what are the chances of following the Impressions Games route? Caesar 3 -> Pharaoh/Cleopatra
anno 117 -> some egyptian themed scenario?
Egypt's importance for the real Roman Empire was massive. That would be a great place to explore thematically in Anno as well, indeed.
/u/Ubi-Thorlof you were in this call with Volty - do you know if it was intentional or not 😄?
I wish that had been planned... but no, Basti is just bad at hiding spoilers.
This is beautiful work!
So, first of all: no, the "number 9 rule" is not an issue, since it's really just a joke (which we keep if we can) and not a rule. We said before that this would not stop us from making a game in a setting we would like to explore.
However, 1944 or WW2 in general as an era is not something we're very keen on. It's a very dark time, not many positives here. That does not fit with our more light-hearted approach to theme and setting.
Quoting from your original post: "it would have the largest sea battles, coolest ships, imperialism, multiple theaters, resource wars, amphibious assaults.." it also sounds to me like you're looking for a different type of game. Wars and combat are a part of Anno, but would never be a major focus. So, that's another point against the setting. It's not really a time of building, but rather one of destruction.
Highly unlikely that we'll ever create an Anno game in such a setting.
Male Monarchs were also just born into power
Eh... yes and no, especially when looking at the Roman Empire, which did not have consistent dynastic systems. Either way, that's besides the point since we were not talking about monarchs.
But again, that paragraph by Matt in the DevBlog very much references women's societal role in Ancient Rome and how society viewed them. And here we have some larger differences to e.g. society today and might take some liberties here and there to have female characters play a bigger role and do things they would not be able to do (or highly unlikely) in our world's Roman history.
The point about female characters is interesting, since even in history there were plenty of women who wielded power in antiquity (especially on the local civic level Anno takes place on).
For instance, Queen Artemisia, Artemisa II and Ada. Or Alexander's female relatives (including Kleopatra and Olympias). And later on Zenobia. Plus the direct power, and civic and cultural influence wielded by Ptolemaic royal women.
Plus the many female benefactors who sponsored civic works (and whose number increased in the Imperial Roman period- including figures such as Nikareta of Thespiai and Phile of Priene). So I don't think its even that historical inaccurate.
Of course there were female individuals who wielded power - including Rome (which should be the focus here to not mix multiple time periods and cultures). However, as you also pointed out in your list, it's almost exclusively women born into a position of power (dynasty) or wives or mothers of kings/emperors.
More an exception than a rule - and it might be that we'll bring in some more of those exceptions in Anno 117. With all the implications this will bring.
“If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
“They make a desert and call it peace.”
—Tacitus, Roman Historian, quoting the Scottish chieftain Calgacus.
As announced with the reveal of Anno 117: Pax Romana just a few weeks ago, we’ll be taking you on a journey through the development of our game over the months until release.
Today, we’ve asked our Senior Game Writer, Matt Cook, to lead us through the world of Anno 117 and how we create Anno worlds inspired by ancient history.
... Read moreHey there! Indeed, we did not send out any confirmation mails for the entries, but as long as you didn't receive an error message from your email provider and also stuck to the guidelines we provided, you can be sure it made its way onto our desks :)
On the voting: we'll likely move the voting to later this week - and instead have a DevBlog this afternoon - as we need a little bit more time to decide for our favourites.
There are many awesome entries, though, with a wide variety of ideas. We had a lot of fun so far.
There seems to be an issue with the website currently. I also noticed a long commentary with questions missing, which was posted yesterday underneath the German version of the article about the Union event - today it is gone, no comments.
You also can't access the newest blog posts without direct links, since they don't show up in the subpage.
I also noticed that tags seem not to be set correctly for the most recent blog posts either, since you can't sort for them (noticeably the statue creation contest, which does not show up in the contest filter.
They really should take a deeper look into it, I feel.
Thank you, Wuslwiz and MGuenny.
Can't reproduce that myself (tried multiple browsers), I can see all blogs and comments, but will forward to the devs to investigate.
The tags are on me, I'll adjust them, thanks for pointing that out.
ARE YOU ALWAYS LURKING OR WHAT, OLI
Maybe?
