This week will see not only the release of the first major DLC for Anno 117, but also a major update. We now have the first patch notes.
On April 23, Promise of the Volcano—the first truly extensive DLC for Anno 117—will be released, bringing the largest island in the series’ history into the game. But you won’t have to spend any money that day to experience something new in your Roman island paradise.That’s because the major 1.5 update will also be released on the same day.
Ubisoft Mainz has now revealed the improvements fans of the city-building game can expect.These include a whole host of highlights! That’s because the developers are tackling several issues that fans have been complaining about since release.
The Highlights of Patch 1.5
Passive Trade
Early on, players of Anno 117 noticed that passive trade is quite powerful in this building game. This made it possible to almost completely outsource an island’s supply chain—which wasn’t actually the intended purpose. That is likely to change with Update 1.5. The following changes will be made to passive trade:
- Rivals/merchants will now only sell goods they actually have in stock.
- Rivals now pay the same price as merchants.
- Rivals/merchants will have a smaller trade budget starting in the middle of the game.
- Goods will have higher trade prices.
This should make it harder to shift the supply of goods to passive trade. However, it is still possible to do so. You can switch between the new and old trade balancing in the options.
The Word Filter
Another well-known annoyance in Anno 117 was the word filter. On social media, the community often made fun of everything that gets filtered out in the game. After all, Latin terms were particularly affected, even though the game is supposed to be set in ancient Rome.
This extremely strict word filter is now being drastically relaxed. The solution is that the filter no longer applies to you personally. So you can give your islands and characters the most obscene names you can think of. They won’t be hidden from you anymore. However, they will be hidden from everyone else in a multiplayer session.
Trade Routes
The trade routes menu also caused frustration among players after release. This was mainly because some features that were present in Anno 1800 were missing here. The new patch addresses this and adds several new options:
- You can assign trade routes directly when creating a group.
- You can rename trade routes directly when creating them.
- You can fill all empty slots on a ship with the same goods by pressing the Shift key.
- When you hover your mouse over a route, the ship’s route is immediately displayed on the minimap.
- In the trade route menu, the map not only shows how many goods are available on each island, but also how many production buildings are operating there.
What Else Is Changing
This is just a first look at the entire update so far. The full patch notes are scheduled to follow on Wednesday. However, we know a few more details that are intended to improve the game:
- Amphitheater events can now take place simultaneously on multiple islands.
- You can disable weather effects like rain in Albion—even the ash rain from Volcanic Promise can be turned off.
- Defeating one of the pirates now rewards you with reputation with the Emperor.
- The resource markers at the bottom of the screen can be removed or replaced.
The update will be released on April 23 at 11 a.m. – along with the DLC. Fans seem very satisfied with this initial preview. No wonder, since the team is addressing community feedback very specifically with this patch. What’s still missing is a list of which bugs the update fixes. But here, too, the developers promise a lot of progress.
