Anno 117: Pax Romana Review

As the sun rises on the cobbled market street that ascends from bustling docks on the vibrant Mediterranean waters to the new forum high on the hill above, Anno 117: Pax Romana fills me with delight and civic pride. It took a long time, but I feel like I finally clicked with this series that I've had a little bit of a rocky relationship with, having come in a bit late and at an awkward time with 2205. Its complex economics can still seem to wobble spectacularly off their axis and leave you in a dire failure spiral, but resplendent mechanics for trade, naval warfare, and the blending of cultures offer chances to right the ship.

The basic routine in Anno 117 is familiar and effective if you've played other games in the series. You start out building modest residences to house hardworking liberti, or freed people – somewhat conspicuously sidestepping the institution of Roman slavery. When their needs are met, they can promote up the social ladder all the way to snobby patricians who demand all kinds of exotic delicacies from around the world.

Part of what influences these promotions is simply access to goods, which is a city-wide thing. But another component is living near high prestige buildings like theaters and shrines… and far away from unpleasant or polluting ones like a charcoal burner. I love the way this naturally creates clusters of higher-class housing on important market streets, tapering off into working class neighborhoods in more industrial areas. It adds to the feel of a real, living city. And since paved roads extend the range of those buildings, that's an upgrade that lets you immediately see its positive effects.

It's genuinely delightful to zoom in and watch my little toga-clad citizens going about their business. Every building from a stately villa to an idyllic lavender farm is studded with detail and character. Even the untouched green fields and peaceful blue waters full of marine life create a strong sense of place. The character models for leaders and advisors may be the one thing that didn't wow me. They're full of character, but especially in some of the campaign cutscenes, there were some significant lip sync issues that made it look like a much older game or a badly-dubbed movie.

Anno 117 really comes alive with its detailed trade system.

The summery paradise of Latium isn't the only locale to explore and exploit. Eventually you unlock the ability to sail to foggy, rocky Albion – that is, Britain – with its own resources, aesthetic, and population. I was a bit worried Anno would lean too hard into othering stereotypes about "mystical Celts" here based on some of the marketing, but it's actually a pretty grounded and sensible depiction. The really interesting choice you have mechanically in this region is whether to stay true to Celtic traditions or fully Romanize your new subjects. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and you can eventually mix and match for some powerful synergies.

Anno 117 really comes alive with its detailed trade system, though. To truly meet the needs of demanding nobles in the two regions, you'll have to set up production chains for luxury goods that might pull resources from two or three different islands, then ship them across the world map from one region to another. Each delivery requires individual ships assigned to the trade routes, so I can see exactly where my next delivery of cheese is and even reroute it somewhere else.

This is all fairly easy to set up and tweak thanks to the well-organized interface, and naturally creates incentives to build smaller villages that do one specific thing as well as warehouses and waystations to speed things up. My cheese island is quite far away, so I noticed my trade ships spent half their time sailing across Albion. But if I set up a colony close to it that's basically just a cheese warehouse and some subsistence fisheries, I can constantly be moving cheese there with intra-region trade ships to be picked up at the edge of the map all at once. I adore this kind of logistics stuff.

Anno 117 is a pretty good RTS, too. I'm especially a fan of its naval combat, which I had to master quickly to protect my trade routes from increasingly vicious pirates. Maneuvering ships feels weighty and realistic, with differences in maneuverability based on whether they rely on sails, oars, or both, and I eventually got pretty good at maneuvers like trapping a sneaky little pirate ship in a cove where there would be no escape.

It's a pretty good RTS, too, and I'm especially a fan of its naval combat.

Ground combat is just fine. It does its job, with a small selection of melee, ranged, and siege units that can fulfill a handful of different roles. It's possible to succeed without ever getting into a land battle if you have a good navy, but in the few cases where I did, I found some interesting tactics to dig into. It feels like a real RTS at least, as opposed to a half-baked minigame, which I really appreciate.

Diplomacy is pretty basic stuff, with a single interesting wrinkle in that the Emperor works a bit differently. You can't really make treaties with him, but he will make demands of you, and succeeding, failing, or refusing affects your reputation with Rome. When he likes you, you get bonuses. When he doesn't, you get penalties. But both ends of the scale culminate in some very powerful rewards. Either you play nice and get appointed Consul, or you defy his authority so effectively that you grant yourself Proconsular authority, Caesar-style.

There is a decent story campaign, but it's really more of an extended tutorial. It took me less than 10 hours to finish and only really scratches the surface of the mechanics you can play with in endless mode. You can play as either Marcus or Marcia, with the latter being a sort of madcap "Weekend at Bernicus’" scenario where you are taking on the governor duties of your totally-not-dead husband. It's hardly Shakespeare, but there's some interesting intrigue going on and a cast of memorable characters. The Canaanite Ben-Baalion was a particularly endearing companion who presented me with an emotionally satisfying choice at the end.

While you can continue from the ending of the campaign as long as you want, most of my playtime was spent in the endless mode, which lets you start in either Albion or Latium and offers a wide range of difficulty options. You can even pick from a set of rival governors with different personalities and playstyles. I don't think they necessarily play by the same rules that you do as a player, however. Looking at some late game cities they built… I honestly don't know what's going on. But they can be compelling adversaries or valuable trade partners nonetheless.

There are still some classic Anno issues kicking around, like the fact that very large economies can become unwieldy and are prone to death spirals. If food is disrupted, population drops, which causes food buildings to become underemployed, leading to even less food and even more population drop. At one point I had to restart because I accidentally changed a large city's patron god, which made it instantly insolvent and nearly irrecoverable due to lost agricultural bonuses. But trade is kind of the hero here once again, since setting up buy orders for whatever you're out of can bail you out of a lot of tricky spots as long as you have cash. It's a little fiddly setting up a lot of different trades at a lot of different harbors the first time, but the interface is easy to work with, and once things were set, I didn't find I had to mess with them very often.

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