Anno 117 Pax Romana's Top Secret Is a Breathtaking First-Person View.
Surprisingly — did you realize it's possible to experience Anno 117: Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, you feel equally astonished as my own reaction the moment I learned this hidden feature. Allow me to step away from overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a trusted assistant, take a wagon, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.
How to Access the First-Person View
Being a city-building title, Anno 117: Pax Romana usually operates using a top-down camera. However, if you enter a secret combination — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on console — you can explore your domain as a common citizen. Because an analogous secret appeared in the earlier game Anno 1800, I was eager to experience it in the new release, though I was uncertain it would operate prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this option tends to be somewhat unstable occasionally).
Discovering the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I strolled the busy roads through my metropolis and toured markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and seafood collectors — the experience was splendid to see all my hard work through a fresh lens. I observed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice when viewing from overhead: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, poultry scattering about, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the design of a windowsill and the coloration on a post proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Beyond Simple Strolling
However, there's additional content to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted the moment I learned that I could not just look upon agricultural plots, but also step into them. And even though I thought the building models would be off-limits, I managed to access earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure during active classes, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible meander across a cereal plantation, observe people digging and transporting bags, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
Appearance and Mood
Although I was fully prepared to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, apart from certain rough movements and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (particularly rock faces) shouldn't logically be this impressive for a title that remains primarily overhead. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, sparks flying from torches, brick decoloration, pupils, and evergreen foliage. The night, featuring dancing flames and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions these days.
Experimentation and Customization
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and promptly found the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the zoom function permitting me to alternate between immersive and external perspectives and back. I then experimented with certain numeric keys and learned I could modify my character’s appearance. Golden robe? Crimson attire? Blue and purple toga? Or — perhaps even better — full armor? You can wield a blade and protection, or, personally chosen, equip a shooter's costume; if you activate the engage command, you’ll fire burning arrows into the sky. In case you’re wondering, it’s not possible to kill civilians (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “Owning a fox is prohibited and if you feed it one more chicken, your gran will have your head.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. One lovely local Celt then started applauding my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman decided to threaten me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Fun of Vehicle Use
Just when I thought I had found everything available in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even people-powered transports; you may operate any of them freely. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, moves quite quickly, but don't anticipate open-world vehicular chaos — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (reiterating, without confirming testing).
Battle Constraints
The only thing that disappointed me in Anno 117’s first-person mode was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and observing foes flee, their appendages thrashing around, proved very satisfying, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets using my fiery projectiles.
