The Anno veterans among you will remember: back in 2009, Anno 1404 introduced the item mechanic for the first time to the series. Items are objects or people in the game that you slot into specific buildings or ships to modify some of their values, for example:

• Increase the productivity of all sheep farms within a certain radius
• Increase the happiness of all residence buildings near a market building
• Increase the sailing speed of a ship
• And many similar effects

The idea behind the introduction of this mechanic back then was, to deepen the puzzle aspects of an Anno game by letting you boost certain productions further, specialize your fleet for e.g. higher speed, or simply get the most out of a densely packed city. They are a tool that provides more choice for you, the player, on how to tackle the challenges in the game.

How items were handled differed a bit from game to game: Anno 1404 allowed slotting items in ships and your trading post, while Anno 1800 not only greatly expanded the number of items in the game but also added special buildings (Townhall, Harbor Master and Trade Union) where these items would be slotted to affect buildings in their vicinity.

Following the release and throughout post-launch we eagerly followed the discussions around the item mechanic (and the sheer volume of different items) in Anno 1800 and decided to adjust it on some levels for our next game – but don’t worry item-lovers, there’s still plenty to tweak and puzzle.

Hiring Specialists

Let’s take a look at how we’re tackling the topic in Anno 117: Pax Romana then.

Firstly, we did a small renaming: “items” are called “specialists” in Anno 117: Pax Romana. The reason is that all items are now people who you invite to work for you and who provide their services and special skills to your cities – therefore: specialists!

The specialists can mainly be obtained via quests or by visiting traders – they usually have some specialists visiting who you can hire for a certain sum. Additionally, the Discovery Tree and the Hall of Fame also offer ways to obtain specialists.

These specialists can then be slotted into either your villa and officia or your ships.

There are a total of 4 rarity categories for items. Higher rarity specialists have stronger effects but are – as their name suggests – harder to obtain. Specialists can affect residences, production buildings, public service buildings and ships.

Employing specialists

We acquired a few specialists, let’s put them to good use and take a look at where you can employ them.

Villa

As probably the first places you will slot a specialist in, your governor villa is your home as a governor and – especially in Albion – a symbol of Roman power and prestige. It has a large effect radius for items slotted here and provides other benefits, for example allowing you to recruit some personal guard units to defend your city in case of war.

It’s important to protect your own villa on each island, since capturing the villa is the way to overtake other player’s islands.

A villa comes with several slots to put specialists in. The higher your Prestige attribute, the more slots you unlock. Prestige is earned via certain needs and public buildings, as well as your city status and ornaments (incl. the beautiful marble roads).

If we look at two examples of specialists that you may want to employ in your villa, we’d have:

• The Vesseler: Reduces the needed workforce (-25%) and upkeep cost (-50%) of taverns in range
• Iain Thespis, Brightener of Days: Increases the Happiness of all residences in range by 1.8

Officia

With the villa having a large but limited radius, the way to affect other parts of your islands with the buffs from specialists is by building Officia.

An Officium is a smaller administrative building with a smaller radius and just two item slots. The radius of a villa and officium, or multiple officia, cannot overlap.

How many officia you can build per island depends on how many “permits” you have acquired. Additional permits are unlocked via your island prestige, as well as the Discovery Tree.

Ships

Some specialists are experts at guiding ships. These captains can only be slotted in naval vessel, with each ship having exactly one slot for such a specialist. Things are rather straightforward here, so, let’s also check out two such captains:

• Thunderous Bolter: Increases the accuracy of scorpions (+15%) and the scorpion attack speed (+20%)
• Unburdener: Decreases trade prices (-5%) and reduces cargo weight slowdown (-25%)

How and to which degree you are going to make use of specialists is up to you. For us it was important to provide another mechanic for you to specialize your cities and fleet but also further boost production buildings or tax income and this way enabling you to squeeze the most out of the limited space you have on each island.

Your deeds as governors do not go unnoticed! The fame you earn with your achievements, big and small, will make you known across the Empire. Accordingly, successful governors will be able to enter the Hall of Fame!

What they can find there… well, let’s take a look in today’s DevBlog.

A famous tradition

The Hall of Fame in Anno 117: Pax Romana follows in the footsteps and combines the best aspects of similar features of past Anno games: the rewards you receive in Anno 1404 for fulfilling achievements, the Ark of Anno 2070 and the Grand Gallery with its Golden Tickets in Anno 1800.

In brief, the Hall of Fame is a place where you spend “Fame” to unlock additional ornaments, player logos and more to use in your game. It’s a way to reward you for your achievements in your current game, and it all carries forward into all your future savegames. This means more ways to customize your player profile for your savegames – but also more ways to shape your gameplay experience with Anno 117: Pax Romana.

In the following paragraphs we’ll talk about how to gain “Fame”, how the Hall of Fame works and what kind of content you can find there.

Earning Fame

In your role as governor, you’ll surely achieve great things: monuments built, alliances negotiated and wars won. With every milestone reached, every achievement, you fame will increase.

This fame, these “Fame Points” are the currency you use to unlock content in the Hall of Fame.

Each in-game achievement (called “accolade”) for Anno 117: Pax Romana provides a certain number of Fame Points. All platform achievements (e.g. from Ubisoft Connect or PlayStation) have an in-game equivalent but to give you more ways to gain Fame, we’ve added a whole bunch of additional achievements only in-game.

If you complete an “achievement set”, you gain a bonus. A set is always made up of 9 (hah!) achievements on a specific topic, e.g. “Insightful Sage” with a variety of achievements around both the research and the religion features.

You can look up these information at any point directly in the game.

Exploring the Hall of Fame

Time to take a look at the Hall of Fame itself:

It’s split into (currently) two large categories – one for Latium and one for Albion. Both categories are further split into multiple “tiers”, each containing various things to unlock. Unlocking any of the items will ultimately lead you to unlocking additional tiers and even more content.

As you can see on the screenshot below, a tier can contain all kinds of different unlocks:

• Ornaments and skins (e.g. for a ship or a residence)
• Customization options (e.g. sigils and colours for your profile or variants of music tracks )
• Gameplay shortcuts (e.g. items/specialists)

Shortcuts allow you to speed up the early game, especially if you’re an Anno expert already – and thereby increase replayability, since it gets you going much faster. It’s another way for you to customize your game the way you want.

These unlocks are available account-wide and not tied to a specific savegame. This means, an unlocked ship skin can be used in every single one of your savegames without limit. The unlocks from the Hall of Fame can be disabled in the game settings if you don’t want to make use of them for a specific savegame.

Three proud ships flying the Moss-Bedecked, standard and Syrah’s Vassal skins.

Q&A

Finally, let us give you some answers to questions you might be asking yourself after reading this blog.

Q: Can the unlocked Hall of Fame content be used in multiplayer?

A: Yes, if enabled by the host. Cosmetics, however, are always available.

Q: Is the early unlock of discoveries and specialists not impacting the gameplay balancing?

A: Yes, it is impacting the gameplay by speeding up some parts of the early game and allowing new strategies for experts to start a new game run. As mentioned earlier in this blog, making use of these unlocks is optional and can be disabled in the settings for each save.

Q: Are you planning to monetize the Hall of Fame and offer “Fame” points for money?

A: We’re following the Grand Gallery approach from Anno 1800 here. Therefore: no, all content will always remain unlockable for Fame only, and Fame will always remain a currency you gain exclusively via playing.

Q: Are you planning to expand the Hall of Fame with more content in postlaunch?

A: Yes, the Hall of Fame will be expanded upon after release.

Q: Can I unlock everything in the Hall of Fame with the achievements included at release?

A: While more sources to gain Fame are planned to be added to Anno 117: Pax Romana in postlaunch, the game currently already provides you with enough Fame to unlock everything in the Hall of Fame.

Hey Anno Community,

In today’s DevBlog we would like to focus on the Campaign and the story of Anno 117: Pax Romana – your path as Roman Governor, the characters you will meet along the way and the obstacles you will encounter.

