• Union Update

Union Update: Our Union vote has a winner!

  • 25.09.2017

“Our big Anno Union election has been a thrilling race between our candidates. Union members across the world made their voices heard to choose a Union representative who should venture forth to expand the Unions influence and settle in new waters. Representing the Unions voice is a matter of responsibility and all candidates gave their best to convince members that their vision and ideas will be the road to success and in the best interests for the whole Union.”

Thanks for your participation in our first big vote from the whole development team!

Today marks the announcement of the winner of our big Anno Union NPC character vote. Thousands of Union members gave their voice but a strong lead made it easy for us to declare the winner.

While the Anarchist had new and revolutionary ideas of change to progress in the 19th century, it was the visionary ideas and the open mindset, which convinced the Union that Artur Gasparov, fittingly called “The Visionary”, was the right candidate for the task. Dr. Hugo Mercier, the Anarchist, was able to secure a respectable second place with his radical ideas while his direct opponent, Silas Grendel, found great support for his ruthless and oppressive plans for the coming century.  Following in midfield was the nebulous Florence Morel with her unconventional theories and weird tales, which got her quite a following. While one of the dev team’s favorites, she was not able to secure a win but will not be forgotten by all her fans and supporters.
The diplomat Hafsa Sultan as well as the gambler Jake Turner lagged far behind their contestants.

So what is next?
There is no time for the Visionary to enjoy his moment of success as we will move ahead to prepare him for the next step. There is still a lot to do for us in order to implement him into the game, such as final artwork, 3D model, animations and a fitting voice. We will provide you frequent updates about his development, so that can partake in his journey from start to finish.

We know that you are all curious about the next vote. We will not announce the next vote today but keep a keen eye on this very website, as we will reveal the next topic very soon. This time, we decided to make your voice count from the very first steps, so keep an eye out for a future DevBlog.

QnA Part:

AegriMiles: I wish possibilities to translate the game to other languages (not everybody understand english or german). Here in Hungary there are lot of people who couldn’t play the lasts Anno because lack of translation possibilities.

Basti: Translation will come at a later stage and we cannot confirm any localized territories as of yet. We will share details when we can confirm localized territories.

OneklickLP: How are things with the harbor? It looks pretty rigid in the video, will we be able to build/place it on our own like in 1404/2070?

Basti: Many Union members are curious how much freedom in placement of the harbor they will actually have. To clarify that, let us have a look at the placement system:

Please keep in mind that this is not the final version how it will appear and be usable in the game. While you see some empty gaps, you will be able to place the harbor smoothly on the spot, which fits it best in your opinion.

MellamoEjooo: Are there any details about the music yet? I hope you will add some sentences like “Your citizens starving!” “Your shipyard finished a ship” “You are running low on tobacco” …. 😀 Good old times!

Basti: Music, ambient sounds and voice lines are an incredibly important part to immerse you in the world of Anno. We got many comments about audio and the music score of Anno 1800 and decided that we will give that topic a highlight in future DevBlogs. Speaking about voice lines, Artur will get, as many other NPC’s, his own fully dubbed voice lines.

 

Marc_The_Miner
How much time do we have before you close the screenshot contest for the streaming room?

Basti: There is no ETA right now; we want to see how many screenshots and other art we get. Especially as some of you want to go nuts and create crazy screenshots or pictures made out of buildings. We are currently thinking about just leaving the thread open, as we might want to swap artwork or expand the decoration in the streaming room over time.

Soulridder
In the 19th century lots of factories got build, which leads me to wonder wether all that grey smoke will be there in Anno 1800. I’m thinking there a bit of the Tycoons of Anno 2070 with their grey islands and all of the smoke there produces. I guess having all of the smoke and maybe even something similar to the effect the Tycoons causes on their islands with all those factories would definitely give you more of the feeling that you are in the 19th century. So will this be in Anno 1800???

Basti: Heavy industry and coal based production chains are a major factor of that 19th century feeling. It will be represented in the game, so I would not recommend building your factories in the center of your city. But as Matt described in the last DevBlog, we want to show the other side of the coin but not force players into a specific playstyle or moral decisions which could lead to skip an important feature of the game. More freedom and less restriction is our goal in Anno 1800.

Swimming-Paul
I am very happy with the artwork included in this post! It´s not only extremely beautiful, but is it also hinting that we´re going to be able to produce bicycles in the game?

Basti: Concept art is an important part of the research process. That does not necessarily mean that all ideas and concepts make it into the game. But there are also various ways that certain elements of the 19th century are represented in Anno 1800, if not as a production chain than maybe as a part of the living and breathing world, as an animation or graphic in the game.

Comments

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26 Comments
  1. n nicesocks

    As someone who has only read this now… I hope we see the remaining four make it for future content. Perhaps if the game sells well they could be a small DLC? Then again, people rail against such concepts, so if a larger expansion makes room for the gambler, the occulist, the diplomat, and the gangster; well, I’d happily get it (regardless if it’s just a DLC or if it’s part of a larger expansion).

  2. r ruuti0

    I would hoped that Mobster win, but Visionary wasn’t bad choice either!

    Lets hope we see Mobster still later! 🙂

  3. G GalaXionZer0

    Making the game easily modable would both solve the localization issue and give the game much more potential. Something akin to the Steam Workshop is absolutely vital for a game like this. Paradox’s games especially have benefited from it in a way that would be wonderful to see in Anno 1800.

