Hey Anno Community,
The day is finally here: The Anno History Collection is setting sail, inviting bright-eyed newcomers and nostalgic veterans alike to (re)discover the first four classic games in the Anno series with new features like support for glorious 4K.
We previously detailed each of the four History Edition releases including their improvements and the respective game’s place in Anno history, which you can find here:
Read moreHey Anno Community,
good things come to those who wait, and you have certainly been patient whenever we discussed our plans for updates to the Union. That is why we are delighted to say that we are currently in the preparations of giving our venerable Anno Union website a small facelift, and what better opportunity to do so than alongside the release of the Anno History Collection this week!
As we work on some final steps, it is possible that you may run into some intermittent issues reaching the Union, for which we apologize. It is also possible that any comments you leave now may not make the jump over the new version. Rest assured that all previous blogs and your comments since launch will of course also be available on the new Union.
See you soon!
Hey Anno Community,
Welcome to the fourth and final part of our series of DevBlogs covering the four classic Anno games included in the upcoming Anno History Collection. This time, we will cover perennial fan-favorite Anno 1404. If you did not get a chance to check out our previous three blogs yet, we would encourage you to do so before reading on (especially the first one):
Read moreGame Update 8.1 will be released June 17 at 2pm CEST/ 8am EST/ 5am PST. The download will be roughly 900MB.
We have reverted the changes made to New World pricing with Game Update 8. These changes were part of some balancing experiments we did internally to bring the pricing of goods across different sessions more in line and were not intended to ship as part of Game Update 8 (though we ...
Read moreHey Anno Community,
Welcome to the third part of our series of DevBlogs covering the four classic Anno games included in the upcoming Anno History Collection. This time, we will cover Anno 1503, and a black mark on the Anno franchise that we are incredibly happy to finally erase after 18 years! If you did not get a chance to check out our two previous blogs yet, we would encourage you to do so before reading on (especially the first one):
Read moreHey Anno Community,
Welcome back to part two of our in-depth look at the games included in this month’s Anno History Collection. Today we want to tackle Anno 1701, which is a special game to the team in many ways. But before we get into the specifics of 1701, let us recap our general approach to the Anno History Collection and the improvements that have been made across the board on all the games. Should you have missed our ...
Read moreHey Anno Community,
Last month we announced the release of the Anno History Collection arriving June 25, which will update the beloved first four games in the Anno series to take better advantage of modern PCs, while maintaining the gameplay we all know and love. As promised at the announcement, we will have a separate blog post for each of the games to not only talk about the new improvements, but also about the games and their place in Anno history themselves. As this is the first blog, we will take this opportunity to talk a bit about the History Collection in general, before diving right into Anno 1602 History Edition!
Our goals for the History Collection
The first question that came to many minds upon our announcement was of course “why?”, so let us start with that. As you know, Anno 1800 has been a huge success for the team, becoming the fastest-selling Anno game right out of the gate, and attracting more than a million players w...
Read moreHey Anno Community,
today we are very excited to share the announcement of the upcoming Anno History Collection with you all. With this collection, we are updating the first four Anno games (1602, 1503, 1701 and 1404) to take advantage of modern PCs, while keeping the classic gameplay we all know and love. Among the more notable improvements to all four games are:
In an office environment “working in silos” seems rarely a good thing, but out there among the buttercups and daisies these silver sentinels must surely be a reassuring sight to a farmer. Though the word comes to us from ancient Greek, Levantine silos for holding grain have been found dating back over 7000 years. The modern farm silo appears to have been the brainchild of one Fred Hatch, who in 1876, finally managed to convince his old man to let him build a grain store in the barn for green corn fodder. Hatch’s cows quickly became inflated distortions of themselves, living out the winter in luxury, and becoming the envy of any neighboring farmers.
Imagine then the effect, at a similar time, of the “portable” tractor, putt-putting its way nonchalantly about the place, undercutting millennia of peasant toil and hardship. Steam-driven, petrol-driven it didn’t seem to matter; the efficiencies were great, and drastic of course in their implications for Frank and...
Read moreHey Anno Community,
while it is still a while to go before Bright Harvest will further expand your Anno 1800 experience, we want to take this opportunity to already make you aware of two important changes that will happen at the same time as part of Game Update 8.
Changes to map generation and seeds
As some of you may know, there is an issue during map creation that can result in maps not having certain fertilities, which players would sometimes only realize after playing for some time, or when reaching the New World. This can make for a frustrating experience, so we are making some changes to the map generation to ensure that every fertility will be present in newly generated maps.
And while we are at it, we will also tackle the issue of some maps having significantly more copper than zinc mines, despite game balance dictating that you should always have both resource nodes at a 1:1 ratio. With Game Update 8, this will be ...
Read moreRelease: May 8, 12pm CEST/ 6am EST/ 3am PST
Download: 1GB
Release Notes
Fixed several potential game crashes.
Fixed several issues that could cause Desync errors in multiplayer.
