Anno 117’s Delta expansion changes the harvest. The free weekend covers the base game

Anno 117: Pax Romana has opened Aegyptus with Dawn of the Delta, while a free weekend lets newcomers try the base game. Those are separate offers: the trial does not include the expansion. Existing players can add the new province to a saved game or choose it as the starting region of a new one.

Ubisoft's November 5 release notice describes a free-play period running into November 9, with platform-specific timings. Multiplayer and co-op work in the trial, making it useful for testing whether the base game's planning rhythm suits a group before anyone buys it. Access ends with the relevant platform's window; this is not a permanent giveaway.

Ubisoft's timing map puts the end at 12:00 UTC on November 9 for PC and PS5, and 07:00 UTC on November 9 for Xbox. The different clock times explain why some regional notices describe an Xbox end on November 8. Check the platform as well as the date when planning a final session.

The river changes the production calendar

The expansion's central economic idea is that fertile ground does not produce at a constant rate. In Ubisoft's gameplay breakdown, flooding cuts productivity in the Floodplains zone by 75%. The following harvest season adds one tonne per production cycle to production buildings in that zone.

That creates a reason to think about reserves rather than optimise only for the current moment. A settlement that looks adequately supplied during a productive period may struggle when the same buildings slow down. Conversely, infrastructure that looks oversized at one point can be valuable for storing the next surplus.

Granaries provide additional storage for agricultural goods and bonuses to farms in range. Their capacity supports exports and helps bridge the flood season, but overflow can attract rats, with consequences for island health. The mechanism gives stockpiling a cost to manage instead of making a larger warehouse an automatic solution to every problem.

Irrigation occupies space that a city could use

Traditional irrigation uses coastal basins and canals to turn nearby arid ground into farmland. Ubisoft describes watering a strip eight tiles to either side of a canal. The benefit therefore has a visible layout cost: channels and agricultural space compete with the area available for the settlement itself.

The Romanised progression offers another route. Reaching the Gymnasiarch tier unlocks an aqueduct system that carries river water inland, with cisterns supporting both farmland and bathhouses. The choice between population paths consequently affects more than the appearance of buildings; it changes needs, infrastructure and the ways production can be organised.

This is a different planning problem from the layout-reuse tools in Anno's recent update coverage. Copying an efficient district can reduce repetitive construction, but the new province still asks whether that district belongs on floodplain, irrigated land or somewhere else entirely.

A cargo hub can be more useful than one bigger ship

The developer notes describe lighter local ships as better suited to the delta's shallow waterways, while heavier Roman vessels remain useful between regions. Moving goods through a coastal transfer point can therefore make more sense than expecting one vessel type to handle every route equally well.

That is the expansion's most promising thread: the local environment changes the logistics rather than serving only as a new backdrop. Flood cycles affect when goods are available; irrigation affects where they are produced; shipping affects how they reach the rest of the empire.

For a new player, the free weekend offers the base game's underlying construction and trade loop, not a free tour of those new systems. For an existing governor, Aegyptus poses a sharper question: can the city remain supplied when its best farmland changes pace? A successful plan will need to work across a season, not just look efficient in one paused screenshot.