Just a little disclaimer for this blog post: mild spoilers for the first part of the campaign ahead! So, if you want to go into the Anno 117: Pax Romana campaign completely blind, then we would recommend skipping this DevBlog – and while you wait for the next one to be published, feel free to check last week’s DevBlogs on diplomacy and rivals, and the one on multiplayer!

A story and its purpose

If you played previous Anno titles, then you probably already know roughly what to expect from the campaign mode: it provides the context of the world you are building – whether it’s industrial revolution, futuristic reconstruction or a colony on the moon.

You will follow a protagonist through a series of challenges and discoveries: in this way, the campaign act as a tutorial or onboarding experience, as it gradually introduces game mechanics like needs fulfilment, resource management, diplomacy and so on.

In the campaign, your city doesn’t just grow – it evolves alongside the story. As you hit certain narrative milestones, new parts of your city’s development open up. These moments aren’t just story beats, they also shape how your sandbox experience unfolds, making the whole journey feel more connected and alive.

How this applies to Anno 117: Pax Romana? Let’s have a look together.

“When the Emperors call, we mortals answer”

You should all know by now what’s the general setting of Anno 117: Pax Romana: it is the year 117, time of the Pax Romana (= “Roman peace”), an era of relative stability in the Empire; you will take on the role of a Roman governor, explore the provinces of Latium and Albion, build and manage cities and productions.

The campaign in Anno 117: Pax Romana is split into two main parts, which are then further divided into different chapters. Just like in Anno 1800’s campaign, you will see your empire grow and expand while you play the campaign; to ensure that you can keep playing in this world as much as you want, the campaign turns into a sandbox game once you finish the final chapter.

But who are you in Anno 117: Pax Romana, exactly? Well, for the first time in an Anno game, you will be taking the role of a specific character. Right at the beginning of Campaign Mode, you will face your first choice between two siblings: will you play as Marcus, Ninth Son of Decimus of the Delta, or Marcia, Eligible Daughter of Decimus of the Delta?

Marcus Naukratius

He is the youngest son of Decimus, Governor of Lower Kemet and the Delta. Tired of his son’s erratic behaviour, Decimus put him to work in the imperial granaries, supervising the monthly grain tally. One day, Marcus is summoned by Emperor Lucius and asked to take the role of Governor of a forgotten senatorial province in Latium – not too far from the heart of the empire, Rome.

Marcia Tertia

As her name suggests, she is the third Marcia (Tertia = third) born to the wealthy household at Naukratia – she is a quiet and observant daughter. Like most girls her age, Marcia is expected to marry but has little say in the matter. Soon she must leave home behind to join her future husband, a Roman governor: little does she know what part she will have to play.

Welcome to Juliana, Governor!

After a long voyage, your character finally arrives on an almost-empty island not too far from the heart of the Empire: here you will be welcomed by Emperor Lucius and his beloved wife Julia. To put it bluntly, whether you choose Marcus or Marcia, you will feel like a fish out of the water. Growing up you never thought you would end up governing your own island, so feeling very much out of your depth is on the cards. Despite your inexperience as leader, you will get to know your role and slowly adjust to the new challenges, especially thanks to Ben Baalion, your trusted advisor: expert slave of the imperial court, he will accompany you along your journey, through all the ups and downs.

The first thing you might spot on the island along the overgrown vegetation and the local fauna roaming free, is ruins. On this island there once was a lively city named Ambrosia. A terrible eruption of the nearby volcano, Old Occasus, destroyed the great city of Ambrosia. Your first duty as a governor (or his wife, in Marcia’s case) is to rebuild it anew as Juliana – named after Julia, the wife of the Emperor.

After trial and error, things start falling into place. Being a Governor is not so bad after all, isn’t it? Well… Sorry to inform you, but this balance is soon disrupted by a sudden and tragic event – but we won’t mention here today because… spoilers. Let’s just say that a new character enters the scene, Calidus – who we can safely describe him as a “difficult character”. Calidus forces seize the Senate, and he declares himself Emperor.

If you thought things were complicated for you in the beginning, then we have not-so-great-news for you: they get worse. Suspicious of all people to close to the previous Emperor, he exiles you to the North of the Empire, where no civilised Roman wants to be – Albion.

Your mission here is “simple”:  bring stability to these new lands, that have recently been conquered by the Empire. Here you will learn what it really means to be a Governor with all the difficult decisions and responsibilities it entails.

A whole new world of decisions and responsibilities

While we don’t want to dive too much into the second part of the story as we don’t want to spoil it, it’s important to talk about the main theme. Here, you will learn how to transform this exile into an opportunity: it is the time to show the Emperor and the other characters what you are capable of.

You will understand what type of Roman Governor you really are through the decisions you make here. As you already know, when arriving in Albion, you won’t be arriving in an empty world: the Celts have made this wild land their home; they thrive in a place you perceive as alien, by taking advantage of the marshlands and the harsh weather.

If you’re curious about Albion and its environment, feel free to check our devblog dedicated to the province and its choices here, plus an extra one on its deities, military options and discoveries.

Emperors

As we mentioned earlier, at the end of the second part of the campaign, the game will turn into sandbox. This means you’ll be able to play in the world that you’ve built as much as you want.

We have talked about choices a lot in this blog (and previous ones). Not only do they affect the way your cities will grow, but they will also affect your relationship with the Emperor – he’s watching your action closely.

Once in sandbox mode, if you decide to go against the Emperor, then another choice will come your way: pick a different Emperor or keep Calidus – it’s up to you. The other option is having Julia as Empress.

When starting a sandbox game, during game setup, you get to choose which Emperor you want to start the game with.

Calidus

Your loyalty to Roman customs doesn’t go unnoticed with Calidus. Uphold them, and you’ll earn his respect. But ignore tradition or decline his requests, and his reputation with him will suffer. His favourite deity? Mars, of course. Considering he was born and raised in military camps, it should not be a surprise. After all, he thinks that the only way to defeat enemies is to use force against them.

Julia

Unlike Calidus, Julia is not a fan of force: she prefers negotiation to overcome enemies. Embracing Celtic tradition and choosing the Romano-Celtic path will not provoke backlash from her, on the contrary.

She is a political animal and – being nobility herself – is largely oblivious to the needs and troubles of the lower classes.

Each Emperor will reward different behaviour by you and may react negatively to some others of your actions.

We hope you enjoyed this DevBlog on the story mode and campaign in Anno 117: Pax Romana! If you enjoyed it and would like to dive into more details about it, a reminder that previews of the game are now out – so make sure to check out what your trusted gaming website or Anno creator says!

You don’t have to play Anno 117: Pax Romana all by yourself, if you don’t want to. You can invite friends or family to build and settle with you – or in direct competition with you. Let’s talk about the multiplayer mode in the game.

Multiplayer Game Modes

As is Anno tradition by now, we offer you a few options:

Play PvP with up to three other governors competing with you. These three slots can be filled by human or AI opponents, so you can, e.g., play against two friends and fill the fourth slot with dear Concordia. Grab the best islands before your friends do, forge treaties and alliances or engage in warfare, fighting on sea and land.

You can also play co-op, meaning you and up to three other (human) players play as the same governor. You share resources, money and islands and have to coordinate your actions. The further you progress, the more you’ll appreciate sharing responsibilities: why not let your buddy take over the management of Albion why you take care of Latium? The mode is also ideal to onboard friends or family members who are new to Anno 117: Pax Romana.

And finally, you can mix both: Play as a group of four friends against three AI opponents! Or go crazy and create a 4v4v4v4 match: 16 players across four teams battling it out.

While previous Anno games restricted multiplayer to sandbox mode, there’s one significant change in Anno 117: Pax Romana: The campaign can be played in co-op with up to three friends.

Game Setup

Setting up a multiplayer game is more flexible than in the past: We do not distinguish between singleplayer and multiplayer as strongly anymore. The game setup screen allows you to set it up as you want, by inviting only AI opponents, only human players, a mix of both or none at all (for a peaceful game). Multiplayer is invite-only, i.e. other players need to be on your friends-list. If you tick the “Friend Game” option during setup, friends can join your game without being invited first.