Fixed an issue that could result in the game not starting (or crashing immediately after starting) if started in offline mode, or without an internet connection present.
Fixed some UI issues that could appear in DirectX 12 mode.
Fixed an issue with carts deleting their loaded goods if they were unable to unload them at their destination building.
Solved an issue where hovering the mouse over tiles such as ornaments or farm fields could cause its position to appear offset, making it harder to use.
Hey Anno Community,
it has been a while since we ran our last Anno Union vote— high time to do so again! This time we want your input on the topic of our next Cosmetic DLC Pack, giving you the choice between three themes. Once the voting ends, we will begin development on the new content, which we plan to cover with blogs on the Anno Union to show you how the Union’s chosen topic comes to live.
So, what exactly is a “Cosmetic Pack”? As you know, we released the Holiday Pack last December, giving you the option to turn your cities festive with an assortment of Christmas-themed ornaments such as Christmas Market stalls. While many of you loved the Pack, we also received a lot of feedback that if we were to do another such pack, you would prefer to have something a bit more general that you can proudly display in your empire all-year-round. You also provided us with many suggestions about potential themes, which inspired us to turn the decision about the next pack...
Read moreGame Update 7.2 is now available, with a download size of roughly 1GB.
Further improved game stability by fixing several potential crashes and desyncs.
Improved reporting on desync errors.
Note
While Game Update 7.2 fixes several issues that could cause crashes and desyncs, we cannot, in the interest of transparency, promise that it will fix these...
Hey Anno Community,
Time sure flies! Has it already been a year since you all first joined us in the age of the industrial revolution? Turns out the answer is yes, and what an incredible year it has been for all of us. So, let us look back at the first year of Anno 1800 together!
April 16, 2019: Anno 1800, the seventh game in the equally beloved and long-running Anno series is released, inviting PC gamers worldwide into the age of the industrial revolution
April 29, 2019: Thanks to all of you, we can announce that Anno 1800 is officially the fastest selling game in the franchise’s 20-year history! Thanks everyone 
June 5, 2019: “The Anarchist” Dr. Hugo Mercier joins the party as the first new content release for the game, including a new NPC opponent (or ally), new quests and items. Alongside Hug...
Read moreHi Anno Community,
we are currently working on our next Game Update, 7.1, to tackle many of the issues that you have been reporting to us in the past week. We are currently testing Game Update 7.1, and will share details on the release timing with you all in the coming days. Until then, stay safe!
Update: We are currently expecting to release Game Update 7.1 today, Friday April 3rd, at 2pm CET. The download will be roughly 1GB.
Game Update 7.1 Release Notes
An issue with disappearing infotips while the right-click menu was pinned has been fixed.
An issue that could cause ships to remain stuck in transition mode after entering a session while new DLC was being activated has been fixed.
Fixed a multiplayer desync caused by selecting a blueprint building while owning a Palace.
Fixed an issue with certain menu windows (such as transfers, options etc.) preventing players from scro...
Read more“Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail,” wrote poet John Donne, an idea many a royal and tyrant appear to have refigured over the centuries, constructing extravagant and self-aggrandizing Palaces as an extension of the self— a demonstration of the power and freedom of divine privilege. The masses would look on in awe of what beauty and grandeur was possible, while they themselves grew ever more miniscule.
By constructing vast and lavishly-adorned palaces, rulers presumed they had the personal heft and prestige to fill the yawning emptiness within. Their gold oozed along every rim and chamfer, their Objet d’art cluttered the mantelpieces, and the oil paintings of their illustrious ancestors gussied up the walls. But mere appearance of power and status will never be enough.
Any such seat of power must also have some connection, no matter how moot, to the important business of state. Such an immoderate edifice as a palace must be more t...
Read moreHey Anno Community (bet you missed hearing those words over and over, eh?), we hope you enjoyed your first glimpse at Season 2 as much as we did! It is safe to say that your enthusiasm for the reveal has fueled the team since, as we are busy putting the finishing touches on Seat of Power, our first Season 2 DLC which is already releasing on March 24.
As we announced during the Season 2 reveal stream, every DLC will once again be accompanied by a free Game Update to improve the game for all our players, regardless of whether they have bought the DLC. This will start with Game Update 7, coming on March 24. However, before we share the full release notes with you closer to release, we wanted to make you aware of a few important balancing changes that may affect your cities, so you have enough time to prepare before the update hits!
So, let us talk about balancing. Seeing how Anno is mostly played as a single-player game where players spend dozens (if not hundreds) ...
Read morePrior to the release of The Passage last December, we excitedly announced our plan to deliver even more Anno 1800 to our 1 million+ pioneers of industrial revolution throughout 2020. This presents a unique opportunity for the Anno team, as it means that Anno 1800 will be receiving more postlaunch support than any previous game in the series! In the past, development of content has ended a year or so after the release of an Anno game, with the team moving on to the next title. With ...
Read more
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