Nova Roma

About

Nova Roma is a single player open world city builder game with economy and historical themes. It was developed by Lion Shield and was released on March 26, 2026. It received overwhelmingly positive reviews from players.

The glory of Rome is at your fingertips in this city-building game where you must appease the gods, enact laws, and develop complex supply chains to meet the needs of your citizens.

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98%

Audience ScoreBased on 375 reviews

gameplay30 positive mentions

grinding14 negative mentions

Highly enjoyable and addictive city builder with a relaxing yet strategic gameplay experience.
Significant improvements and new mechanics over Kingdoms and Castles, especially with water physics, terrain elevation, and tech tree.
Active developer support with frequent updates and bug fixes, showing strong commitment to polish and expand the game.

Early access state shows some bugs and balancing issues especially in logistics, resource management, and AI citizen behavior.
Water mechanics and aqueduct building can be clunky and frustrating to manage at times.
Some game systems like gods' demands and late game resource bottlenecks can feel tedious or overly punishing without clear UI indications.

gameplay
94 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
32%
65%
3%
The gameplay in this city builder is praised for its satisfying depth, especially the innovative water mechanics that add strategic complexity and immersion. It builds on and expands the beloved mechanics of "Kingdoms & Castles" by introducing new systems like god appeasement and terrain management, resulting in a fresh yet familiar experience. While some mechanics could use better explanation and occasional bugs persist, the overall gameplay is polished, engaging, and shows strong potential for further development.
- “It's beautiful, it's deep, it's cozy, and most of all, it's satisfying to find success with the mechanics.”
- “If you’re looking for a city-builder that’s easy to learn, beautiful to look at, and surprisingly deep in its mechanics, Nova Roma is absolutely worth your time.”
- “The new water management mechanics offer up some nice variety and novelty, it truly feels like you are wrangling with nature, but when you succeed in redirecting floods and mitigating damage it is very satisfying.”
- “The water mechanics are a pain; sometimes water doesn't register as water for a bridge but does register as water for not being able to path over it.”
- “My only complaint about this game is that the god and worship system feels more like a speed bump for progression rather than a real gameplay mechanic; it's only useful to discover new buildings.”
- “It feels very sandboxy at the moment and the weather mechanics don't feel very impactful; they do have effects, but there is not too much gameplay to them.”
graphics
40 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
35%
57%
8%
The game features a charming, clean low-poly art style with pleasing visuals that effectively support gameplay without demanding high-end hardware. While graphics are simple and reminiscent of classics like Kingdoms and Castles, they include detailed animations, dynamic water physics, and varied landscapes that enhance immersion. Some minor optimization and visual fitting issues exist, but overall the graphics are well-received for their style, clarity, and contribution to an engaging city-building experience.
- “A great little colony builder that collects all the time-honored fundamentals from classic city builders and puts them into a pleasantly beautiful art style and a well-produced game.”
- “The visuals keep the same low poly charm as their previous game, but with much more variety and greater attention to detail.”
- “The graphics are amazing, the buildings are beautiful and the droughts feel immersive, like they actually hold an impact on the gameplay.”
- “Graphics and optimization need to be improved a bit as the land doesn't fit the buildings and thus have weird jagged sides, but overall it's good.”
- “There is a lot of space to improve optimization - just at the map generation screen I see my GPU at 300W (and CPU at 35W) - there's nothing complicated to render in this game, I wouldn't expect such extensive resource usage from simple cartoonish graphics.”
- “This game is very well made and has big potential, however I think the price is too high for a game that has very simple graphics and is very limited in achievements.”
grinding
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in this game is often perceived as tedious and poorly scaled, with repetitive tasks like connecting aqueducts, upgrading roads, and managing storage causing frustration. Farming, while having potential depth, lacks sufficient late-game options and quality-of-life improvements, making upkeep monotonous and challenging. Overall, players desire more streamlined mechanics and expanded farming features to reduce grind and enhance gameplay enjoyment.
- “Selling items to merchants is tedious and doesn't really benefit all that much.”
- “Upgrading roads should just be a blanket cover and replace, delete and rebuild on existing roads is tedious and not worth it.”
- “The storage management felt a bit annoying and tedious, because you cannot see anything from the transferring view (cannot see what resources are where) and also I would welcome some automatic assignment of the horse carts available.”
