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!
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!
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.
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.
Time for another Union Update to keep you, dear community, up to date on what’s happening in the world of Anno!
Status of the Land of Lions Technical Test
The Technical Test for Game Update 9 and Land of Lions is still ongoing and will last till August 14th. In fact, we sent out another wave of invites yesterday, so make sure to check your inboxes and spam folders!
We’re extremely happy with the amount and quality of feedback we received so far and based on that our team is working hard on making your trip to the Land of Lions this autumn a memorable experience.
This also means that you will unfortunately have to wait till after the conclusion of the Technical Test until we’re able to share more details on Season 2’s last DLC and the improvements which are part of Game Update 9.
If you’re part of the Technical Test and haven’t shared your feedback with us yet, please join us on the dedicated forum.
Amusement parks opening soon
While Land of Lions is still a little further away, we can announce that the release of the “A Day at the Amusements” cosmetic DLC pack is drawing near. Stay tuned for more details to come soon, for now, we leave you with this little teaser:
Game Update 1.3 for the History Collection
Today we also want to give you an update on the situation regarding the Anno 1404 History Edition’s performance. When we first released the Anno History Collection a month ago, many of you reported less than satisfactory performance, which was sometimes much worse than in the original release. In addition, it was not possible to select DirectX 10 as your preferred API, instead being forced to use DirectX 9 (which also meant that some graphics options were not available).
The good news is that we have been busy investigating these issues since then and will be addressing them with the release of Anno 1404 History Edition Game Update 1.3 soon. First of all, DirectX 10 is working correctly again, meaning that you can enable the Transparency option in the game’s graphics options.
We have also made huge strides with game performance, and most users can expect the 1.3 performance to be on par with the original game. In many situations, you will find the History Edition to be exceeding the original game, sometimes by a significant margin. One area we have put a special focus on during our optimization work has been late game cities with more than 100k residents. And, as a welcome side effect of our work on Anno 1404 HE, we have also been able to apply some of the improvements to Anno 1701 HE, which is also receiving some (more modest) performance improvements with Game Update 1.3.
We are expecting to release Game Update 1.3, which is the last planned update for the time being, in August. Keep an eye out for the full release notes at the time.
Community Anno Afternoon with Anno 1404
Anno 1404 is also the candidate for next Friday’s Anno Afternoon livestream where we’re planning to dive into a community multiplayer match. More details, as usual, to follow next week.
Community Spotlight
Finally, it’s about time for another Community Spotlight where we share some of the creations and stories you posted across all our channels.
We’ll start with this amazing Anno-dragon artwork by FerudaFarstaria and Wolfi Hitory which was shared on the English Anno forums.
There are still new players regularly joining the Anno community and working on building their island empire. Luckily you, the awesome community, has worked on so many fantastic tutorials and guides helping new players learn the ropes and all the tricks they might need for a sprawling mega-city. We want to share two more recent ones here, but feel free to share your videos or written guides with us and we’ll happily feature them here in a future Union Update or on our social channels.
The first one is by perafilozof with a collection of 9 tips and tricks:
The second video is by Takarazuka who besides his Let’s Plays has already created several other handy guides in the past:
Finally, some impressions and stories shared by community members on the forums and on reddit:
Over on the forums SirQuestinghood has shared impressions from his city with us, always wrapped into a little story, like the opening of the Grand Central Station:
On reddit, ArtavaZzd shared a recreation of the palace of their home town:
And with the current summer heat, what better place to cool down than the Arctic, which offers romantic views like this one by Muesli_pmzjs:
If you’re an Anno veteran, why not jump into this discussion revolving around “I want to take a break from Anno 1800, which other Anno title would you recommend to play?”
*keep in mind that videos and screenshots from other players shown here or on the linked channels may contain mods which alter visuals or gameplay.
The Technical Test for Land of Lions and Game Update 9 has started this morning and the first wave of invites have been sent out over the weekend.
If you have not received an e-mail yet, keep in mind we’ll be inviting several waves of testers over the coming weeks – just like last time. So keep an eye on your inbox!
For everyone participating in the test, please keep in mind the Technical Test is under an NDA, which means you’re not allowed to share any details, pictures or videos of the test except in the dedicated forum.
