- Anno 117
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Devblog: Travelling to the volcano island
To the north, governor, you can see the outlines of the great volcano. Ah, I remember the resorts, the villas, the busy harbours on the coast of Cinis. Broken, destroyed and swept away by the volcano all those years ago.
The island, however, Cinis – what a beauty! Venture north, see for yourself and marvel at its wide beaches and green pastures. It’s waiting for you, governor, to build a city like no other in Latium.
The volcano, you ask? Don’t worry about that, focus on the bounty instead!
On April 23rd, the first gameplay DLC for Anno 117: Pax Romana will release: Prophecies of Ash. This DLC will expand the province of Latium and add the biggest island in the history of Anno to the very North: Cinis.
Very important note right away: you won’t have to start a new savegame to enjoy the DLC. It can be integrated in any existing save.
Aside from this vast space of land for you to build your megalopolis on there is another dominating visual feature: the volcano! Eruptions can not only cause destruction in your cities but also impact your economy during volcanic winter.
Get a first overview of the DLC before we dive into the details below:
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This is part of the Roman fantasy we aim to deliver with Anno 117: Pax Romana: a history of rise and fall. Since we know some of our fans don’t want this added “drama”, we paired it with the biggest construction space in Anno’s history – and made it optional.
In this first DevBlog, we’ll be talking about the expanded Latium province, the new islands and the big continental island – as well as the new trader that’s being added to Latium.
In our second DevBlog, next week, we’re diving deeper into the gameplay related to the volcano, as well as other new additions and features of the DLC.
Expanding Latium
With this DLC, we’re expanding the size of the Latium region by adding another “belt” of islands along its current north-western and north-eastern borders.
This area will be populated by additional islands – including the five new ones – as well as Cinis: the super large continental island in the far north.
You heard right: Prophecies of Ash also adds five new islands to the game which will populate the expanded area. The three medium-sized and two small-sized islands are visually designed like Cinis, with the volcanic influences clearly visible.
You may spot old lava channels, volcanic craters, hot springs, black sand and plenty of the dark rock faces – all talking about a long history of volcanic activity.
The Continental island
We know, you’ve been waiting for the star of the show: the continental-sized island awaiting you in the north of Latium.
This island’s name is Cinis (can be renamed by you, of course) and is dominated by the large volcano further in-land. In contrast to volcanos in previous Anno games, here, it’s not placed in the middle of the island (requiring you to build around it) but in the back, outside of your immediate construction zone. That doesn’t mean its eruptions won’t impact you – more on that in the second blog – but they impact you differently, and this approach ensures you have a large area to build the city of your dreams.
We can already calm everyone who prefers building without a volcano interrupting their gameplay: you can disable volcanic eruptions at any point.
You can still spot remains of previous eruptions, with old lava channels, destroyed and abandoned villas and the black sand all over the island.
In terms of pure construction space, it provides you more than twice that of the largest island of the basegame, broken up into several bigger and smaller areas by cliffs and rivers – the biggest island in Anno’s history! (about 13% larger than Crown Falls in Anno 1800)
Neither cliffs nor rivers are pure decoration, of course, since their existence also results in a large number of both river as well as mountain slots.
If you’re starting a new game, you can decide to start on Cinis right away, instead of only settling it later in the game. If you integrate the DLC into your existing savegame, simply sail north and claim Cinis for yourself.
In the settings for Prophecies of Ash, you can also decide if NPC rivals are allowed to settle the island or not. Even if disabled, you can still lose the island if a rival conquers it in a war. In multiplayer, ownership over Cinis can likely become a central element for map control in Latium.
Super large islands like Cinis were already a point of discussions within both the dev team as well as the community in the days of Anno 1800. There, the Old World received “Crown Falls” with the “Sunken Treasures” DLC, and “Manola” with the “New World Rising” DLC.
As we know, the Anno player base is made up of people with very different playstyles and expectations towards Anno – and continental islands have their fans, as well as people who consider them making the game too easy.
