Hello Annoholics!

We are back with another Union Update, and it is getting busy! Let’s have a quick look at our upcoming events and our very special community spotlight.

Annoverse Roundtable – Ask the team!

We are very excited to announce that we will be doing a community roundtable on the Annoverse Discord on April 1 (No, this is not a joke!). During this Q&A, you’ll be able to ask all your burning questions about Anno and our work as the Anno team in the text chat. The Anno team will then go through your questions and answer them in the voice channel. The session will be split into two parts with an English and a German one on the same evening – we’ll have the precise times for you closer to the event.

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 and we cannot wait to see you guys there!

And since we’re already talking about the Annoverse: They just started a new community challenge themed around International Women’s Day, requiring you to ally with your female competitors while creating a beautiful settlement.

Check the #challenge-board channel on their server for details and how to participate.

Plant a Tree DLC Reminder

A small reminder that our “Plant a Tree” initiative is still ongoing! The DLC will be available until 31 March 2022 after which it will be removed from our stores for new buyers. The DLC will be added to the game for free at the end of the year. From each purchase, all net proceeds (that means after any fees or taxes are deducted) are going to Ecologi – and in return you get a lovely Ceiba tree ornament for your city.

For this DLC we partnered with Ecologi, a social enterprise that funds reforestation and other carbon reduction projects. You can find out more about Ecologi here.

So, if you haven’t already: Go check our “Plant a Tree” DLC and help protect our beautiful planet!

Season 4 News – when?

We have seen the question appear across several of our channels recently – and share your excitement! You won’t have to wait much longer for news about Season 4.

As previously communicated, we’ll have a lot to share at the end of the month! (and maybe some teasers before that on our social channels, so make sure to follow our Twitter-Channel)

Community Spotlight

In this week’s special edition community spotlight, we wanted to take the time to appreciate and highlight the many amazing mods created for the community, by the community. As always, we are in absolute awe of all the hard work and passion put into our game by our community, so let’s take a look!

Disclaimer: Before we dive into your creations, we want to clarify that, while we love seeing such an active modding scene, we do not officially support mods for Anno 1800.
That means that using/installing any of the mods listed below happens at your own risk. If you encounter bugs or other technical issues while using mods, we will not be able to offer official technical support for these modded savegames.

Anno 1800 Mod Manager

If you are looking to use any of the mods below, don’t forget to check out the Anno 1800 Mod Manager – a mod manager, game launcher, and news hub for Anno 1800 created by LemonDrop1228. You can find all the information about the Anno mod manager here so be sure to check it out! And thank you LemonDrop1228 for creating this tool!

“Spice it Up” Mod Package

Our first pick of the day is the “Spice It Up” mod package by DaLexy and several other modders. With its various add-ons (including a sandbox mode and AI shipyard!), Quality of Life adjustments, ornamental mods, and more this mod package is sure to ‘spice up’ your gameplay. Just look at these beautiful ornaments! And are those new streetlights? You can find out more about the “Spice It Up” mod package as well as all contributing modders here. Thank you so much DaLexy and the others for this amazing creation!

The Colour Collection

If you are looking to add a splash of colour to your cities, why not try the colour collection mod by Lethani? The mod adds a large range of new rooftop colour options for your Old World buildings so you can let your artistic imagination run wild! For more information about this mod click here. And of course, thank you Lethani for this colourful creation!

Diagonal Road and Paving Edges

Next up we have the “Diagonal Road and Paving Edges” mod by jje1000 which allows you to cut through your city grids and create beautiful diagonal roads. Or to put it in jje1000’s own words: “Liberate your cities with these 45 degree tile edges for roads and plazas!”. Find out more about this mod right here – and thanks so much jje1000!

Jakob’s Collection

And of course, no diagonal road would be complete without diagonal buildings! Luckily Jakob has got you covered with his diagonal residences mod. And if that wasn’t enough, his mod “Jakob’s Collection” also includes upgradable workers residences and more. You can check it out here. Thank you, Jakob, for sharing this awesome mod!

All above mods and more are available on Nexus Mods. Go check them out to discover many more mods, from balancing, to gameplay, to ornamental. Again, a big thank you to all the creators of and contributors to these mods!

