- Anno 1800
- Union Talk
Union Talk – Plans and Challenges
Episode 6 of our Union Talk show is here, with Community Developer Basti and Brand Manager Marcel talking about the differences and challenges of Anno 1800’s first year and what is to come. They also address the unusual quiet on the Anno Union in early 2020 and might even know a thing or two about when things will pick up again…
Our Union Talks aim at providing you insights into the work of our developers and certain processes behind the scenes as well as news about the most recent developments for Anno 1800. Is there a topic you always wanted to know more about? Are you curious about a specific aspect of game development or an ingredient of the Anno series? Let us know in the comments below for future episodes of the Union Talk!
Anno Afternoon – Scuba Diving Cows
Since they were not able to save all cows from the flood last time, Ubi-Hanabi and Ubi-Thorlof return to the world of Anno 2070. With their priorities set and the heart-shaped city completed, it’s time to explore the ocean and build an underwater base. Tune in for a fun and relaxed Anno Afternoon on Friday, 28. February, at 4PM UTC over on twitch.tv/ubisoftbluebyte
We also want to use this opportunity to thank you for sending us save games of your Anno 1800 playthrough! We will showcase them in the next Anno Afternoon (March 13th) – Ubi-Hanabi is already looking forward to getting her hands on them.
And of course, feel free to also send us YOUR save game for the stream! Just send them via mail at anno-community@ubisoft.com
Podcast – Environment Sounds in Anno 1800
There’s always something going on in the world of Anno 1800, but all the activity on the roads and sea is not just visual. Listen to the latest Game Makers podcast with members of Anno 1800’s audio team and learn about how sounds adapt based on camera zoom or jumping from one end of the map to the other. Audio Director Stefan Randelshofer and Lead Audio Designer Tino Schleinitz from Ubisoft Düsseldorf talk about how they developed a brand-new environmental sound system for Anno 1800. Give it a listen!
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The talk was quite funny, for sone reason some of Basti’s reactions were amusing, I think I was too tired when watching it xD
As for the future content there are two DLCs I would love to see:
– new region DLC (preferrably Asia) which would be tied more closely to the base game than the Arctic was
– industrial ornaments pack
There are also some important things that should be implemented in game updates:
– ability to pick the reward pool at the World’s Fair – either the best unlocked ‘box’ or one of the lower ones
– ability to start the event earlier, you can make a 10 minut obligatory preparation time and then we could start the event without supplying all goods
– being able to use fences’ entrances as road tiles – enabling beauty builders to fully surround public buildings with hedges or fences
– add the ‘beta’ ornaments which we could see in the city from the 3rd or 4th AnnoCast
Well, that’s all I can think of when sitting in the bus right now but I know there are plenty more cool changes you could make.
I can’t wait for actual announcements of your 2020 plans, please be soon!
Hello, I may be wrong, but thinking to back to the future, re moving Anno1800 to the next century, and looking at change to the climate. I hope it will not be the same as 2070, but not to far, how the world deal with two world wars, cold war, the space race, and how the world of Anno saves itself from destruction. you can have your battles for land, which everyone likes. looking at what we have to do next, I am in my 70’s, and would like to see people ideas for our/your future. Sorry for going on, I belies playing computes games like Anno1800 keeps Alzheimer’s away.
That was funny. Here is a video update titled “plans’ to announce we cannot talk about our plans yet. 🙂
Anyway, only piece of content I glad open my wallet and drop another 30 or 40 dollar for is an Asian or Africa region/session.
While the added stories or buildings from previous year are nice bonus, the real meat and purchase decions were a new session with a new biome . This will make the game feel more finished. The previous Anno did this great with snow/swamp/forest/moon/spaceship sessions.
Trains in this game are only used to transport oil, It can’t show the importance of railway in 19th century. There may be more functions the trains have. So I suggest to develop a Railway station DLC. the DLC have some features as follows:
– New buildings include railway station and a tunnel only could be built in Crown Fall. Trains can start a expedition from railway station, and pass through the tunnel to the destination. The destination could be a new map or only an expedition.
– The process of Constructing these two buildings should be more complex than World Expo Hall. The costs of the railway station should be extremely high.