Each group (or individual players) can decide in which province to start. If you’re playing in co-op, the respective “group leader” takes this decision for the entire co-op group.

Similar to how you can fill empty slots with AI rivals even during the game (as mentioned in the Diplomacy DevBlog), the same is possible with human players. You can invite friends to turn a singleplayer game into a co-op one or fill empty slots with human opponents at any time.

Special Settings

There’s one new system here as well, however: co-op live savegames. This option has to be activated by the host in the setup screen. Live savegames are stored in the cloud and only ever store the latest state of the savegame, not keeping any savegame history.

This allows you and any other player from that savegame to continue the co-op game on your own, and then (re-)invite your friend (or any other friend) later: you don’t have to be online at the same time to play the co-op savegame together.

If your team mate is currently playing, you can simply join by loading the latest save – no need to coordinate a fixed time for everyone to be in the lobby for the game to start.

Anno 117: Pax Romana allows for cross-platform matches if the option is enabled. If your friends are playing on a different platform, that’s no longer a problem in Anno 117: Pax Romana thanks to cross-play.

Trade and alliances or war and conquest – how are you interacting with your partners in multiplayer?

Q&A

Let’s answer a few questions we’ve already seen online here at the end of the blog.

Q: Are there multiplayer speed settings in Anno 117: Pax Romana?

A: No, speed controls are limited to singleplayer. We are, however, open to looking into this topic again in postlaunch, should there be high demand by our community. The active pause functionality is available and can be activated by the host.

Q: Can I use mods in multiplayer?

A: Yes, but it requires all players to activate the same mods.

Q: Will all players require to own a certain DLC in order to use it in a multiplayer match?

A: Yes, similar to mods, all players will need to own/use the same gameplay DLC content in order to play together. These are selected while setting up the game.

Q: Can I select my avatar player logo (“sigil”) and name?

A: Names can be fully customized or chosen from a random selection. Additionally, each player (or group leader) can pick an avatar, logo/sigil and player colour. The same options are true in singleplayer, of course.

Q: Is the day/night cycle available in multiplayer?

A: Yes, since the feature is cosmetic-only, each player can select their preferred time of day individually.

Q: Is there a text or voice chat in the game?

A: Anno 117: Pax Romana does not feature text or voice chat functionality.

So much on the topic of multiplayer for today, we hope we answered all questions on the topic with the blog, but do not hesitate to let us know if there are any burning questions left!

We mentioned the campaign already in today’s blog and that’s where we continue soon: with a closer look at Anno 117: Pax Romana’s campaign and story. Stay tuned!

You’re not alone in the world of Anno 117: Pax Romana! In additional to neutral traders and (not so neutral) raiders, other governors are also settling islands in the name of the Empire.

As is tradition in Anno, multiple different characters make up the ensemble of rivals and it’s up to you while setting up your game which ones you want to play with (or none at all).

And even if you plan to ultimately subjugate or conquer them, it never hurts to know the rules and possibilities of Diplomacy! In the following paragraphs, we’ll take a closer look at the diplomacy system of Anno 117: Pax Romana: who are you interacting with, what information can be found on the diplomacy screen, what are your diplomatic options and… what about the Emperor?

If you prefer a more audio-visual overview, don’t miss out on our past livestream (click here) with Lead Game Designer Andrea, Game Designer Dominik and Gameplay Programmer Jannik on the topic.

Meet your rivals!

Rivals general

When setting up your game, you can choose up to three rival governors to settle the world alongside you. These other governors come in different “flavours”, as in: some are more peaceful or overall easier to handle, others are aggressive expansionists and yet again others may even prefer to just settle in only one of the provinces.

A quick look at the overview screen can tell you a lot about their character and their playstyle: even a advanced-difficulty rival might not be a warmonger but excel in economic and diplomatic matters.

Today, we’re taking a look at three of them to use them as examples.

Some characters from Latium

Dorian is an athlete, a popular one at that, with statues made after his likeness. He appreciates governors who – like him – emphasize health and cleanliness for their people and construct places of art and competitions, like the theatre or (even better) the giant amphitheater.

He’s not the biggest fan of war and would much rather be friends. Importantly, Dorian will only settle in Latium and not expand to the province of Albion. Accordingly, he also isn’t interested in which choices you take on the topic of Romanization.

Tarragon is a military veteran of many campaigns, even if now – aged – he really only wants a peaceful retirement: tending fields, taking naps below olive trees and maybe teaching a young governor a thing or two. This makes also one of the easier rivals.

While generally a friendly neighbour, if you get on Tarragon’s bad side, he’ll show you that his years in the Praetorian Guard very much still count for something.

Concordia is a former vestal virgin, devoted to the Roman gods and therefore places a heavy emphasis on religion and Roman virtues. She’s keen on expanding her already not insignificant influence further while championing her ideals which she would prefer other governors to adapt as well. Excess and luxury as well foreign traditions like those practised by the locals in Albion are a thorn in Concordia’s side.

One other character we have already introduced a few weeks ago: Athr, an ambitious Celtic ruler in Albion. Check out this blog to learn more about him.

Generally, you can find out much more about each rival by interacting with them, listening to their comments and following each of their story lines.

Interaction – Diplomacy Screen

Alright, you have found Concordia’s or Dorian’s island, time to open the Diplomacy Menu. Here all governors (and raiders, if present) are listed, as is their current diplomatic status (at war, peace, defensive treaty, …) with you. Upon clicking on one of them, the panel on the right offers you additional information:

• Currently signed treaties
• Your power balance (military, economic, prestige, …)
• The character’s lore
• The character’s difficulty and traits
• The effects you gain when allying or subjugating the rival

Interactions

We don’t just want to learn about Dorian’s upbringing, of course, but enter negotiations. This leads us to a new screen that gives you an overview of all available diplomatic options.

The screen is separate into available actions at the top and potential but not (yet) available actions at the bottom. These range from treaties over asking for a loan or offering a loan to declaring war.

Hovering over each action gives you a clear breakdown of which reasons influence the character to accept the action, or why it’s not available yet. These reasons are a mix of:

• Personal preferences (e.g. high hygiene for Dorian, high belief points for Concordia)
• Recent events (e.g. a recent war or you having declined an offered treaty)
• Already signed treaties (e.g. a trade treaty)
• Character traits
• Prestige, which is used for most calculations related to diplomacy
• Your military power

Here we wanted to provide you with more transparency than in the past to better understand why some actions are possible and others aren’t. The reasons also give a good indication of what to do to improve the relations with a specific rival.

If you want to go deeper into their reasons, click the button of the actions (the non-greyed-out ones) to get a more detailed list before committing to a treaty, for example.

Treaties are a way to not only improve relations but also secure yourself and ultimately even come out on top the diplomatic way. Trade treaties to buy or sell goods at their harbours, defensive pacts to assure the peace of protect yourself against another governor and alliances to confirm your friendship and assure each other of long-lasting support no matter what.

Some diplomatic options first have to be researched (e.g. Large Gifts or Alliances) or are tied to other systems, like your standing with the Emperor. One such option is appointing a rival governor as specialist.

Appointing rivals as specialists

You have proven to be not just a competent, but the strongest, most able and certainly also most beautiful governor – so much so, that other governors would bend their knee to you. Let’s take a look at subjugating rivals.

To subjugate a rival governor and make them become your vassal you will need to either:

• Have an alliance with the rival in question (finishing their personal quest chain does help a lot) and be stronger than them, or
• Hold the title of (pro-)consul, bestowed by the Emperor (more on that later), be stronger than the rival and have a significant sum of money ready.

If you fulfil the requirements, subjugating a rival will turn them in your vassal: all their islands become vassal cities, you can then either take over or demolish, their ships become yours and the respective rival joins your entourage as a unique powerful specialist who you can slot into your villa.

War – the continuation of policy with other means

You want to not just subjugate your opponents but remove them from the map? Take over their islands? – Well, there is always war, of course.