And that brings us to the end of this week’s Union Update! Don’t forget to share your favourite mods in the comments below! And, as always, feel free to share them below or contact us on Twitter, Facebook or our official forums.

Hey Anno Community,

The first month of 2022 is almost over, if you believe it, and it has been a relatively quiet month on the communication side of things for Anno so far.

This will change in February, when we first tell you more about Cosmetic DLC plans for this year (next week) and then right into the first of these CDLCs (in two weeks) that is going to release in mid-February.

With this Cosmetic DLC we will also release another patch to, amongst other things, fix the missing consumption statistics for buildings like Power Plants and Arctic Heaters.

MainzFrame – Game Design

In the meantime, we heavily recommend you checking out the latest episode of “MainzFrame”, a series of video podcasts by Ubisoft Mainz. Each episode is taking a look at different aspect of our work and often also talks about the professional backgrounds of the involved team members. This might be especially interesting for anyone of you who is interested in working in the video game industry one day, too.

For the latest episode, our Communications Manager Basti has invited two of our Game Designers who many of you will probably recognize: Andrea and Dominik talk about their work in Game Design and how they ended up in their jobs here in Mainz.

Check it out below!

Community Channels

As we have just entered the new year and are getting ready for the months to come, we thought it was the perfect moment to remind you of some useful pages, created and maintained by our amazing Community.

• The Wiki

If you are looking for Anno 1800’s features, mechanics, and stats, then this is the right place for you. Extremely useful for new players looking for some answers, but also for veterans, who can share their immense knowledge of the game.

• Reddit

This is a subreddit completely dedicated to the Anno series. It is the perfect place for you to share screenshots and fanarts, start very insightful discussions, and ask questions.

• Annoverse Discord

The place to go to discuss any Anno title, find other Annoholics for a multiplayer match, share screenshots, videos etc., and have a chat with other players while competing for the Community challenges.

Not enough for you? Do not worry, we got your back. Check our Community Page on the Anno Union for more and let us know if you think we forgot something important!

Since we mentioned the Community Challenges in the Discord section above, the second Community Challenge is happening right now in the Annoverse – if you have not participated yet, be quick! You have time until January 30th. Task for this challenge, wisely called “The name is the game”, is to create the word “Anno” in the game using ornaments or other buildings. Here are some of the entries we’ve seen so far.

Tristan891 decided to use trees for this task. An evergreen choice… we might say. Beautiful and eco-friendly!

Annoholiker submitted this colorful screenshot for the Challenge, and what can we say? We love Anno 1800 too! (Totally not biased)

Ionovia created this majestic “Anno 1800” that takes up the full island. Wow!

This is all for today’s Union Update. For any question, feel free to ask them in the comments below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or our official Forums.

Hey Anno Community, 

We hope 2022 has been treating you well so far. What better way to start the New Year than having a quick look at our plans for the weeks and months to come? Let’s have a look at them together!  

GU 13.1 News 

Game Update 13.1 will be released next Tuesday, January 18th. GU 13.1 will address several of the issues you have been reporting GU 13. The full release notes will be shared here on the Anno Union closer to its release since we’re currently still running final tests. 

A huge thank you again for helping us with reports, screenshots and descriptions of the issues occurring since GU 13. 

Short 2022 Preview 

As you might already know, Season 4 is coming to Anno 1800 this year! 2022 is all about the New World and we cannot wait for you to see what we have in store for you. We will share more on Season 4 in March – so, watch this space! 

In the meantime, get ready for some exciting news related to our upcoming Cosmetic DLCs. We might reveal something very soon… 

Livestream 

Let’s kick off the new year with a livestream: Join us on Friday, 14th January, on Twitch for this year’s first Anno Afternoon. Community Developer Oliver and Community Manager Celeste will play some Anno 1800 co-op. The stream will start at 5PM CET, see you there!  

Community Spotlight 

Our first pick of the day is this lovely screenshot shared by Pyronite on Discord: the depth of the shot and the dusk atmosphere make those neon signs pop – we think this is a great way to use the skins of the new Cosmetic DLC “Vibrant Cities Pack”. 

