Anno 117: Pax Romana is a gorgeous and accessible city-building game with smooth console controls and deep strategy. Its campaign and endless modes offer hours of fun, strong details, and thoughtful planning, making it one of this year’s best strategy games.

Anno 117 is a beautiful city builder, and I am not just talking about the beautiful vistas that the game’s engine conjures when you access the game’s “postcard view” option.

There is a certain simplicity to the game’s mechanics and easy building style that makes you lose sense of the time you have put into it. In my first playthrough, as I was building the campaign’s city of Juliana, I soon discovered that my grasp of the mechanics wasn’t ideal, and I decided to quickly restart the level.

Looking back, what I considered a “quick” re

See Full Page