Anno 117 Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Wait — did you know it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 in first-person? Should that be your response, your surprise matches as my own reaction the moment I learned this secret option. I must temporarily abandon managing my empire, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and enjoy a ride through Ancient Rome.
How to Access the First-Person View
As a city-building game, Anno 117 Pax Romana usually operates from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam your domain as a common citizen. Since a similar easter egg was part of the earlier game Anno 1800, I looked forward to try it out in the latest installment, but I wasn’t sure it would function prior to being submerged in a structural glitch (which probably wasn’t intended — this mode tends to be a little buggy at times).
Discovering the Ancient Streets
Upon freeing myself, I wandered the busy roads across my settlement and visited shops, taverns, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it felt magnificent to see the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I observed all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Merely examining the shape of a window sill and the coloration on a post is quite interesting to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Further Than Mere Wandering
Yet, the experience extends to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I was especially delighted when I found out that besides being able to observe crop lands, but also access them. And despite my expectation the building models would be off-limits, I managed to access clay pits, investigate a respected schoolhouse while lessons were in session, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the creators allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting inside seating as opposed to atop a bench, the first-person view appears considerably improved over predictions. The intricately designed surfaces (notably masonry elements) are unexpectedly excellent for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe specific hair details, but you will see engravings on walls, sparks flying from torches, brick decoloration, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and distant stellar illumination, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons now.
Experimentation and Customization
Given the covert first-person feature has no guided tutorial, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the options to jump, sprint, and adjusting the view — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and revert. I then experimented with certain numeric keys and found I could alter my character’s appearance. Yellow toga? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You may carry a sword and shield, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; if you hit the interaction button, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I attempted, naturally).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that “Owning a fox is prohibited and should you provide another poultry, your elder will punish you.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by calling it the “Best of both worlds,” whereas an irritable elderly woman chose to intimidate me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
At the moment I believed I had found everything available in the title's first-person feature, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Cattle, asses, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, is pretty fast, but don't anticipate Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The sole aspect that let me down within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I approached opposing forces in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their appendages thrashing around, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.