Augustus_Johnson titled “Fresh Colours” this collection of screenshots – we love the contrast of the different colours! And right at the centre of this screenshot you can see a Ceiba Tree ornament, available through the “Plant a Tree” DLC. 

Last but not least, Rooonaldooo99 shared this amazing screenshot on Reddit, showing off most of the new skins for the buildings. Great job! 

That is all for today’s Union Update. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to write a comment below or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook or our official forums. 

Hey Anno Community,

Here we are at the end of 2021. It has been a year packed with content and surprises for Anno 1800 and lots of amazing screenshots, videos and creations shared by you. We are getting a bit nostalgic, so, before we get to the part with the gifts, let’s walk through 2021 for one last time, in this Union Update.

The Anno Year 2021 in Review

2021 started with a bang: our first big step of the year was sharing with you the first Season 3 Pass trailer, to let you have a glimpse of what 2021 had in store for you on the Anno 1800’s front.

Not too long after that, Season 3 kicked off with the first DLC of the Season, “Docklands”, followed by “Tourist Season” and finally “The High Life”.

The first Cosmetic DLC of the year was released in April, the “Vehicle Liveries Pack” – it was all about skins and new model variations for your airships, trains and ships.

Later that month, you voted for your favourite Cosmetic DLC themes, which were then implemented in the game: September was the perfect time to add some canals and new ornaments with the “Pedestrian Zone Pack”, while last week we released the “Vibrant Cities Pack”, a total of 69 skins for residence buildings as well as 3 new model variations for the Marketplace. Now you can express your creativity in many ways and make your cities look even more lively and vibrant!

Between October and November, we celebrated several Annoversaries: Happy birthday again to Anno 1503, Anno 1701, Anno 2070, and Anno 2205! We loved reading your memories related to your favourite Anno titles, so keep them coming!

And then there was one more celebration: This year, we also reached a particularly important milestone – there are now more than 2 million Anno players around the world! We celebrated this with two ship skins, one for the Ship of the Line and one for the Battle Cruiser.

Our big end of the year update, GU 13, was released last week and included Anno 1800’s first scenario, “Eden Burning”, which is the result of our participation in the Green Game Jam, organised by the UN under the “Playing for the Planet” umbrella. If you would like to know more about the project and the new game mode, we wrote a dedicated DevBlog here on the Anno Union.

Alongside with this new game mode, we teamed up with Ecologi to support reforestation efforts: We released the “Plant a Tree” DLC – all net proceeds will be donated to Ecologi to support the planting of more trees. Head over to the Ubisoft Store to purchase it, support our planet and receive an ornamental Ceiba Tree for your cities!

Issues related to GU13

As communicated last week, we are aware of the issues following Game Update 13, and our teams are actively investigating the reports made by you. We apologise for any inconveniences and frustration caused by the bugs introduced with the latest update and thank you for your patience. Please follow this thread on our Official Forum to stay updated on the matter and for a list of several of the issues we are currently aware of.

We worked hard over the last months to prepare a nice update bundle for our community before the Holidays, but acknowledge that GU13 did not release in the state we would have liked it to release.
This is a lesson that we will include in our planning for next year and Season 4, to e.g. allocate additional time for bugfixing and polishing before a release.

We will have more news for you in January.

Happy Holidays!

And here we are, at the end of this blog. Looking back at everything that happened, we can say it aloud: What a year it has been! We cannot wait for you to see what the Anno Team has in store for you. 2022 is just around the corner, and so is Season 4 for Anno 1800 – more info coming in March!

Thank you, dear Anno Community, for the amazing support you constantly show us. As an early Christmas present for you all, we combined all of this year’s artworks in a new Wallpaper Pack!

And to get all of us in the right mood for the Holidays, we requested the services of the one and only Dulcamarra – don’t you think this artwork perfectly captures the spirit of the (slightly chaotic) Anno family? We absolutely love it!

And with that: Happy Holidays, Annoholics, and a Happy New Year!

We’ll be back in January with renewed energy.

