DevBlog: Multiplayer and Co-op

You don’t have to play Anno 117: Pax Romana all by yourself, if you don’t want to. You can invite friends or family to build and settle with you – or in direct competition with you. Let’s talk about the multiplayer mode in the game.

Multiplayer Game Modes

As is Anno tradition by now, we offer you a few options:

Play PvP with up to three other governors competing with you. These three slots can be filled by human or AI opponents, so you can, e.g., play against two friends and fill the fourth slot with dear Concordia. Grab the best islands before your friends do, forge treaties and alliances or engage in warfare, fighting on sea and land.

You can also play co-op, meaning you and up to three other (human) players play as the same governor. You share resources, money and islands and have to coordinate your actions. The further you progress, the more you’ll appreciate sharing responsibilities: why not let your buddy take over the management of Albion why you take care of Latium? The mode is also ideal to onboard friends or family members who are new to Anno 117: Pax Romana.

And finally, you can mix both: Play as a group of four friends against three AI opponents! Or go crazy and create a 4v4v4v4 match: 16 players across four teams battling it out.

While previous Anno games restricted multiplayer to sandbox mode, there’s one significant change in Anno 117: Pax Romana: The campaign can be played in co-op with up to three friends.

Game Setup

Setting up a multiplayer game is more flexible than in the past: We do not distinguish between singleplayer and multiplayer as strongly anymore. The game setup screen allows you to set it up as you want, by inviting only AI opponents, only human players, a mix of both or none at all (for a peaceful game). Multiplayer is invite-only, i.e. other players need to be on your friends-list. If you tick the “Friend Game” option during setup, friends can join your game without being invited first.

Each group (or individual players) can decide in which province to start. If you’re playing in co-op, the respective “group leader” takes this decision for the entire co-op group.

Similar to how you can fill empty slots with AI rivals even during the game (as mentioned in the Diplomacy DevBlog), the same is possible with human players. You can invite friends to turn a singleplayer game into a co-op one or fill empty slots with human opponents at any time.

Special Settings

There’s one new system here as well, however: co-op live savegames. This option has to be activated by the host in the setup screen. Live savegames are stored in the cloud and only ever store the latest state of the savegame, not keeping any savegame history.

This allows you and any other player from that savegame to continue the co-op game on your own, and then (re-)invite your friend (or any other friend) later: you don’t have to be online at the same time to play the co-op savegame together.

If your team mate is currently playing, you can simply join by loading the latest save – no need to coordinate a fixed time for everyone to be in the lobby for the game to start.

Anno 117: Pax Romana allows for cross-platform matches if the option is enabled. If your friends are playing on a different platform, that’s no longer a problem in Anno 117: Pax Romana thanks to cross-play.

Trade and alliances or war and conquest – how are you interacting with your partners in multiplayer?

Q&A

Let’s answer a few questions we’ve already seen online here at the end of the blog.

Q: Are there multiplayer speed settings in Anno 117: Pax Romana?

A: No, speed controls are limited to singleplayer. We are, however, open to looking into this topic again in postlaunch, should there be high demand by our community.

Q: Can I use mods in multiplayer?

A: Yes, but it requires all players to activate the same mods.

Q: Will all players require to own a certain DLC in order to use it in a multiplayer match?

A: Yes, similar to mods, all players will need to own/use the same gameplay DLC content in order to play together. These are selected while setting up the game.

Q: Can I select my avatar player logo (“sigil”) and name?

A: Names can be fully customized or chosen from a random selection. Additionally, each player (or group leader) can pick an avatar, logo/sigil and player colour. The same options are true in singleplayer, of course.

Q: Is the day/night cycle available in multiplayer?

A: Yes, since the feature is cosmetic-only, each player can select their preferred time of day individually.

Q: Is there a text or voice chat in the game?

A: Anno 117: Pax Romana does not feature text or voice chat functionality.

So much on the topic of multiplayer for today, we hope we answered all questions on the topic with the blog, but do not hesitate to let us know if there are any burning questions left!

We mentioned the campaign already in today’s blog and that’s where we continue soon: with a closer look at Anno 117: Pax Romana’s campaign and story. Stay tuned!