While the details of waging war are a topic for a different DevBlog (check out this article on land combat), the declaration of it is very much a diplomatic topic.

Upon entering the “war declaration” screen for poor Dorian here, we’re not only presented with a comparison of our military might and potential allies that would join each side, we can also choose between two types of war.

All-Out War is exactly that: everything from ships over civilian buildings and of course entire islands is free game. If your goal is to remove an opponent from the map or at least greatly reduce their influence, this is the way to go.

The Emperor, however, doesn’t look too favourably on large scale warfare within his domain and may at some point intervene.

A Limited War is useful when it’s just about taking an island that your opponent has settled before you had a chance or if its location is just too strategically vital. Civilian buildings and ships can’t be attacked (meaning your trade routes should be safe) when this option is selected.

Whichever option you choose, it comes with a cost: depending on a few factors like the number of islands you already own, your reputation with the emperor and your overall prestige, declaring war will cost reputation with the Emperor. The lower your reputation following this war declaration, the more likely the Emperor will intervene on your opponent’s behalf and order you to put an end to hostilities.

The Emperor?

You are, after all, a governor as are the likes of Dorian or Concordia – and above you, the Emperor is watching your actions. He’s therefore also always visible in the Diplomacy menu, as is your reputation with him.

Of course, he doesn’t care about minor things like the production chains you set up, or individual houses placed and ships built. He cares about governors keeping the imperial peace and adhering to Roman traditions.

Emperor Calidus was born and made in the military camp. Hell-bent on change, he is a champion of ordinary Romans everywhere.

Although ruthless, tough and pragmatic, he is also gregarious, down-to-earth, honest and good-humoured.

Break treaties and wage war (see previous chapter) and he might feel the need to send a stern remark. Stray too far from Roman traditions in Albion and your reputation with him will also suffer. On the other hand, fulfil one of his occasional demands and he’ll look more favourable on you.

Your overall reputation with him brings bonuses or disadvantages, e.g. lower costs when settling new islands – or trade embargoes with neutral imperial traders.

Get on his bad side, be branded a rebel and deal with the consequences which involve the might of the imperial fleet and army. If you manage to stand your ground, he’ll begrudgingly name you pro-consul (note: it’s not possible to usurp the Emperor or “leave” the Empire).

Alternatively, become his most trusted advisor and be given the title of consul. Each title comes with additional bonuses that make your life as a governor significantly easier – for example, the Emperor himself will send his army to your aid should anyone dare declare war on the (pro-)consul of Rome!

Outro

And what if you launched a new game without any NPC (or pirates) – or defeated all of them already – and start feeling a bit lonely in the world of Anno 117: Pax Romana? Well, don’t worry, at any time in the game you can invite any NPC of your choice to your game assuming you have open slots left. If you defeated them once, you can’t bring them back, however. Yes, we saw you using the “AI Shipyard” mod for Anno 1800 😉

For today, that’s the overview of the diplomacy system of Anno 117: Pax Romana. A roster of different rivals with their own goals and reasons to act in certain ways, as well as the diplomatic actions to form treaties with them, subjugate rivals to make them your vassal or wage war in order to establish dominance.

There are a few other rival governors, as you have seen on a screenshot earlier in the blog, and we’ll introduce them to you in the coming weeks. Any questions left unanswered? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us on any of the other channels.

Hey Annoholics!

We’re back with part two of our DevBlogs on the province of Albion, covering everything we revealed last week at gamescom 2025 in Cologne.

In our first blog we introduced Albion itself, as well as the people that live there, the ways you can upgrade them – and the characters you can meet along the way. Today, we’re looking at Albion-specific aspects of features like Religion, the Discovery Tree and Military, as well as how decisions here can also impact both the province of Latium as well as your relationship with other characters.

After all, there’s more to culture and society than different types of food and public service buildings. A big part of ancient culture was Religion, and we wanted to represent that in our game as well.

Religion

Not too long ago we introduced you to the topic of worship and religion in Anno 117: Pax Romana: after building a sanctuary or temple you can select a deity per island to worship, providing you a variety of buffs. If a deity is worshipped across multiple islands, there’s also a global effect that can be unlocked and provides benefit to all islands you govern. The full details on the feature are described in this DevBlog right here.

The locals in Albion have their own deities as part of their polytheistic pantheon, just like the Romans. In your role as governor, you decide which deities are to be worshipped on each island – and if Celtic deities are among them.

Epona is the goddess of horses, and animals in general. Her worshippers increase the production of animal related production chains – as well as the speed of logistics carts. Additionally, it will allow you to build silos to store agricultural goods.

Mercury-Lugos is a romanized Celtic god, associated with trade and commerce. His buffs will boost your trade income as well as the loading/unloading speed of ships and carts.

Finally, there is Cernunnos, a mystical nature deity. His worshippers boost the production of goods from marshes and forests – and his ancient druidic wisdom will make your citizens healthier and smarter.

No matter which you choose, each will enhance your gameplay to suit your respective playstyle. All three deities need to be unlocked via the Discovery Tree first.

Worshipping deities will also result in the occasional festivals that you can decide to hold: With some support in the form of money or resources, your population will hold a parade in honor of the local patron deity, providing various buffs and preventing the outbreak of fires, plague and riots for its duration.

Discovery Tree

We mentioned unlocking deities, so, let us also briefly talk about the Discovery Tree. It’s here where you spend your Knowledge points to discover a great number of technologies across three branches: Economic, Civic and Military. These can be unlocks (like deities, units or buildings) or improvements (higher morale for units, production increases). Details on how to gain knowledge and how the Discovery Tree functions can be found in our dedicated DevBlog here.

Some technologies can only be discovered in a specific province and when fulfilling certain conditions. Only when in Albion, you can, for example, discover Celtic deities or research a technology that allows you to efficiently plant trees in otherwise unforested areas.

Other technologies are even exclusively usable in a specific province, and we want to highlight one specific technology: Marsh Drainage. You remember how we talked about the marshes in the first blog and also about the ways the locals use it for producing various goods? Well… if you romanize the local population, many of the products they are asking for are not using the marshland anymore. You’ll need more “normal” building space.

After researching Marsh Drainage, you can place sluice gates the border between marsh and ocean, and then construct canals inside the marsh. Within a certain radius around the canals, the water is drained and buildable land created. Finally space for more houses – or another bread production chain! Removing the canals will result in the marsh claiming back its territory – be mindful when rearranging or destroying canal tiles.

After this topic, we would also like to point out another important aspect: your decision to Romanize (or not) also influences your relationship with other characters!

Voada doesn’t like it when you drain swamps or worship Roman gods in Albion. Athr, on the other hand, doesn’t care – and Tarragon (one of the Roman rivals) can’t stand it when you get too close to Celtic customs.

The decision of how you want to deal with this and what consequences you are willing to live with is up to you.

Military

One of our most recent DevBlogs and livestreams have been related to the topic of military and warfare in Anno 117: Pax Romana.

As talked about there in detail, land combat is making a comeback in Anno 117: Pax Romana, after being present in several but not all past Anno games. While combat has never been – and never will be – the main focus on an Anno game, it still is one of the features we feel make up the unique character of the series.

At the same time, engaging in war is supposed to remain a choice: if you want to get along with everyone (or even disable opponents completely) or if you want to go to war and invade other islands is up to you.

While Anno 117: Pax Romana features a total of 11 different units, only some can be recruited everywhere. Others are unique to a specific province, like Legionaries in Latium – or Axebearers and Chariots in Albion.

Let’s take a closer look at these two Albion units.

Axebearers carry, as the name suggests, large axes – but don’t wear much in terms of armour. These infantry units are excellent shock-troops that deal plenty of damage and have an armour-piercing damage, to the great dismay of any legionaries. To show you them in action, we staged this little “ambush” against legionaries. You can also see the morale system in action here: after taking multiple casualties, the first group is even outflanked and accordingly breaks and runs.

