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DevBlog: Land of Lions – Scholars and Research

To the hallowed motto of the Old World’s greatest university, « Ardua Veritatem » many a young, aspiring Scholar has amended their own witty epigraph, one of which remains, etched in pale strokes, to this day: « Ex sapientia immodus ». Through hardships, truth; from wisdom, immoderation.


Though these ambitions have never failed to leave a trail of flustered supervisors and browknitted deans in their wake, there is no arguing the spirited genius of the countless young prodigies whose tireless labour and many sleepless nights consistently push against the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding for the greater glory of Science – and a modicum of personal glory, naturally.


Scholars are infused with the passions and trailblazing fire of youth. To live, to dream, perchance to inspire or set a trend, whether in the quest for knowledge or that for a fashionably dandified wardrobe – these are the waters within which a Scholar’s heart blooms. To these fascinations and wild ambitions, they have sacrificed much, leaving families, friends and lovers behind, in their distant homelands, to heed the call of that Magna Mater – Science!


Easily smitten with novelty and extravagance, Scholars are nonetheless remarkably hard workers, readily expending much of their time and energy to the pursuit of the tantalizingly obscure minutia of wisdom and progress, working together towards a brighter, better and sharper-dressed future.

Hello once more, dear Anno Community!

In this last DevBlog for Land of Lions we will focus on the influence of Enbesa on the Old World.

If you have missed any of our previous blogs, have a look at the dedicated ones for:

  1. The Shepherd population tier and the irrigation system
  1. The Elder population tier and the story of “Land of Lions”

Already in our overview blog we mentioned that besides creating a new world for you to explore and a new story for you to discover, we also wanted to incorporate a specific point of feedback we received from you after the release of “The Passage”: Having closer connections between the different sessions to offer more than just a one-region-specific challenge.

With “Land of Lions”, this comes in the form of the Scholars.

When you’ve upgraded your first Shepherd Residences and the initial Elders are moving in, you unlock the last new feature of the “Land of Lions” DLC: With an influx of students from Enbesa and the rest of the globe to the Old World, first the construction of the Research Institute (requires 300 Elders) and later housing for the new Scholar population tier (requires 1500 Elders) is unlocked.

The Research Institute is a new, 3 stage monument that can be constructed once per player in either the Old World or Cape Trelawney. It is a place of study and research, a place where your eager scholars analyze artefacts and plants – and where they come up with technological breakthroughs known as Major Discoveries.

Aside from requiring plenty of workforce for the construction, you will need large amounts of building material – but will be rewarded in turn with a beautiful new landmark for your city which in addition unlocks the new research feature, allowing your brightest minds to engage in what they like doing most: science!

Before we jump into the details of the research system, let’s first take a look at the Scholars.

Being a separate population tier, they will require their own appropriate housing. Scholar Residences have a size of 4×4 fields and – due to their love for academic research – require immediate access to a university. Due to their larger size, these residences also house significantly more people (120 eager students of science) than, for example, an Investor residence does.

It takes time and effort to build up a reputation as a Research Institution. Scholar Residences are tied to permits: Only by acquiring more permits via research in the Institute will you be able to build more of them and be able to invite more Scholars. This will also open up further research options, and unlock additional needs for Scholars.

 

The scholars represent a typical international student: hailing from distant Enbesa and other parts of the world, but living in the Old World. The duality is reflected in the Scholar’s needs: They will ask for fancy Old World clothes, requiring you to build new production chains for Leather Boots and Tailored Suits, as well as increasing your output of Bombin Hats. And while as students they enjoy a social Rum and the convenience of Canned Food, nothing tastes better than a memory of home. Their loved ones in Enbesa will only be too glad to ship Seafood Stew and Hibiscus Tea over to the Old World to assuage any feelings of homesickness.

The Scholars’ keen interest in new technologies and inventions means they also desire gramophones, the newly developed telephones and a cutting-edge new public building: The Radio Tower.

With their needs fulfilled and the construction of the Research Institute finished, your scholars will get to work and generate a constant stream of research points. The more Scholars you have attracted, the faster they accumulate research points and the more research points you can “store”. More advanced research requires points in large quantities, a feat, small research groups simply won’t be able to accomplish.

