Devblog: Volcanic Eruptions and valuable Obsidian

Governor, we’re so glad you’re here! We worried the falling rocks may have sunken your ship.

We urgently need your help: look at our once beautiful city on the hills of Cinis! Houses burned down, public buildings damaged by huge rocks, and fields and forests covered in ash. We’re eager to rebuild, governor, we just need your guidance.

Cause we can build it brighter than before: the volcano’s ash can fertilize our fields and our scouts sent reports of that black obsidian. Let us create statuettes in Vulcan’s honour and give him praise for taming the great volcano.

Come with us, we’ll show you!

Welcome to the second DevBlog to the “Prophecies of Ash” DLC for Anno 117: Pax Romana. In the first blog we’ve taken a closer look at Cinis, the new continental island, as well as the smaller islands also populating the new area in northern Latium. They all provide more building space to fulfil your city-building dreams and let you become the dominant force in Latium.

We’ve also introduced you to Caecilia, the new trader and local oracle on Cinis. In this blog you’ll meet her again when we talk about the volcano’s eruption phases and especially the new resource: obsidian.

We’ll also introduce you the new deity, fiery Vulcan, as well as both new production chains.

Volcano and its eruption phases

Hard to overlook on the horizon is the volcano, dominating the island of Cinis and having shaped its history. For you as a player it is both threat as well as boon.

It all starts peacefully: in its standard phase, the volcano is not active and no buffs or debuffs are applied. The following phases can vary in lengths and each come with some special events, debuffs or advantages.

During the Tremor Phase, you can feel the volcano awaken. Tremors may damage some buildings, but that’s nothing compared to what may be coming after. When the tremors subside you will either breathe a sigh of relief, knowing you’re safe for a little while longer – or you will gaze in fear at the volcano cause it’s time for…

… the Eruption Phase! Rocks are hurled into the air by the volcano violently awakening, lava flows out of the mountain, down its slopes and into the ocean. While your part of the island sits comfortably safe from the lava streams, the rocks falling from the sky deal damage upon impact in the entire province: buildings, land units and ships, nothing is safe.

During this violent but brief phase, all mines and quarries stop working in Latium.

Just when you want to relax and think the worst is over: think again! The eruption is followed by the Volcanic Winter. Ash falls from the sky, covering everything and the acid rain even strips trees of their leaves.

The productivity of all farm and fishery buildings is decreased by 75% and happiness, health and fire safety attributes of all buildings are decreased by 3. On the plus side, Obsidian deposits in quarries and pits will replenish, meaning you once again gain the valuable black stone for trading and the new production chains.

This Volcanic Winter doesn’t last forever, fortunately, and when the ash rain stops, a healthy fresh rain washes away the dush and ash – and heralds the Bloom Phase.

All types of farm building profit from the improved soil quality and receive a productivity buff (depending on the Soil Level, more in a moment. Additionally, happiness in the entire province is buffed by 2 in celebration of having survived the volcano’s awakening.

This cycle repeats, so, you don’t have to wrestle with these events all the time but have plenty of “regular” play time in between. Depending on a few factors, there is at least 8 hours and up to 15 hours in between eruptions, and the eruption and volcanic winter phase combined takes a maximum of 140min, but usually less.

We’ve mentioned the Soil Level above: after every eruption, the Soil Level in the entire province of Latium increases by one, resulting in an additional 10% productivity buff for farm buildings. The level can increase up to 3 (30% buff) by default, and can be expanded up to 5 (50% buff) via research.

Additionally, after each eruption the amount of Obsidian that’s produced as by-product increases.

Destruction and catastrophes in Anno

As we do not get tired of mentioning, Anno isn’t about (mindless) destruction. At the same time, the threat and impact of a catastrophe or a war can be a great motivator and add a level of challenge to the game. Natural disasters have been present in previous Anno games and are making a return now with the volcano.

If you’ve played Anno 1701 or Anno 1404, you may remember the volcano there as well: they dominate their respective islands, being placed almost in the centre. As a player, you can build around it and profit from the valuable mining slots – but an eruption immediately threatens everything you’ve built there.

