Look, I’ll admit that I don’t often think about the Roman Empire. I mean, they were cool and all with their taking over half of the known world thing, but, eh…
I have thought even less about running the Roman Empire, and making the most of it — that is, until Anno 117: Pax Romana.
Ubisoft’s latest entry into the long-running strategy-based city-builder is a lengthy, ambitious one. And it all essentially works for it!
Anno 117: Pax Romana Is A Bulky City Builder
Anno 117: Pax Romana has really built on what the series does best: city-building.
As a governor of the famed Roman Latium people of Modern Italy, or the young Albion people, or the British, you must build up from nothing.
You’ll do this by creating a robust, diversified economy fueled by a happy, healthy citizenry. In true Anno fashion, you’ll always need to be doing both, or else this is a game series that is not afraid to insult your intelligence. You’ll have to learn quickly how to maximize productivity by making sure you’ve organized industrial buildings like farms and logging camps with warehouses and resource-processing buildings like tunic makers and bakeries. On the side of the citizenry, you’ll need to take into account how access to things like temples and markets will see them grow wealthy and healthy as your economy and empire grow.
The cruel irony of Anno 117: Pax Romana is that much like the past games that bear its first name, it will reward you for learning how to grow and prosper. You’ll see your citizenry hard at work, improving their lot in life. Your city will grow, seeing farms become institutions of wealth and splendour, while hole-in-the-wall homes become vast villas. And yet, failing to understand the implications of building without a functional flow of almost near-constant growth could very well lead to a fall from grace to rival that of the very Roman Empire you emulate.
Anno 117: Pax Romana combines this strong city-builder with a pretty impressive RTS combat system that takes part on land and surprisingly well on sea.
You probably didn’t come for the stories
Where Anno 117: Pax Romana stutters is in its included campaign. Stretching 6-18 hours, depending on how much you care for building and crossing off optional objectives, Anno 117: Pax Romana’s story mode essentially functions as a couple of stand-alone stories that extensibly function as engaging ways to get you ready for the sandbox modes you’ll spend the bulk of your time playing.
Playing as either Marcus or Marcia, you’ll step into the sandals of a Roman governor conflicted with holding onto what makes you Roman, embracing the new Celtic cultures you’ve found yourself immersed in, or making the most of both to build a strong economy and citizenry. It’s here that Anno 117: Pax Romana wants to educate you the most because it’s what it seems to intend you to master to achieve success in the sandbox.
Eventually, you will come to the point where you are tasked with taking care of a couple of civilizations from both factions at the same time. I worried about how taxing this would be. Still, Ubisoft has paid a great deal of attention to how production and management work together, making it easier and even downright pleasant to find ways to make Latium and Albion co-exist peacefully.
It’s the friends with whom you play
As I’ve said above, the sandbox is where Anno 117: Pax Romana wants you to really play.
It’ll let you and up to three others come to the table as a hero of either Latium or the young Albion — both of which you should be sufficiently versed in after completing the campaign.
As is always the case with Anno, it expects you to come to the table relatively free of mistakes, lest you risk throwing away your hours, days, months, or years of progress.
Verdict
Anno 117: Pax Romana is big… like huge. As with most city-builders and RTS games, I’m convinced this is going to be one that I keep coming back to for a few hours here and there for the next few years. I can’t wait to see where this game goes in the future. While this game is essentially just one large sandbox, Anno has always been strict to the point of stinginess when it comes to enforcement; there’s very little room for error or lost productivity here. However, for those governors who do learn how to play with productivity, Anno 117: Pax Romana rewards them with one of the most satisfying civilization growth simulators out there right now.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
