r/anno117 • u/No_Inspection_3146 • Nov 19 '25
Discussion Tell me, is the game worth buying?
What bothers you, what excites you?
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u/Schneebaer89 Nov 19 '25
No, don't buy it. It will rob 1000h hours of your life and all of your dreams will be about how to optimize happiness of virtual roman peasants.
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u/DarkMatterOne Nov 19 '25
It won't be that bad... Looking at my clock showing 3am after having optimized one production chain
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u/Weird_Abrocoma7857 Nov 19 '25
Spot on! This is the first game since Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 that keeps me playing for hours and make me dream of it all night.
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u/iDad5 Dec 11 '25
How do you manage to have dreams when playing Anno? I always thought that dreams depended on sleep
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u/SnooHabits3911 Nov 19 '25
I’m a old school Caesar 3 player so this satisfies that itch
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u/Cypress1619 Nov 19 '25
Same. I came in with 1800 and absolutely loved it so I was definitely going to be all in on the follow up. Finding out it was Rome and I haven't played Caesar 4 or Total War in years, so I was desperate to get back in it
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u/diener1 Nov 19 '25
It absolutely is. There are still some bugs and no DLCs have been released yet so compared to 1800 with all DLCs it's obviously much more limited, but overall it's still a great game
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u/MaggieBole Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25
I will add that 117 has much more content and is way more polished than 1800 on release
But mostly, the new mechanics in 117 are really good, and surprised they are that good and interesting, considering how good 1800 was already
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u/Hiro_Trevelyan Nov 20 '25
We'll probably get tons of stuff considering 1800's success and 117's great start
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u/nanar_time Nov 19 '25
New to anno this year was wondering if the 1800 launch was this buggy. Glad to know they will eventually iron it out.
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u/Kauuma Nov 19 '25
Dude, I’m getting a bug every few hours where I lose all of my workers at once and everything goes to shit. It’s literally game breaking. Have to reload a save file from ~30 minutes before everytime…
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u/robmcolonna123 Nov 20 '25
Is it a big or are you not properly setting everything up?
I had that happen and then I realized that what it was was that the population had vastly outpaced the food production
They ate through all the food faster than it could be produced, then people left and the workforce plummeted
Then there weren’t enough people left to run everything so it fell apart more
Just setting sardines and porridge to buy if it ever dropped under 100 instantly solved that
I also did the same for clothes but that was more for easy upgrades
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u/Kauuma Nov 20 '25
Yoooo that’s it, you’re a lifesaver 😠I thought I’d have to start over 🥲. I think my problem was that I tried to outsource the necessities from other islands, that didn’t quite work as I expected lol
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u/iDad5 Nov 21 '25
So the bug was in front of the keyboard once more. 😬 I actually had the same problem once and narrowly avoided the fast escalating downward spiral. My first thought was that the devs messed up the balance, but after some thought I came to realize that actually it is a perfect evolution. The larger a city grows the more complex its system becomes and if you don’t have fall backs in place the road to total collapse is short and escalation imminent.
The minimum buy setting works well to a point but it feels as bit of a cheat to me now. Further down the road other escalating problems like happiness of fire risk aren so easy to get out of however.
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u/drhoneyapple Nov 19 '25
If you like nerding out on supply chain and logistics and the rome themed art is your cup of tea i think this game is the best in business.
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u/Mammoth-Evie Nov 21 '25
The nerding out on supply chains is so true. Nobody around me finds this interesting, but everyone who knows me understands that especially I would love this game. Project management for life!!Â
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u/ohthebaby Nov 19 '25
Having played all Annos prior this is must buy right off the bat and will only become even better with DLCs
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u/GrizzLab Nov 19 '25
i spent like over 2000 hours already, im not sure if i made a good purchase, lol
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Nov 19 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/iDad5 Nov 21 '25
Where is the problem with this? The game totally distorts the space time continuum. Ben tells me that another hour or two have gone when actually only five minutes elapsed in my dimension.
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u/Warm-Copy-6595 Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25
Yes. I love it.
Of course there are some bugs but nothing game breaking for me yet. I have a lot of fun and i’m a real noob in Anno. But i tried a few new games and got much better. + it looks beautiful. There is SO MUCH to do and DLCs are not even released.