Therefore, please visit this dedicated forum and share your feedback there – and only there 😉
We know you’re all impatient for more news about Land of Lions to be prepared for its release in Autumn. And do not worry, after the conclusion of the Technical Test we will slowly start on the road to release.
Anno 1701 adventures in this week’s Anno Afternoon
This Friday it’s time for another Anno Afternoon. It’s Anno 1701’s turn now and Ubi-Thorlof – with very professional help from Ubi-Hanabi – will go on an adventure in the first Anno game created by Related Designs, the team you now know as Ubisoft Mainz!
If you want to offer help in building a functioning city or just want to chat with them and other community members then join on Friday 24th at 5PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
There’ll also again be an opportunity to win a key for the full Anno History Collection! 😉
Anno History Collection Game Updates
Last but not least, our team is currently working on another Update for the Anno History Collection. One of the points we’re investigating for this Update are the performance issues in Anno 1404 you reported to us.
After taking a trip into the year 1602 last week, this week calls for adventures in 1503 – new islands want to be settled!
Ubi-Thorlof and Ubi-Trenchcoat are facing each other again in the multiplayer mode of the second game of the Anno series – and they’re bringing gifts! Like last week, you’ll have the chance to win a key for the complete Anno History Collection.
Of course more streams for the remaining games of the History Collection are planned and we have a few ideas on how to spice things up a bit.
If you have feedback to past livestreams or suggestions for future ones – let us know! Are there “special guests” you’d like to see on the show or is there a specific format you wish to see, for example another stream where we’re looking at savegames from the community? Write it in the comments.
In other news…
And when we’re already talking about the History Editions: Our team us currently working on the second update for the Anno History Collection. We will soon share more details with you.
Finally, don’t forget we just announced the Technical Test for Land of Lions and Game Update 9. If you want to help us test the last big update of Season 2, sign up for the test!
Hello dear Anno Community and welcome to the first Union Update on our shiny new website! We have several great news for you, so let's get started right away.
Welcome to the new Anno Union
Since Monday the now almost 3 years old Anno Union presents itself in a new, sleeker look. The new website provides several advantages like faster loading times, better optimisation for mobile devices and better support for more than just one game of the Anno series.
You might still see some issues with the layout here and there but we wanted to launch the website now to support the launch of the History Editions and get some feedback from you on the design.
Let us know and share your thoughts in the comments below the announcement.
Game Updates 1.1 for the History Editions
Talking about the History Editions: Thank you for your valuable feedback, your questions and the reports of a few issues with this re-release. Our team is currently investigating these reports and we can already announce a first patch for this week which will address several points on all 4 History Edition games like the language issue on the Steam version of the Anno 1404, the music problem when increasing the game speed in Anno 1503 and more.
We will have more details for you soon.
Currently still under investigation is for example the Anno 1404 History Edition using DirectX 9 instead of newer versions as well as other issues forwarded to us.
As with all Anno 1800 Game Updates before, you will be able to find all patch notes for the History Editions in the “Updates” section.
For the modders – a safe GUID range
As you know, we continue to being impressed and appreciate the work some our community members put into creating mods for Anno 1800. To make it a little bit easier for you when it comes to adjusting your mods to new Game Updates, we now reserved the GUID range 1337471142 to 2147483647 just for you. This range is “safe” and not used by us.
A nostalgic Anno Afternoon live stream
After a longer break, the Anno team is back with a History Edition live stream!
Ubi-Thorlof invites you to a slightly improvised Anno 1602 home office stream, joined by his colleagues Ubi-Hanabi and Ubi-Trenchcoat. To share your Anno 1602 stories and memories and get the chance to win a key for the complete Anno History Collection, tune in this Thursday at 6PM CEST over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
and welcome to the all-new Anno Union, your #1 source for any news and updates on Ubisoft’s series of strategy games- straight from the dev team here in Mainz!
When we first launched the original Anno Union alongside Anno 1800’s announcement at gamescom 2017, we did not quite know what to expect. We still remember that after we finished our first press demo of the game, everyone immediately grabbed their phones to see if we already had some comments on our new website. Turns out there were: with several hundred comments during that first week, the Anno Union was immediately off to an incredible (and slightly intimidating) start. Since that hot August day, the Anno team and community have been equally busy, as we published close to 500 items on the Anno Union, which you discussed in almost 20k comments! Thanks to all of your feedback and input, we not only completely reworked the New World into the iteration you see in the game today, but also added features like co-op, statistics or the popular day-and-night cycle. And that’s just a few examples of the many ways the community has shaped the development of the game. All of which contributed to making Anno 1800 the fastest-selling game in the series’ 22-year history!