Chariots fill a very interesting niche since they are combining the speed and mobility of a cavalry unit with the damage-from-a-distance of a ranged unit. They are excellent hit-and-run candidates that absolutely hate getting into close combat. In the video below, you can see them avoiding a group of Spearmen (which usually would be perfect against cavalry) while continuing to pepper them with spears from a distance.

As mentioned previously, all military units do not only cost money and resources to recruit, but also money and workforce in maintenance costs.

Of course you can also transport units between islands and between regions with your fleet – and widen your tactical arsenal in Latium with some chariots, for example!

Outro

This concludes our two DevBlogs on the province of Albion! Do you have any questions left? Leave them in the comment section below or save them until mid-September, when we’ll be holding a livestream covering Albion as well as some other aspects we recently talked about. And not much later, we’ll dive into the topic of Diplomacy – and also introduce you some of the characters you’ll be able to meet in Anno 117: Pax Romana.

Finally, let us once again remind you that you can check out Anno 117: Pax Romana in about one week: the time-limited demo is releasing on PC (Ubisoft Connect and Steam) on September 2^nd and will remain available for two weeks.

Don’t miss this chance to try out our game – and let us know what you think!

Welcome, new governors, to the province of Albion!

The Emperor appointed you to govern this recently conquered province in the far north of the Empire and we can tell you: it’s a strange place for someone like you, used to the sunny shores and endless lavender fields of Latium.

Therefore, let us help you get acquainted with this Celtic province, from its landscape and weather over its challenges and opportunities to (of course) its people and the characters you should be aware of.

This may yet come as a great boon to you, governors, as your skills are already required next week:

From September 2^nd until September 16^th you will be able to take on the role of a governor in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s time-limited demo on PC!

An alien world

Albion is supposed to feel like a stark contrast to Latium: both from a narrative point of view (if you want to put yourself in the sandals of a Roman governor from the South for a moment) but also for you as players in front of your monitors:

Different parts of (real-life) Britain and its Celtic heritage served as inspiration for this region: green forests and hills but with far more elevation and harsh cliffs. A fog seems to hang over the lower parts of the islands most of the time and rain may come at any moment – but also create beautiful rainbows (is there a pot of gold hidden at the end? Who knows!) and add to the untamed feeling of the region.

And then there are the marshes: parts of most islands are covered in marshland which not only give the province its unique character but also come with important gameplay elements. How do you use the marshes? Are they opportunity or obstacle for your plans to govern this region – and importantly: its Celtic locals?

This is deeply tied into a key gameplay mechanic for Albion: the topic of Romanization. We’ll explore it deeper in the following paragraphs but for a wider look at Romanization in general, we recommend checking out this older blog post, especially if you care about the historical context as well.

Meet the locals

Starting small – the Waders

In good old Anno tradition, the province of Albion also requires you to upgrade your population to progress, unlock new buildings, production chains and technologies. While there are five population levels (“tiers”) in total, they come with a twist, as mentioned above.

But let’s start at the beginning, with the Waders.

Waders are Celts, home to Albion and now confronted with a new reality: they’re suddenly part of the Empire! That means arranging themselves with a new reality and figuring out what kind of benefits there may be to gain by being ruled by this far distant emperor – cause there may indeed be some upsides to all this after all (“What have the Romans ever done for us?”).

Like the Liberti in Latium, the Waders are content with comparatively little:

Build residences, supply them with food (cockles or eels), build a public service building (market or bard’s hearth) and fulfil their third Needs category – fashion (shoes or tunica).

And like in Latium, the “Optional Needs” system (read more here) also applies here: fulfil all needs, build all production chains and public services or just the minimum to upgrade them further.

Remember the marshland? – The Celts of course found ways to use this biome for their daily life. Eels are caught in the marsh (while cockles require a coastal building) and the reed for the shoes is also grown there. A unique aspect of producing in the marsh is that every building only has one specific street connector spot – and that not every building can be built there (e.g. no residences).

Romanization: Smiths and Mercators

Alright, you fulfilled at least the minimum of all three Needs categories and are ready to upgrade – what now?

In contrast to Latium, where your population is upgraded in a “straight line”, in Albion you’re now faced with a choice. Remember we emphasized a few times already your role as a Roman governor? This is a topic we wanted to draw from in the provinces specifically: will you let the locals stick to their traditions – or have them embrace Roman ambition?

Upgrade your Waders to Smiths and let them stay on the Celtic path – or upgrade them to Mercators to have them start to embrace aspects of Roman culture, fashion and architecture.

Smiths will ask for cheese and beer but also drinking horns, while Mercators request sausages, bread and proper Roman amphoras.

Historically, the Romans tended to largely let locals keep their traditions as long as they remained peaceful (i.e. didn’t rebel) and paid their taxes.

In some cases, local customs and entire religious practises were even adopted and ended up spreading further throughout the empire – leading to e.g. the Mithras cult spreading to Britain or a temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis being located directly below our offices in Mainz, Germany.

Even when you’re romanizing the locals it’s important to keep in mind: these people are still Celts; Celts which have adopted various Roman customs, clothing styles and other cultural aspects.

No matter which path you take, your choice will be immediately visible: romanized residences and public services provide a striking visual contrast to Celtic construction methods and building styles.

Of beards and buildings: Aldermen and Nobles

With the necessary Needs of your Smiths or Mercators fulfilled, you can upgrade each branch one more time: Smiths to Aldermen and Mercators to Nobles.

Aldermen are among the most respected members of their people, deeply rooted in their culture with impressive mustaches. Considering their status, they will ask for a variety of goods and services – this is where your skills as a governor will get properly challenged: Imported wine from Latium? Fancy pelt hats? Chariots?

And then there are public buildings they will ask for, like the Alder Council where they can meet with the other Aldermen, discuss local politics and maybe have a beer. Building it will clearly show them, that you’re supporting their local traditions.

The Nobles, on the other hand, have taken further steps towards Romanization: they’re wearing their hair in Roman style (no beard) and dress accordingly. They will ask for those fancy togas from Latium and want you to build a proper Roman theatre – and an aqueduct to bring the water directly into the city. Building that will absolutely create a striking visual contrast to the Celtic parts of your island.

And as we can see the question already: as soon as you have reached Tier 3 with either the Celtic or the Roman path, you also unlock the respective other. Meaning, you can later create settlements with both traditional and romanized Celts living on the same island.

Friend or foe – new characters to meet

Last but not least: there are different characters to meet in Albion! We want to introduce at least some of them to you briefly. In the near future, we’ll dive deeper into the topic of diplomacy and will let you make the acquaintance of not only other characters but also the Emperor.

For now, let’s stay in Albion and look at one person who will watch your actions as governor very closely: Voada.

Voada is a Celtic Raider (similar in function to the “Pirates” of previous Anno games) and therefore very much set against you, the players, from the start: you are, after all, representing the Empire, the conqueror of this province.

Our team took quite a bit of inspiration from the historical character of Boudicca when creating Voada and her backstory and made her a fierce defender of Celtic traditions and the Celtic way of life.

Your relationship with her therefore depends heavily on how you use the “Romanization” mechanic: drain marshes, romanize the locals and worship Roman deities and she’s guaranteed to become your enemy, sending her raiders out to harass your trade routes and potentially even invade your islands. Let the locals embrace their Celtic traditions and… maybe you can become friends?

Another character we want you to meet is Manx. He’s a neutral trader, leader of his own tribe and comes with somewhat ambivalent feelings towards this new rulership. He appreciates the advantages that the Empire brings, the (expected) peace for the region, but is also worried about losing local culture.

You can trade various resources with him and receive quests that both benefit you but also tell you more about his backstory. Manx being a big fan of horses, his island features a large horse figure – inspired by the real “Uffington White Horse” in southern England.

Voada, Manx and Athr – three of the characters you’ll meet in Albion and each coming with their very own goals and expectations.

Finally, there’s Athr Iorgwyn. You didn’t think we’d make an Anno game without a member of the beloved Jorgensen family, did you?

