Anno 117: Pax Romana Review

Anno 117: Pax Romana Review

Although I never considered myself an Indiana Jones type, I loved archeology as a child. I thought making reproductions of Sumerian cuneiform tablets and trying to recreate Egyptian papyrus was fun. Yes, I was THAT boring. Fast forward a few decades – who am I kidding, many decades – and I can play. 117: Pax Romana. It combines two of my favorite things: city planners and ancient history. It's a win-win for me.

Rome's last hurray

Anno games have previously spanned historical periods from the European Age of Enlightenment to the speculative far future. Although the details vary, the basic pattern remains the same. Your task is always to create a series of prosperous cities, keep the population happy, establish trade routes and raise an army for defense or domination. Anno 117 it's not just a city planner, so you don't have to worry about power grids, traffic flows or underground sewer systems. Well, that's not entirely true. Aqueducts are a thing.

As the title suggests, the game takes place during a period of relative peace and prosperity, the Golden Age of Rome. It was marked by wise leadership, territorial expansion, and general prosperity throughout the Empire. Contented Roman citizens had no idea that their happy lives would be upended by a contentious emperor, decades of civil war, strife and a collapsing sphere of influence.

The game's campaign is an extended tutorial, although it is a relatively mild drama. You have a choice of two characters (whose stories eventually connect) and you start in either the mist-shrouded Celtic land of Albion or sunny Italy. Either way, the player learns the basic systems of the game. The campaign is well acted and written and short enough to be worth playing.

In a box of sand

I suspect many seasoned Anno players are abandoning the campaign and throwing themselves headlong into the endless sandbox mode. Many fans will start with Albion as it has some interesting features and challenges. First, there are many decisions involved in maintaining or absorbing ancient Celtic traditions. Both choices have both positive and negative consequences. Perhaps most important is whether your citizens will retain their old religious beliefs or turn to the Roman pantheon of gods. The Italian countryside is a little more welcoming at first.

Either way, you start with a sea or inland trading post, then build regular infrastructure such as simple housing, logging camps, warehouses, and roads to connect everything. The creation of satellite or production-oriented cities, the creation of alliances and trade routes, and the funding of navies or ground forces follow as quickly as possible. Often the discovery of new abilities or objects is tied to achieving certain goals. Naturally, almost every aspect of construction in Anno 117: Pax Romana requires a variety of prerequisites.

All of this suggests depth and complexity, and it certainly does. The game constantly alerts the player to one failure, opportunity, or missing piece of one type or another. Your small town will probably never live happily ever after for very long, if ever. Overall the game does a pretty good job of making useful information available through the user interface. However, it will take some time to discover where something is hidden. I played with both a controller and a mouse/keyboard. I always prefer the latter for games like this.

A wonderful vision of imperial life

From the wealth of cultural and architectural detail to the stunning landscapes, Anno 177 looks fantastic, definitely the best in the franchise to date. The cycle of day and night, weather and lighting are evocative. Very little time passes, and the primitive village turns into a prosperous city. Watching the citizens go about their daily lives, fighting or sailing around the islands is fascinating. The talking heads of the campaign characters aren't particularly impressive, but they don't seriously detract from the experience either.

Anno 117's orchestral score is undoubtedly one of the best this year and is well worth listening to outside of the game. The campaign performances and overall sound design help bring the world to life. Apart from some minor problems with the uncontrollable camera, the technical condition of the Anno 117 is good. There are plenty of options to customize not only the sound and graphics quality, but also customize various difficulty settings and assistance in the campaign and sandbox. Unless I missed it, there is no map editor, which is disappointing. However, you can make changes to the map before it is created.

Calm before the storm

Anno 117: Pax Romana takes the series into fertile new historical territory and is one of the best games in the Anno franchise, as well as one of the most enjoyable city building simulators in recent memory. Polished, incredibly detailed and beautiful to look at, Anno 117 hides impressive system depth and complexity behind a relatively accessible interface. Like the Roman Empire itself, the game is the perfect platform for its inevitable expansion. Meanwhile, there is a lot of quality content for fans of the genre.

***PC code provided by publisher for review***