As mentioned above, we initially did not know what to expect from the Anno Union, and how the community would react to it. As a result, it was all focused on the “here and now” of Anno 1800’s development, with the layout only being intended to support one game.
Going forward, we want the Anno Union to be better suited to supporting the full franchise, starting with the release of the four History Edition version of Anno 1602, 1503, 1701 and 1404 last week. To support a wider range of games and help discoverability, we have put an emphasis on categories and tags, making it easier for you to find the blogs and release notes you want. The entire Union should also be much faster and responsive, in addition to its design.
Keep in mind that this is just day 1 of the journey, and the Anno Union idea has always been about working alongside our community to improve things. You will initially notice some funkiness as older blogs haven’t all been properly tagged yet (did we mention we have almost 500 already?) , and some things may not be fully adapted to the new design and layout yet. Despite this, we wanted to already launch the new version of the Union in preparation of upcoming Game Updates for the History Edition releases, and to be able to incorporate your feedback as we fine-tune things over the coming weeks.
It’s been an amazing journey over the past three years, and we are very excited to have you all with us- hopefully for many years to come!
Last Tuesday, June 2, marked the release of the “Bright Harvest” DLC and Game Update 8!
Boost your agriculture by building silos and state-of-the-art tractors, and beautify your islands with additional farming and industrial ornaments. The farming revolution is already well underway!
Game Update 8 additionally provides you with a convenient item overview, bigger warehouses, the Great Eastern steamer and many smaller improvements and fixes which you can find here.
Thanks to your feedback following the release, our team is currently working on Game Update 8.1 to address some of the concerns you voiced. We will have more info on it closer to its release around Mid-June.
Get ready for analogue Anno 1800
And another kind of announcement was made last week which we are extremely excited about: On Thursday Kosmos Spiele (whom you may be familiar with from games such as “Catan” and “Legends of Andor”) announced “Anno 1800: The Board Game”, releasing this autumn.
Famed game designer Martin Wallace, who has proven his industrial expertise with award-winning games such as “Age of Steam” and “Brass: Birmingham” will be handling this version of Anno 1800, which we are very excited about ourselves. Follow Kosmos’ Instagram channel for updates if you’re interested in developing your island and competing with friends or family around a table.
The “Seat of Power” Screenshot Contest
We also have some winners to announce! In late April we started the “Seat of Power” screenshot contest and asked you to share the most epic pictures of your palaces with us – and wow, we received a lot of stunning examples of our community’s creativity! From smaller coastal palaces to enormous inner-city complexes. From palaces with vast parks and flower beds over palaces with an integrated zoo or museum, broad triumph and parade streets and intricate hedge-mazes to dedicated courtyards for specific events and functions.
Understandably, we had a hard time deciding on the winners and want to thank all participants for sharing their creations with us.
Let’s then get to the winners who can look forward to some great gear from our friends at Corsair.
First place, a CORSAIR VOID Headset, CORSAIR IRONCLAW Wireless Mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad, goes to justVera.
This massive palace complex not only incorporates a Zoo, Museum and Botanical Garden, but does so in an extremely elegant way with plenty of green to separate the different modules and paths inviting for a stroll through the vast park. Directly connected to the World’s Fair on the other side of the park and a broad street and park leading to the palace from the harbour our team was deeply impressed by the amount of planning that went into the creation of it.
In second place, the lucky owner to be of a CORSAIR IRONCLAW mouse and CORSAIR MM350 mousepad, comes ChrisX86!
We really liked the symmetry of his palace complex which at the same time still including variety like the hedge maze or differently styled flower beds and courtyards. While less green and more focused on mosaic and plaza tiles than others, the palace does not feel stuffed with decoration but provides plenty of space, offering a calm oasis with resting spots in a busy city.
In third place we have adam5909’s lake palace on Crown Falls which won him a CORSAIR HARPOON mouse and MM300 mousepad.