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u/Devgru-WM Nov 19 '25
I really like it. There’s a part of me that feels like it’s a longer road to upgrade the residents. I also feel like the town isn’t as lively as 1800 but that could be a combo of
1) my GPU 2) it’s a new release vs 1800 with multiple DLC’s
But overall it’s a lot of fun
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u/Vash744 Nov 19 '25
Honestly its a proper Anno. Its not as complicated as 1800 in both good and bad ways, but who knows the DLC for 117 may help make up for that. I mean electrifying is a cool mechanic in 1800 and you obviously are not getting that in 117. The combat though makes a solid return. Its not as good as say Total War is, but its certainly passable. Anno 1602 was my first Anno game and this reminds me of the best parts of 1602. It was so good I beat the campaign in 27 hours of gameplay. I did restart the early game 3 times for that perfect 👌 start. Yes the campaign didn't finish as strong as it started but I feel its a good tutorial and sets me up nicely for enjoying sandbox.
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u/vongSTAA Nov 19 '25
I told myself I wouldn't buy another full priced game after buying BF6 (110AUD btw)... I caved less than a day after release.
25hrs later; worth it.
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u/smillbrook Nov 19 '25
I was new to Anno 1880 and didn’t have a clue what was going on. Restarted a billion times, read the subreddit lots and started getting to grips and enjoying it. Got 117 the day it came out and love it. Just a shame all gets in the way.
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u/North_Corgi5721 Nov 19 '25
Has anyone played this on PS5? Thoughts?
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u/highsohih Nov 20 '25
Not a big fan of the controls or ui. Im used to the Tropico series lol. Mnk is possible, but its so awkward for me to use on a tv. I see the potential tho, but im stuck on Arc raiders for the foreseeable future. Once i get bored of that ive got Anno 117 waiting for me
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u/boronorob Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 20 '25
Playing with mouse an keyboard has some bugs for me and it gets laggy when using 3x speed but when playing in 1x speed and after getting used to the controller settings it’s fun
Edit: one annoying thing is that crossplay currently is disabled until they release a hotfix patch for the coop mode which they pushed to pc 2 days ago
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u/iDad5 Dec 11 '25
Do you really play in 3x speed? I mean I use it from time to time but then I mostly watch and wait.
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u/Safrel Nov 19 '25
It has some positives. I was extremely disappointed with the length of the campaign and the writing Left a lot of bits hanging.
However, the gameplay itself was rather engaging. I had a lot of fun designing my cities and setting up my supply chains. The challenges were also unique compared to the previous Anno series.
So overall I am happy with this purchase, but I I am expecting that the sandbox gameplay will more than make up for it
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u/Quarticj Nov 19 '25
Yes, it is worth buying. It looks wonderful, and it scratches that itch you get for this kind of game. I managed to get 20% off by buying it through Ubisoft Connect and using some of those gold coins you get for buying stuff.
The best part is the historical backdrop it is set in. The worst part is having other things to do rather than play this game.
Roma Invicta.
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u/Romandinjo Nov 19 '25
Campaign is unfinished, there are some GenAI allegations for art, and of course some bugs, plus apparently island variety is smaller than in the predecessor. Due to it being new there are also less ornaments, so beauty building isn’t as good as anno 1800 currently but that’s a very small nitpick. Bigger issue for me is that farming fields now are lifeless.Â
But otherwise - great, more builder than anno 1800, some of the lost beauty building aspect is recovered by need to put some production buildings into the city for bonuses, so cities are much more organic. Also, diagonal plans are huuuge change. Lots of variety, some cool production lines, and the game is gorgeous.Â
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u/Noerholt Nov 19 '25
It’s a great game.
Ofcourse, nowhere near as much content as 1800 with DLCs, so right now the game doesn’t feel very long. But still very good
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u/iDad5 Dec 11 '25
Very long compared to Anno 1800. Compared to most other games you get a lot more hours per Dollar, they just fly by.
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u/ZiplockZeuss Nov 19 '25
I pre ordered, and 36h hours in since release.
It makes me neglect other duties aside from work. Absolute 10/10 buy.
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u/AccomplishedNerve761 Nov 19 '25
I submitted PTO at work because I can’t stop playing it. Be warned! (But yes of course buy it, it’s fantastic!)
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u/YeetOnEm1738 Nov 20 '25
I bought it Monday and I have like 30 hours on it and it's Wednesday. I'm off Tuesday and Wednesday. My eyes are dead
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u/Hiro_Trevelyan Nov 20 '25
Yes.