– Players can get sources(some of them must be specific) through railway. And the destination of expedition also need many kinds of goods players provide such as clothes, weapons and Industrial products.
– Railways also could be used to transport workforce. Tourists and special guests also could enter into your city through the station.
– The appearance of the station could be like some old station in London such as Victoria Station.
– The curves of railway in this game look strange because they are all right angles. So I suggest that could you adjust it to obtuse angles? To achieve this effect, could you add the areas they need? Just make the curves as a building option and enlarge its area as a resident.
Thanks for your attention.
Hmmm. So no more new lands or sessions. That comes as a bit of a surprise to me. I was expecting an Asian session. But now that the Arctic for now will be the final session that gives me a few hints of what is to come.
With that being said. Here is now a list of what I think is coming in 2020. Now that I know there are no new lands coming.
-Influence system re-balance. (Since we have 4 sessions total now. Some people struggle to get enough influence to continue to expand and venture/colonize the other sessions. But once you get a proper investor city going you can counter this drawback and challenge. But I am hoping for maybe a slight re-balance.)
-Royal Taxes re-balance (I have heard talks in previous dev blogs and streams that the team is not quite happy with the Royal Tax system. And that they do have plans to work on this in the future. So I am expecting that to be something they will potentially work on this year.)
-The Great Eastern (This one I know for sure is to come soon. There have been talks and Basti has mentioned that The Great Eastern is coming. So I am looking forwards to seeing that if it is being planned on for this year.)
– Combat Air Ships (I really feel that once a player or AI has airships it feels like they are at that point invincible because you cannot fire at airships with a traditional ship. Nor can you open fire at them with harbor defenses. Maybe Big Bertha might reach since she does have a very tall firing arc that the shell travels at. But She is slow to re-load and the shell can be dodged if you are fast enough. And Air ships are really fast down wind. It would be nice to see some kind of war Zeppelins or airships. With cannons or machine guns of some kind. Because if a player or AI chooses to completely go with airships for trade. Then there is no way you can stop them. And the islands in the Arctic that can only be reached by air cannot be conquered by a traditional ship. The canons will simply not reach. So you can only try to buy them out if that is possible or once an AI or player has taken a air only access island it is theirs forever until they decide to let go of it themselves by demolishing the air ship kontor. Of course if we do introduce a combat airship then there will be balancing needed to be done. Such as air defenses on land against these air war ships. And the air access islands would also need some kind of defenses as well to defend against an attack. And this wouldn’t be fair for traditional ships either because if you can bombard ships at see with an air ship then the ships at sea are vulnerable. So then maybe some kind of items would have to be made like anti air craft guns that can be socketed into ship item slots. To be able to fire at air ships. And then we also have the complications of the Old World and New World also needing defenses for airships. I don’t think it is in the dev teams plans to add air ship combat due to all the complications it will add. But it would be cool to see that in ANNO 1800. I just find it funny that the Airships we already have in the game have Hit Points. But then what is the point of them having Hit Points if they cannot get damaged at all because ships can’t reach them? Nor can harbor defense. It gives me the impression that the Hit Points are just added there just to be there because all ships in the game have hit points. And it would be awkward to see the air ships have no hit points at all and be invincible then. Either way that is where my thoughts are with that.)
-Bug Fixes (Of course bug fixes. This is something I do expect to be addressed this year for ANNO 1800. As there still are some bugs in the game that do remain unsolved. And some bugs have been in the game for weeks and even months. And some bugs remain even since launch. I’m not complaining or anything. Frankly I got used to all the bugs and just put up with them. But I have had that feeling that the dev team could be making the wise decision to prioritize bug fixes once all the content for the game has been finished. And leave the final polishing and bug fixing until then. And get it done before the game ends it’s last year of support. If 2020 will be the last year for ANNO 1800 to receive any further updates. Usually you leave out bug fixes till all the content is completed unless it is something extremely serious that totally breaks the game. Like we had with previous game content and updates. But I am remaining hopeful that the bugs will all get smashed before the year is over.)