Athr has dreams and ambitions: he’s a rival character who build cities and expands to other islands. Not into other provinces, however, he’s strictly staying in Albion (just like Dorian is only settling in Latium, for example).

There’re certainly a few elements of “King Arthur” in this character, with his focus on knights and building castles. In contrast to both Manx and especially Voada, he does not care about your decisions on the topic of Romanization. He himself is using whatever suits his interest best – and expects you to take similar actions yourself. While this, therefore, will not impact your diplomatic relationships negatively, you might clash with him over who gets to own which island…

Outro

But on the topic of war…. let’s keep Albion’s additions to this topic for the next blog post. In fact, in the second blog on Albion later this week we will also look at the unique aspects the province brings to the topics of Religion and the Discovery Tree. Today, we wanted to focus on the province and its people, since your decisions will not only impact the look of your islands but also the relationships with other characters – and the Emperor!

Finally, let us once again remind you that you can check out Anno 117: Pax Romana in about one week: the time-limited demo is releasing on PC (Ubisoft Connect and Steam) on September 2^nd and will remain available for two weeks.

Don’t miss this chance to try out our game – and let us know what you think!

How do you bring an Anno world to life? – Not too long ago we’ve talked about the work of the Level Art team but islands just wouldn’t feel quite right without animals roaming around (wild horses, deer, wolves, …) and being tended to by farmers (sheep, pigs, …).

Today we’re having a look at the job of an Animator and specifically the process of creating and animating animals in Anno 117: Pax Romana.

The job of an Animator

For today’s blog, we’re getting the support of our colleague Marion – and as mentioned, we’ll focus on animals specifically. Don’t worry, though, we will probably tackle human units in the future, especially since we used motion capture this time around, which is an exciting topic to talk about.

Let’s start with the basics: What does an Animator do?

A 3D object can’t move without someone taking care of the animation first. That’s the job of an animator. When you see something moving in a video game, be it a character waving at you, people running across the screen, cows grazing on a meadow or a car driving down a road: an animator has likely been working on that.

With that settled: What’s the job of an animator – on Anno?

All the feedback units in the game! “Feedback Unit” is the term we use for people walking, working, eating – and more! – on the streets and in buildings in the game. It’s also referring to all the animals you can spot in the environment and production buildings (deer, pigs, sheep etc.).

Also animated are, of course, the portraits of NPC and residents that are talking to you during quests or when you engage in diplomacy.

Bringing a Wolf to Life

Now that we have established the different tasks of an animator, let’s use the example of a wolf from Anno 117: Pax Romana to illustrate the process of creating an animated animal.

It all starts with a 2D concept art for the animal in question done either by Marion or by one of our Concept Artists. This drawing is already very close to how the final unit is supposed to look – and we knew that we would go for far more detailed feedback units than in the past: it’s much easier to start with the highest quality and reduce it later to optimize.

Based on this concept, a 3D mesh model is created and refined. We start with a low-poly (i.e. a mesh model with a low number of polygons) variant, that is used as the base for the high-poly sculpting (based on which a high-poly version is built). We’re not quite done yet, though, as in our quest for more detail, a so-called “normal map” is created from the high-poly and added. This “normal map” helps give the object depth and allows the addition of details – in this case the “waves” in the fur are thanks to the normal map – without adding more polygons (which would have a higher impact on game performance).

For now, the animal still misses its texture. That happens in the next step, where we decide that we want black and grey fur for our fluffy friend. We have a few variants for animals, so that not all wolves (and horses, pigs, …) look the same.

For this, our Animator does research in the same way that we’re doing research for buildings, for example, to assure a certain level of historical authenticity. While wolves today look very similar to their ancestors from 2000 years ago, the situation for pigs is different. Due to domestication, Roman pigs looked rather different to how we usually portray pigs today: smaller, thinner, spotty and certainly with more hair and bristles.

Now we have a finished 3D model, but our wolf can’t move. Time to change that: rigging and skinning makes the wolf “animatable” by the animator.

Rigging means, simply put, creating a skeleton with joints for the model (the “rig”), that allows the animator later to create movements. In the next step, skinning, the 3D mesh model that was created in the first steps is then connected to the rig (“skeleton”) and allows our wolf to move.

The bone structure is based on actual skeletons but is of course reduced in complexity since we’re still working on a builder game – not on a first-person adventure game where you are constantly close to your horse, your dog companion or other types of animals (dragons?).

Our wolf here also can’t move its eyes but can move its ears.

To make our life easier, our Animator Marion is using a “control rig” to animate the wolf. With that, moving a paw automatically moves parts of the leg as well – otherwise we would have to animate every single bone individually.

Depending on the feedback unit, a certain number of animation cycles are created. Our wolf here has 3 in total: walking, running and simply idling (i.e. standing around).

Our human feedback units have many more, since they do not just walk from A to B, but also carry objects, work on a farm, in a factory, etc.

The movement is largely random, but there are certain pre-defined situations for behavioral change, e.g. when you start placing buildings near a group of animals, they will run away.

In order to create as authentic animations as possible, the team is doing some research on that as well: A wolf moves decidedly differently than a horse, for example, and both should look authentic. You have similar situations with how men and women move, and how different body-types impact animation.

Animals also act in herds or packs, with their numbers depending on the type of animal: horses roam in larger groups, while wolf packs are much smaller.

As mentioned not too long ago in a livestream, while Anno 1800 still used several “old” animals, we created completely new ones this time around.

For performance reasons, there are some limits to how detailed they can be since there are so many feedback units (humans and animals) in the world of Anno 117: Pax Romana. However, we’re also using a “trick” to help with performance: different stages of LOD. LOD stands for “level of detail”, and essentially means that the quality of the object is reduced the further you zoom out (and in some cases the object even completely disappears). Less details mean lower impact in performance, as there’s no need to display all the details of an animal, ship or building when fully zoomed out – you’re too far away to see them anyway.

Q&A

We’re closing this blog with some questions for our Animator on some aspects of her work.

Q: Of course, we also had feedback units and animated objects in Anno 1800. Are we doing things differently in Anno 117: Pax Romana? Are there aspects we improved upon?

A: Generally, as mentioned above, we’ve drastically increased the quality and detail of feedback units and their animations. They look much better (and fluffier, in the case of our wolf) up close and move smoother. For humans, as mentioned, we even did motion-capture – more on that at a later date.

Q: What would you consider to be the most difficult aspects of your job? Are specific types of animation or specific animals more difficult than others?

A: No part is specifically difficult; I enjoy them all! But humans are a bit more boring since there are so many of them… I greatly prefer animating animals, they’re more fun to create and animate.

Q: What’s the most fun you have/had while animating?

A: Animating the fox and wolf certainly was my favourite part of working on Anno 117: Pax Romana.

Q: Many of Anno’s buildings and other objects are also animated: parts of ships, machines of production buildings and more. Are they also all hand-animated by you?

A: They’re not handled by me (on animation side) but my coworkers animate the cranes or use physics to move sails in ships.

Q: Which tools are you using for your work?

A: I’m using Blender for sculpting the model and creating the rig and animation – and then Substance Painter and Photoshop for textures. I know that’s a bit unusual, often ZBrush is used for sculpting (and Substance Painter for textures) – but I just really got used to my workflow and much prefer this way now.

That’s the end of today’s blog on the topic of animal animation in Anno 117: Pax Romana!

Do you have any additional questions on our animal feedback units or the work of an animator? And what do you want to know about our human feedback units? Leave your questions in the comments below or get in touch via any of our social channels!

Hey Anno Community,

After introducing you to the setting and world of Anno 117: Pax Romana as well as several of its features, today we’re diving into the topic of HOW we make games – and look at the work of the Production department.

That’s the team planning and organising the entire development process from the beginning and making sure we stay on track over the course of the multiple years that an Anno game takes until release.

For all this, we’re talking with our Production Director Nadin, and Senior Producer Christoph. Both are Anno veterans and assuring a smooth development process for Anno games for many years already.

