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DevBlog: New World Expansion and New Islands

Hey Anno Community,

In this second DevBlog for “New World Rising” we will take a closer look at what we only briefly mentioned before: The expansion of the New World region and the new islands that are getting added.

While Anno games tend to give players relatively large freedoms to build as much and how they want, there are still a few limiting factors. One main factor, of course, is space. There are only so many islands in a region and the islands have only so many tiles.

While some of you have proven over the years, that one can squeeze many more people on those islands than we originally thought, eventually a ceiling is hit, and either space for residences or space for production runs out. Space management therefore also is a key challenge of the Anno games – even more so if you’re playing with opponents.

In Anno 1800, the New World itself also acted as a limiting factor to a certain degree, considering the goods that other regions, primarily the Old World, needed. Season 4’s focus on the New World therefore meant a) to provide engaging new mechanics and b) simultaneously offer additional ways to increase efficiency and save space (e.g. Hacienda farms or workforce commute via the Airship Platform).

A larger New World

New World Rising is adding an additional population tier as well as several new production chains, as we detailed in the previous blog, and the Lifestyle Needs may also require additional production capacities in this southern region. It accordingly made sense to take an additional step to address the above-mentioned space topic, a “simple” one, actually: Giving you more building space!

And that’s what we’re doing with this last DLC of Season 4: The New World region expands on its two northern borders, adding another strip of space for more islands. That’s an increase of about 30%, making the map now larger than the Old World. There are of course still some general limiting factors for map size, first and foremost it’s performance.

New islands to settle

To increase island variety, especially now that the New World is quite a bit bigger than before, our Level Art team also created several new islands that are getting added to the overall map pool for the region. You can expect 3 new small islands, 4 new medium islands and 3 new large islands.

By popular demand, we added additional riv… no, just kidding, we reduced the number of rivers on these new islands. Plus, we’re also adding riverless variants of the existing islands to the overall map pool.

In existing savegames, these new islands will be placed in the expanded area in the north, giving you fresh building challenges to face. The exact number of islands (5 to 7) depends on your chosen region size for your savegame. Therefore, some of the new islands you may only see if you start a new game.

When you start a new game, the islands will be randomly placed together with the already existing New World islands. There is one twist, though: While only owners of DLC 12 will profit from the expanded region, the new islands and riverless island variants will be added to the general map pool, and therefore be available for all players, regardless of which DLC you own.

Our process for creating islands has not changed drastically from what we described a looong time ago back in 2018 in a blog before Anno 1800’s release. We recommend checking out the mentioned DevBlog by our Level Artist Simon if you want some more insights in our processes.

Space for your New World capital

But wait, we talked about new islands, but haven’t mentioned Mānola yet! In addition to the new regular islands that we talked about in the previous section, New World Rising is also adding a larger landmass in the very North of the map. Similar to Crown Falls in Cape Trelawney, it offers you more building space on a single island as well as some unique details – but it also comes with its own monument! This monument gets its own section below, so, let’s first talk about the island itself.

First, the name: As you can see on the screenshot above, Mānola is an island with many waterfalls! The name then was inspired by the Manoa Falls on the Hawaiian island of Honolulu, an impressive 46m waterfall surrounded by rain forest. There were additional inspirations for some of the island’s geographical features, of course: We have long beaches framed by mountain peaks (inspired by Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and many, many waterfalls (inspired by the Iguazu Falls, Argentina/Brazil).

Considering this is the finale of Season 4, we wanted to give you a similar place to create your capital city as we did back in 2019 with Crown Falls – especially since the New World also is one of the regions that are part of the base game.

Aside from the waterfalls, you of course get plenty of building space on this island – making it a great candidate for your New World capital. While there’s a large mountain chain further inland, the area near the coast is split by a large river and slightly rises on several levels up to the mountain region. Several beaches provide space for your industry and harbour area, but also for the new beach module that we introduced in our previous DevBlog.

Several large rocks dot both the landmass itself as well as the coastal area, and a part of the island on the left is semi-detached from the mainland but can be connected via bridges. In addition to coasts and building space, Mānola offers multiple mine, clay and oil deposits to suit your needs.

Our Level Artists also added a few environmental details (and secrets?) as well as stories into this island, we heavily recommend taking the time to take a closer look yourselves.

 

Note, that this continental island is (in contrast to the other new islands) only available for owners of “New World Rising” with the expanded New World map.

Green Energy – The Dam

The monument you can construct on Mānola is a giant dam, that you might be familiar with when you played the “Eden Burning” scenario. Since the island has plenty of water(-falls), as you’ve seen, you can use this dam to harness the water’s energy to provide electricity to your people on the island.

First, you will have to construct the dam in multiple phases – as you’re used to from other monuments – which will require you to import some goods from the Old World, namely: concrete. Upon completion, the dam provides electricity on the island just like a Power Plant does – but without needing any input goods and with significantly higher range: all of Mānola profits from the electricity generated. No need for power plants and intricate railroad networks.

Additionally, there’s no pollution penalty, making the dam a decidedly more environmentally friendly solution. And it just looks really cool!

That’s it on the topic of New World expansion that’s part of “New World Rising” and the new islands that are getting added alongside it. Next week you can expect a DevBlog for DLC 12’s scenario: Pride and Peddlers – it’s gonna be all about trading!

Do you have any additional questions on the topic of islands and world creation? Leave them in the comments!

Development of Anno 1800 – Season 4 is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action within the framework of computer games funding.

Comments

 

 

20 Comments
  1. o ozgur-06 December 24, 2022

    In the Arctic World, heating should be possible not only with coal, but also with gas. This function should be added to the game.

