Anno 117 Dawn of the Delta Guide: Aegyptus, Patch 3.0 and First Steps

What Dawn of the Delta adds

Dawn of the Delta is the third and largest expansion of Year 1 for Anno 117: Pax Romana, and it takes you south of Latium and Albion. The Emperor sends you to Aegyptus, a province built around a large river delta, where you sail the narrow branches of the Nile between strips of land instead of settling islands on a wide ocean. You can add Aegyptus to a save you already play, or start a fresh game there.

If you do not own the base game yet, Ubisoft has it on sale for up to 40% off, ending November 18 on Steam, November 19 on Xbox, November 20 on PlayStation and December 1 on the Ubisoft Store.

Your first steps in Aegyptus

Start simple. The first hour is about learning the river before you build big.

1. Pick how to arrive. Add Aegyptus to a save you already play, or start a new game with Aegyptus as your starting province. A fresh start teaches the province best, because your whole economy grows up around the Nile.
2. Settle your first Threshers near the river. They tend farms and animals, and they know how to work with the Nile and its floods.
3. Feed them Dates and Porridge first. Those are the first goods your Threshers need.
4. Use mud roads in the Floodplains. Buildings there must connect with mud roads, and floodplains cannot be drained the way the marshes in Albion can, so plan roads before farms.
5. Irrigate before you expand. Drylands grow nothing until you bring water, so get basins or norias running first.
6. Make your culture choice with open eyes. Once your Threshers grow, you pick the Aegyptian way or the Graeco-Roman way.

The culture choice: Aegyptus way or Graeco-Roman way

Like Albion before it, Aegyptus asks you to choose how Roman your city becomes. Whatever you choose has ripple effects through your whole settlement, changing your deities, your production chains, your army and the look of your streets. There is no single right answer, so choose the path whose goods you can actually supply.

The Threshers sit below both paths. They need Dates, Porridge, Usekh Collars and Tunics, so those four chains are your shared foundation. The Potters follow old techniques, while the Scribes guard Greek learning inside Roman walls. Pick the path that fits the goods your empire already makes.

Irrigation and the Nile seasons

Water is the whole game in Aegyptus. The Drylands are good ground for cities and production, but they grow nothing until you irrigate them. The Farmlands are fertile from the start and suit Date farms, though trees crowd the space. The Floodplains are the richest ground of all, with Geese, Beads and Reeds found only there, but the Nile floods them.

Your irrigation tools depend on your culture choice. The Aegyptus way lets you build basins and canals that carry water inland from the river. The Graeco-Roman way builds large norias that lift water through aqueducts into cisterns, making the land fertile in a radius around them. Either way, water comes first and farms come second.

Watch the season clock the way you watch your storage.

What Patch 3.0 changes for your existing cities

Update 3.0 is free for every Anno 117 owner, and it landed at the same time as the expansion on November 5. The headline is Stamp Mode, which lets you save your favorite residential or production layouts as reusable stamps. You make stamps with the Copy and Stamp tool, name them and sort them into folders.

The Statistics screen gains two useful tabs: a storage tab that tracks stored goods, passive trades, active trades and storage changes, and an items and specialists tab that shows every specialist you own and every one you have not found yet, with where they come from. Quests can now be hidden from the quest log.

The balance change that matters most is difficulty. Normal is now the default for new games, and goods consumption is higher. This only affects new save games, so a city you already play keeps its old settings. Easy is still there, and the new Very Hard setting raises consumption by 75%. Starting money has gone up to soften the harder early game, so expect a hungrier early game.

Festivals get cheaper and fairer. Festival goods now reflect what each good is worth, so you need more cheap goods and fewer expensive ones, and the end game cost drops from 50,000 coins to 25,000. Two aqueduct specialists were cut in half: Aquila Dulcis drops from +200% Water Supply to +100%, and Ductuarius drops from +50% to +25%. Latium Mills now run faster, 20 seconds instead of 30, with higher upkeep to match, and every shrine now shares the same range of 22 tiles.

New faces, a murder mystery and the pyramids

Aegyptus also brings a new story. You arrive just after the sudden death of Nymphaeus, a well loved local celebrity. His body is pulled from the Nile, and as you prepare it for mummification you find signs of foul play. You can dig into what really happened, or leave the mystery alone and build. Heron, the Epistrategos of Naukratis, is the local Imperial representative: he cannot command an army, but he replaces a destroyed flagship, trades any goods you want, sells specialists and Latium goods, and collects resources for the pyramid project.

Two new rivals will test you. Decimus is a brutish tyrant who treats his people like a labor force and targets players who welcome Kumatic people. Kandis of Kashta is a raider who wants to keep old High Egyptian culture alive. She cannot be beaten by military ships. She attacks your lands unless you pay her ransom, and her units target your fields, warehouses and granaries and can start wildfires on your grain fields.

The long term goal is the Sector Project: rebuild the great pyramids, already 2,000 years old and looking rundown, in four stages. It takes huge amounts of labor and resources, and it is a race between governors. Treat it as a late game goal, not a first week job.

Five mistakes to avoid in Aegyptus

1. Building farms on Drylands before you irrigate. Basins or norias come before farm fields, not after.
2. Filling the Floodplains and forgetting Akhet. The richest ground in Aegyptus drops to 25% production in flood season, so keep farms outside the flood line too.
3. Starting a new game on Normal without checking your settings. Patch 3.0 made Normal the default and raised goods consumption, so new players should look at Easy first.
4. Ignoring the goods Aegyptus cannot make. Some goods your new people want can only be produced in Latium or Albion, so set up trade between your provinces early.
5. Paying no attention to Kandis. A raider you cannot sink will keep hitting your economy until you pay her ransom, so budget for it.

Anno 117 Dawn of the Delta questions

Is Dawn of the Delta free?

No. Update 3.0 is free for every Anno 117 owner, but Dawn of the Delta is a separate expansion you buy on its own. Once you own it, you can add Aegyptus to a save you already play, or start a new game with Aegyptus as your starting province.

Which culture path should I pick in Aegyptus?

Pick the path whose goods fit your empire. The Aegyptian way leads from Threshers to Potters and then Chanters, while the Graeco-Roman way leads to Scribes and then Gymnasiarchs. The choice shapes your goods, your deities, your military and the look of your city, so read the goods table in this guide and choose the path you can supply.

Does Patch 3.0 change my existing save?

No. The higher goods consumption from Normal becoming the default only affects new save games. Your existing city keeps its old settings, and you can switch to a different consumption difficulty at any time. The new features, like Stamp Mode and the Statistics tabs, are there for every save.