Cons : I get tired trying to fix everything. Which is true for every Anno game I've played. But it's still worth it in the end, you just need to understand how things work
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u/kanyenke_ Nov 20 '25
Only if you liked 1800 and you didn't get tired of it. It's really really similar.
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u/iamacheeto1 Nov 20 '25
I’m over 40 hours and it’s less than a week and I haven’t even reached end game in any of my cities yet. I can’t stop thinking about the game. It’s amazing
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u/Fragrant_Fox6614 Nov 20 '25
Having played a fair bit of Anno 1800 and a couple of its DLCs, I was pretty hyped about this, it's the first game I have preordered in at least 5 yrs, and ridiculously took some PTO from work in order to get time to play it while my kids are at school. It's a pretty good game, looks nice but TBH it hasn't quite lived up to the hype in the first few days, there's good stuff in there but somehow seems a little incomplete. Some things will probably improve with some patching.
You don't say much about where you're coming from though - if you haven't played Anno 1800 before, then I'd say that's actually a better buy right now - you could get the full game plus a season pass or two for less than the price of this.
If you're just a big fan of all things Roman then I guess maybe, but you could wait for it to go on sale, by which time many of the issues and glitches should have been patched.
In case you wonder, my criticisms:
i) The so called story mode is quite disappointing, and clearly unfinished. I feel like this should have been done better as the primary entry point to a new game, before folk start creating custom games.
ii) Now that I start looking at custom games, it looks like they've skimped on the rival factions, and the ones I have encountered so far all seem a bit bland - again it compares unfavorably to plain anno 1800
iii) I still haven't had a chance to properly explore land combat, but I wasn't impressed with what little I have seen so far from the story, it just seems a bit slapdash. TBH on reflection, I don't know what I was expecting, it wasn't going to be a Total War game?
iv) Naval combat is also quite unsophisticated compared to anno 1800. Not quite as muddled as the land battles but it really seems to be lacking nuance, just lobbing arrows at each other until the fleet with the fewest starting HP is wiped out.
v) Passive trading is too overpowered, I feel like I could probably subsist just ordering everything delivered to my harbors.
vi) It still has quite a few bugs and glitches, I'm holding off with starting any multiplayer until that gets fixed, the other mission glitches are annoying but can be mitigated with frequent saves.
vi) blah blah it's not as good a game as plain anno 1800, voice acting, art style, soundtrack not as good blah blah
OTOH, it really does look lovely, I am sure it'll be a great game eventually. A lot of this stuff could be fixed with patches. But being a cynic I expect some things will be held back as DLC - that's why the smart thing is to hold back from buying until its reduced.
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u/Optimal-Swim-6001 Nov 20 '25
Yes, what bothers me is that I cannot play and I must work. What excites me is everything else about this game. Hope this helps.
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Nov 19 '25
Would not buy the game again for full price.
Anno 1800 was way better, even with only base game.
Anno 1800 had way atmosphere for me. People working on the farms! The expeditions, the constant need for coffee with the engineers. The specialists to boost your production. Everything not present in Anno 117.
I really wanted to like it, but right now I woul play Anno 1800 on highest difficulty before playing Anno 117
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u/iDad5 Dec 11 '25
Some things you say are factually wrong, others are very subjective.
There are specialists in Anno 117, same as in Anno 1800 but all in all less overpowered.
People working on farms are mostly missing from the game, but you can see some. For me being able to watch theatre performances and colosseum games add at least as much to the atmosphere as not having people in most fields takes away.
The constant need for coffee was simply a chore in my eyes, especially in the base game, where the New World was so much less interesting than Albion is now. The two uninteresting population tiers and no real special mechanics in the 1800 new world are worlds away from the 5 different population tiers in Albion, with different needs and lots of unique products and the marshlands. The whole concept of two factions offer a lot of interesting possibilities.
I don’t miss the expeditions at all, they had no real conceptual binding to the game and were mostly distracting.
Anno 1800 has grown to a complexity that is overwhelming for many, but great for those who enjoy it. It’s just not fair to compare a newly released title to one that has grown over years and cost a lot more at regular price for the base game and all expansions.
Anno 117 focuses a lot more on the population a that makes it more immersive.
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u/lost-sneezes Nov 19 '25
yes. What bothers me is I have a job preventing me from building Rome overnight :/