Tag: Union Update

The Anno Year 2020 in Review

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

2020 is soon coming to an end – a good time to recap what the year had in store for Anno 1800, and to look at what’s to come in 2021.

We were off to a great start, and in early March were not only able to proudly celebrate that Anno 1800 had reached more than 1 million players in its first 8 month on the market (which earned you all a free commemorative in-game ornament) – but also to announce Season 2!

In December 2019 we had let you know that we were planning more for the game but the full extent of it we only unveiled in March in a dedicated live stream (“Hey Anno Community!”) – which also marked the last regular developer stream in a year that proved to be challenging for all of us.

The first of three DLCs – “Seat of Power” – as well as the first Annoversary were just around the corner and with two more DLC scheduled for later that year, there still was plenty to do.

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Our great community platform, the Anno Union, stayed at the centre of it all to keep you updated on the world of Anno – and even got a major visual and functional overhaul during the Summer.

For everyone who loves a good read, the release of all our DLC (and the History Editions) were accompanied by detailed DevBlogs describing the features and the development of the new content. From “Seat of Power” over “Bright Harvest” to “Land of Lions” (for which we wrote a total of 4 lengthy DevBlogs!) and the two Cosmetic DLC “Amusements Pack” and “City Lights Pack” we made sure you know in advance what you can expect.

The latter were based on a community voting in April, with the “City Lights Pack” coming in such a close second, that we felt compelled to realize it as well.

When talking about the Anno Union, we can’t do so without the visual stimulation and inspiration we got from the screenshot and postcard contest as well as the regular Union Updates with artworks and impressions from the community. We continue to be amazed by the awesome city designs and stunning screenshots you all create!
And even though the COVID-imposed restrictions lead to far less live streams from us than we would’ve liked, we thankfully have an amazingly active community creating video guides or streaming their adventures and record attempts online – regularly accompanied by Twitch Drop events around each DLC release.

 

Looking back, we continue to be extremely proud of the success of Anno 1800 in general and Season 2 in particular. Your continued feedback since release, be it reporting issues or sharing your ideas and discussing balance topics played a big role throughout the last years – and will continue shaping Anno 1800 and its development, with Season 3’s DLC and Game Updates being inspired by community feedback and wishes!

Thank you for your continued support! 😊

The success of Anno 1800 also led to it receiving its own boardgame adaption this year! Anno 1800 – The Board Game was designed by Martin Wallace and published by KOSMOS (albeit in German). An English version is planned for 2021 and we are very happy to see the enthusiastic reception since its release in early Fall.

The Anno History Collection

Anno 1800, however, was not the only Anno title to shine this year. In late June we released the Anno History Collection which included the first four Anno games in reworked versions, which, for example, support higher resolutions and modern operating systems.

Prior to release, we went into detail with dedicated DevBlogs for all four titles regarding not only their respective development history but also regarding the challenges we faced and the changes that were done to each individual title.

It was great to watch so many of you return to old favourites – or discover never before played Anno titles – and we also greatly enjoyed the livestreams we held for each game, especially the multiplayer one for Anno 1404 (even if they were not quite on the normal technical level due to home office limitations). Many of you shared stories and experiences in the chat as well as in the forums, and it was great to read through them!

This way we heard of people revisiting old savegames from many years ago – and finishing them! Thanks to improvements to the games, for example the support for modern hardware, suddenly new resident records were possible, massive savegames from ‘back then’ became playable again and veterans shared these stories, their savegames and the maps they used across various Anno forums.

This wave of nostalgia also hit the writer of these lines, who relived some fond memories in Anno 1602, many years after getting the game gifted from his father to steer his son away from action games. With… moderate success.

Not only old savegames were dedusted, the modding community also became active immediately and started working on making their old projects compatible with the History Editions. This means you can also enjoy the changes and additions of community favourites like SBM, I.A.A.M. or D.E.A.P. with the History Editions.
Keep in mind, that while we love to see the efforts of the modding community, usage of these mods is not officially supported, and we cannot offer any assistance with issues you may run into using them!

Looking back at all this: What a year!

The continued success of the Anno brand in 2020 was accompanied by a global situation that no one expected. So, from early spring onwards we found ourselves cancelling events and workshops, attending lots of press events and meetings online and thinking about how much fun we had at gamescom in the last years. Additionally, working from home office brought its own challenges – but also opportunities.

