Tag: Union Update

Union Update – Community Page & New Forums

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Community Page launching

Today, we’re launching the “Community Page” here on the Anno Union!

Its main purpose is to be a place where you can find links to all important community resources like the Anno Wiki, Subreddit and various tools created and maintained by you. We’re extremely proud to have such an active, passionate community and therefore want to highlight the things you do here on the Anno Union.

You will also find links to all our channels as well as the download for the most current wallpaper pack there.

Finally, we feature a “community spotlight of the week” in addition to the ones in our Union Updates. So make sure to let us know about all your video and fan art projects! Since we’re starting on a Thursday, we’re running this “weekly” for 1,5 weeks till July 12th and feature two creations instead of just one.

This page is by no means considered final and we’re planning to expand on it with additional sections as well as links to even more community content in the future.

So, if you’re missing a specific link or have a suggestion for what else should be on the Community Page – let us know!

Anno is getting new forums

We also have an announcement regarding the official Anno forums which are available in English, French and German:

On July 20th, we will be switching to new Anno forums. This is part of a wider initiative to slowly move all Ubisoft forums from the old forum software to a new system, which is done in waves. You can already have a look at the new forums for e.g. Assassin’s Creed and The Division here.

What does this mean for you?

Firstly, the current forums will be switched to “Read Only” on July 20th. You can still access them and read all old posts but can’t create new posts or reply to threads.

Secondly, with the switch to the new forum software, we will not automatically transfer any existing threads to the new forums. We will manually take a few threads that were pinned anyway and re-post them in the new forums.

Private messages, visitor messages, post counters and ranks are also not transferred. Everyone is starting with a fresh slate.

Thirdly, the new forums are accessible as usual with your Ubisoft account, you can login and continue there as you used to.

 

We will keep you updated on this topic and link to our shiny new forum as soon as it’s ready.

If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to post them below this post.

The Green Game Jam voting has ended

The voting for the different concepts presented for this year’s Green Game Jam has ended on Monday.

You can have a look at the top 5 and their concepts here on the Playing For The Planet website.

We want to say a big Thank You to everyone who voted for Anno 1800 in the Player’s Choice Award! Our “sustainable cities” concept came in 3rd, and we can’t wait to show you more later this year. Stay tuned!

Cosmetic DLC #5 – A first tease…

After the end of the Community Vote – which the “Pedestrian Zone Pack” and the “Vibrant Cities Pack” decided for themselves – we slowly started working in more detail on the two Cosmetic DLC. While their release is planned for after “The High Life”, we thought you might appreciate a first glimpse at the “Pedestrian Zone Pack”!

These are some early scribbles for possible ornaments. They might not end up looking just like this in the end and, as you can see on the example of the underpass, our Concept Artists create several different versions for each idea, before we then decide which of them should be turned into the 3D model for the game.

If you want to get some more insights into the development process of a Cosmetic DLC, have a look at this older DevBlog.

Union Update – AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Hey Anno Community,

earlier today we released Game Update 11.1 and addressed several issues you’ve been reporting to us. Have a look at the full Release Notes if you haven’t done so yet.

As you can also spot in the Release Notes, we’re happy to announce that we’re adding support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (short: FSR) with Game Update 11.1!

 

This of course leads to the question: What exactly is FSR?

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is an upscaling tool which helps you boost performance on higher resolutions with minimal loss in quality. Basically, it creates a higher resolution image based on a lower resolution input which, however, performs better than if you’d have natively chosen the higher resolution.

This means that even with a lower-performing graphics card (short: GPU) which wouldn’t be able to natively display high resolutions like 4k smoothly, you can get a boost in performance that helps you play the game in upscaled 4k after all.

There are four different quality modes available, depending on if you value performance or image quality higher. Generally, AMD FSR is not limited to AMD’s own graphics cards but is also compatible with graphics cards from other companies.

You can check their website for more details regarding supported graphics cards and games.

This general explanation out of the way, let’s take a look at the implementation in Anno 1800: What kind of advantages can you as Anno players expect from using FSR?

FSR significantly reduces the GPU load for high resolutions and helps you avoid that your GPU is the bottleneck when playing Anno 1800 (i.e. avoiding that the GPU is the piece of hardware in your PC that is limiting performance). It also replaces AMD FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) which was already in the game and available via the graphics settings.

Generally speaking, FSR is made up of two components: An adaptive upscaler and a sharpener. The upscaling feature detects polygon edges in the image and keeps them sharp while upscaling the image. It works best with long edges, which you encounter especially in near camera views. Anno 1800 is of course played from much higher up, so most edges are shorter, making them harder to detect during upscaling.

