Anno 117: Pax Romana Review (PS5)

Introduction and First Impressions

Ubisoft’s city builder is back this year, this time set in ancient Rome during the Pax Romana. Developed by Ubisoft Mainz (who also developed the previous Anno titles), it is the earliest setting for the Anno series to date and features the return of land warfare units.

I’ve long been curious about the series but have never actually played it, so I am excited to finally get my hands on this game. My experiences with city builders can be described as a love-hate relationship. I love building cities and leading armies to war but can easily get overwhelmed by the interconnectedness of everything. For every “top down” strategy game like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis that I loved, there’s games like Civilization and Cities Skylines were I just struggled.

Anno 117 feels like a combination of both, although it leans towards city building more, so you could just imagine how anxious I was if I would even enjoy this game. What happened is a real time sinker, where I invested hours and hours into this game and experienced triumphant jubilation and frustration in equal measure. And after all that time, I’m quite convinced that I still haven’t scratched the surface of what the game had to offer. Partly because the game doesn’t exactly tell you everything.

Campaign vs. Sandbox Modes

Key Differences Between the Game Modes

The core mechanics are shared, but the structure determines player freedom:

• Campaign: Starts in Latium, guides the player through initial mechanics via objectives, and progresses a minor story. Progression is dictated by the narrative.
• Sandbox: All rival governors are active from the start. Offers complete freedom to choose expansion and conquest paths without story constraints.

Anno 117 has a campaign mode where you choose between a male and a female character. I chose Marcia, and I got to play governor of Juliana in Latium where the game gives you objectives to acclimate yourself to the game mechanics, and the completion of which progresses the “story”. The story itself is nothing to write home about: just some personalities that give color to your encounters during gameplay, like the Emperor, his daughter, a raider, and rival governors. The other mode which is a sandbox mode has these same personalities but you already have rival governors from the start.

For a huge “campaign mode” guy like me, I didn’t prefer one over the other. Campaign does have more story-based interactions, but they’re not vastly different, besides the fact that in campaign mode, you are stuck on whatever the story throws at you. You can build a powerhouse city in Latium, but the story will eventually throw you into the marshes of Albion.

The Dual-Culture Challenge (Latium & Albion)

How Population Upgrade Trees Differ

The most significant complexity boost comes from managing the separate population needs in the two regions.

Speaking of, while I’ve had plenty of good time in Latium, Albion is where the real fun is at. Besides being a much challenging landscape overall, their upgrade trees for your populations are also different. Where in Latium, you had to juggle between the basic workforce called Libertii, and their upgraded version, the Plebeians, Albion forces you to juggle between different culture trees. Choosing the Romano-Celtic tree sees the basic Walders upgrade to the Romano-Celtic Mercators and then Nobles. But Walders also upgrades to the Celtic Smiths and so on, and because the game is all about making your people happy, trying to meet their needs can be a monumental task. One that can be really frustrating especially if your resources are limited.

The Core Loop: Production, Trade, and Conquest

Resource Management and Expansion Requirements

The game forces expansion through resource scarcity, making trade and conquest unavoidable.

1. Basic Production: Easy, requires only space (e.g., forests for wood/charcoal).
2. Advanced Production: Requires new resources (mines, rivers), necessitating city expansion.
3. The Scarcity Trigger: Products that require resources the local land cannot sustain.
4. The Choice: Must establish trade routes or conquer new land (adding another layer of micromanagement).

To produce goods, you need resources. In the beginning, this is easy, since all you need is space. A forest, for example, is great for getting wood and charcoal. But eventually, you get access to mines and rivers, so you expand your city further to accommodate these new resources. But the real kick in the nuts comes from products that require resources your land can’t sustain. This forces you to either establish trade routes or conquer more land, like the Romans did. Conquering land also means you have to micromanage that area and resources as well as the citizens living there, adding another layer of complexity to the game.

The Population Juggling Act (Libertii, Plebs, Equus)

As your city grows, so will its populace. Once you manage to keep then happy by helping them fulfill their needs, they can be upgraded. Upgrading them unlocks new needs, which you can then build. Certain production buildings or units require these new types of citizens. You should not upgrade them all, however, because you will still need the basic workforce to keep buildings running. This means that not everyone can be a Plebian, or an Equus, or a Patrician. Also, by the time you start getting Equus, your cities are packed, making adding new facilities crucial to their happiness much more difficult.

Technology and Research Mechanics

Technology Unlock Conditions

Research is passive but governed by specific population milestones, making planned upgrades crucial for late-game success.

• Time-gated: Upgrades can take between 5 to 40+ minutes of real time.
• Population-gated: Technologies are locked until the city meets a threshold, such as:
  • Having 500 Plebs
  • Having 600 Equus
• Purpose: These technologies are crucial for dominating rivals both economically and militarily.

Research is also a crucial mechanic in Anno 117. Research progresses passively, but each upgrade node takes a different time. So, one upgrade may take 40 minutes; another can just take 5. Also, some technologies are locked based on your population, like having 500 Plebs before it unlocks, or having 600 Equus. These technologies are crucial if you want to dominate your rivals both economically and militarily.

Steep Learning Curve and Missing Guidance

Pain Points for New Players

The writer’s primary difficulty centered on the sudden nature of financial crises and the lack of accessible reference materials.

• Balance Difficulty: Juggling happiness, fire safety, health rating, and finances is overwhelmingly difficult.
• Financial Crashes: The swift, unexpected reversal from large profit (1,000+ denarii) to a deficit is a common and frustrating occurrence.
• Tutorial Gap: The initial tutorial is helpful but leaves a massive void concerning advanced management strategies.
• Lack of Encyclopedia: There is no in-game encyclopedia to consult on complex topics like population needs, goods production chains, or advanced trade mechanics.

Maybe I’m just a noob at Anno games, but I was struggling with balancing happiness, fire safety, health rating, and the finances. I never had a playthrough where my coffers didn’t crash all of a sudden. Like I was riding high with a profit of greater than 1,000 denarii but all of a sudden, everything just falls to red, and I am powerless to stop it (for now at least). Just to be clear: I’m not blaming this on the game mechanics. Anno has had these mechanics (or most of them anyway) for multiple entries, and they’ve worked. I just wasn’t prepared for the steep learning curve.

Which leads me to probably my main complaint: the tutorial was very helpful in introducing the mechanics and showing me the door. But it doesn’t really tell me what to do once I go through it. There is no in-game encyclopedia that I could consult on how to keep my populace happy, how certain goods are made and what needs to be made. It introduced me to trade, but did not explain how deep it is.

Final Verdict: Is it a Worthy Time Sink?

I guess finding it out for yourself as you play is part of the journey, and every new playthrough I make, I get better and better and better. But it also made me just stop with the campaign and focus on the sandbox instead because at least I don’t have to put up with story objectives. Not that the sandbox mode doesn’t throw you the same curveballs, like the Emperor asking for money, or raiders demanding ransom. But at least I get to deal with the gameplay straight on, and my gosh this game is very addicting. They said Rome wasn’t built in a day. Well, two weeks wasn’t enough for me to create my own Roman city.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is an addicting city builder where you have to juggle everything from finances, happiness, fire and safety hazards, and security. You have to do those on top of having limited resources, other governors that could either be allies or enemies, an Emperor that likes to make requests at the most inopportune time, and the inevitable clash of armies. Before you know it, you’ve already sunk many hours into the game. If you like city building, and if you like all things Roman, this game is definitely for you.