• Union Update

Union Update: Voting, Spotlight and QnA

  • 18.09.2017

Welcome to the fifth week since our announcement of Anno 1800 and the Anno Union. A lot has happened over the last couple of weeks and we got some great feedback regarding our last DevBlog. For that reason, today’s QnA part will tackle many of your questions regarding sessions.

But before we head over and answer your questions, it is time for our Union community update:

Our first voting will end next week!
Our first big Anno Union voting will end Monday next week. That means you have 7 days left to vote for your favorite Union NPC. After the vote has closed, we will call out the winner and use the chance to review our first vote.  But that marks only the beginning of the journey of our Anno Union character. As stated before, we will share important milestones on their development and even want to give you the chance to have further impact during some moments of the journey. Furthermore, you can look forward to a new voting, which will tackle an exciting new topic. However, we do not want to reveal too much at this point…

Videos, streams and language
We are happy that so many of you liked the idea about video and streaming content. But it also raised a few questions in our community, such as if there is a possibility for German subtitles or even whole episodes in German language. Anno has a strong tradition in Germany and with that, a strong German fan community. Even with that history, there are big communities of non-German fans out there and everyone should be able to join the Anno Union and to enjoy all our content. For us, the English language is the biggest common ground to reach out to as many people as possible. We need to allocate time wisely for streams and videos, as the development team will create the shows, where the development of Anno 1800 has still the highest priority. We would love to bring extra German episodes to our German fans, but that would mean that we have to spend way more time with streams, that we have to stretch our content or even exclude all non-German fans from specific topics.

Everyone should have the same chance to be a part of the Union, and nobody should feel excluded. We will provide German subtitles for our videos but that will not be possible for streams right now, as that would require too much work from our team. However, we will provide a summary of previous shows for the Union and there might be fans out there who would be willing to share a fan translation in their specific language with the Union? Some of you asked us if we could at least provide a transcript of the show. Well, that will not be possible, as we are not using scripts for our streams and podcast, because the last thing we want to do is to read out text from a prompter or piece of paper.

Community Spotlight

Anno fans are not only crazy active here on the Anno Union or in our Anno Ubisoft forum, but also in countless fan communities out there. As we are big fans of our Anno communities, we would like to give these projects a spot in the limelight in the future. Today, we would like to start with our Anno Union Fan-Discord channel: http://ubi.li/sp35t

You want to engage other Anno fans in live- hats to discuss Anno 1800 and the Anno Union? You should check out the Anno Union Community Discord and join the growing number of worldwide-connected Annholics!

Your ideas about our Streaming Room decoration
In our last community update, we asked you how we should decorate our streaming room. We loved some of your suggestions, especially the idea to put pictures of old Anno titles on our walls. We want to take that one-step further and use your own community creations for that! And here comes the call to action for the Anno Union: We want your most beautiful and creative screenshots from previous Anno titles. Go wild, impress with stunning panoramas or city landscapes and share them with us on our Anno Fan art forum section: Help us beautify our streaming room!
Please keep in mind that we need these Screenshots in a decent size (min. 1080p), as we will print out the best entries to use them as backdrops in our streaming room.

Community QnA : Your questions and our answers

MattMcCorman: The biggest isles in Anno 1404 had 2048*2048 tiles. Are the 1200*1220 in 2070 you mentioned only representative for an average size for an isle? Therefore, will the biggest Isle in 1800 be even bigger than 1600*1600?

Dirk: Maximum and minimum size for isles are different from the examples we used in our blog. We are not able to commit to a maximum size for isles in Anno 1800, as the final numbers are not decided yet. In our multi session blog, we compared the average isle size of the respective anno game to give you an idea about the relations in size of Anno games.

Khorinis2142: Will the campaign be embedded in the game like in 2205 or will it work like in 2070/1404, where the campaign is strictly separated and runs on different maps than the endless game?

Dirk: The campaign will be embed into the game if you do not deactivate it manually. However, the presentation and narration of the campaign will be stronger orientated to 1701 and 1404 than was the case with 2205.

Zimery: If a second session outside oft he main map oft he player is possible, will different climate zones like in 1503 take a role?

Dirk: That is in the realm of possibility but not necessarily required. We see many different options here and will share more details about that topic with you all in future.

BlueBarret77: Will AI settle in different regions of will they remain in your starting map?

