ubinmyheart will be playing the one Anno title neither of them has tried before: Anno 2205! Join them on January 22 at 5PM CET over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

Community Spotlight

In this week’s Community Spotlight, we’re focusing on 3 milestones or records our awesome community has achieved.

Firstly, the Anno subreddit, which reached 30.000 users at the very end of last year. Over the last years, we have greatly enjoyed and valued the jokes and discussions on r/anno – as well as the welcoming atmosphere for any kind of questions by new players and veterans alike.

If you’re looking for a platform to discuss the Anno series or specific game features, like helping new players with tips and advice, or want to share experiences and screenshots from your game, the Anno subreddit is a great place to go.

As an example, in this post Annolegend takes you on a tour through their city Arch Capital:

 

Now talking records, German Twitch streamer Radlerauge set himself the challenge to construct and start 10 World’s Fairs in just 10 hours. If that wasn’t enough already, he finished them all after 7,5 hours and plenty of time to spare!

You can watch his stream here.

 

And one more mega-record: Drake-1503 recently shared on the forums the story of him reaching an incredible 4 million inhabitants in his current savegame. We have seen plenty of record building since release but the new heights some of you push into are truly impressive. If you want to see for yourself, he also uploaded his savegame in this thread.

 

Congratulations to both of you for these achievements!

And if you’re hunting records or got great stories to share, don’t hesitate to tag us on Twitter or share them over on the forums or Reddit.

Union Update: Happy Holidays!

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hello dear Anno Community,

 

With the holidays right around the corner, we want to once again say THANK YOU for all the support and comments we received throughout the year and all the great discussions we had with you!

 

2020 certainly was not an easy year overall for anyone, but nevertheless a successful and therefore also rather busy year for us.

Reason enough for us to take some time off and get some rest, recharge our batteries – we’ll be back in January with new energy and soon also news about Season 3 😉

 

But wait, before we leave, we have two small Christmas gifts for you:

Our art team has put together a shiny new wallpaper pack with artworks from Season 2’s DLC as well as the in-game loading screens, which you can download here.

Additionally, you can now also find the complete soundtrack of Anno 1800’s post-launch content, produced by our great friends at Dynamedion, on the Ubisoft Music YouTube channel and on Spotify. Enjoy!

 

Stay safe, enjoy the holidays and see you in the new year,

The Anno Team