Botanica, the Anno Soundtrack and the Winner of the Day Night Contest

Today marks the release of our second season pass DLC “Botanica” and Game Update 5. We are eager to see your comments on our latest content update and if you plan to share your marvelous gardens or just want to create content with the free Game Update 5, do not forget to let us know by commenting or mentioning our official social media channels such as @Anno_EN.

 

https://youtu.be/u_oq8Lfj9JQ

With five big updates as well as three DLC’s in total, the journey of Anno 1800 is far from over yet. With “Passage” sending you on a venturesome journey to the cold north and free updates like the upcoming Coop Mode and Statistic Overview, we will continue to expand the world of Anno 1800 until the end of the year. You will not have to wait too long, as we will share some details about our plans for the next big game update soon.

 

Anno 1800 Piano Suite

Our new Botanica Music Pavilion is a throwback to old classics and the perfect occasion to celebrate over 20 years of Anno history. And as a thank you for all the support over the years, we want to share something special with you. In partnership with the Anno 1800 composer Tilman Sillescu and Dynamedion, we present to you the music sheet to the original Anno 1800 piano suite.

Get the Anno 1800 Piano Suite notes here

 

If just for the collectors heart or for talented musicians (or the ones striving to become one) in our community, the music notes of the piano theme give you some exclusive insight in the work of the talented composer and invite you to create your own Anno 1800 music piece. Let us know if you are hungry for more, and don’t forget sharing your interpretations of the Anno 1800 music with the Anno Union. On that special note, how do you like the idea of a dedicated music stream, maybe with the composer Tilman himself as a special guest?

 

Anno 1800 vinyl and digital soundtrack

Our special vinyl edition of the soundtrack was in high demand since launch. And we are happy to tell you that this well looked after collector’s item is still available on the store of our friends from Black Screen Records.

And if you just can’t get enough of the Anno 1800 soundtrack, we also made it digitally available on various platforms.

• Soundtrack on Spotify
• Soundtrack on Youtube
• Soundtrack bei iTunes
• Soundtrack bei Google

 

 

Day Night Contest

With our free Anno 1800 week during this year’s gamescom, we allowed everyone to try out Anno 1800 and experience the new day night cycle, which is now available for everyone in Game Update 5, for the first time. Anno 1800 is already a dreamland for screenshot artists and we realized quickly: the new day night cycle is the perfect feature to challenge you with a contest.

Together with Corsair Gaming, we asked you to use the new lighting options to capture your city in a new light. And today, we happily announce the winner of our big Corsair Day&Night contest!

First place goes to: Karacolidea’s sunset in the new world!
Like in real photography, it is all about the right time of the day to get a painterly shot like this one, where the last light of the day transforms this new world settlement into a scene right out of a fairytale. Congratulations Karacolidea for this wonderful shot and the first place of our contest.
You will never be left in the dark with your new Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse, MM800 RGB Mousepad and the ST100 RGB Headset Stand.

 

Second place goes to: Neckarmann’s under the full moon
It is almost too quite in that moody harbor piece and it is hard to tell if the scene is romantic or if the glooming full moon creates a feeling of unease. But that is the magic about Neckarmann’s screenshot and why we decided it is a well-deserved second place! The Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse and MM800 RGB Mouspad will find its way to you!

 

Third place goes to: Carpo’s rising inferno
A quite scenery, villagers peacefully resting under the dark night sky….and a full on catastrophe in the making! We had a few great entries with spitting flames in the night but this one captivated us most.
Congratulations for the third place and for winning the Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse.

 

Keep an eye out for a DM in the forum or on twitter from our community team, as we will need your address to send the Corsair gear and your Anno goodies on the way.

And without further ado, happy gardening everyone and until next time!

 

Devblog: Botanica

By the end of the nineteenth century, the world was largely connected by trading networks, and the industrial revolution brought a spirit of enthusiasm that modernized society. However, while democracy replaced monarchy in many parts of the world, the general populace had limited ways to be a part of cultural and intellectual exchanges. Workers often shared newspapers after a long shift, and eventually museums, zoos, and botanical gardens were made available for everyone. These places were once exclusively for the aristocracy, but ultimately they served as cultural gathering spots for everyone, exposing more people to a larger and more diverse world. Society entered an exciting age of exploration, preservation, and cultural exchange.

Botanica, the second Season Pass DLC, brings an additional cultural building project to the world of Anno 1800. From inviting green avenues, to flowery compositions or as wondrous as colorful exotic plants from far away, the botanical garden is a feast for the eye in your thriving metropolis. Coming with various sets of flora from around the world to use in your decorative garden modules, we add additional ornaments for Anno players who want to live out their inner expressionist.

 

 

The Botanical Garden – Experience the Floral Wonders of Mother Nature

Botanica has a total of 21 unique botanical modules, an additional greenhouse, and 11 new ornaments,   including flowerbeds and topiaries, which can be used in all three cultural building projects. The new ornaments work as connectors between modules, which leads to more freedom and creativity when expanding the botanical garden, zoo, or museum. To allow all players of Anno 1800 to build more freely, we will also bring the old plaza tile connectors back as a part of the free Game Update 5. We are excited to see players’ creations of stunning vistas, centerpieces surrounded by fountains, and challenging labyrinth structures.