Dirk: Ai will show the same construction habits and behavior as a player and as a result of that, might settle in different regions.

hike98: In addition, it is important for me that AI not settles in undiscovered sectors before I do, so that I am not ending up in a situation where AI takes all isles after I decided to go into a new session after 10 hours of play.

Dirk: The behavior of the AI depends, like in previous Anno titles, on the individual AI routine of a specific character. Different characters have a variety of different preferences and behaviors. With his actions during gameplay, the player has an impact on the AI’s difficulty. We will have AI which waits for the players and asks him before settling in other territories or isles while others might be fairly aggressive, taking new land as fast and much as possible.

LadyHonday: Will I be able to leave my main on it’s own when moving to a different session, without being afraid about my home burning to cinder, storms ravaging or the black death taking its toll on my citizen to find everything destroyed when I am coming back?
Sephko: The military is integrated in the main session again. Does that mean that military units can’t enter secondary sessions? Are that safe exclaves which follow other game mechanics?

Basti: Everyone knows that moment when you forget your Anno session for a while and the aftermath of cleaning everything up when you come back to your PC. We implemented specific game mechanics to ensure that sessions expand possibilities and making the game more complex, while on the other hand not causing too much stress for the players. It will not be the case that events destroy your whole settlement while you are abroad in a secondary session. It will also be possible to have military escalations in a different session. We will share information that is a bit more detailed on how these systems works in the future.

danielf2001: How will trading look like between different sessions? Will you utilize trade posts which you have to supply or will there be something else in addition?

Basti: You can send ships into a different session, and as soon as it will leave your zone, it will move over to the other session. You will be able to modify trade routes and we will give you additional tools, to drive trading of goods between the zones. Trading in general is a complex and important topic, so keep an eye on future DevBlogs.

Lord.Roke: Do you have plans how players can keep the overview between the different sessions?

Basti: That players being able to keep track on their sessions was an important topic for our Designers from the get go. A world map and further features will ensure that you all have a good overview on what is going on!

AnnoAndilein: Sad to see that no one answered my most burning question yet: How will the Interface/UI look? I NEED to know this. Will there be scaling options for the font size or will it even be possible to customize the whole interface to your liking? So please dear Basti, tell us something about the interface.

Basti: Our UI elements and functionality are not final and the UI gets usually finished at a pretty late point in development. That means that until the release of the game, we will change many things on our current interface and the Anno Union will be an important tool to test, evaluate and improve the functionality of our UI in playtests. However, the Interface sounds for me like a really great topic to ask the community some specific questions about.

Spike2412: The question is if it will be possible in Anno 1800 to get the highest citizen level in your starting world. It was not possible in Anno 2205.

Basti: As explained in our last DevBlog, we want to expand possibilities but not restrict players in their playstyle. You will be able to reach the highest tier without leaving your main map.

AnnOgamer94 /Ubisoft Anno 1800 Forum: I did not like 2205 concept to connect all isles (on preset places of all things). I had city on production on every isle and I had nearly no impact where to put my harbor. I hope that with 1800 I will have the option again to set the harbor where I want.

Basti: More options and freedom is important for us. And for that reason, you will be able to set your harbor way more freely, as it was the case in 2205.

MinneIceCube: You still haven’t answered a burning question that I have. are the maps randomly generated?

Basti: That’s really not acceptable- I was convinced that we talked about this already. Let me put my coffee mug aside to address your burning question immediately: Yes!

Comments

Leave a Reply

24 Comments
  1. r ruuti0

    Discord is great idea!

    Best part is that if you couldn’t be part of it, you could later read what was written!

  2. n nachtaktiv7

    One thing i am wondering about are the islands premade as in the other titles or are they random? If they are premade i would appreciate it, if there would be a devblog in the futur about how an island is created from start to end.

  3. M MinneIceCube

    Basti: only been on the Union for a short time. haven’t gone through all the posts yet, so I’m sorry.

  4. P Prince_Diego

    I’ve been playing 1602 recently, and I was wondering if unique scenarios (not campaign related) would make a comeback?

    Interesting challenges in preset maps. I’m excited that there will be randomly generated maps, but I also enjoyed the challenge of playing a specific scenario.

