Anno 117 Pax Romana's Top Secret Turns Out to Be a Breathtaking First-Person Mode.
Wait — did you know gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana in first-person? If you're thinking that, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction upon finding out this secret option. Excuse me while step away from overseeing my civilization, delegate it to a reliable subordinate, take a wagon, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
Activating the First-Person Feature
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates using a top-down camera. However, if you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls alternatively “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — you gain the ability to walk your domain as a common citizen. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I looked forward to test it in the latest installment, but I wasn’t sure it would work prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (likely not meant to happen — this option tends to be a little buggy at times).
Exploring the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I strolled the bustling streets of my city and toured stalls, alehouses, flower fields, and cockle pickers — it was glorious to witness the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I detected numerous fine points I might have missed from above: Doorway embellishments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, people relaxing on their verandas… Simply noticing the design of a windowsill and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
However, there's additional content to the first-person feature in Anno 117 than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that besides being able to view crop lands, but also enter them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, investigate a respected schoolhouse during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers allocated resources for that), but it’s entirely possible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack as long as the door is absent.
Graphics and Ambiance
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented with outdated visual quality, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting in a bench instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems considerably improved over predictions. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) shouldn't logically be this impressive for a title that remains primarily overhead. You might not observe any individual strands of hair, however, you can observe engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and pine tree leaves. Evening, with glowing light sources and distant stellar illumination, creates a particularly moody setting, and proves significantly less intimidating versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions anymore.
Testing and Personalization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I opted to try different commands, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and changing perspective — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and back. I subsequently tried pressing various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my representative's visual design. Yellow toga? Red toga? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You may carry a sword and shield, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. If you're interested, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, as they're remarkably entertaining. Shortly after I activated first-person mode, I overheard a father telling his child that he “Can’t have a pet fox and should you provide another poultry, your gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
At the moment I believed I’d discovered all there is to discover in the title's first-person feature, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can drive them all at your leisure. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, but don't anticipate any GTA-like shenanigans — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Combat Limitations
The sole aspect that let me down regarding the first-person view was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I approached opposing forces in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, but was entirely disregarded. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, though it might have been amazing to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.