The new ornaments are available via the botanical exhibition in the world fair, but in addition to that, we decided to make them largely available from traders like Madame Kahina and Archibald. Players will also get them as rewards for quests and new expedition events. The new event encounters will let you experience stories of keen botanists willing to risk everything to bring Mother Nature’s floral diversity to the people.

 

 

Your large garden estate begs to be filled with floral wonders, and for that we added new sets for the botanical gardens, with 59 new plant items in total. While previous zoo and museum sets mainly affected the attractiveness of your city, we will change things up with Botanica. The sets, whose themes are based on various plant families, their natural biomes, or their use for medical or other purposes, will grant you specific fertilities for the island where the botanical garden is located upon completion.

 

This gives the garden more practical purpose beyond city attractiveness, as it allows you to strategically place the cultural building on a production island to boost your economy. The Andean set, for example, will add precious coffee fertility on new world islands, or make wheat grow in the old world. On top of that, the effects further boost the productivity of the farms tied to that specific fertility. They affect the island where the garden with the full set is placed, with five different fertility effects for each biome and a total of nine sets. And as we want you to freely play around with the new options, we increased the amount of influence free modules for the botanical garden from 10 to 20.

 

The Music Pavilion – Enjoy the Symphony Orchestra

You have created stunning museum areas and zoo grounds, but we thought that one piece was missing, a true highlight in your cultural wonderland. The new Music Pavilion is the perfect gathering place for tourists and residents to listen to an orchestra playing symphonies of classic Anno themes while the sunset paints the metropole in a scenic light. Once you’ve found the five music notes containing themes from Anno 1701, 1404, 2205, 2070, as well as the “modern” classic from 1800, you can play them at any time to listen to the orchestra while taking a break from extensive trade route management. The Music Pavilion itself is not limited to the botanical garden; you can build one in each zoo, museum, or garden. The music tracks will also provide an attractiveness buff to certain sets in cultural buildings.

 

And here comes our second Season Pass DLC: Botanica, in numbers:

 

  • 21 unique botanical modules
  • 1 glasshouse module
  • 11 unique ornaments modules (such as flower beds and topiaries, usable with all cultural buildings)
  • 9 new sets for your botanical garden, consisting of a total of 59 plants items
  • The new Music Pavilion, which can be constructed in every cultural building
  • The Music Pavilion comes with 5 music tracks from the classic themes of Anno 1701, 1404, 2070, 2205, and 1800

That’s all for today’s insights about the second Season Pass DLC, a true content pack for all beauty builders out there, before we take you on an adventure in the icy north this winter.

Botanica will be available from September 10 as part of the Anno 1800 Season Pass or as a stand-alone purchase.

As always, please share your feedback in the comments below and stay tuned for future updates and content from the Anno Union community!

 

Union Update: Twitch Drop Event

In today’s Union Update, we get ready for the details about our Twitch Drop Botanica event before we follow up with Devblog: Botanica tomorrow and the next Annocast Devstream. Don’t forget to follow our Twitch channel to get notified when we go online with our developer stream this Thursday 4.30pm CEST. And as this week is already quite packed with Anno news and content, we will share the winner of the Corsair Day&Night cycle next week!

 

Twitch Drop Event: Botanica

To celebrate our upcoming Season Pass DLC Botanica and the Game Update 5, coming next week Tuesday on September 10, we will run another Twitch Drop event beginning this Friday.
The whole event takes place from Friday September 6 and to give you some time to pick your favourite streamer, will last until September 15.

 

During the Event, you will be able to watch how a variety of selected Twitch Streamers wake their inner artist and demonstrate how inspiring or questionable they make use of Anno 1800’s beauty building features.
Annoholics watching the shows can grab two brand new ornaments, the Anno Union flag and the Botanica billboard. The only thing you need to do is link your Uplay to your Twitch account and watch the streamers during the event for up to 3 consecutive hours to receive your loot.

You can check on how to link your accounts here: Ubisoft Twitch Drop FaQ

If you entertain yourself with Anno 1800 during the event for one hour, you will get the „Anno Union Flagpole” ornament and if you binge a channel for three hours, you will obtain the „Botanica“ Billboard to advertise your new botanical garden.

You can find the full list of all participating Streamer here:
ValleGaming (German)
monstersandexplosions (German)
Radlerauge (German)
writing_bull (German)
Mathia (Dutch)
Midnan (Dutch)
Achterklap (Dutch)
HeyChrissa (English)
YogsLomadia (English)
Caaaaate (English)
Belannaer (English)
Cringer (English)
Venalis (English)
rockalone (Polish)
losiugra (Polish)
urqueeen (Polish)

 

Anno 1800 on Uplay +

As you might know already, Anno 1800 will become part of the new Uplay + subscription service, where subscribers can play a vast amount of Ubisoft title, among them Anno 1800 including all DLC content.

If you are owner of the Anno 1800 base game and decide to join Uplay + or to test our new service for the first month, you will be able to enjoy our DLC content. However, please keep in mind to back up your save games, as activating the DLC’s will not be revertible on your saves. After your trial and subscription ends, these saved states of the game where DLC’s are enabled will not be playable anymore until you own the DLC or get access to the content via subscribing to Uplay +.