Video game preview – Anno 117: Pax Romana is a real-time city-building epic

I have spent hundreds of hours on Civilization and its sequels, but I haven’t played many other strategy games beyond Amplitude Studios’ works, such as Humankind and Big Huge Games’ Rise of Nations. When I had a chance to preview Ubisoft’s Anno 117: Pax Romana, I did not know what to expect aside from it being a historical strategy game, but with a more focused era. I was expecting something Civ-ish, but I was wrong. Anno 117 is different to anything I’ve played before. The coming PC game puts players in the role of a new Roman governor during a relatively peaceful 200-year span. Players start with a single settlement, but they’ll have to expand and build a network of eternal cities. They’ll start in Latium – the area around Rome in today’s west-central Italy – with a Mediterranean climate and ruins from the past. Further into the game, the governor’s domain expands to Albion, a different environment with harsh cliffs, misty marshland and a new culture. The biggest difference between Anno 117 and Civilization is that the former is more focused on city building in a real-time environment. Players set up a villa and from there they have to create a colony by first establishing woodcutters and a sawmill. From there, they’ll have to craft roads, build neighbourhoods, establish businesses and grow a population that will support more promising technologies. It’s a lot to juggle in real time, and genre newcomers will be overwhelmed by the concepts. Just like Civ, players have to manage citizens, keeping them fed by establishing farms growing wheat and oats and building kitchens to cook the ingredients. As they build more infrastructure, they have to keep an eye on how much gold they’re spending and build more advanced facilities such as markets and taverns to bolster those coffers. What’s notable in Anno 117 is that the tech tree is tied to the type of citizens players have. They begin with residents called Liberti, but when players upgrade the neighbourhood, they gain access to Plebians that give the governor access to more advanced facilities such as a place of worship and schools. Having a temple opens up religion, and by choosing a Roman god they gain access to stat buffs that can improve other aspects of society. They’ll make farms more efficient or improve a city’s military prowess. Meanwhile, schools speed up research into different technologies that can boost the city’s efficiency. Civ fans can see how these different aspects of society are interconnected. Smart players will come up with a strategy to maximise their plan for success. If they want to conquer the map, they can start building barracks, armouries and recruitment areas to amass an army to take over rival realms. If they want to gain the best technology quickly, they can build schools all over the place and speed up the rate of learning. Being a novice, I had a hard time grasping the interconnectedness of several buildings. Nothing happens instantaneously. Players have to account for travel time as carts move across the map to deliver materials and goods needed for different products. Anno 117 weaves it into the city-building adeptly. Players have to take into account how places such as smelters affect the environment around them. The site is required for several advanced buildings, but it also worsens the health of surrounding residents. That means it’s imperative to build it away from the city centre. If they cannot do that, they can build a clinic to help keep people healthy amid its pollution. Those clinics, fire services and police agencies are needed to keep each city from falling into ruin. Being unaware of how the different systems work, I always felt behind compared to rival cities. I always needed to build more houses and upgrade them, but I could not always do that when the materials weren’t available and the residents were unhappy. I also gained a specialist, but again, I had to expand my villa to house Julius Lupus. To do that, I would need prestige, which was gained by adding ornaments throughout the city. Again, it’s one of those elements that players have to learn about the hard way. I eventually got the hang of it, and like all good strategy games, time flew by as I explored the map and established another colony on the island while developing trade with neighbours. Anno 117 is going to be the type of game that hooks players so tightly into its world that a planned two-hour gaming session can end with the sunrise at six in the morning. The one element the Anno 117 demo build did not have was combat or the moulding of the provinces. Players can choose to embrace Celtic culture or Romanise the area. This part of the game focused on city-building and exploration. I met other rival colonies, but I could not send out an army to take them down. I was content to build several ships, and I used them to scout the world and establish trade routes. I’ll have to wait to see what the later parts of Anno 117 will be like when the city-building strategy game comes out in the winter of 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S. Gieson Cacho writes for The Mercury News.

Video game preview – Anno 117: Pax Romana is a real-time city-building epic

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Playing as a Roman governor in strategy game Anno 117: Pax Romana, you develop infrastructure, feed your people and expand your territory

Playing as a Roman governor in strategy game Anno 117: Pax Romana, you develop infrastructure, feed your people and expand your territory