We’re proud of our team shipping the enthusiastically received “Land of Lions” DLC despite these circumstances – and as we announced just a few weeks ago, we’re not stopping here:

2021 will bring new content and features to Anno 1800 and we’re excited to share more with you early next year.

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Union Update: Roundtable and Livestream

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

In this week’s Union Update we want to give you a short overview as to which dates you should mark in your calendars for the near future 😉

Roundtable on the Annoverse

The first date is tomorrow, Friday 4th, where we and the Annoverse team invite you to a community roundtable – an AMA session on the wonderful fan Discord server.
You can ask questions about Anno or our work in the text chat and the Anno team, represented by Thorlof, Com_Raven and Seraphine will go through them one by one in the voice channel.
The session is split in two parts, with a German one from 7 to 8 PM CET and an English one from 8:30 to 9:30 PM CET (2:30 PM EST, 11:30 AM PST).
You can join the server via this link and then hop in the dedicated roundtable channel.
A big thank you to the Annoverse team for organizing this event!

Livestream – Your Cities

As mentioned last week, we’re preparing one last live stream for the year!
Several of you have already sent us your savegames – thank you very much, we’re excited to wander through your cities and check out your resident and production layouts.
When, you might ask? Well, December 11th it is, starting at 5PM CET (11 AM EST, 8 AM PST) over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
Maybe Ubisoft-Santa brought some gifts, too?

Community Spotlight

As always we want to use the Union Update to showcase some of the cool screenshots and creations you shared across forums, Reddit and social.
We start with Nobodyletloose’s beautiful widescreen screenshots, day and night.

Our “Seat of Power” screenshot contest happened a few months ago already, but we’re convinced justinsy would have had great chances to end up in the top 5.

Obviously, we’re extremely happy when the DLC we develop are excitedly received (and bought, not gonna lie) so when Slimdude41 uses the “City Lights Pack” to bring more light to his inner-city – that makes us happy!

Finally, the New World deserves some love, too, and Areokh in our opinion does a great job at capturing the beauty of the southern session.

Union Update: Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

After the excitement of last week’s news with great announcements for next year, time to catch our breath and look into the near future this week.

First, however, we want to thank you for all the comments following last week’s announcement! We’re grateful for your support and happy that our plans for 2021 were so well received and resulted in so many additional feedback threads and comments which we’re following with great interest.

We’re excited to show you more about what we have planned in January.

GU 9.2 coming

We’re happy to confirm the release of Game Update 9.2 for Tuesday next week, 2PM CET / 8AM EST / 5AM PST. This update will address several bugs that were reported to us as well as some potential causes for multiplayer desyncs. The full release notes will be published on Tuesday.

Send us your cities!

Only a few weeks are left in this 2nd Anno 1800 year, but we can’t end it without one last livestream. In early spring we asked you to send us savegames from your cities for us to visit and to wonder at. We’d love to do so once more and see what you have been building over the year.

If you want to send us your savegame for us to check out live on stream, please send it to anno-community@ubisoft.com

Community Spotlight

We’re not getting tired of looking at your creations and are happy to share more of them in this week’s Community Spotlight!

The release of the “City Lights Pack” was taken up by several of you to redesign parts of your city. Mithaldriel clearly loves the Clearwater Basin – we just hope their residents do, too.

With the Research Institute in the “Land of Lions” DLC it’s now possible to move Clay Pits and Oil Springs. Stuffel_Z used this new opportunity to create dedicated areas for their brick and oil industry.

And while we know plenty of you love chasing for new records and building the most efficient layouts, there’s also something visually pleasing about slightly more “chaotic” city designs like the one beam05 showed on Reddit:

And to close this section of the blog, let’s take a look at darkwhite1602’s city! Oh…

A small bonus, did you know you can satisfy the needs of the first 3 resident tiers only by producing wood, wool and iron? Now you know… thank you, BluntRazor14.

Union Update: City Lights release & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Today marks the release of the “City Lights Pack” Cosmetic DLC which adds plenty of smaller ornaments as well as the eponymous city lights to your game, allowing you to further customize parks, build markets, and more. If you missed our dedicated blog last week about the development and the contents of the DLC, you can find it right here.

Beautify your city with the new Steelwork Fences with lanterns or the grand Clearwater Pool with swan paddle boats and provide your hard-working residents with fish sandwiches and even delicious pizza!

The DLC will release later today at 6 PM CET for the price of 4,99€.

We’re looking forward to seeing pictures of your redesigned city parks!

A concept drawing for the Clearwater Pool

Game Update 9.1

Alongside the “City Lights Pack”, we’re also releasing Game Update 9.1, which addresses various issues you have reported to us since the release of Game Update 9.