optimization
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
46%
27%
The game generally runs smoothly and performs well even with large saves, notably surpassing similar titles in maintaining high frame rates. However, some users note occasional performance drops in late-game stages and express concerns over high resource usage and graphical issues, suggesting that optimization still has room for improvement. Overall, while playable and stable, enhanced optimization would benefit the experience.
- “I find Nova Roma to be enjoyable and in a lot of ways a huge step up from their first game in this genre. The performance difference between them is incredible. I ran a save with over 3k people, and while I have a pretty good PC, Kingdoms and Castles struggled with that, while Nova Roma was still running at 60fps for me!”
- “Only concern I got is about the performance - playing on highest settings - it got a tiny bit worse towards the late-stage of the game (averaging about 40 fps with city spanning half the island) - the usual colony sim issue, but still quite good compared to other colony sim games.”
- “Overall, the game runs smoothly without noticeable bugs and I would say this game is a wonderful game for casual players like me.”
- “There is a lot of space to improve optimization - just at the map generation screen I see my GPU at 300W (and CPU at 35W) - there's nothing complicated to render in this game, so I wouldn't expect such extensive resource usage from simple cartoonish graphics.”
- “Only concern I got is about the performance - playing on highest settings - it got a tiny bit worse towards the late-stage of game (averaging at about 40 fps with city spanning half the island) - the usual colony sim issue, but still quite good compared to other kinds of colony sim games.”
- “Graphics and optimization need to be improved a bit as the land doesn't fit the buildings and thus has weird jagged sides, but overall it's good.”
stability
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
80%
The game exhibits some typical early access bugs, such as NPCs getting stuck and occasional glitches in terraforming, but these issues are manageable and occur mostly before finalizing projects. Overall, it runs well and the development team is responsive in addressing problems, making stability acceptable for its current stage.
- “So far, an amazing game that runs great.”
- “It's not really buggy or glitchy, and you'll barely notice it's unfinished.”
- “The NPCs can be a bit buggy, with some getting stuck in rubble and running in circles forever.”
- “Although terraforming seems to be a bit buggy from what I've seen.”
- “Some small glitches here and there but early access is exactly that, and the team has been very responsive in patching things quickly.”
story
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
60%
The story aspect is currently minimal, as the game lacks missions, objectives, or a tutorial, leading to a sense of aimlessness for some players. Players hope for future additions like campaigns, quests, and more structured goals to enhance engagement and reduce tedium in resource management.
- “There are no missions or even a tutorial yet, just generate a new map and jump in, as it is definitely early access right now.”
- “I hope they add levels with missions, as playing without an objective gives me anxiety.”
- “I hope we get more villager animations and a campaign map or at least missions.”
- “Do be aware that it's definitely early access right now, there are no missions or even a tutorial, just generate a new map and jump in.”
- “I hope we get more villager animations and a campaign map of some kind or at least missions.”
- “I hope they add levels with missions though, as playing without an objective gives me anxiety.”
music
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
80%
20%
The music in the game is widely praised for its melodic and enjoyable quality, complementing the metropolitan and city-building atmosphere. Players find the soundtrack relaxing and fitting, often highlighting its Roman-inspired tunes as a standout feature.
- “That inner urge for beautiful metropolitan scenery, melodic music and satisfying city expansion has been fulfilled.”
- “The soundtrack is also quite nice.”
- “Such a chill and fun city builder with an amazing soundtrack.”
replayability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Replayability is boosted by procedural map generation, providing unique challenges in each playthrough. Players hope it will offer more lasting engagement compared to similar games with limited content and repetitive city-building.
- “Replayability is enhanced through procedural map generation, which ensures that each playthrough presents a different set of geographical and environmental challenges.”
- “I haven't gotten that far yet, but I hope this will be more replayable than Kingdoms and Castles because you could get everything in that game within a couple of hours, and building new cities wasn't really that interesting anymore.”
humor
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is subtle and situational, often arising from the challenges and quirks of managing water mechanics, providing occasional lighthearted moments amidst the gameplay.