- Union Update
Union Update: Early Communication
Our community of players has been following the Anno series for most 20 years. That just shows that they all share one major trait with both the veterans and newcomers in our development team alike: an undying passion for Anno.
With our second DevBlog about the military, we have given you all a first look at what naval combat will be like in the upcoming Anno 1800. With hundreds of comments to date, it is fair to say that we have not only received a lot of, but also all very detailed and thoughtful feedback, which shows that the military and ground combat and near and dear to the hearts of some parts of the Anno communities. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts!
We did of course expect that this news would cause some controversy, which is precisely why we wanted to share it now. Our clear goal with the Anno Union is not only to gather your feedback, but also to offer you a transparent look behind the scenes of game development. Being transparent is of course a lot easier when you can deliver positive news, but can in return be all the more important when it is time to be the bearer of disappointing news. That is why it was very important for us to let you know, well in advance of the game’s release, which parts of the military system will be included.
Reading your comments, we can see a clear tendency with some recurring themes. For one, that many of you wish that they had more information about how your naval forces will be able to lay siege to an island.
Most present however, is the wish for a return of land-based combat, after many years of absence. The Anno Union is of course all about finding ways for your feedback to influence the game’s development, as far as circumstances and resources will allow this. That is why your feedback on this topic is very valuable to us.
That is why we will, first of all, take the required time to discuss your feedback within the development team. We appreciate that you would all like to hear back on your concerns and wishes as soon as possible, but we hope you understand that this is not always possible given the complexities of game development.
Rest assured, we will come back to you about that topic in future!
Development work on the Anno Union
As some of you may have already notices, the long-awaited improvement development here on the Anno union website has begun. We will inform you in the future with a full list of changes; for now, don’t be surprised if you can already see some new things popping up as we speak (like notifications emails for comments).
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PLEASE add ground combat! For me it was one of the most fun parts of anno 1404, taking over cities and destroying armies. I know that citybuilding is the key feature of anno, but ground combat adds a great strategical side to the game. Besides, war in 1800 was more often fought on the ground than at sea. So please reconsider! I love all the other plans I read though, looks really promising. I would be dissapointed if you did not add ground combat to the game. I also believe a great amount of other fans would agree with me.
Just to add: What downside does it have, other than it taking some time to implement. For the people who do not care about ground combat, I get that and it does not apply to me, but adding it does not mean it will necessarily be a part of every save you play. E.g. in anno 1404 I also got world domination without even really using a lot of combat.
When it comes to a focused part of a gameplay, for any game, you will *always* find people who speak out to disagree. Be it to disagree with white, or to disagree with black. With each side come its extremists, and extremists speak loudly (see each game of one of your “concurrent” whose name refers to a snow thunder)
But keep in mind one thing : between many “white forever” islands and many “wtf ? Obviously black !” islands, there is an ocean of grey quiet people. As you know, in Anno, sea is a big part of the game 😉 That’s why I suggest you, if you ever plan to discuss about ground battle, to do a survey about it before, since *many* of us (the community) said they want ground battle does not mean that *majority* of us want ground battle. I personnaly don’t, and I won’t write a comment saying that on the related devBlog since I think this won’t add something valuable.
Urbanism Exhibition is constantly leading with more than 41% of the votes for about 3 weeks (with a growing number of votes), maybe you can end this survey, declare it winner and start a new survey about ground battle ? If the community vote that they don’t wan’t it, don’t spend time to discuss about it 🙂
What about multiples open sondages ?
Well said Mendahor! I´m agreeing with every single word from your post.
Giving bad news is not a problem 🙂 We suppose it is not your fault if you have problems, and you can’t satisfy everybody ^^ (many ears of absence ? :p )
At the beginning of the game, the islands are empty. To fully build it, I can spend several months. I like when enemy infantry attacks the open areas of the island at this time. The thought of possible encroachment keeps in a pleasant tension all the while playing. I myself also like to make small forays sometimes to get distracted. However, I do not want to completely destroy the enemy. I’m interested in the system of infantry combat. It adds realism to the game. At all times and under any diplomatic relationship, the people have always had infantry. In the world of Anno, a skillful diplomat will never tolerate war.
Well, if you are so concerned with the army units clipping into buildings, you can make symbolic squads let’s say one to 4 men for the infantry. Same for horse or artillery.
They could be a little bit taller to be easily recognizable.
And land attacks can be as slow as in Anno 1404 that would be realistic.
Wish more studios would do this sort of thing. Giving feedback and hearing how the Devs do their thing is very nice.
Just take your time and it’s nice to finally see improvements on the Anno-Union site. 🙂
Thought would be cool to hear more about the complexities of game development, thought I don’t think it is more complex than writing a pretty huge mod or any larger software product (which takes a long time and is a complex task).
Therefore keep doing what you have to do and let us know when you’re ready. 😉
I just hope that you´re not going to sacrifice any important aspect of the resource-management or city-building gameplay, just to please a group of people who could be buying a different title to play a real-time strategy war game. Anno is not a military game, there are so many other titles out there doing that!
I don’t think they would sacrifice any important aspect of the city building gameplay for things like military as it’s a city building game.
!Post based on my own opinion!
Thought buying a RTS game to get military got it’s downsides:
– most RTS games don’t have a city building aspect or a very weak one
– most RTS games don’t have the Anno feeling
– most RTS games are just about fighting, but I guess no one want’s to fight war all the time
What I want to say here: You will probably not find many or any RTS game which got everything from Anno and a complete military part. RTS games mostly just focus on the battle side while Anno gives you the option to do both. Not as complex as an RTS game is doing it, but that’s not really necessary for Anno.
It’s also always a question of how big the group of people is who wants to have military and from the stats in “Art of War I” it seems like it is a quite large group.
Thought I guess they will find a way to please both sides, those who want military and those who don’t or don’t want so much military. Maybe they get it (land units for example) done within the budget and time to implement it themselves or maybe we get abilities to do it via modding.