  4. s stylisticsagi

    Will there be a workforce like 2205?
    Will there be factions like 2070?
    Will 1800 try to increase player interaction with either ai players or multiplayer players in both negative and positive ways?
    Any other information is always welcome for the suggestion section on the union forum.
    p.s. keep up the good work!

  5. j joserdkillo

    one question, Anno 1800 is coming out this winter or next winter

    • A Anno Community Team

      The ships will weigh anchor by the end of 2018.

  6. B BlueBreath

    I still hope that the mobster will come in eventually, every game needs a bad guy or more 🙂

  7. A Arkenophas

    Waiting for the next survey 🙂 What kind of other survey could you do ? I don’t think you can make vote people on a lot of subject except NPC’s ^^

    • A Anno Community Team

      What kind of things would you like to see in a survey?

      • A Arkenophas

        Aoutch, hard to say x) Maybe nations, monuments, innovations, maybe great events of this century, I don’t really know ^^

      • M Mendahor

        I think many of unionners are not new to Anno, so maybe you could ask us about the difficulty ?

        Where do you except the most to find difficulty ?
        – I want more production chains
        – I want more complex production chains with more resources to transform in each chain
        – I want more placing difficulty (smaller islands and/or bigger buildings)
        – I want resource repartition on the islands to require me to colonnize more islands (or trade) to complete a chain
        – I want the trading routes to be regularly disturbed (ships randomly destroyed by monsters/storms/…)
        – I want less income resources
        – I want more required building in my cities (firestation to prevent fire, hospitals to prevent epidemics, …)
        – I don’t want any difficulty, let me build alone
        – Other (please explain in commentary)”

        • A Arkenophas

          Maybe more complex productions chain and trading routes regularly disturbed. I think production chains are enough complex (for my little brain), after, that depend of what we want to produce (a product, as the game will be in an historical period, will need a lot of resources). And trading routes because it’s an additional problem wich is necessary to pay attention (I said I have a little brain).
          After, I don’t want an easy game, I wasted a lot of my social life (if there has be already one ^^ ) on ANNO, and I appreciate all the new developements, as if it’s to make us angry. If you add some difficulties, that increase the challenge !

          PS: I laught when I saw your “let me build alone” ^^

  8. f famirp

    Farope: to see if possible the translation into Spanish as previous anno

  9. O Olinater

    I actually voted for the gambler because he might have enabled me to invest in his businesses and make huge profits or huge losses (like Hector in 2070). I imagined him to be a somewhat more flashy and more dark personality than Giacomo Garibaldi (1404), but it seems I have to take my losses. 😉
    I’m very happy to see that I have, yet again, complete freedom the choose where to build my harbour. It somehow bothered me more than I like to admit that I wasn’t able to choose were to build my harbour in 2205. It really adds up in making every island you settle unique (also from other players).

    A question I have on which I’m not sure in what topic to put it in (so I’ll just put it in here 🙂 ) is whether you guys plan to make more than one faction in the game. I would personally love to see the French (with French style buildings), English (English style buildings) and German factions, and maybe Russian or Dutch (I’m from the Netherlands). With every faction having the same base gameplay mechanics but each one of them has some unique attributes that make each faction a little different from one another. Things like how they deal with social unrest. Or have slightly different (military) units at their disposal.

    • A Arkenophas

      Damn, you was faster than me :/ Different factions could be really more immersive (maybe an non-European factions, who know ? ). I don’t know if different units is too much, with the globalization, I suppose they had the same innovation

      • i iruet

        I would like to see those factions, maybe even “trapgevelhuisjes”

        And feel free to join our community discord (https://discord.gg/UcU9hCN), it’s fun overthere 🙂

  10. b banan1996.1996

    I am really disappointed when I see people asking a question which has been already answered. “With that said, we would like to introduce you to six interesting candidates for our LAST AI character for our NPC roster, and it is up to you who will make it on the ship when Anno1800 sets sail.” – a quote from the article “Vote your favorite NPC into the game!”

    • B BB_CR

      That’s an “A” for you right there 🙂

  11. p palemale53

    I don’t understand the purpose of this vote. I understand that you will now develop the Visionary. I expect there to be about half a dozen NPCs at the end of the day, as there were in the earlier Annos. Was this vote for one NPC role? Will you consider some of the runners-up, or will there be a new set to fulfil another role, and so forth?

    I am not entirely happy with this process because I don’t understand what you are trying to achieve.

  12. P Prince_Diego

    Excited to see how the character develops! One question, will all NPC characters be voted on to be included or will you include more characters than the ones voted upon here?

    • C CorsairUplay

      There will be more than the characters voted on here. This was just between final suggestions

    • B BB_CR

      This will be the only character the community gets to vote now- the rest of the AI cast was decided by our designers.

      • i iruet

        Does that mean that only this one NPC from this entire vote will make it into the game at this point in time?

        If yes, I would like to add that that feels like a loss for me (would love to see all of them ingame) 🙂

        • B BB_CR

          Welcome to game development! Sadly, making hard decisions is part and parcel of game development, as we have to work within the constraints of budget, manpower and time.

          So the Visionary is the only one of these characters that will definitely make it into the game.

          • i iruet

            Thank you for ur reply 🙂

            I understand why, but as said above, would have loved to see all of them 🙂

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