I played a few hours of Anno 117 over the weekend, and it was… fine? Felt like a reskin of Anno 1800. It wasn’t exactly bad, it just didn’t really pull me in, and it didn’t really feel very Roman. It just felt like any other Anno game with some cosmetic Roman statues thrown in.
I think I prefer the overall gameplay of Farthest or Manor more than the Anno series, but the Anno series is unique enough that maybe it’s worth trying at least once in your life, or at least watching a gameplay video of.
If you’ve never played an Anno game before, I would maybe describe them as “supply chain logistics management” more than “city builder”. You plan things at the neighborhood level, which means it never gets strategic in the 4X sense of Civilization, and never really gets tactical in the RTS sense of Age of Empires or Stronghold. The basic gameplay loop goes something like:
- Build a logging hut
- Send its output to a sawmill
- Send the sawmill’s output to a warehouse
- Build houses to attract workers
- Workers demand food
- Build a fishing hut and a grain field
- Send their outputs to a warehouse
- Workers enjoy the new luxuries and demand more
- Build a X, send their output to a warehouse, build more houses, upgrade workers, repeat
So the basic gameplay loop is just building carefully measured mixed-used residential-industrial neighborhoods in a grid, ensuring that your houses are within range of the various industrial facilities and emergency facilities (like the city watch). After a while, you basically just come up with an optimal neighborhood layout and then copy & paste that neighborhood however many times the quest wants you to, wait for immigration, and then repeat it again with the next level of factories.
In later tiers, the supply chain gets more complex (i.e. it’s no longer just logs → sawmill but multiple ingredients → intermediate parts factories → final factory), but it’s still the same basic game. You might do some trading with other islands too, but even that just modifies your inputs and outputs a little bit. It’s basically single-player EVE, where you’re managing import/export spreadsheets all day. There is also some very rudimentary diplomacy and light combat (at least in the previous games), but they’re not the focus of the game. The economy is.
I think that’s why it felt kinda underwhelming. There was no “for the glory of Rome” feel to it; rather, you’re just some petty bureaucrat managing some nondescript island village’s bakeries and sheep farms. Fine if you like that sort of economic micromanagement, but I think I was hoping for something with a bit more intrigue and thrill.
If you’ve never tried any in the series, I don’t think it’s worth buying at full price. Ubi games never are, since they’re really just formulaic cookie-cutter sequels that get deeply discounted a few years after release, with much of the content gated behind DLCs. That said, the Ubisoft+ subscription is a good way to try them; $18 gets you access to a big library of games, including all the Anno ones and all of their expansions & DLCs. 1800 is mature and full of add-ons by now and the better Anno game for the time being, though 117 is similar enough, just with a Roman skin and less content. You can try both (along with a host of other Ubisoft games) for that month. If you cancel it as soon as you subscribe, it won’t rebill you but you can still finish out the month you paid for.
I might try more 117 later if I have time. But I’m a picky ADHD gamer who very rarely plays a game for more than 4-5 hours… and I don’t think this will become one of those…
On the other hand, someone else recommended Citadelum a while ago, another Roman city builder.
There’s also Pompeii: The Legacy, Nova Roma in January, and a LOT of older titles from the 2000s. (I guess we had a lull of a few years, but more are coming out now).
