Anno 117: Pax Romana — Build Your Empire Like Caesar

I arrived, strategized, and gradually assembled a thriving island empire in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s vision of Ancient Rome — though “pax” feels ironic. This title is anything but serene: stubborn Celts, scheming Romans, rowdy taverns, bustling workshops, demanding citizens, sporadic riots and the occasional conflagration combine to make each island city pulse with life.

As someone who’s played countless city-builders but only a few Anno entries, I didn’t expect to be so absorbed by the campaign. What I thought would be an extended tutorial became a richly written narrative, populated with memorable characters and turns of plot that kept me invested well beyond the mechanics.

The game does present a learning curve: production chains only reveal inputs when you select the final product, governance metrics took a little study to interpret, and processing durations weren’t obvious at first. Still, once those systems clicked, Anno 117 inverted from opaque to intuitively manageable.

Image: Ubisoft via Polygon

Anno 117 trims unnecessary complexity. Houses, workplaces and citizen needs live in a single build menu; research flows from one consolidated tech tree; production dashboards immediately surface shortages. It’s less the old “easy to learn, hard to master” maxim and more accurately “easy to operate, hard to perfect,” a balance many city-builders strive for but few achieve so cleanly.

Three quality-of-life tools stood out and dramatically improved my play: the relocate function, the copy tool, and shared warehouse inventories. Free relocation let me overhaul districts without crippling my economy, encouraging experimentation. The copy tool saved hours by cloning whole quarters. And shared inventories freed me from rigidly co-locating every link in a production chain, allowing freer, more creative layouts.

Image: Ubisoft via Polygon

That said, placement still matters. Area effects are meaningful and often cheekily realistic: lavender fields grant happiness, garum factories repel neighbors with their stench, and soap production improves health. You can further fine-tune local bonuses by assigning specialists to civic buildings. The game models these influences smartly — scent-based effects create circular ranges around a source, while service effects travel by road distance — so a sanctuary cheers those within travel distance, whereas anyone within garum’s odor radius suffers regardless of roads.

Diplomacy and religion are intentionally lightweight. Outside the campaign diplomacy boils down to alliances, trade pacts and declarations of war, and enemy AI behavior tends to follow predictable patterns based on strength, reputation and cultural affinity. Religion offers simple god-choices that grant passive boons and the occasional festival; it’s attractive to watch but not as mechanically deep as the building or combat systems.

Image: Ubisoft via Polygon

My chief gripe is the UI’s aesthetic restraint: the interface is utilitarian, lacking Roman or Celtic flourish, and the pale blue icons and grey mini-map feel sterile. Functionally it does the job, but the styling never quite complements the world it represents.

Visually, the game is otherwise a delight. Latium glows with warm colors, stately columns and manicured gardens. Anno 117 isn’t aiming for strict historical fidelity — Rome built on hills, not islands — but it peppers the world with pleasing period touches: mosaic floors, watchtowers, white carrots, and class-distinguishing clothing. Little absences (a smaller-than-expected panis quadratus, for instance) are forgivable in a title that gets so many details right.

Zooming in is rewarding: a soap workshop shows people drying lavender, hauling materials, mixing batches and inspecting blocks. Animations aren’t hyper-detailed — you’ll notice limits like static farmers or implied cutting motions — but the living tableau is convincing enough and likely a pragmatic compromise for performance.

Zooming out reveals the grid. Roads can run horizontally, vertically or on the new diagonal axis, which adds variety, but buildings remain rectangular and make creating organically curving neighborhoods difficult. That constraint is less jarring in Latium, where rectilinear planning fits the theme, but it becomes more conspicuous in Albion’s swampy Celtic settlements.

Image: Ubisoft via Polygon

The diagonal roads still break into straight segments when you zoom close, and placed houses emphasize those rigid lines. Latium benefits from seven architectural variants for domestic buildings, while Albion’s Celtic homes offer only four, making Roman neighborhoods read as more visually diverse at a glance.

Image: Ubisoft via Polygon

That cultural friction, however, is what makes Albion compelling. Romanizing local Celts without igniting rebellions is a tense diplomatic dance. In one playthrough I sided with the Celts and felt Rome’s ire swiftly — war followed, and I scrambled to construct walls, raise barracks and outfit ships. Land combat gives you a selection of unit types — legionaries, cavalry, and scorpion crossbowmen among them — and simple, effective commands let you execute classic tactics like flanking or funneling enemies into chokepoints.

Image: Ubisoft via Polygon

Naval combat feels equally satisfying. Ship management supports bulk selection, siege maneuvers and tactical retreats, while hull customization lets you tune speed, durability and armament. When you perfect a warship and zoom in, the tiny onboard soldiers are a charming little reward for your attention to detail.

Anno 117: Pax Romana is an impressive city-builder. Its uncluttered systems and thoughtful conveniences make planning and execution pleasurable, and its mix of relaxation and strategic depth ensures long-term appeal. I expect I’ll return to these islands again — once the initial fascination fades, the game still offers plenty to explore.

 

Source: Polygon