As always, you can find the full release notes on the Anno Union in the “Updates” section.

 

Since we’re still seeing reports from players missing some of their Ubisoft Club (now Ubisoft Connect) rewards since the switch in late October: We’re aware of this problem and are currently in contact with the Ubisoft Connect team to find a solution. As soon as we have news on the topic, we will let you know.

“Gamings Sounds” concert live stream

Originally planned as a live concert, the WDR (a German public-broadcasting institution) is holding a live stream concert on November 20th, 7 PM CET, playing parts of the soundtrack from various video games! This includes for example “Grandiose Magnificence” from Anno 1404 or “Next to the Throne” from Anno 1701 – both composed by our friends at Dynamedion.

Links to the stream will be provided by WDR at a later date and we will share them as soon as possible 🙂

December Livestreams

With the end of 2020 drawing near, we think it’s a good time for another livestream or two and having a nice chat before the holidays.

Since we had a lot of fun visiting some of your cities earlier this year, we’d love to do so once more and see what you have been building over the year.

If you want to send us your savegame for us to check out live on stream, please send it to anno-community@ubisoft.com

Community Spotlight

As we like to do it, let’s end this Union Update with another Community Spotlight, featuring some of the cool screenshots, art or community projects our great community is working on.

For example, there’s this awesome chess field Tonton_lp built – the statue variety might create some confusion while playing, though…

Over on Reddit, Nanmab shared some impressions from their Enbesan capital, using the canals in a creative, decorative way.

Dulcamarra returns with a new Anno 1800 comic strip about her experiences in the world of Anno:

Finally, we want to highlight a great fan project by schwubbe, which was recently completely translated into English (other languages are also available for most parts of the website) and also includes all goods and resident tiers of “Land of Lions”. On his website, you not only find details to all buildings and their production chains but also a handy calculator (which now uses houses instead of population numbers, we’ve been told) to figure out exactly how much your residents consume and how many production buildings you will need to construct.

You can check out the calculator yourself here – maybe the “modding” section is also interesting for some of you.

If you want to share screenshots with us or are working on a project of your own, tag us on Twitter or post it over on Reddit or the official forums where we’re regularly reading through the stories, screenshots and discussions you share.

Union Update: City Lights

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Since the release of “Land of Lions” last week we received a looot of feedback from you. A big thank you from the Anno team for all the lovely comments, for the praise, the stories of the little surprises you found while playing and all the videos and screenshots you shared.

We’re happy that you’re enjoying the lands of Enbesa and the features of Game Update 9 as much as we hoped you would.

 

Of course, we also kept track of the reports some of you posted about bugs and technical issues you are facing and your feedback about certain mechanics or balance decisions that you would like to see changed.

While we’re still going through plenty of your suggestions and ideas, we can confirm that our team is currently working on Game Update 9.1 to address the issues some of you are dealing with at the moment.

Game Update 9.1 is scheduled for mid-November, and we will soon share more details with you.

City Lights

Another topic for November will be the release of the “City Lights” Cosmetic DLC Pack which we already teased a few weeks ago. As before, we will introduce you to the content of this DLC and tell you a bit about the creation and ideas behind it in a dedicated DevBlog.

Expect more details including the exact release date soon.

Community Spotlight

We mentioned the number of screenshots earlier in this post, so what better place to post them than in this very Union Update? Thank you for the great shots, keep them coming ?

Discovering Enbesa via airship or using it for a touristy sight-seeing tour? SirQuestinghood had the right idea.

Of course, figuring out the best layouts incorporating the canals of the new irrigation system is one of the challenges of “Land of Lions”. Both archibeaver and Apfelcreme shared some for Sanga Cow, Goat and Linseed Farms:

Leaving Enbesa and returning to the Old World, the new Research Institute and Scholar Residences change the cityscape of the settlements there, as Seilofo and Eremon485 show:

Last but not least, we simply had to include Laudica’s circular city. You can already see the preparations for where the Scholars are supposed to go.

Union Update: “Land of Lions” release

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

It’s time! Yesterday we launched “Land of Lions” and you can now set sail to the lands of Enbesa, discover the Land of Lions and assist Emperor Ketema in building a new capital for his empire.

What better way to celebrate the DLC release than with a proper Launch Trailer!

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Over the last weeks we published several DevBlogs detailing the content of the “Land of Lions” DLC and the mechanics and challenges it will bring to your Anno 1800 experience.