However, thanks to the additional sharpening of FSR, even here you will be able to see clear improvements: FSR adapts to each pixel’s surrounding area, trying to produce an overall sharpness that best matches the original image. Higher resolutions have an especially high impact on your GPU, even more so when features like Anti-Aliasing (e.g. MSAA) are activated, since they greatly increase the number of pixels, further increasing the load on the GPU. This is where FSR is a great solution to avoid your slower GPU limiting your gaming experience.

 

Have a look at the example below: The original screenshot, a 200% upscaled version using regular bilinear upscaling and a 200% upscaled version using FSR.

(click on each image to view them in full size)

While it functions with every type of screen resolution, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is an especially great solution when you want to play Anno 1800 in 4k, which our game originally was not optimized for.

 

Worth mentioning, though, is that FSR only affects the load of your graphics card. It has no impact on your processor (CPU), which means its load will stay the same independent of the resolution. Depending on your setup (What’s your strongest component – your GPU, your CPU? Do you have enough RAM?), your CPU can therefore still be the limiting factor, impacting overall game performance.

MainzFrame

If you want to learn more about UI Design on Anno 1800 specifically and learn about the daily tasks and challenges our team is working on, check out the latest episode of “MainzFrame”, with two of our UI Designer: Farah and Jaq.

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A few words regarding the Green Game Jam

We’ve been very excited to announce our participation in the Green Game Jam last week (you can still vote for our concept here!) and happy to see so many positive reactions.

Today we just wanted to use this opportunity to quickly address something that popped up in questions since then: Our concept for the Green Game Jam will be added to Anno 1800 later this year as a separate little game mode. This means that it will be its own, separate mode and won’t have any influence on your main game. Following the general idea of game jams, this is not a major addon or an alternative way to play the main game but a smaller scenario-like experience.

We hope this clears up some of the questions. We can’t wait to share more details with you later!

Union Update – Game Update 11.1 & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Addendum: Balance Changes from Game Update 11

With Game Update 11 we also introduced a few balance changes to item sets from Zoo, Museum, and Botanical Garden. Due to an oversight, these were not included in the original Release Notes.

We added them now and you can find them here.

Apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

Game Update 11.1 coming soon!

Talking Game Updates: Game Update 11.1 is planned to release Tuesday next week, June 22nd. We will have the full release notes ready for you on that day.

Green Game Jam

Yesterday we gave you an overview of the Green Game Jam with the goal to create new game modes or other activities in existing games to promote combating climate change. With the game mode that we are currently developing, players will have to focus on sustainability and nonetheless growing their population in the setting of Anno 1800: the age of industrialization. Excessive deforestation, monocultures, and overfishing will ultimately result in a dead piece of land and ocean that is unable to be revived for many years if at all – just like reality.

Sounds tough? Don’t worry, the rogue-like elements will make it possible to replay the mode while keeping your technological improvements and knowledge.

 

Additionally, our concept is up for a vote alongside the projects of our developers as part of the “Player’s Choice Award”. If you like our concept, vote for us! (we will develop this new mode independent of the outcome)

Elevator Music Download

Let’s assume there’s an elevator in the “Tourist Season” DLC which you can ride – hypothetically. And there was dedicated Anno elevator music.

So, if that was the case, you could then download the full music track here.

Annoverse Contest Reminder

One last reminder that the “What would your next Anno look like?” contest organized by Annoverse Discord is ending on June 20th. So, you got a few more days to write or draw your ideas and post them in the #giveaway-submissions channel – with the chance to win some prizes.

At least we as the Anno Team had a lot of fun reading through the submissions posted so far.

Community Spotlight

Once again have the new buildings inspired many of you to share their creations with us. We know that finding the perfect place for your hotels can be tricky, especially since many cities are already quite crowded. Here we have gathered a couple of screenshots of people who had some lovely ideas on how to incorporate the new “Tourist Season” content, as well as some additional clever ideas integrated into their busy cities.

 

Laudica starts off strong showing her incredibly symmetrical 5-star resort. Simply the perfect location for a unique and almost ostentatious place to stay for our spoiled tourists.

ObiVanDamme decided to create a fantastic chess board that reminded us of Alice in Wonderland – let’s see if we can find the Queen of hearts in this majestic world.

shane868 posted a variety of screenshots, but this one was our favorite – the sun is just shining through the opening of the aircraft while the Iron Tower stands tall watching over the awakening city.

Mithaldriel shows us a phenomenal screenshot of the opening ceremony of the Iron Tower in midst of a vivid and lively city.

Last but surely not least shows us Poppytat a mesmerizing shot of the new cocoa production, including two graceful waterfalls. Who wouldn’t just want to book their next vacation here?

Union Update: “Tourist Season” & Community Spotlight

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Our latest DLC, “Tourist Season”, is one week old, time to dedicate a Union Update to provide some news and updates.

“Tourist Season” – Items

We’ve seen some questions and the occasional confusion about “Tourist Season” buildings like e.g. the Chemical Factory not being influenced by any of the existing items from a Trade Union or Town Hall.