    • C Christofvh

      I would like scenario’s also like in anno 1701, or anno 1404 venice or the missions in anno 2070. Hope it will come in dlc

  5. M Mr_Boatyface

    Just something that popped up in my mind: Will ships -especially steamships- require resources such as coal to keep on sailing? It might be an interesting aspect to bring to the table.

  6. d diddle783

    Great to read that the language is set on english, otherwise it would be very hard to understand the videos for me since my german is terrible 😉

  7. A Arkenophas

    Ah, an other surevy ! 🙂 For the german languages, mabe normal if you continue to use English, no favorite between different countries (I’m not english too :p ). And good idea for the streaming room, I’ll try to do something with it 🙂

  8. D DrBillySK

    Randomly generated maps! Awesome 🙂

    Please consider an option in map settings, which would make the starting island small (or smaller) for more challenging start of the game.

    •   Bastian Thun

      More about the various options to modify your game session will come in a future DevBlog 🙂

  9. n niekdebom

    Since you guys were talking about German and English, I had a question about the beta tests (or any other tests with people). Will these tests be performed on the internet (so that people around the globe can give feedback about the gameplay), or will these be performed on site in Dusseldorf (where I guess logistically it is only for people from Germany)?

    • B BB_CR

      Hey there, good question. The answer is both- while earlier tests will in all likelihood be on-site focus tests in one of our studios, later phases will definitely allow testers to play from the comfort of their homes.

      • J Jeffgray213

        Thats awesome. Do we have an estimated date for that?

  10. D Drutol

    Hello, I’d like to ask whether you are going to support modding to any extent? While it wasn’t really supported in 2070 great A.R.R.C mod was created which made the game even better.

  11. S S.A.S_Potato

    I have a quite burning question. I always liked being a sly fox (Giovanni be praised) will I be able to defeat my AI opponent financialy? Can I block his trade routes, destroy his production plants and will he actually slowly die out or what?

  12. b banan1996.1996

    I was wondering how long you would be waiting for our votes as I felt like results weren’t changing anymore.

    I am glad you decided to focus on English, I was frustrated seeing all those German only videos from Gamescom as I couldn’t understand them at all.

    I never used any Discords but I guess I am going to see what it is about 🙂

    Some time ago I got a new computer and all my screenshots and saves were removed from the older one. I don’t know if now I will be able to make something for your streaming room but I will try 🙂

    I really hope for different climate zones in other sessions and I hope there will be more than just two sessions but I already shared my thoughts in the comments below the previous devblog about multisessions but I just wanted to refer to the QnA xD

    I am happy about your approach towards AIs, I would like to see a real diversity in their behaviors.

    We will all need more information about how playing in one session influences events in the other and how safe we can feel about the session we left unattended. But I guess that first we have to know more about military and possible disasters to get into this topic.

    From the answer to danielf2001 question I figured out that trading between sessions wouldn’t take much time… It would be weird to see the ship immediately disappearing there and appearing here, there should be some time spent on the journey between the sessions. It might be certain amount of time depending on which ship you use and maybe also on some speed upgrades it may have on board.

  13. F FHackner

    Im very happy to read that you intend the AI opponents to play more human like by expanding and building and gathering resources.

  14. D DoomDutch

    Unrelated to this Devblog: Do you guys have an idea, or already have, composers for Anno 1800?
    Personally I am hoping BB will employ the same Composers from Anno 1404 for Anno 1800 ^^

    • B BlueBreath

      The soundtracks in peace time were great,but please try to make the battle music less stressful, more enjoyable.

    • B BB_CR

      We do have a composer, and you can hear some of their work in the announcement trailer. More info on that in the future, as we know that Anno players love the music, and that it is a big part of creating that enjoyable Anno atmosphere.

  15. N Nephenthos

    i love the idea of sttreams and videos with little bits and pieces of whats to come!

    ill speak to you guys on discord ^^?
    -Nephenthos

  16. O Olinater

    Nice to see that the AI will follow the same rules as players. Seeing other cities creates more immersion to the game for me. It also makes for more strategic gameplay as blockading his city or taking his colonies (and thus his supplies) might actually work in taking him down, or at least slow his growth.

  17. k kappa450

    в anno 2205 был лимит по золоту по ходу развития , как это будет реализовано в anno 1800 ?

  18. B BlueBreath

    So soon streaming, uhuuu!

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