If you missed any of them or just want to refresh your memory before jumping into the game – here you go:

Part 1: “Land of Lions” Overview

Part 2: Shepherds and Irrigation

Part 3: Elders and Story

Part 4: Scholars and Research

 

As usual, we are releasing a packed-full free Game Update together with the DLC. Game Update 9 not only includes various bug fixes and adjustments, we also implemented a variety of feedback points from our community (like selecting an island for your ship to sail to when switching sessions) to further improve your overall experience with Anno 1800.

You can find an overview over these quality of life improvements here, and the full release notes here (beware, it’s a long list!).

 

Since Monday you’re also able to get two additional “Land of Lions” ornaments via the Twitch Drop event currently ongoing. We’ve prepared all details in this dedicated article, including a list of all streamers participating.

Ubisoft Connect and the Club Rewards

A few of you already noticed it on Wednesday: All regular Ubisoft Club rewards for Anno 1800 were unlocked for everyone for free!

This is related to the rebranding of the Ubisoft Club and Ubisoft Uplay into Ubisoft Connect – so no worries, you can keep them.

Since this is not a topic solely related to Anno 1800, we recommend following this link for more information on Ubisoft Connect and what it means for you as players.

Anno 1800 board game release

As a final bit of news: The Anno 1800 board game is now released! (in German; an English release is planned for next year) In this physical version of the game, published by KOSMOS, you need to manage your workforce and fulfill your citizens’ needs while facing off against your competitors directly across the table. Have a look at our interview with its designer Martin Wallace.

Additionally, accompanying the SPIEL.digital online trade fair, a replacement for the usual physical event in Essen, you can test a digital (albeit German) version of the Anno 1800 board game for free. More details can be found here.

Union Update – Land of Lions & postcard contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

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

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

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

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

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

Winners of the Postcard Contest

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

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

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

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

An update for the Anno Union

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of Lions and Lights

Posted on by Ubi_MarcelH

Hey Anno Community,
we know that many of you have been patiently waiting for more news on our next major DLC, “Land of Lions”. We also know that we had previously promised to have more information on this feature-packed content in September. Unfortunately, due to some additional feedback we have been working to implement, we won’t be able to honor that promise, and there will be no news from Enbesa this month. On the bright side, we will not only release “Land of Lions” itself in October but are also working on several DevBlogs to give you an in-depth look into Anno 1800’s biggest DLC prior to release.

Enjoy the “City Lights”
Speaking of releases- another frequently asked question was whether the runner-up from our Cosmetic DLC vote, the “Bustling City Life Pack”, would make its way into your cities in the future. We are happy to say that the answer is “Yes!”, with a small “but…” attached. While the concept is very much the same many of you voted for earlier this year (vending booths, playgrounds and other things you will find in daily city life), the pack has undergone a name change to “City Lights Pack”, to account for the new streetlamps! This latest Cosmetic DLC will be coming to Anno 1800 later this year, after the release of “Land of Lions”.

We are looking forward to sharing much more about both DLCs with you all in the weeks to come!

The Anno Team

Teaser

Union Update: Community spotlight and postcard contest

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Game Update 9 details

Due to the current circumstances, the annual gamescom video game convention was a purely digital event this year.
And while our streams from this digital gamescom were German only, no worries: You can also find all information about the features of the free Game Update 9 which will release alongside Land of Lions in October in this blog. You can of course also take a look at the VOD of the video by clicking here and we want to thank everyone who tuned in to the stream and shared their thoughts and questions.

 

Talking about livestreams: Currently we’re discussing the best format for exciting dev streams to introduce you to the land of Enbesa in Land of Lions in the next weeks.
But we’re also already thinking ahead for ways and new formats to keep our Twitch channel active in the time after that and provide you with not only entertainment but also insights into the world of Anno. For this, we’re also curious to hear from you what you’d like to see from us regarding streams and shows. So, share your thoughts on our Twitch channel in the comments below!

Anno 2070 update

As several attentive players have already noticed, we recently deployed a small update for Anno 2070 with the goal of fixing the issues with the autopatcher which previously resulted in an infinite restart loop for several players. Together with the removal of the Solidshield DRM a few weeks back, we hope this fix will help you continue to enjoy Anno 2070 and its Deep Ocean addon.

Community Spotlight

After an absolutely brilliant cross-stich art piece in the previous Community Spotlight, today we’re able to feature this stunning artwork of Hannah Goode by libby_sharp. Thank you for sharing it with us!

