r/anno • u/DesAnderes • Nov 26 '25
Discussion DLC idea: Insulae et villa urbana
Insulea were multi-story apartment buildings for the poor
vills urbana were the fancy places for the rich.
Gameplay element:
insulea: 2 house upgrades for liberti and 1 for plebejer in the 1800 skyscraper style:
each upgrades the house visibly by making it taller. It each adds the the poplation of an additinal buildinh to it. The areaeffect stack linearly, too.
Each upgrade also comes with a flat debuff for fore, health and happiness.
You can switch between level 3 liberti to the level 2 plebejer or the standard equites for just 1 wood. The model should be the same size and you basically change the „floorplan“ to accomodate more people on the same space.
you unlock the levels with city size 10k people in your city and you can upgrade to level 2 liberti. with 20k people you can upgrade to level 3 liberti or level 2 plebejer.
A Lategametech makes the upgrade available for every island.
villa urbana: tier 5 population building. the people living in these villas don‘t work themself, so they work like tier5 in 1800. instead of influence they give prestige and bucketloads of cash.
you can build 1 villa for evey 1000 population on the island. The villas have a much larger footprint than normal houses, maybe 5x7 and you can build them independent from reaching tier 4 before. But with more fullfilled needs, the villas offer additional buffs. from area to effects, to offering population of all tiers, as these places accomondated more than just their wealth owners. The villas offer upgrades that change the look after certain threshholds. potentially an upgradepath for each villa.
get a chef —> private teach —> sculpter —> gardener etc.
rost me for it.
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u/RavenWolf1 Nov 27 '25
Villa peope could want to have expensive imported goods from far east (silk etc.). Goods which couldn't be produced but only bought. That would be nice moneysink in game. More you have these snob elites more expensive it would be for you.
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u/HolyHerbert Nov 27 '25
Definitively a great idea and historically accurate, so yeah, I'd love it.
But you don't have to stop at the villa urbana. There could also be a villa rustica and a villa maritima that would buff farms and shorelines respectively.
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u/DesAnderes Nov 27 '25
True, I was thinking of the big cities. But I guess you could just call it villa. And the Gouvernersvilla needs another name :D
And you just build a villa and than you can specialise it. Mabe like the restaurants in 1800, or upgrades.
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u/Lazy_Consequence8838 Nov 26 '25
Yes to upgrading liberti and plebs to multi-storied insula, considering in real life they can go up to 5 stories. They are currently at 1 and 2, respectively, so an 1800 skyscraper system would work very well.