Let’s first start with their roles specifically, since while both belong to the “Production Department”, we have a split in terms of responsibility: Producing and Project Management. As with all roles in our team, the Production department is deeply embedded into the rest of the development team here in Mainz.

The Production Department

Project Management

We start with Nadin and Project Management.

Project Management is about the management of hard facts: task planning, milestone planning (more on that later), budget & resource planning. It also means defining, and then always keeping an eye on the scope of the project – and adjusting it when necessary.

Nadin and her team are planning the whole project with its individual phases (pre-production, production, post-launch) by transforming the Creative Vision (see this DevBlog on the responsibilities of Creative Director Manuel and Game Director Jan) into tasks. This always happens hand-in-hand with the different departments, as they – for example – need to provide time estimates for their tasks which then make their way into the production plan.

As early as possible, a first plan is set-up to see how much time realizing this original vision would take – followed by discussions on how to make it fit within the given restrictions. Since the team’s health is very important, making sure the plan works with the capacities we have is central.

Should we already identify issues at this early stage, the team tries to address this by:

• Adding more team members to the development (meaning, hiring additional people or outsourcing certain tasks)
• Reducing the scope (meaning, removing certain features or designs) or postponing features (e.g. moving a feature into the postlaunch period, like the co-op mode for Anno 1800).

The management of those external partners is also a responsibility of the Project Management team: contract negotiations, onboarding and the monitoring of their progress.

During production, the team is also regularly cross-checking the development progress with the plans, to make sure the project runs smoothly and avoids crunch – while also assuring we stay on track for the planned release date.

Producing

Now, we take a look at Christoph’s team and “Producing”.

Christoph himself describes the role of his team as one with both internal (dev team) and external (stakeholders) responsibilities. That includes the creation and management of workflows for the dev team, the checking of milestone results and goals as well as the organisation of meetings and syncs to facilitate communication within the departments (i.e. anything related to the project status).

Part of that is also “risk management”, i.e. the anticipation of risks to the development. Those can be all kinds of topics and are coming from the whole team: worries about the timeline, problems with a certain tool which could cost more time, designs that may be difficult to implement or topics that could be tricky to communicate to our players. Anticipating (and subsequently addressing) takes a high priority throughout the whole development.

On top of that, “externally” the Producing team also communicates with other stakeholders within the company. These are, for example, our production contacts at HQ-level, Editorial or Age Rating managers.

Here exists, of course, a big overlap with Nadin’s responsibilities since both are working hand-in-hand when it comes to e.g. updating stakeholders or defining workflows. Meaning: for many tasks the distinction between Nadin and Christoph and their teams is not that clear-cut and requires close collaboration and steady communication on a daily basis.

Just as some production chains require two input goods (Garum needing Mackerels and Salt), a good production department needs close collaboration between both its teams.

Alright, their roles and scope of work established, let’s go in a bit more detail on the Production planning: Which phases does a game go through from first idea to release?

Similar to the blog on creating the Creative Vision, it’s important to mention that while there are many similarities between how different dev teams approach creating their games, each tries to do things in a way that works best for their team and project. Accordingly, the length of the following phases is defined by each team individually. From experience, our Production Team roughly knows how long the Production of an Anno game will take – and taking this into consideration together with the targeted release date, and the defined length of a milestone (see further below), the Production Team can calculate the length of the phases and number of milestones.

Planning an Anno production

Concept Phase & Pre-production – First Playable

It all starts with a vision – and then the concept phase. Here only a small team is involved in getting a feel for the game, outlining general game design, core features and innovations. The small team is not working in a vacuum, of course: Already in this stage the Production Team is involved assessing the potential scope and working on a first plan and estimates. This includes project goals, project size & cost as well as the overall timeline. Those points are further impacted by input and requirements from other stakeholders at the company. The project planning for a game like Anno 117: Pax Romana is rather comprehensive and it’s the Production Team’s duty to bring all stakeholders together.

It’s also important to note that during these phases, the dev team is working on not only a high concept for each feature and mechanic, but also the detailed design documents (DDDs) for them. We’ll get to them in a future blog, but in short: These documents define the scope, as well as “must have” and “nice to have” elements of each feature before they’re being worked on and implemented into the game.

Over time, more people are added to the new project and a first version slowly takes shape, a proof-of-concept basically: the “first playable prototype” (FPP). This version is an important check for us and our stakeholders if the concept works, or if we have taken a wrong turn somewhere and need to go back to the drawing board.

Pre-production is the time where we build the foundation for main production. It’s a time to de-risk the project, a time where we can also test new or difficult features (that’s a topic we will also be addressing in our future DevBlog on Game Design) but also a time to get all the internal tools ready so that the team can start creating content efficiently.

Pre-Alpha & Alpha – Feature Complete and fully playable

This is also called the Main Production Phase. This phase has the goal to finish the implementation of all features, including a vertical slice of their content.

Example: If the game has quests, the feature of quests should be implemented and come with 2-5 quests, so one can assess the feature, but the Narrative team does not have to finish ALL the quests.

Accordingly, this phase is usually NOT about quality, so loads of things will be (visually & in terms of UX/gameplay) in an unpolished state. One could also say: This phase is about quantity NOT quality.

Beta – Feature & Content Complete and Polished

Contrary to the Main Production, in Beta the team will swap priority and try to apply quality to all the implemented features and content. In addition to that, “missing” content (see Alpha Phase above) will be added, e.g. remaining quests, remaining NPCs and so on.

Master – “Refined”

The last phase of production before the release: This one is mainly about bug fixing, performance and memory optimization but also leaves us room for e.g. adjustments to the balancing and similar feedback that we might still get from our players.

It’s also in this phase where our game is submitted to first parties (e.g. Sony and Microsoft) for them to check and approve the version.

When we reached this this point, we would be seeing the finish line, and the release of Anno 117: Pax Romana would be within reach (hello, November 13th!).

Building huge Roman cities in Latium is just a few months away.

Milestones

As discussed above, the Production team creates a roadmap in order to reach certain production levels at certain times. For those, we use milestones.

To quote from our internal documentation: “A Milestone separates the Production into smaller, manageable chunks.” This helps us structure the overall development process, which means we have regular checks on the progress of the project. Accordingly, all milestones have the same length, as they all follow the same workflows.

The team itself agrees on and commits to specific goals that need to be reached by the end of a Milestone. This usually means getting a specific feature or aspect of the game to a certain quality level. Both these quality levels as well as the Milestone goals are defined by the team itself in accordance with the overall production plan originally laid out, and some general Ubisoft guidelines.

For example, while Level of Quality 0 (“L0”) means there has to be a detailed design of the feature that has been reviewed and approved, L1 means that the feature (even though in a very early state with placeholders and work-in-progress elements) is playable for the first time.

Our “Levels of Quality”, visualized via the World’s Fair from Anno 1800.

And what happens when we reach a milestone? Well, we celebrate, of course! We regularly have “Show & Tell” meetings where individual departments present their achievements of the last milestones to the rest of the team – and then enjoy some food and drink after.

Additionally, we also regularly take Milestones as an opportunity to do playtests. Both external ones but also internal ones, when all of us can take some dedicated time to just focus on playing the game. And like our external playtesters, we also fill out lengthy surveys to judge and give feedback on our own game.

However, as you can guess, not every milestone works like a charm. Estimated tasks might take longer, people might become sick and thus aren’t able to finish their work or we find out that a certain implementation sounded good on paper, but actually isn’t that fun when playing.

All these learnings will need to be assessed, and the plan for the upcoming milestones needs to be adjusted.

That means working in Producing and Project Management is not about creating that ONE plan: it’s about creating a plan and adjusting it over and over again to match the production reality – while keeping the project’s goals in mind.

We don’t have THAT MUCH cake every time, that’s reserved for the big milestones.

Feature Teams

To achieve said Milestone goals, we assemble “Feature Teams”.

These are smaller teams focused on a specific feature or feature group and made up of people from different departments that are all working on this specific feature (for example: roads or diplomacy). People usually are in multiple Features Teams (there are maaaaany different features) and together decide on the goals and are responsible for ensuring that the feature reaches said Milestone goals.