-More Monument Buildings (I am thinking this could be a possibility. Like we already have monuments for the Old World sessions and the Arctic session. But for the New World we do not have any monuments at all. So I am thinking that there maybe a possibility for more monuments, this time in the New World.)
-Maybe More Exhibitions For The World Fair? ( Maybe we could be seeing something more for the world fair exhibitions? I’ve been thinking that this could be a possibility.)
-Maybe More Trains For The Oil Harbor Or A Oil Warehouse? ( This is something I am hoping for. With huge islands like Crown Falls it is very difficult for the trains to keep up with all the power plants you chose to build on there. This is mostly due to the large distance trains have to travel to reach the power plants and there are times where a power plant runs out of oil before a train reaches it. Even with a highly planned, organized, and efficient railway network. They do tend to struggle at times for Crown Falls. As for your regular island sizes in the Old World and in Cape Trelawney they don’t seem to struggle much with the trains because the distance between plants and the Oil Harbor is quite close and not so far divided apart like on the Continent island. I would love to see a oil warehouse which will have more trains to help cover Crown Falls and it’s vast distance. And for balancing reasons have it be required to be connected to the oil harbor to work and maybe have a limit of how many oil warehouses you can build. I was thinking that 3 would be an appropriate limit. But no higher than 3. Per island since if crown falls is to have this then it would be fair to have all the other islands have it too. As it wouldn’t make sense to only have oil warehouses be built on Crown Falls.)
-Expand Storage Capacity Of Depots (This is something I have seen frequently asked for in the ANNO UNION and I agree with this. I would love to see depots have a higher capacity since they take up a lot of harbor space and only give 50 tons more storage capacity. You end up having a cluttered harbor of depots then and it makes it harder to make a harbor that can also defend itself since the depots use up all the space. And this problem is worse on Crown Falls because of the massive storage capacity that is advised to have for a super city full of investors and to keep a steady supply of coffee you need big storage for it too. So I would really love to see a higher storage increment for depots. Maybe 100 or 200 tons instead of just 50. Like the oil depots can store 200 tons. Why can’t the regular depots hold that much given their large size?)
Other than that. That is what I am thinking and hoping we may see this year. There are several other things as well that I would like to list. But this list is already quite long. So I only listed the top 9 things on my list here of what I think maybe done this year and am hoping for. But other than that I am really curious to see what is next for ANNO 1800. The game is really exciting and fun as it is already. And seeing more content for this year would be even more exciting and fun. I like the ANNO team to work their magic and surprise us. They never let us down. And it is always exciting to see what they come up with next. Keep up the great work and keep the ANNO franchise going strong!
Best,
Feruda
I think you might be working on another region, but since we’ve already had that in the DLC I think it could be something else as well.
Perhaps a new monument, tied in with some new kind of quest line, or tied in with an entire new feature like a research tree.
Hmm,
Since Anno 1800 seems to be evolving it is fair to expect:
-wind electricity (since Nate has been working on that on his island)
-a big monument ship ( or at least get that Eastern or Western in the game already :),
-some form of air related combat
– maybe some real diving
-some curves in the roads (you have been playing with that just release it even if it means placing segments by hand) and for railways also tunnels would be interesting to save up on space ( I have suggested that before)
As improvements and balancing, just my own opinions after about 400 hours with your beautiful game:
-crafting items at Nate is very micro heavy, the northern exploration for items can get boring really quick and it doesn’t pay off, when you have tons of stuff to do, though the exploration using treasure maps feels better for me
-a bit of rebalancing of the item bonuses ( I look at you botanical items)
-allow us to start exhibitions before we finish the countdown
-greater freedom in customizing our cities (town hall ranges etc), I would like the mines to have their own inventory slots), We got many of items for them I barely use them, because of the trade off, I would rather support some factories than open a trade union just for a couple of mines.
-bigger harbor area, bigger depot capacity, the ones we got are too big for the value they add, increase inventory for factories so they can be more efficient at high productivity
-lower explosion chance even more
– reducing a bit the sea of factories we require to support a large empire
-more options in diplomacy (my opponents in the current playthrough have been at war for 60-70 hours getting tiresome,even Bente has been dragged in an infinity war :D)
-separate tab showing idle trade ships