Gives you space to Rome
It wasn’t built in a day, famously. But this latest Anno in a long-running series of accessible and endearingly twee city builders doesn’t take that old adage overly to heart. There’s complexity to its supply chains and economy, but it takes a ruthless writers’ pen (quill?) to the systems-bloat and perplexing menu rabbit holes found elsewhere in the genre. As a result, overseeing a burgeoning Roman territory feels far less like filling in a tax return than other city builders, and more like the power fantasy that we probably all showed up for in the first place.
The Pax Romana era was a golden age for the be-sandaled denizens of the Roman empire, full of peace, prosperity and neatly laundered togas. Developer Ubisoft Mainz uses this happy clappy context well for a bit of early game tutorialising, trotting you through some basic supply chain creation via a menu layout that will feel like stepping into worn-in old shoes to Anno 1800 players, but which Tropico or Cities Skylines veterans would find almost confrontationally straightforward: you begin by clicking on the resource you’d like your citizens to start making, then—from a pop-up menu which shows you the buildings required to make it—you drop the necessary structures into the world. Simplicity itself, and enough to make you wonder why almost every other game does this process in reverse.
There’s plenty of subtlety to even this most basic action, though. Placing those structures in positions that are both geographically close to the resources they need, close to each other, and in areas that might trigger productivity or happiness bonuses, is not easy to achieve, and introduces a nice puzzle-like wrinkle to the way you lay out your cities. It does mean that you eventually see your initial settlement for the trashpile of inefficiency that it is when you become better attuned to those variables, and will probably want to bulldoze the lot and start again, but hey, it’s a golden era. No one’s out to get you. You’ve got time and space to make mistakes.
Or have you? This is where Anno 117’s interactive narrative element shows up to enrich the scintillating garum hut-placing action, and with some surprising twists, too. As an inexperienced governor and something of an outsider to the Emperor’s inner circle, you’re just trying to keep your head down and follow Emperor Lucius’ orders without asking too many questions or trying to let your sense of intimidation at the sheer majesty of the guy’s eyebrows become evident.Cloak and dagger
Via a series of infrequent cutscenes with a few dialogue trees, you’re made to feel as though perhaps Lucius and his family aren’t taking you as seriously as they might. There’s his sniffy tone, for one. And the missions he gives you, which amount to nothing more than delivering supplies to his wife’s island so that she can throw a lavish party. And the massive cash payment he demands of you, with no repayment terms. Something about this relationship might not be as peaceful and happy-clappy as the vigorously cheerful colour palette has been suggesting.