That poses the question: Why are we adding these islands at all and why not in the base game?
Even though we consider Anno games comparatively chill builder games, we also want them to offer challenges to our players. These don’t need to be insurmountable (Anno doesn’t aim to be the Dark Souls of builder games) but are there to push the player forward, think about efficient ways to use the game’s systems and get the feeling of achievement and success when overcoming an obstacle. With a continental island like Cinis in “Prophecies of Ash” we therefore want to fulfil both: providing a place for beauty builders and record builders alike.
We even addressed this topic back in our DevBlog on how we defined the creative vision for Anno 117: Pax Romana, when we talked about islands in general:
For us, islands – or at least the principle of islands: space limited areas with a logistics area between them – are core to the Anno experience. They would not need to be literal islands, but the limitation of space (through island size, number and design) and the challenges that arise based on that are key – they create a purpose for the player and influence many other aspects of the game’s design.
The continental island does, by design, take away quite a bit of said challenge by offering so much building space, river slots, etc. on a single island. It therefore isn’t something we want to include in the base game but instead offer it separately, as an option for players who enjoy having such are vast open areas for their cities without having to worry about limited building space.
It was clear for us from the beginning that we wanted (and had) to cater to this part of our player base, which is why “Prophecies of Ash” and the island of Cinis are the first gameplay expansion for Anno 117: Pax Romana.
To contrast this reduced building space challenge, we introduced the volcano that adds difficulty and prevents the game from becoming too easy. Ultimately, however, this decision is in your hands since if and how you use the island and if you enable the volcano gameplay is, as mentioned, in your hands.
The oracle Caecilia
One could almost consider Cinis to be uninhabited if we were to compare it to its glory days as a resort for the wealthy – however, there is still a village on its western side, watched over by Caecilia.
Caecilia is an oracle, having lived on Cinis for a very long time, having experienced the last outbreak of the volcano and claiming to know everything about it and its moods. You decide, how much you want to trust that.
Her quests will give you a better idea of the history of the province while also introducing you to the gameplay mechanics surrounding the volcano; there’s also the option to skip these quests and tackle things your way.
We can take a look at her settlement, built on the remains of a previous city. It lies on an “arm” of the volcano island and makes great use of the fertile soil to grow grain and wine. On the hill right above the settlement you can find both a temple, as well a watch tower to keep an eye on the volcano and its moods. A wide bridge spans over a chasm where lava once flowed from the volcano all the way into the ocean.
Caecilia also acts as a new trader for Specialists in Latium, but dealing exclusively in Obsidian. We’ll go more into detail on these topics in our second DevBlog next week.
Outro
Here we are, you’ve arrived on Cinis and have a first grasp of the lay of the land. Now you could start building your city as usual and don’t worry about a thing – the volcano is sleeping for a long time already, after all – but maybe you do want to worry? Or maybe you wonder if there are any other advantages to be gained from the volcano?
In that case you shouldn’t miss our second DevBlog next week where we’ll talk about the volcano’s eruption phases, how to obtain Obsidian and what to do with it.
In the meantime, we’d love to know: what’s your stance on large and even super large islands? Are they one of the things you’re looking for most in an Anno game or do you prefer the challenge that medium-sized islands offer you?
The “Prophecies of Ash” DLC releases on April 23rd on all platforms.
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I would love to see something similar in Albion but instead of a volcano errupting maybe we could have a thunderstorm! And give us the true stormy seas of Albion with waves as big as a mountain which could sink the entire emperor fleet in just a matter of minutes!
In the future I would love to see even more giant isles, perhaps isles that two or more separate players could settle at same time, one on one side of the isle, one on another, separated by a vast chain of mountains, or a chasm so deep you could not see the bottom of it… Perhaps such isle could be located right in the middle of the map as well!
I would love to see even more varied biomes within the same sessions, but most of it I would love to share my isles with various NPCs out there.