Another way of acquiring research points is by donating items – for science! The amount of points received depends on the rarity of the respective item.

Researching items and especially Major Discoveries takes time, even for such a talented bunch as your Scholars. To speed things up, you can assign parts of your Engineer workforce – the Scholars’ tutors. Just make sure they’re not needed elsewhere.

 

Now, a variety of exciting research options are opened up to you, providing plenty of advantages for your empire. Let’s go over what kind of options the bright minds in the Institute came up with.

First, the item research. A recurring feedback since the release of Anno 1800 has been the wish for more direct ways to get items for specific purposes. Item crafting with Old Nate in Cape Trelawney and the Artic provide one alternative to purchasing and questing, while the item overview with details about the sources gives you a clearer idea where you need to look for that last missing zoo animal. Game Update 9 will change the number of items offered by AI parties from 8 to 12, which means less re-rolling to get the one you want. Owners of “Land of Lions” will have to live with a small restriction here, though, to balance the option of donating items for research points: Only 20 items can be purchased from a single NPC trader in a 30-min window.

With the Research Institute you can now develop almost any item in the game and this way specifically focus on the ones that make the most sense for your islands and for your overall strategy.  The items have to be discovered and analysed by your researchers first, requiring research points, and you can choose between Cultural Science (Animals, Cultural Items and Plants), Technological Advancements (all kinds of machines and tools) and Talent Development (Specialists).

Secondly, there are the Major Discoveries. These present you with more ways to specialise aspects of your economy, but they also address existing community feedback.

For example, the appropriate research allows you to move Oil Springs and Clay Deposits to another place on the island, change the fertilities to grow hops instead of paprika or change the ore of a mineral deposit to one you need more of. This will help you to further specialise existing islands and e.g. move that one oil spring just in range of the refinery, while also helping with layout creation and city beautification.

Furthermore, via a Research Kit you can directly identify items you already own and then develop them in the Research Institute, while additional Great Eastern Permits allow you to… well, build more of these magnificent ships!

Pier Upgrade Permits let you upgrade existing piers to Advanced Piers, increasing their loading speed and allowing you to specialise them: You can now dedicate these piers to a single type of good which helps you with directing your trading ships to specific places on your coast.

And don’t worry: If you, for example, create a dedicated coffee pier, all other goods on trade routes transporting coffee to your island will of course also be handled by the Advanced Pier.

 

Finally, to continue with the coffee topic from above, there’s something for all coffee lovers on your islands: Modern technology will enable you to produce New World goods in the Old World, by using replacement products. Specifically: You can unlock Advanced Coffee Roasters, Rum Distilleries and Cotton Mills to help you with any shortages.

Running out of space for high quality coffee beans in the New World? Don’t worry, just mix in some locally produced malt coffee – your investors won’t notice!

 

To round off, Land of Lions will of course also bring new item sets for your cultural buildings, for example a Lion (quelle surprise) or a Giant Snail for your zoo. On top of that, there will of course be some region-specific items for Enbesa, to for example boost local production, like the Tea Selector for your Tea production or Flood Gates to increase your pump’s irrigation capacity.

 

All of this will be open for you to explore as part of the “Land of Lions” DLC on October 22nd, available via the Ubisoft Store, Epic Store and Steam.

As usual, we will release a free update alongside the DLC including a bunch of quality of life improvements alongside plenty of bug fixes and tweaks. The full release notes will be posted next week, but if you haven’t done so, you should definitely check out our DevBlog detailing all the improvements of Game Update 9 which we posted a few weeks ago.

Comments

 

 

9 Comments
  1. w waldeberg November 2, 2020

    This is excellent! Now it’s time to think about Australia, Orient or Indian subcontinent based DLC :)!
    I like the idea of being able to set production of items in the old world that come from elsewhere. I would also use ALL staple foods to go against staple food needs regardless of where they are grown or produced.
    Brilliant work, guys!

  2. w wiedehoeft2010 October 20, 2020

    Ich find das DLC zusammen mit dem Update hören sich richtig gut an 🙂

    Der einzige Punkt den ich (noch) vermisse, ist Late-Game-Content, ab Investoren. Wird da auch was kommen im Zuge des DLC?