They are supported by the Production team to assure proper workflows and scope: as discussed at the beginning, the development has to be thoroughly planned to account for the available time and staff; to assure we’re delivering a quality game on time and without crunch.

Additionally, the Team Leads and the Core Group (made up of the Directors and Senior Leads) are guiding the process and are approving as well as checking the progress and the Milestone goals.

Closing words & learnings

We’re coming to the end of today’s DevBlog, time for some last questions to Nadin and Christoph:

Are you really planning the whole development at the beginning? How flexible is it should something unforeseen happen?

Yes, you need a first full plan at the beginning. This is important to keep control over the project’s parameters (Time, Budget, Quality). As soon as one of the parameters is in danger, we need to take counter measures to make sure the project stays on track. As said earlier, adjusting the plan to fit the production reality is a big part of our work.

Both you and the team have worked on multiple Anno games over the years. Did that result in some “golden rules” for Production planning?

If the plan is not fitting in the beginning it will NOT fit in the end => you have to adjust it right there to minimize the risks.

Be realistic when estimating tasks => tasks that are estimated too optimistically will later-on result in the plan becoming skewed.

Be open and honest: be it good or bad => only with transparency can you build trust within the team and towards our fans.

Did you encounter situations of “let’s do it differently next time” and generally changes to how we produce games over the years?

Production is about managing change. The best workflow is worthless, if it doesn’t fit the team’s needs. So yes: It is a constant evolution of reviewing what went well and what didn’t.

This is especially true regarding planning: how to set up a plan (backlog) how to monitor, how to adjust the plan to be more flexible are key components of our work.

We hope you found this different but extensive insight into our development processes, and specifically the work of the Production department interesting.

Do you have more questions that we did not answer in this blog? Want to know more about the work of specific other departments? Let us know in the comments!

Hey Anno Community!

It’s not a secret anymore: land combat makes its return in Anno 117: Pax Romana. Naval combat doesn’t go anywhere, of course, and warfare in general is just one of many aspects of the game.

Today, however, we want to put it in the focus and take a look at the military means at your disposal, should you decide to – or be forced to – exchange your plough for a sword.

Anno and Warfare

Historically, Anno games always had a warfare component; and while it – like other features as well – changed in scope and design from game to game, we very much believe it to be an important feature for the game.

At the same time, Anno games are builder games: the main fascination (and therefore also the focus we put in terms of development) is coming from discovering the world, settling new islands, building ever-growing cities and all the logistics and productions required to support it.

We also know we have a playerbase with sometimes strongly differing views on the topic: how important is warfare in Anno, should it be mandatory, how is it implemented, should there be land combat, etc.

In short: it’s a discussion that’s been happening both in our team as well as in our community for many years already.

In fact, back in the Anno 1800 days, our (back then) Creative Director Dirk wrote a great blog on the tradition of military in Anno games – we very much recommend you check it out: https://www.anno-union.com/devblog-the-art-of-war-i/

Now we’ve set the scene, time to take a look at how warfare looks like in Anno 117: Pax Romana and what this might mean for your cities and economy.

Naval Units

Let’s start on the ocean before we make our way to the land: Naval Combat!

Just a few weeks ago we talked about ship construction in detail: how you’re able to build your own ship setups via modules like additional sails, rowers and – of course – offensive modules like archer towers or catapults.

Have a look at the dedicated DevBlog here.

Different modules and other improvements can be researched via the Discovery Tree, to constantly increase the strength of your fleet.

The three different offensive modules (archer towers, scorpions, catapults) differ in range, accuracy, rate of fire and damage, making them useful in rather different situations. Catapults are slow and inaccurate, but archers are limited in range and can’t destroy fortifications.

Land Combat

Let’s invade someone! If you have a neighbour you really don’t like (in the game!) or if they have an island that should be yours (in the game!), sending an army is a valid solution.

Broadly, we separate land units into four types – infantry, ranged units, cavalry, artillery – with their own recruitment buildings.

As you might have guessed, you will also need to produce certain resources in order to train units in the first place: A group of Auxilia (medium infantry with spears), for example, requires weapons – for which you’ll first need to set up a production chain with a furnace, smith, and of course iron and coal production. Legionaries, on the other hand, also require expensive to produce armour.

While you start with a smaller selection of unit types, like the aforementioned Auxilia, as well as Archers, more unit types can be researched via the Discovery Tree. This allows you to later field the highly disciplined legionaries or heavy cavalry, as well as other specialised units.

The Discovery Tree also features a variety of upgrades, boosting aspects like unit morale, attack against fortification or accuracy.

A healthy mix of different unit types is one of the keys to victory: Auxilia with their spears are effective against cavalry, while Slingers or Archers are great to keep enemies at a distance. Cavalry is especially useful to flank opposing units or attack unprotected ranged units of your enemy. In short: we are using the good old stone-paper-scissors system here.

And then there’s artillery: the accuracy of Scorpios makes them great against individual units, while Onagers excel at the destruction of fortification.

In addition to the units’ health, you also have to keep an eye on their morale. If the morale becomes too low during combat, units might flee – and fleeing units can affect their nearby comrades, potentially leading to a larger rout. There is a chance for routed units to reform, otherwise they will ultimately vanish.

The Connections

Synergies

Both naval and land units will be needed to bring down your opponents: if your enemy has built a villa on their island, taking it is your main objective – simply destroying the trading post is not enough in that case.

Your ships will play a key role in not only shipping your troops to your opponent’s island, but also in clearing the landing by destroying defensive structures. Generally, as long as they are in reach, naval units can attack units and buildings on land, and land units can shoot back at naval units.

That also means that you can stop an enemy’s invasion by destroying their transports before they reach your shores.

Defences

Defensive structures you say? Oh yes! We’re giving you some options to defend your precious islands from rival governors.

Surround your island (or at least the important parts where the important people live) with a wooden palisade – or go the extra mile and research stone walls which require some proper artillery to take down.

Additionally, you can place defensive towers that fire back at any invaders and further slow their advance until you have gathered your own forces.

Economy

Every unit (naval and land) does cost:

• Resources and money to be built/recruited
• Money in maintenance
• Workforce in maintenance

This means, your land and naval forces are deeply tied into your population and economy: you will need a large population and stable economy to support a big army. War is costly and must be considered carefully. The workforce you’re spending on troops and ships might also be needed to assure stable production of food or clothing – or in manning trade ships to supply the various islands under your governorship. Different unit types also require different types of workforce, meaning more advanced units require you to first have enough population of one of the higher tiers.

Units are therefore always tied to a “home island” in terms of workforce. Should you lose such an island, the game will automatically reassign units to another island with free workforce. If you do not have enough free workforce anywhere, then the units will slowly “desert”, i.e. lose health over time.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that time doesn’t stop when there’s a fight on land or sea: both attackers and defenders of course still have their empire to manage.

Production of goods and recruiting times also mean that quickly setting up a massive force or fleet is no small task either.

You want to see all this and more in action? Then check out our livestream on land combat from last week:

Outro

War, of course, is only one way of solving conflicts: you can always opt for the diplomatic route, forging trade treaties and alliances with other governors and live in harmony with your neighbours. For some of them, this is indeed their favoured course of action, while others might prefer drawing their sword instead of engaging in negotiations. Well, and then there are pirates who will likely only keep their feet still if you pay them enough money.

There is also the option to only focus on the logistics layer (producing weapons and recruiting troops) while leaving any potential attacks or defences of your armies to the AI (auto-combat). For peaceful players, playing with easier, friendlier rivals or simply disabling them and pirates is always an option, making war and combat very much a choice.

All this of course was just a rough overview of the military system in Anno 117: Pax Romana. Do you want to learn more about how we developed unit behaviour, how the calculations work behind-the-scenes – and also get some tips from the devs? Let us know and we’ll look into tackling these questions in a future deep-dive devblog!

In the future, we’ll of course also dive deeper into the topic of diplomacy and introduce you to your rivals!