Far from the bustling, noisy city, this palace sits on Crown Falls’ large lake and offers a spectacular panorama thanks to the waterfalls in the distance. While smaller in size than some other palaces, plenty of parks, hedge mazes and other botanical arrangements make this a calm and quiet retreat for any ruler or magnate with a perfect view in all directions.
All winners will be contacted by us via direct message or forum PM so please keep an eye on your inbox!
Believe us, it was a tough choice to make and our team decided to add two honourable mentions for their different approaches to the topic of palace-building.
One is gntherfrank for his not only idyllically calm and green but also very realistically looking palace and garden. You can easily imagine coming across such a palace in real life, a retreat for a local count or duke while over the years the nearby city has grown closer and closer, slowly integrating the palace into the cityscape.
The other is Moppelkotze09 for the sheer insanity when it comes to the scale of the city design. While the palace itself is not as big as others, city and palace are directly interwoven in their design with the latter not only being at the centre of it all but also dividing the former into four districts. The amount of ornaments and parks built into this project impressed us so much that it indeed deserved an honourable mention.
Finally, again, a big thank you to everyone who sent us screenshots of their palace or posted them on the forums! We can’t wait to see what you manage to create with more ornaments and buildings of the following updates.
And now for some education with Fatherlorris
Last but not least we’re excited to share another comic strip by Fatherlorris of The Chapel with you. Learn about Dr John Rae’s Arctic expedition and his discovery of the lost Franklin expedition:
All of the Anno games are inspired by history and our team spent a significant amount of time researching the era of Anno 1800. History buffs across all departments of the team spent countless hours going through hundreds of photographs and pictures as a reference for the design of ships and houses, researching on the societal changes and struggles of the time and discussing how to implement those as a gameplay feature. So while we are not and don’t want to be historically accurate, plenty of references can be found in the game.
The 1800s have also been an era of technology and innovations. Take “The Great Exhibition” that took place in London in 1851 as an example, which inspired the World’s Fairs in the game. Ground breaking innovations of the time found their way into Anno 1800, like railroads, electricity or steam ships, while Old Nate and his inventions are of course a small venture into early science fiction.
When we’re talking about expeditions, many of you were also curious about the inspirations for The Passage and we already had a Union Talk with our Game Writer África about the background of the DLC. So to give you a few more insights into the (ant)arctic expeditions of the time, for example the Franklin Expedition, we enlisted popular artist Fatherlorris of The Chapel and asked him to create some comics for us.
Who is this Fatherlorris and The Chapel, you ask? Well, we let him introduce himself:
Hi, my name is Ryan AKA Fatherlorris. And the Chapel is a little webcomic about strategy games.
How did you get into making comics – and even more so comics about strategy games?
I first started making comics as a hobby in high school, I am very dyslexic and wasn’t particularly literate so comics were a great way to make my friends laugh without needing to use too many words. But more importantly a great way of giving friends birthday and Christmas presents without spending any money. Then a few years ago I decided to sign up to reddit and post a comic there, it was a surprise success and I have been making comics ever since
Most of the games you’re creating comics about have a historical setting. A hobby of yours?
Yes, absolutely. Always been a huge fan of history. I am from South Wales, not too far from the Blaenavon Ironworks, one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution. The landscape all around is shaped by the coal and steel industry and I think it’s almost impossible not to take an interest in it.
Obvious follow-up question: How did you get involved with Anno then?
I was actually a bit of a latecomer to anno, I only started playing with the release of ANNO: 1404 Venice. At the time it was one of the only multiplayer city builders on the market, and that really appealed to me.
With these latest comics focusing on the (Ant-)Artic: Do you have personal connections to those regions or their history?
I don’t have any personal connection beyond my great granddad sinking the coal mine that dug the coal that fuelled the ships that sailed to the arctic. I actually got interested in the Arctic by accident, I picked up a copy of The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard and it was one of the most gripping books I have ever read. Ever since I have been reading every diary about arctic expeditions I could get my hands on. If you are looking for crazy Tolkienesque tales about real people then I would definitely recommend a book written by or about an arctic explorer.
Thank you very much, Ryan!
So, without further ado: here is the first The Chapel comic about the events of the Franklin expedition. There will be 4 more about similar icy adventures which will be shared in future Union Updates – so keep an eye out 😉