  2. E Epic_Fly123 November 26, 2022

    I hope there will be gas power plants in New World so we can get more green electricity

    • H Humility925 November 26, 2022

      No, don’t get your hope up, only oil power plants on normal island, but however there is larger (similar crown fall main land) I think new world main land (not island, I think) get dam on those waterfall that prove green electricity. (I knew in real life Dam do had downside, like hold water back, and cause more issues here and there.

  3. V Via4Uplay November 25, 2022

    UBI is great at classic western things and in the era there are still more more themes like arts, sciences, and wars. I suppose that it’s straightly hard to make a new and more popular Anno other than 1800 for now. Is season 5 enough? No, I need forever!

  4. A Asterix201252 November 25, 2022

    I have a question regarding how islands will spawn in the New World. I have a game seed that I have used for a long time, which gives me islands in the Old World, New World and Cape Trelawney that I like and suit my style of play. I am assuming that if I use this seed for a new game post release of DLC 12 that the Old World and Cape Trelawney will be identical to my current game (also Arctic and Enbesa, but I’m less worried about them because of their limited pool of islands). But how will it work in the New World? Will I get the same existing islands with the new ones in the extra area (like using an old save), or will the whole New World be randomly re-assigned. I’m assuming that the fertilities will change, as they did at DLC10 (or was it 11?)
    I’m not too worried, because I will always get the nice new big island, but it would be nice to find out what to expect.

    • A Asterix201252 December 31, 2022

      Well, I started a new game with my favourite key and have the answer to my own question. You get a completely new New World. There is the big new island (Manola) and a bunch of other islands. They are all different to what they used to be; different islands and obviously different fertilities. So, a completely new challenge. Though I guess that it is a completely new challenge anyway when you consider the tree DLCs of Season 4.

  5. r ruzen_qures November 25, 2022

    I too think Season Pass 5 is a must!
    I’m quite curious what would the team under new director would create from fresh.
    Lifestyle update and city buildings consuming items was a quite good take.
    I honestly feel If the game could have one more season or a final major DLC like this one. ANNO 1800 will become all-time classic city-building game.
    Not to mention the game will finally be available for all on Steam. New players would pour in as well.

    • B BEEBEE1800 November 25, 2022

      There is a better idea…

      Say…. Anno 1600 comes out .. after a year with 3dlcs or 2years with 6dlcs ( SP2 ) you suddenly connected-bridged to Anno 1800 .. and the fun begins – the 2 Worlds working together to fine tune all sorts of inner workings in both domains.. Sounds good ?? It’s like SP 5 & 6 but going into the past and future at the same time..

  6. S Stein1412 November 25, 2022

    Wie viel muss ich meinen Ingenieuren bezahlen das die mir so einen Staudamm auch auf Crown Falls setzen?

  7. t thekingkupo November 25, 2022

    Please announce Season Pass 5. This game is just too good. Season 5 can cover a new session where we can go to Asia. So I can build a small Japan/China town in my city. Thank you for all your work! Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

    • A Asterix201252 November 25, 2022

      I totally support this idea. I would really like a Season 5 and really like an Asian zone

  8. H HarterZockdown November 24, 2022

    Season Pass 5 kann kommen !

  9. f fox40phil November 24, 2022

    Hello Anno Team,

    but…. what if you play not alone… and not in coop. There is still ONLY one capital island! Just like in Crown Falls. Make it dynamic or with instances. But not only ONE big island… thats a big fail in the design for a multiplayer game!

  10. H Humility925 November 24, 2022

    Thank you Anno Team! That’s awesome, but question about campaign mode, would you guy would look into Prosperity and La Isla to do some upgrade? It’s kind of odd that Queen want Prosperity back, but Prosperity gave little limited resource and space as La Isla while rest of normal island proved great resource/space, why would Queen want to retake Prosperity when there is lot of better island, and what about those burning town island in new world as well (this is campaign mode, of course) Burned town island, and many little island for quest take lot of space. would Anno Team look into upgrade those Prosperity and La Isla, even chance to rebuild those burned town island?

  11. v victordanescu November 24, 2022

    Liebes Anno-Team,

    danke für die Einbindung der Community in die (Weiter-)Entwicklung des Spiels über die letzten Jahre. Das hat aus Anno 1800 ein vielsichtiges, superkomplexes Spiel, und zu meinem Lieblingsspiel aus der Reihe. Ich hätte auch nichts gegen eine Session 5 – Fortsetzung, dann mit einer asiatischen Region. Wenn ein Spiel bewiesen hat dass man es mit DLCs sinnvoll gewinnbringend für das Spielerlebnis erweitert kann, und es sich dennoch trotz seines Umfanges einen runden Eindruck beim Spielen hinterlässt, dann Anno 1800. Kompliment dafür, ich wünschte eure “Siedler”-Kollegen aus demselben Stall würde sich Feedback der Spieler genauso zu Herzen nehmen, dann hätte ich für das Spiel noch Hoffnung.

    Es wäre schön, wenn der Lufthafen in Enbesa, mit dem ganzen Modulen ebenfalls mit einem Update Einzug halten würde;)

    Macht weiter so, dann werde ich auch kommende Anno 1800 DLCs kaufen, falls es eine Session 5 geben sollte

  12. s smisma November 24, 2022

    Query. Don’t you also want to do the option of creating a dam at Crown Falls?

  13. h hundreAd1800 November 24, 2022

    shouldn’t the new world expand to the WEST rather than on both northern borders? north-east leads to other regions, thus elongating the distance will ruin all shipping lane timings

  14. F FHackner November 24, 2022

    Are you guys seriously not considering putting the lifestyle needs on a tab between basic and luxury needs? :p

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