Anno 117: Pax Romana Preview – Technical Deep Dive
Introduction
After the commercial and critical rebound of Anno 1800, Ubisoft Mainz has set its sights even higher with Anno 117: Pax Romana. In this hands-on preview—based on a recent press event in Rome—we explore the game’s stunning visuals, deep economic engines, and the technical innovations under the hood. With a targeted release later this year on Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, Anno 117 promises to both satisfy longtime fans and onboard newcomers—if Ubisoft can polish the tutorial and onboarding experience.
How an Anno Game Works
The Anno series blends city building, resource logistics, and light military engagement into a cohesive whole. Core components include:
- Grid- and Node‐Based Layout: Buildings snap to a hex‐style grid or optional diagonal roads, interacting via pathfinding nodes and local influence radii.
- Supply Chain Simulation: Raw materials (timber, stone, grain) are harvested, processed in multi‐stage production chains, and distributed via transport routes and warehouses.
- Multi‐Island Archipelago: Each island features unique biome, resource nodes, and terrain heightmaps, requiring trade routes or naval transport to balance production.
- Population Tiers and Demands: Citizens advance through social classes (Peasant → Citizen → Noble), unlocking new buildings, consumption goods, and tax revenues.
- Light Combat and Diplomacy: Naval skirmishes use a rock‐paper‐scissors balancing system, while AI‐driven faction leaders offer alliances, trade treaties, or military pressure.
Behind the gameplay, the engine orchestrates an event‐driven economy: each building periodically emits “demand” or “supply” events, which are resolved by an asynchronous pathfinding scheduler. This scheduler handles thousands of path nodes per frame on modern multithreaded CPUs.
What’s New in Pax Romana
Building on the foundation of Anno 1800, Anno 117 introduces several headline features:
- Ancient Roman Setting: Idealized “Pax Romana” landscape with golden wheat fields, marble quarries, and engineering marvels such as aqueducts and amphitheaters.
- Religion System: Choose a deity—Ceres, Jupiter, Neptune—with temple upgrades granting area buffs (e.g., +15% crop yield or +10% ship speed).
- Enhanced Research Tech Tree: Branching unlocks span numerical buffs (storage capacity, production speed) and limited new mechanics (advanced irrigation, fortified walls).
- Ground Military Forces: For the first time since Anno 1701, deploy legions—centurions and ballista units—to capture strategic nodes or defend against incursions.
- Diagonal Building and Road Placement: While grids remain optimal for throughput, freedom to design organic city layouts appeals to aesthetic-focused players.
- Dual Campaign Biomes: At launch, players can select Latium (Mediterranean) or Albion (British frontier) maps, each with unique resource curves and environmental hazards.
Technical Specifications
- Minimum PC Requirements:
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400
- GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6 GB or AMD RX 580 8 GB
- RAM: 8 GB
- Storage: 60 GB SSD (recommended SSD for faster asset streaming)
- Recommended PC Requirements:
- OS: Windows 11
- CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K or AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER or AMD RX 6700 XT
- RAM: 16 GB DDR4
- Storage: 100 GB NVMe SSD
- API: DirectX 12 Ultimate with optional ray tracing for enhanced water reflections and volumetric lighting.
Performance and Technical Architecture
Anno 117 runs on a proprietary engine optimized for large‐scale simulations and high‐fidelity environments. Key architectural highlights include:
- Multi‐Threaded Task Scheduler: Offloads simulation tasks (resource production, population ticks) across up to 10 CPU threads, reducing main‐thread stall by 40% compared to Anno 1800.
- Level-of-Detail Streaming: Dynamic LOD for buildings and terrain, with pop‐in thresholds at 300 m. Uses wavelet compression to stream textures on demand, cutting memory footprint by 25%.
- DirectX 12 and Vulkan Support: Low‐level APIs enable asynchronous compute for post‐processing effects, improving GPU utilization by up to 20% on compatible hardware.
- Memory Budget Management: Asset memory capped at 12 GB on consoles—textures and meshes swap in background threads to prevent hitching during camera pans.
“Our improved task scheduler allows hundreds of buildings and thousands of AI agents to simulate concurrently without dropping frames,” says Lead Graphics Programmer Anna Keller. “Players won’t notice lag even in epic-scale empires.”
AI and Simulation Depth
Enhancements in AI behavior and simulation make your world feel more alive:
- Adaptive Pathfinding: Agents choose paths based on real-time congestion metrics. A heatmap system tracks road usage, dynamically rerouting carts to avoid bottlenecks.
- Economic Equilibrium Algorithm: A weighted graph solver balances supply and demand across islands, automatically adjusting trade route priorities when markets fluctuate.
- Citizen AI: Each NPC now has individual needs and happiness ratings. Crowd animations and dialogue snippets react to festivals, famine, or military buildup.
“Our goal was to simulate not just buildings but societies,” explains AI Director Matteo Russo. “When a temple event triggers, you’ll see citizens gather, talk, and even file petitions to your magistrate.”
Multiplayer and Networking
While Anno has traditionally focused on single-player, Anno 117 introduces optional co-op and competitive modes:
- Server-Authoritative Architecture: Hosted on Ubisoft Connect servers to ensure state consistency. Tick rate set to 10 Hz for synchronous economy updates.
- Peer-to-Peer Fallback: In regions with high latency, players can host matches locally, with client‐side prediction smoothing resource delivery delays.
- Cloud Save and Cross-Platform Sync: Ubisoft Connect cloud storage lets you switch between PC and console builds seamlessly, retaining city states and multiplayer progress.
Early reports from the closed alpha (announced June 15, 2025) indicate stable performance in 4-player sessions, with latency rarely exceeding 120 ms even cross-region.
Onboarding and Tutorial Improvements Needed
Despite the technical polish, the initial tutorial remains a sticking point. During our playtest:
- Key steps (e.g., assigning workers to warehouses) were glossed over without prompts, leading to confusion and developer intervention.
- Objectives display clearly in the UI overlay, but deeper systems (religion buffs, research node prerequisites) require expanded tooltips.
Ubisoft has publicly acknowledged community feedback from the June beta and is preparing a patch to introduce interactive tooltips and mid-game help windows. “We’re committed to lowering the entry barrier,” says Community Manager Elisa Fontana.
Expert Opinions
“Anno 117 strikes an impressive balance between scale and detail,” observes strategy analyst Dr. Viktor Brenner. “The new AI systems and technical improvements could set a new benchmark for the genre.”
“The Roman setting is a fan favorite, but it’s the engine upgrades—multi-threading, LOD, networking—that truly excite me,” adds game technology consultant Priya Shah. “We haven’t seen this level of simulation performance since top-tier RTS titles.”
Conclusion
Anno 117: Pax Romana combines sublime visuals, deep economic simulation, and modern technical underpinnings. Its success will hinge on a refined tutorial and polished co-op mode. With closed beta feedback driving imminent patches and a release slated for Q4 2025, Ubisoft Mainz has both the time and data to address current concerns. For fans of city builders, supply chains, and historical aesthetics, Anno 117 is shaping up to be a must-watch release.