This Unofficial Patch is described as a massive project to fix the remaining issues that the game has.
The unofficial patch also requires
version 2.1 of Anno 1404/DoD: Venice.
"I'm the current Admin of the Anno 1404 English Wiki, and after doing some extensive testing, I've found a method to modify the fully patched game and not break achievements. Hence, I've created an Unofficial Patch, a massive project to fix the remaining issues the game has.
The purpose of this patch is to provide a 100% proper English localization, for both the European version and the American version, while also fixing the remaining game, quest, and achievement bugs. The bug fixes will also work on all other language versions as well."
- Brumbek
A summary of changes the Anno 1404: Venice Unofficial Patch makes to create a flawless English localization:
Over 21,000 lines of text reviewed to fix over 1,000 grammar issues, spelling mistakes, and typos.
Over 3,300 tooltips reviewed with hundreds of fixes and improvements to ensure accuracy and clarity.
Over 1,100 quest story texts present only in the German version have been translated and fully restored.
Localized over 300 words used in over 1,300 places to ensure 100% proper spellings for both the American and European English versions.
Added production chain ratios text to all relevant building tooltips; this is insanely helpful!
Added quest names to all dialogs offering quests so now you don’t have to accept to see the name.
Over 50 quest logic errors fixed – some cosmetic, some quest-breaking, and one game-crashing.
Fixed mismatched quest text and quest objectives for many extensive quests.
Fixed a few achievement bugs to finally allow all 316 achievements to be completed; five were impossible to complete for most players.
Changed achievement descriptions to actually match the requirements for a handful of achievements that had misleading descriptions.
Restored funny and witty achievement sentences for all achievement tooltips that were mistakenly removed.
Removed quest timer that adds 18 minutes to all quest queues effectively making it so you almost never get quests from some NPCs but lots from others.
All terminology standardized to remove ambiguity; a few terms renamed such as “Loan” is now “Grant”.
Renamed a few key buildings and goods to make more sense. For instance, “Animal Hides” don't come from Pigs, “Pigskins” do; the “Mill” should be called “Flour Mill”; “Eyeglasses” not “Glasses”, “Wheat Farm” not “Crop Farm”; and so on.
Implemented a consistent style guide regarding capitalization, names, and so on.
Added optional mods to make playing less tedious, such as infinite Norias and Resources, silencing annoying messages, and only having to find 1 wanted persons.
Countless other fixes and improvements – the major changes documented in the 16 page change list.
v1.07 – January 25, 2012
Northburgh had a quest that had a blank title and quest text. I’ve translated it and now it is properly called “In Depth” and has quest text.
About 40 out of the 53 “Sink Corsair Ship” quests required you to sink Corsair Ships belonging to Hassan (GUID 15917). This was an issue if you already fraternized and were at permanent peace. In this case, you had to use a letter of marque, which was quite cumbersome. I’ve changed all quests to make the enemy generic “Enemy Corsair Ships” (GUID 15933) so that they can always be attacked. I also updated the 2 quest texts that referred to Hassan; all the rest already spoke of generic “Corsairs”. Note that the Venice quests of this type already exclusively used GUID 15933, as they should have.
The term “Ornamental Building” has been changed to “Ornamental Elements” in all 20 or so places. This was done since some of the Ornamental elements were buildings but some were objects. So “Element” is a better catch-all term.
The term “profile” has been capitalized when it refers to the Player Profile.
When gaining Honor, the term “gain” or “gained” is now used almost everywhere. Before other terms like “earn”, or “accumulate” were used. These two terms now refer almost always to Gold Coins.
There are 13 multiplayer quests (GUIDs 40650386 to 40650393 and 40650398 to 40650402) given by Garibaldi that didn’t have quest story texts, even in the German version. These are special quests seemingly given at random very rarely (I’ve seen one in 40 hours). I’ve added new quest story texts to both the addontexte.txt and the addon_quests.xml file.
Fixed the “We Have no Time to Lose!” achievement text to indicate in-game hours, not real-world hours. I previously missed a few places when I fixed this.
Made the text for the “Flying Envoys” and “Assembly Line” achievements to be singular “hour” instead of “hours” since it is only 1 hour for both.
Edited all the “Defeat XXX computer player in X hours” achievements to indicate this is “real-world” hours of gameplay, not in-game time.
Changed the text for the “Get out of Here!” achievement to indicate this is 1 “real-world” hour.
Changed the text for the “How Mean!” achievement to indicate your destroyed the Flagship within the first 5 real-world minutes of the game.
Changed the text for the “Time? What is Time” achievement to indicate this is 1 “real-world” hour.
Changed the text for the “We’ve Come a Long Way Together” achievement to indicate this is 500 “real-world” hours.
Changed the text for the “Shouldn’t we be going to War Soon?” achievement to indicate this is “real-world” hours.
Many tooltips for completed achievements removed the “Total to date:” line, but quite a few kept this. One could argue they should all be removed since this is mainly used for keeping track of your progress. However, I find it fun to see how much I’ve overshot the achievement after playing for ages. Therefore, for this reason and for consistency I’ve added back the “Total to date:” number for tooltips for completed achievements for the following: “A Blaze of Glory” (build 100 Ornamental Buildings on an Island), “Clear to Board!” (use 15 Boarding Crews), “Move On, There’s Nothing to See!” (use 15 Smoke Screens), “And if You’re Not Willing” (use 15 Diplomatic Edicts), “On Behalf of Your Majesty” (use 15 Letters of Marque), “Quick! Has Anyone got some White Underwear?” (use 15 White Flags), “Extra Spicey” (produce 10,000 tons of Spices), “The Black Fleet” (Sink 50 Ships without losing one of yours), “Towering Superiority” (build 25 Fortified Towers on an Island), “Water Soup Again?” (produce 500 tons of Provisions), and “From my Cold, Dead Hands” (produce 500 tons Weapons).
Added back the “Total to date:” number for tooltips for uncompleted achievements for the following: “Am I Croesus?” (accumulate 1,000,000 Gold Coins) and “Vitamin B” (accumulate 10,000 Honor).
Fixed variable for tracking how many Smoke Screens you have used for the “Move On, There’s Nothing to See!” achievement since it was incorrectly referring to the prior Boarding Crews tracker. This only affected the display, not the actual acquisition of the achievement.
Karim’s quest “Sea Raiders” has been renamed to “Sea Locusts” to better match the text.
About 25 quest text grammar fixes or other improvements.