The Anno Team

Hello Anno Community,

We are getting closer and closer to the end of the year – only 5 days until December, how is that possible? As Annoholics, there is no better way to get ourselves prepared for the end of 2021 than looking at our end of the year plans. It is time to dive into this Union Update to find out more!

GU 13, Green Game Jam & CDLC Vibrant Cities Pack

Save the date, Annoholics: on December 14th, Game Update 13 will be released! This free update will include several more quality of life improvements and bug fixes. You might be wondering: is that all there is? And the answer is, of course, no. Game Update 13 will also include a new game mode and there is our brand new Cosmetic DLC, Vibrant Cities Pack, releasing alongside it.

Vibrant Cities Pack is the second Skins Pack released for Anno 1800, and the third and last Cosmetic DLC for this year. The theme for this CDLC was chosen by the Anno Community during our Community Vote, together with the Pedestrian Zone Pack that was released back in September. Would you like to know more about the upcoming Cosmetic DLC? Fear not, Annoholics! Next week we will have a full DevBlog dedicated to it. Visit the Anno Union on December 2nd for a full overview!

Last, as you might already know, back in June we announced our participation in the Green Game Jam, and our “sustainable cities” concept ended up winning the UNEP Choice Award! If you would like to know more about this new mode, then do not miss our Green Game Jam Overview that we will share here on the Anno Union on December 6th.

And, of course, keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook channels if you do not want to miss some juicy teasers of the upcoming content!

End of the Year Livestream

Another date to add to your calendars: on December 6th we will be live on Twitch! This time to present you the Green Game Jam mode, the Cosmetic DLC Vibrant Cities Pack, and much more! Tune in if you do not want to miss our news and a chance to hang out with the Anno Team.

Community Spotlight

Finally, our favourite part of every Union Update – the Community Spotlight!

Our first pick is this glorious Megabuild Timelapse video by HappySheep242 shared on YouTube. Minecraft ft. Anno 1602? We do not need to add anything else, go check it out!

Another video, but this one is a great guide created by Itroo Twitch. It is a three-part guide that focuses on the Stores you get access to with The High Life DLC. We are sure many of you will find this super helpful!

SouthRefrigerator553 shared this amazing collection of screenshots dedicated to New York City – we are blown away by the beauty and accuracy of this creation. Bravo!

Finally, here is a celebratory post for vonWistalia who, after ten years, finally beat all maps with 3 stars on Anno 1701 on Nintendo DS. Congrats!

That is all for today’s Union Update. We hope you are excited as we are for our End of the Year plans. If you have any question, do not hesitate to ask them in the comments below.

Hey Anno Community, 

Let us share a few news in this week’s Union Update! 

Join the Ubi35 celebrations! 

Ubisoft is turning 35 this year! To celebrate the occasion, you can expect events, gifts and other celebrations for many of its brands. 

Keep an eye on the Ubisoft Store for sales on Anno 1800 and its DLC as well as the History Editions – and participate in the contest to win 1000€ worth in Ubisoft Wallet credit. 

You can also expect Free Weekends and giveaways for many Ubisoft titles over the following weeks. 

To find out more, head to the Ubi35 website! 

We’re additionally having our own anniversaries, with Anno 1701 and Ann 1503 celebrating last week. And with Anno 2205 and Anno 2070 we still have two futuristic candidates coming up!

Anno 1701 Ship Skin

And as part of those celebrations, we released an Anno 1701 themed skin for the Ship of the Line for Anno 1800 last Tuesday to celebrate the game’s 15th annoversary! Have a look at it below:

We have received some reports of the skin not unlocking for all players and are currently looking into this problem. Stay tuned for updates on this topic.

DevBlog: The Anno Engine

We have a special DevBlog this week where we’ll dive into the technical foundation of the game with two of our programmers: What is a game engine? Will the next Anno be a racing game? And how do we update our engine?

Stay tuned for Thursday!

Anno 2205 compatibility update

Finally, we want to let you know that on Thursday, November 4th, we will release a minor update for the Ubisoft+ version of Anno 2205 to provide compatibility with the latest Intel CPUs.
Just to prevent any confusion when you notice the download 😉

Let’s not forget, that Wednesday also marks the 6th annoversary of this futuristic Anno!