I live in former Roman lands (like a ton of European peeps) but if I had made a naked statue they would have told me for the bazillionth time that "this is family game" and so on x)
And for good reason
Hey all, little bit of (kinda) self-promotion here, but we're organising a community event in Cologne in August!
In addition to the opportunity to meet fellow members of the Anno community, you can also meet (some of) us as we have some presentations prepared by e.g. Lead Game Designer Andrea and Senior Game Writer Matt.
We'd love to meet of you there - more info here: https://www.anno-union.com/union-update-anno-community-event-2024/
Read more External link →We got so many cool statue concepts, thank you to everyone!
We're going through them this week with the Art Team, voting on the Anno Union will start next week.
Salvete Anno Community,
We’re excited to announce Anno’s first Community Event!
On Wednesday, August 21st, we’ll be holding the very first Anno Builder Event in Cologne, Germany – and we’re inviting you to join us at the Roonburg (Roonstraße 33, 50674 Cologne) for an Anno-themed evening. The event will start at 6pm and last until 11pm.
There will be food and drinks as well as dev panels with:
Special guest: Owen Phillips, the artist blacksmith, will share his experience on what it was like crafting ...
Read moreExtreeemely impressive - has been shared with the rest of the team as well.
And hey, you already "predicted" the two starting provinces - even if they're different provinces. Very fun read!
The efforts to grab all the different assets alone and making those slides look so clear: great stuff.
Well, my post was a personal opinion. About the eldritch pack, in the poll, they described it with gothic scary atmosphere. A haunted tree, that wobbles every second doesn't fit that vibe, imo. I just wanted a nice victorian graveyard like on bright sands, back then. The steampunk dlc was never part of polls.
And yeah, the community is all to hungry for additional content, because the game is good. Still this doesn't mean, everything pumped out is good content. In particular the SPcdlc is very niche and just doesn't well into the whole theme of the game. I see that old nate leans into it, but for me it's the first cosmetic set that doesn't fit at all. Again, personal opinion. Everybody can and will buy the stuff that he wants. For me, i stand with the devs, that mechanicwise 1800 is overdone and from my pov cosmeticwise leaning towards the ubi flashy shiny stuff(assassins creed cosmetics for example)
Totally fair, the CDLC specifically can be very much up to personal taste.
While the first ones much more focused on providing a mostly authentic bunch of ornaments and/or skins, we really wanted to try out some slightly crazier things now at the end of Anno 1800's development cycle.
That's how the Eldritch and Steampunk Pack came to be: let's see what our players say to slightly wilder cosmetics. If they don't perform well, we also learned something.
What’s this, a new Anno logo? Have they now really abandoned the good old wooden plank from the days of Anno 1404?
Well, we used the last year(s) to not only refine our vision for Anno 117: Pax Romana and start the development of the game, but also to think about Anno as a brand overall and its visual identity. Today, let’s talk about branding with Haye Anderson, our Brand Director.
Note: If you’ve watched our livestream on July 2nd (VOD can be found here) you will have already heard most of this. But we wanted to also have this information here on the Anno Union – and share the Behind the Scenes video with you!
... Read moreThey are all digital paintings. Some are by Karakter (Greg Rutkowski), as has already been pointed out, many others are from our internal Art team.
Read moreCould you please fix the Steam version of Season Passes so that it correctly shows that you own the DLCs?
Currently, the Steam packages for Season Passes are set incorrectly, causing the DLCs included in the Season Pass to show as unowned.
For example, Season 1 Pass includes The Sunken Treasure, Botanica, and The Passage, but because the Season 1 Pass package was set up incorrectly and doesn't include the apps for those DLCs, Steam thinks you don't own the DLCs included in the Season 1 Pass.
As you can see in this image, some DLCs are showing up as not owned, despite the fact that I own all of the season passes and cosmetic bundles.
Affected Season Passes:
Thank you for highlighting this, will forward this to our Store Team to investigate.
Animation as in Cut-scenes? or animated objects like Nate's windmill or flags flapping?
More related to the two things I mentioned: feedback units and animals. We might be able to look at animated objects as well, but it wouldn't be the focus.
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