For “Prophecies of Ash” we changed this approach a bit: the volcano should still have an impact on your settlement(s) and cause some destruction, but we placed it further in-land, away from your immediate settlement area. This results, as if you’ve seen above, in the falling rocks likely impacting your cities but you don’t have to worry about lava devouring your half (or even all of) what you built. In fact, even Caecilia’s people are far out of reach of the lava and have built a large bridge spinning one of the nearby lava channels.

Importantly, the volcano gameplay (i.e. the eruptions) can be deactivated any time, while still keeping the island to settle on. However, this also means not enjoying the benefits like the Bloom Phase’s productivity buff as well as Obsidian mining (which in turn means no way to trade with Caecilia or produce the two new goods) as soon as all original deposits are depleted.

When deactivated after having endured at least one eruption, the soil level drops by one level every time an eruption would have normally occurred. You can also reactivate the volcano again at any time, and then once more enjoy the post-eruption benefits.

Obsidian

Obsidian is a new resource introduced with Prophecies of Ash. After volcanic eruptions, the Obsidian deposits in quarries and pits all across Latium are refilled (the size of the deposits can be expanded via research). These buildings now produce Obsidian as a by-product to their regular production until the deposit is depleted.

Some of the rocks falling onto your islands during the Eruption Phase also contain small amounts of Obsidian and can be picked up by clicking on them or having a ship collect them (if they fell into the ocean).

Once acquired, you can use Obsidian in two ways:

• Produce Statuettes and Latrunculi Sets, the two new goods introduced with this DLC (more below)
• Trade it with Caecilia for new specialists

Caecilia

As mentioned in our first blog, Caecilia will offer you a number of quests to introduce you to the DLC and all the gameplay related to the volcano.

After that, you’ll likely be mainly interested in trading with her: Caecilia only accepts Obsidian as payment but offers over 40 new specialists who are all fertility-related.

These can be, for example, the Seasoned Snatcher: she provides +75% Sturgeon fertility to river slots in range. Another example is Caderina: she adds +100% silver fertility to mountain slots in range and increases their productivity by 25%.

New features

As teased before, there is another use for Obsidian: two new production chains await you!

The first are Statuettes, made from Obsidian and Limestone, are a new optional “Household” need for Equites and Patricians, unlocking with Tier 3. Latrunculi Sets (a type of Roman boardgame) are unlocked with Tier 4 and – when assembled from Gold, Sandarac Wood and Obsidian – fulfil a “Culture” need for Patricians.

For the pious among you, Vulcan awaits your veneration. After unlocking Vulcan via the research tree, he can be worshipped on any of your islands. His followers will boost the productivity of all mountain slot buildings and generate more workforce from all residences.

On a global level, Vulcan’s shrine improves fire safety (invocation level), his knowledge of mountains and forging techniques allows you to build coal mines (veneration level) and eventually unlock strong area buffs for smelters (exalted patron level).

We already mentioned research: several new technologies await you, starting with the option to mine Obsidian from quarries and pits as a by-product. The deity Vulcan is also unlocked this way as are the new production chains, additional buffs, larger Obsidian deposits and the possibility to also ship both new products to Albion to fulfil the need there.

To summarize…

Now, governors, you know how to deal with the volcano and what kind of riches it can bring to your little empire. As mentioned above, if you prefer to just peacefully settle on Cinis and enjoy the abundant building space, river- and mountain slots, you can disable the volcano gameplay at any time. Just keep in mind that this also means cutting off access to Obsidian and the related gameplay (new production chains & trading with Caecilia). And you’re missing out on all the great visual effects our team worked on!

As with our future DLC, you won’t have to start a new savegame but can integrate the new content whenever you like. It might be worth starting a new game at some point, however, for the option to start on Cinis right away, instead of a regular island.

After these two DevBlogs, we hope you feel properly prepared to tackle the volcano’s challenges. The rest you’ll surely learn along the way, governors!

The “Prophecies of Ash” DLC releases on April 23^rd on all platforms.