In short: Yes, this is working as intended and not a bug or oversight. The new buildings have their own building class (“Multifactory” or “Food & Drink Venue”) and are not regular “Production” buildings – this way you can clearly distinguish them from other services and see if the items will influence them or not.

While we’re aware this at first might be counter-intuitive to some of you who love creating layouts around Trade Unions, after some testing we decided that we can provide a better, more challenging game experience this way.

A lot has happened since release and it’s no secret that some existing item combinations can be… slightly imbalanced. Getting 10% more residents on an Artisan house with 50 people isn’t such a big deal, while 10% of a Hotel with 500 people is a completely different matter. Walking the tricky path between adding new challenging mechanics while not overthrowing the game’s balance (and breaking all your savegames) is never easy to get perfectly right and as a result, we opted for this solution for the new “Multifactoy” building class.

“Tourist Season” – Bugs

We have also received reports on a few smaller bugs from you, like trees disappearing after reloading a savegame, a randomly disappearing UI or filtered notifications not getting deleted. We’re currently investigating these problems and will keep you updated regarding the next Game Update.

Did you know… ?

  • … you can name all your Bust Stops, Bars, Restaurants and Cafés individually if you want? Personally, I (Oliver) have already opened a Bar called “City Tavern” in my capital based on some good memories from my time in the UK.
  • … there’s a Tourist Guide on board each bus? Just zoom in or use the first person mode to listen to their explanations.
  • … the recipe names were based on feedback from various members of the Anno Team? The Archduke’s Schnitzel was a request by our Programmers, while the Trifle came from our English colleagues. Generally, the recipes are a “’Menu Franglais’ celebrating the culinary achievements of…well of at least one of the two nations involved” as Matt, our Lead Narrative Designer, put it.
  • … you can assign additional Tourists to the Iron Tower similar to the Research Institute? This greatly increases the influence radius of the monument and therefore its buff on your city.
  • … Hotels work just like regular residence buildings in most ways? To reach the maximum population of 500 Tourists per Hotel, you will need to fulfill their basic needs. The needs are unlocked when reaching a certain number of overall Tourists – just hover over a need for the details.
  • … to have the Docklands be part of your bus network, you don’t need the Main Wharf to be in range of the bus stop? Any other part of your overall Docklands is fine, too, as long as it’s connected to the Main Wharf.
  • … we added a little additional questline to Enbesa if you own “Land of Lions”? For it to activate, you will have to have finished the overall Enbesa campaign – Emperor Ketema will then contact you.

Community Spotlight

The new buildings and ornaments of “Tourist Season” inspired so many of you to create your own videos and many, many screenshots, so of course we have to share them here on the Anno Union.

One big challenge of “Tourist Season” is, of course, fitting in the large new Hotels into your cities. Size alone can be a problem already, but aside from that, creating a visually pleasing area around them is the second part of the challenge. If you’re still experimenting, maybe the following screenshots can serve as inspiration:

Cjnewson88 decided to locate their Hotels near the mountain lake on Cape Trelawney. Sure, this means a slightly longer travel from the harbour, but you just can’t beat that view.

This inner city solution by Aestris combines a vast park with the new Iron Tower monument and the nearby Palace.

Bloc75 instead experimented with a separate, small Tourist retreat with all required amenities nearby and a great view of the Clearwater Pool.

A fully redesigned city, complete with monument, hotels and a large Docklands can be admired on Verir‘s screenshot:

If you’re looking for a video guide or some advice on how to make the most out of the new mechanics, why not check out Takarazuka’s video on the Bus Network or Itroo’s introduction of the Recipe System.

 

As always, tag us on Twitter with your screenshots or videos or post them on one of the platforms we’re usually visiting like the official forums, the Anno subreddit or the Annoverse Discord server – and maybe your creation will end up in our next Union Update.

Annoverse – 10.000 members celebration

Talking about the “Annoverse”: The dedicated Anno fan Discord server is celebrating a new milestone!

After recently reaching 10.000 members, their admin team decided to organize a giveaway tied to a little contest. Head over to the Annoverse server for all details and instructions on how to participate in their #giveaway-submissions channel.

From us as the Anno Dev Team, we want to use this opportunity to say thank you to the admin and mod team of the server, it’s been a pleasure working with you over the past years, participating in the “Roundtable” AMAs you organized or simply having a chat with the Anno community on this server from time to time.

Reminder: Anno 1404 online services decommissioning

As announced in March, the decision was taken to shut down the online services for some older Ubisoft games with smaller online audiences on May 22nd, which was later moved to June 1st. This includes the legacy (i.e. original) version of Anno 1404.
This means that from today (June 1st) onwards, the online services including the multiplayer are no longer available – the singleplayer experience is not affected.
This is only referring to the original/legacy version of Anno 1404, not the Anno 1404 History Edition.

