I am new to Anno and very much enjoy Anno 117, and it has given me an idea for an Anno that would be set in the Komnenian Byzantine Empire, immediately after the Second Crusade, in 1150 AD.

What makes this year interesting for Anno is that the Second Crusade has just concluded and the empire is battered but experiencing a bit of a pax, but it is not fully healthy either. You already have dense cities, ports, roads, and long established trade routes. At the same time, decades of war, raids, and population movement have left large areas underdeveloped, damaged, or nearly empty. Some cities exist but function badly. Others are half ruined. Some regions are ready to grow but are held back by logistics or instability.

You are not only building from scratch, but also inheriting messy systems that need to be untangled and optimized. You are fixing things that technically work but clearly should work better.

Manuel Komnenos is at the height of his power. The state still functions, and is focused on expansion.

You would play as an imperial administrator tasked by Manuel I with stabilizing and rebuilding regions of the empire. You'd be implementing epoikismos, state led resettlement programs. You are ordered to repopulate empty areas, organize refugees, and restore strategic towns. Some regions start with existing settlements that still have bits of Roman infrastructure online. Roads, harbors, aqueduct routes, but they are damaged, inefficient, or poorly placed. Other regions are close to empty and let you build clean layouts from the ground up.

The map would be split into large regional zones rather than one uniform space. Western Anatolia, the central plateau, the Aegean, the Balkans, southern Italy, Armenia. Each region pushes you in a different direction. Western Anatolia is productive early on but crowded and constrained. The plateau gives you space and flexibility but worse fertility and longer supply lines. Southern Italy leans heavily into naval trade. Armenia is defensible and valuable but unforgiving if something goes wrong.

Constantinople sits above all of this as a permanent high-tier demand city. Later, you can expand it, but it never stops pulling in food, building materials, and luxury goods. It forces the rest of the map to work together. You are not trying to make one perfect city, you are trying to keep an entire system feeding the always-hungry capital.

Some settlements begin as ruins or weak towns with leftover infrastructure already placed. You might have road layouts or harbor slots that are clearly inherited rather than optimal. Investing resources restores them and makes them more useful. New settlements are the opposite. You choose everything from the start and can specialize them early.

Over time you end up with a mix of dense, awkward legacy cities that require optimization, and new towns that are more efficient but take more planning and work.

Population. You have farmers, artisans, merchants, clergy, military households, administrators. Each group consumes different goods and unlocks different buildings. Bread is the baseline. Olive oil and wine sit in the middle. Silk, dyes, luxury crafts, and books drive late game trade and prestige.

Population movement matters. Refugees can arrive suddenly after raids or unrest. If you can house and feed them, they become a huge boost to workforce. If you cannot, unrest and productivity problems follow. Growth helps, but unmanaged growth causes real problems.

Administration works more like capacity than influence. Each province has limits. Governors affect output, upkeep, and stability. As you expand production chains and population, administrative strain builds. If you push too hard, efficiency drops gradually across the region. It should feels slow, stubborn, and bureaucratic in a way that fits the theme.

Policies are long term trade offs. Tax relief speeds growth but hurts income. Religious tolerance stabilizes mixed regions but can cost prestige or trigger court resistance. You are constantly choosing between short term gains and long term stability.

External pressure never fully goes away. Turkic raids in Anatolia damage frontier production and push refugees west. Bulgarian unrest affects Balkan output. Pecheneg and Cuman incursions disrupt Danubian regions. Norman activity interferes with southern Italian trade. These are not game ending disasters, but ongoing stresses that force you to adapt.

Rarely, a Crusade goes through your area and becomes a logistical nightmare but also maybe allows you to unlock special buildings or helpful events (if well-managed).

Byzantium has some really beautiful buildings and aesthetics, and I think Anno is the perfect vehicle for a Byzantium city-builder.