    Wenn nicht würde ich dafür nochmal einen Forenthread aufmachen 🙂

    • w wiedehoeft2010 October 20, 2020

      Ach so,
      und die KI muss dringend noch überarbeitet werden. Die schweren Gegner verhalten sich viel zu irrational und sind damit viel zu leicht zu besiegen. Vielleicht Content für einen weiteren QoL-Patch 😉

  3. 7 76561198007811622 October 18, 2020

    It all sounds very interesting. Only the “20 items in 30 minutes” restriction feels of.
    I understand the idea behind it (being to keep a limited group of players from ‘gaming’ the system and buying a lot of items just to get research points). But does that warant the limitation of gameplay for all the others?
    Would it not be a better idea to have this restriction only in multiplayer (or even better only as a game option so players can decide themselves if they want this limitation or not)?

  4. C Corazon902017 October 17, 2020

    Ich finde das klingt nach super coolen News!!! Land der Löwen erweitert das Spiel nochmal kräftig.
    V.a. die neue Session sowie das Forschungsinstitut inkl. der Möglichkeit am Ende die Lehmgruben, etc. zu verschieben finde ich super.
    Es gibt nur eine Sache, die mir seit Anfang an in Anno 1800 fehlt, und das ist die Möglichkeit Bäume nachzupflanzen. Damit meine ich nicht die etwas kleineren Bäume, die durch eine Holzfällerhütte wieder nachwachsen, sondern die ursprünglichen Bäume aus dem ursprünglichen Wald. Wenn man die irgendwie noch nachpflanzen könnte, wäre das super. Die Insel-Optik wird schon sehr stark dadurch beeinflusst, wenn man Teile einer Insel umsiedelt und dann das Land nur mit Gras bedeckt ist.

  5. d deepmikoto October 16, 2020

    I can’t believe all the stuff I’m reading! You are bringing so many new and vital game mechanics to the table, I can’t even find appropriate words :D, very exciting times!
    I’m very glad I held off on building on The Cape’s main Island and will be now able to accommodate a fitting layout with all the districts (including scholars!!!)

    Anno Team, as a guy in his early 30s, with 420+ hours of game time (and also a full time job and marriage to juggle :D), I want to say, thank you!

    P.S.
    I can’t help but feel that this update is an “all out” one, giving us, the players, all we could ever want. But then, what’s left? Where do we go from here?
    In other words, I really hope there will be a season 3!

  6. 2 282ea21498504a5c9f2f188d888d782e October 16, 2020

    Великая работа, великих людей!

  7. B Black_Dragon_96 October 16, 2020

    Ok, sorry wenn gleich der erste Kommentar ein negativer ist, aber bei aller Freude über Land der Löwen gibt ed eine Sache die meinen Kopf in Richtung Tischplatte rauschen lässt. Trommelwirbel.
    “Pro Händler können nur bis zu 20 Items in einem Zeitraum von 30 Minuten erworben werden.”
    Echt jetzt? Sorry aber ich verstehe den Sinn nicht. Das macht das Itemgeraffel noch umständlicher und unattraktiver.
    Laut Blog können wir exakt 1 Institut bauen und nach meinem Verständnis genau 1 Projekt pro Durchlauf produzieren was laut Preview Streams diverser Streamer bis zu 1,5 Stunden. Es wäre also schon durch die Zeit die man braucht gebalanced.
    Zumal es komplett das Balancing vor dem Bau des Forschungsinstituts durcheinander haut. Nehmen wir jemanden der also beispielsweise erst die Neue Welt, das Kap Trelawney und die Arktis ausbauen will bevor er nach Enbesa geht. Er wird in der Zahl der Items die er kaufen kann limitiert weil er ein Forschunggebäude nutzen “kann”, welches er noch gar nicht gebaut hat.
    Noch dazu geht es komplett entgegen der Änderung der Zahl der gezeigten Items.
    Weniger würfeln dafür länger warten.
    Naja mal schauen wie das bei den anderen Spielern ankommt.

    • B Black_Dragon_96 October 16, 2020

      Whoops. How exactly did I land on the english Union after logging in on the German one?

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