The river is the real star
Anno 117 Dawn of the Delta drops you into Egypt, but the pyramids on the skyline aren’t the interesting part. The river is. Ubisoft’s expansion for Anno 117: Pax Romana launched on 5 November, and Anno Union says you can add the new province to any existing savegame or start fresh and pick Aegyptus as your starting province.
The release-day post lists the headline features in one breath: river floods, a new raider, new production chains, different irrigation methods and “the big question of Romanization.” Floods and irrigation are the ones that matter to us. The Steam page tells you to use the floodplains to turn the province into your empire’s breadbasket, and warns that river floods “impact your production, for better or for worse.”
We think that’s the right way to build an expansion for a city-builder. A new look is a postcard; a new rhythm you have to plan around is a system. Strategy add-ons are at their best when they change what you do rather than what you stare at, and Frostpunk 2’s The Surge is making a similar bet by pitching a new resource as the thing to fight over.
Romanize, or keep tradition
The Romanization choice isn’t a cosmetic toggle. Steam says you decide whether to Romanize your cities or embrace the province’s old traditions, and the consequences run “from the deities you worship, to your production chains and the composition of your fleet and military.”
Around that sit the local raider, a new rival named Decimus who is set on keeping Roman order, an investigation into the former governor’s murder, and a contest with your rivals over who contributes most to restoring the Pyramids.
Free weekend is the way in
The onboarding move is the Free Weekend. Until 9 November, anyone can download and play the base-game experience of Anno 117: Pax Romana (no DLC) for free, and Anno Union says that version is fully multiplayer and co-op compatible. A sale is running across all platforms too. Patch 3.0 shipped alongside the expansion with what Anno Union calls “several improvements, changes and bug fixes.”
The catch for the curious is that the free weekend doesn’t include Aegyptus. The expansion costs $24.99 on Steam, so the free build is a way to learn the base game before you decide whether a flooding river is worth paying for. Anno Union also lists a livestream on the official Ubisoft Twitch channel on Friday at 7PM CET (18:00 UTC).
We’d spend the weekend on the base game’s production chains, because that’s exactly what the floods will lean on. If your supply lines are already shaky, a river that swings output “for better or for worse” will find the weak link fast. Planning your next few weeks of play? Our list of upcoming PC games with dates you can put on a calendar is the place to start.
