Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Reveals Itself as a Breathtaking First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? If that’s your reaction, your surprise matches as my own reaction upon finding out this concealed mode. I must step away from overseeing my civilization, entrust it to a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and take a spin around the classical city.
Activating the First-Person Mode
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117: Pax Romana is typically played from an overhead perspective. Yet, when you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” using PC controls 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. Given a comparable hidden feature was part of Anno 1800, I looked forward to try it out in the latest installment, yet I had doubts it would operate until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (possibly an unexpected bug — this mode is a little buggy at times).
Roaming the Roman Cityscape
After extracting myself, I walked the bustling streets across my settlement and explored shops, taverns, floral patches, and shellfish gatherers — the experience was splendid to witness the fruits of my labor through a fresh lens. I detected a variety of intricacies I might have missed from the top-down view: Doorway embellishments, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, chickens running loose, folks chilling on their balconies… Merely examining the shape of a window sill and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
More Than Just Walking
However, there's additional content to Anno 117’s first-person mode than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted when I found out that not only could I view farming fields, but also access them. And despite my expectation the building models would be off-limits, I could walk onto mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the creators allocated resources for that), however, you can definitely wander through a grain field, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and look within any modest shelter as long as the door is absent.
Appearance and Mood
While I was completely ready to witness my city rendered using primitive rendering, apart from certain rough movements and sometimes citizens positioned in a bench rather than on a bench, the first-person view appears far superior to anticipations. The highly detailed textures (especially stone surfaces) shouldn't logically be this impressive within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You won't necessarily notice specific hair details, but you will see wall inscriptions, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, pupils, and pine tree leaves. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, creates a particularly moody setting, and feels much less frightening relative to the previous game, given that the populace appears unlike sleep paralysis demons anymore.
Discovery and Modification
Since Anno 117’s super-secret first-person mode doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I chose to test various actions, and immediately located the abilities to leap, run, and changing perspective — the zoom function permitting me to change from first-person to third-person mode and revert. I then decided to hit certain numeric keys and found I could alter my representative's visual design. Golden robe? Crimson attire? Blue and purple toga? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, preferably, wear an archer's uniform; when you press the action key, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. If you're interested, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
But I wouldn’t wish to harm my citizens anyway, because they’re way too funny. Moments after I entered the first-person view, I overheard a father telling his child that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you offer additional fowl, your gran will have your head.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman opted to menace me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I experienced the pleasure of driving across historical settings. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even manually drawn vehicles; you can control each one as desired. The donkey cart, in particular, is pretty fast, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — impacting citizens or additional vehicles cannot occur (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was discovering my inability to participate in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I charged toward adversaries in the midst of battle and tried to harm them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view was still rather spectacular, and observing foes flee, their arms flailing about, proved very satisfying, but it would’ve been cool to successfully impact objects using my fiery projectiles.
