Don’t ask me how or why, but somehow I’ve actually never played an Anno game before Anno 117.
I know. Sacrilege for someone who claims to be a fan of strategy games, but it just never happened. Blame it on Age of Empires or Warcraft, if you must.
However, when I was offered the code for the game, knowing that it’s a city-building RTS, I immediately said yes.
Luckily for me, I went on leave for a week just as I got the code, so I was able to take the time to really sink my teeth into probably one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played.
The campaign mode is pretty enjoyable. You get to choose two paths: either that of Marcus, the youngest son of a governor, or that of Marcia, a young lady who is being sent off to marry some old guy.
I chose the path of Marcia, as it seemed to have a little more guts to the storyline, and beneath layers of deceit and mystery, you end up becoming the governor of a new land, loosely based on Britain.
I’m trying not to give away too many spoilers here, but the whole back and forth between what’s going on right on your doorstep and what the Roman Emperor thinks is going on was a neat little game to be played amongst the actual gameplay.
Weirdly, though, while I was having the time of my life playing through the campaign, it ended quite abruptly. Perhaps the developers will throw in something more to do near the end, but what I found was that the campaign laid the groundwork for me to understand exactly how the game works, allowing Endless Mode to really become the star.
Endless Mode is exactly as it sounds. Here, you don’t necessarily have story quests to complete; your goal is just to create a thriving city between the two “worlds”. Albion, the British world, and Latium, the Roman one.
Of course, Albion holds people who respect the land. They worship more nature-specific gods and try not to ruin the land as best they can. Think Vikings. The people of Latium are all for progress.
You’re able to choose how you build your city, either focusing on the Roman aspect or the Viking aspect, each with its own pros and cons. What’s nice is that you can form a combination of the two, creating some really cool synergies.
Whether I was defying the Emperor or shutting down the people of Albion, every choice I made felt like it had an impact on how my overall city was built and run.
Overall, gameplay felt smooth, calming, and enjoyable. I spent hours upon hours getting stuck in. I made sure my trade routes were perfectly set up to provide everything my people wanted to prosper. Neighbourhoods formed of different class levels, as I had some people close to the coal burners for productivity, and others closer to the theatres, and markets for culture.
The UI is pretty easy to manage as well. Everything you need is there when you need it, and there aren’t one hundred menus to click through to find anything specific. If you need more wheat, you know exactly where the wheat is needed, and you expand upon your wheat farms. Or you get your ships to import more from one of your island neighbours.
Of course, not everything was peaceful back in the year 117. Naval combat particularly shines in Anno 117, allowing you to play tactically with ship manoeuvres or attempt to go all out with just brute force.
If that doesn’t work, ground combat is also present in the game, with various troop types countering others, and different formations assisting with attack or defence, again leaning into a more tactical flow.
The combat itself doesn’t feel like an afterthought in Anno 117. While the main purpose of the game is city building, combat still plays a massive role.
Graphically, the game is a masterpiece. Whether you’re fully zoomed out, capturing the sunset colours glimmering across the ocean, and your vast navy, or zoomed right in to the people going about their day, every little detail feels necessary. All of it makes the game feel alive.
There are some issues with lip syncing, where the main characters pop up on your screen for conversational story progression. The characters almost feel like they’re plucked out of a game from 2015, but the voice acting is great, and I easily pretended to focus on the eyes instead of the mouths.
For any console players out there who know how terrible RTS games can be with a controller, I actually found myself enjoying the game more on my handheld than on PC. Combat took a bit of getting used to, but the UI is so well designed that doing pretty much anything was a breeze with the controller.
If I really had to nitpick on any negatives for the game, one would be the weird mouths, and I suppose another could be the abrupt ending to the main story. Endless mode more than makes up for that, though, and anyone who enjoys any kind of city-building sim will find themselves spending more hours than they expected in Anno 117: Pax Romana.