Clearly you’ll never get tired of sharing screenshots of your cities and islands with us – and we’re not complaining!

This time we have Cruse10’s park and gardens around their World’s Fair, Grieswurst’s atmospheric but also kinda sad industrial fires and CrzdHaloman’s self-sustaining mini-island:

Your questions about the Anno 1800 boardgame

The official Anno 1800 board game is set to release in October (in German, English release is planned for next year) and we know several of you are already excitedly waiting to get your hands on this offline version of Anno 1800. We want to give you the opportunity to ask your questions about the board game to its designer, Martin Wallace!

Just leave them in the comments below and we will select a few to forward to Martin Wallace. The replies will then be featured in a future Union Update.

Postcard contest

Doesn’t everyone love to receive some post cards from friends and family around the world? Or maybe YOU want to share some of the wonderful experiences you’re having during your time off.

Over on Twitter, Ruud adapted to the current slightly vacation-unfriendly situation and instead shared beautiful postcards from the world of Anno 1800, as you can see below.

With this as an inspiration, we’re now asking you to send us your postcards from Anno 1800 to advertise why people should definitely visit your city or island: Long sandy beaches? Vast parks and cultural buildings? Plenty of shopping and entertainment opportunities? Architectural marvels? Prepare your public mooring, clean the city’s streets and get ready for the tourist swarms!

 

To create your postcard, you have complete creative freedom and can – besides of course the screenshots of your islands – also use official artworks, assets and logos to let your magical vacation spot shine. Please do not use any images or assets you don’t have the rights for; the main part of your postcard should be screenshot(s) from your cities or islands.
Screenshots from modded savegames are allowed.

 

Use the hashtag #annoholidays on Twitter or head over to the forums and share the postcard in the dedicated thread.
Entry deadline is September 27th.

 

The team’s 5 favourite holiday destinations will each win a Anno 1800 t-shirt and will be featured in a future Union Update.
We’re looking forward to your mail!

Union Update: Fan art showcase and gamescom

Posted on by Bastian Thun

Welcome back to another Union Update, this time with some handcrafted Anno goodness, bustling Amusement parks from aspiring community screenshot artists and an update from our streaming front.

Anno 1800 Fanart Showcase

Let`s kick off the update with a brilliant art-piece from Twitter Annoholic Asia Larkin, who put in some serious hours (about 70 to be precise) to create a cross stitch version of our 1800 logo!
And the result is truly marvelous:

From paintings to cross stitch artworks, fan creations display true dedication and artistry. If you are a hobby crafter, musician, artist, or story writer with a passion for Anno, let us know! We love to showcase your creations and you cannot underestimate the moral boost your work has on our development team.

 

Show off your Amusement Pack Screenshots

Since launch, countless Annoholic`s shared their screenshots of picturesque landscapes, busy metropolitan streets, or industrial panoramas. With our new “Amusements Pack”, many beauty builders went to town immediately and overhauled their city centre with new stalls, rides and not to forget the main attraction: the roller coaster!
Here are some of your wallpaper worthy Amusement screenshots and we cannot wait so see more of your creations. Who knows, we might get inspired to run a new contest.

Big thanks an Theves, Giant Mountain, Hawkar Qadir and Nitram for sharing their wonderful screenshots!

And with the “Amusements Pack” going down so well with our communities out there, there is a good chance for some nice additions to your bustling city life in the future!

gamescom digital and live streams

Finally, let`s talk about streaming. 2020 was a wild ride for us and while our Season 2 goes as planned, the work on our brand new streaming room had to be delayed. As a result of that, we had to pause dev streams as well as our AnnoCast community podcast. While our community streams enjoy great popularity, we plan to bring the dev streams back to the channel and are working on some ideas for some brand new shows to give you a closer look behind the scenes of our studio.

It will take more time until our new room is done and we can return our classic shows, but we will continue to bring you more community streams and with gamescom, we are going digital with our Anno 1800 masterclass show this Friday. While the masterclass and our gaming career panel will be held in German, we are curious if you would love to see more panel formats where our developers dive deep into a specific topic or where we demonstrate how our developers bring games to life.

Here comes an overview of our Gamescom streams this Friday. As mentioned, they will be held in German but rest assured we will share Game Update 9 details with all of you on the Anno Union after the stream.

 

We are curious, what would you love to see more on our Twitch channel and maybe your feedback sparks the idea for a brand-new show.  Your voice matters, so share your thoughts on our Twitch channel in the comments below.