A list of all games for which the online services are or will be disabled can be found on the official Ubisoft Forums.

Union Update: Voting winners and today’s live streams

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Winners of the Cosmetic DLC Voting

Let’s start with the big news of the week:

The community vote has concluded and we got our winners! It ended up being a significantly clearer victory than what we had last year.

On first place with 35.87% of the votes we have the “Vibrant Cities Pack”, followed by the “Pedestrian Zone Pack” with 29,43%.

The “Big Top Pack”, for the 2nd time in a row, ended up in last place with only 6,67% of the votes.

 

So, as we said during the initial announcement, our team will now start working on the two winner topics and we’re planning to release them later this year. More info on the dates to follow.

We will, however, give you the occasional insights into what we’re working on for both Cosmetic DLC.

Annoversary multiplayer stream

We also want to remind you once more that later today, at 5PM CEST (11AM EDT) Oliver and Nele are hosting an Anno 1800 multiplayer stream with several members from the Anno community. So, grab a coffee and join us later today for belated birthday celebrations on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte

And yet another stream

But that’s not all! For more streaming goodness, tune in right after the previous stream at 7PM CEST (1PM EDT) on twitch.tv/ubisoft/! Our Game Designer Andrea joins the Ubisoft News team to support them with some tips and share anecdotes from her time working on Anno 1800.

Finally… we shared this little GIF yesterday for Earth Day: A short glimpse at what you can expect to come to Anno 1800 with an upcoming Free Game Update.

 

Union Update: Parking spots and Easter eggs

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Stream announcement – Annoversary

Friday this week is, in fact, a very special day: Anno 1800 celebrates its second Annoversary!

While we do have a little something prepared for Friday, we, unfortunately, have to postpone the also planned livestream to next week. More details to follow early next week, but we can already say that’s it going to be a multiplayer stream – and we’re looking for you! Cause what’s more fun than a chaotic session of coop multiplayer with a dozen players?

Union Talk – Cosmetic DLC

And in case you missed it: On Monday we released a Union Talk video with Marcel and Oliver talking about Anno 1800’s Cosmetic DLC in general and the current voting in particular. Have a look!

Community Spotlight

Today’s Community Spotlight is very heavy on the video side – there are just so many entertaining and helpful videos out there you keep sharing with us. Don’t stop!

Let’s start with the entertaining ones:

 

Pablo1713 put together a great Anno 1800 Easteregg compilation in their video. In total 18 are listed for this Easter holiday special. Have you discovered any others?

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Let’s continue with something for the ears: Musician Der ANNOtist has already uploaded a few soundtrack covers in the past. The twist: He’s playing all of them on church organs! His newest one is the folk song “Scarborough Fair” which was also featured in Anno 1503. Absolutely worth checking out for that nostalgia-dose:

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The style and perspective of this screenshot by Augustus_Johnson is also mesmerizing, looking like a painting, with an approach for a more organic-looking city.

Broad highways, vast parking lots and a golf course? Doesn’t sound like Anno 1800, but “Cat4Cat” tried a completely different approach by recreating an Americanized Anno city. A quote from the creator themself: “i hate my creation”. Make sure to check out the other screenshots!

 

Ending it with some great tutorial videos which our community is still producing plenty of:

First, for newer players a one-minute explanation to “What are royal taxes?” by TrepTheSnake:

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Another great one for beginners is Takarazuka’s “8 super easy tips” video with advice on city planning, making money and production timers:

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Finally, a video for more advanced players by Itroo that answers the world’s most important question: How to produce the most chocolate?

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If you yourself are producing cool video content or came across helpful guides or tutorials, be it as a video or otherwise, feel free to let us know!

Union Talk – Cosmetic DLC and current Voting

Posted on by Ubi-Thorlof

Marcel and Oliver used one of those rare occasions they’re at the office at the same time to sit down and talk about Anno 1800’s Cosmetic DLC and their personal favourites of the current voting in this new Union Talk.

 

But hey, what are Union Talks again?

Since it has been over a year since the last episode, during which a lot of new players have joined the Anno community, it is worth reintroducing our Union Talk videos to you all.

Unlike our tightly scripted and focused trailers, Union Talks are not intended to deliver breaking news about upcoming content, but instead, take a longer format to take you behind the scenes of Anno development and to explain how and why we do things we way we do.

Do you have any questions about the topic of Cosmetic DLC or are there any topics you’d like us to cover in a Union Talk? If there’s something you have always been curious about regarding the development of the Anno games or the inner workings of our team, let us know in the comments, and maybe we can cover it in a future episode!

 

And now: Grab a coffee or some hibiscus tea and watch the two ramble on.

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(Also: Who watched the full 27min?)

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.