Nova Roma is an indie city builder game in which you have to build a new Rome from scratch. You’ll have to set up houses, build temples, roads, and a lot more as you make progress towards expanding your city. Nova Roma also tests your management skills as time passes, as you’ll have to manage resources and fulfill the needs of your citizens to keep them happy and satisfied.
For more information on the game, please visit its official Steam page here.
Note that the game is currently in Early Access. The game’s content may likely change by the time of the final release.
Table of contents
How To Get Started In Nova Roma
As you start in Nova Roma, you’ll have a random piece of land or island. While creating a new world, you can check the difficulty of the game, which will affect the consumption rate, as well as the frequency of invasions and other calamities.
The first thing you have to do is to build an outpost. Make sure the outpost is in a good place that can be accessed easily.
You’ll have to build roads connected to the outpost later on, so make sure that you place it in such a way that the roads can be easily laid later.
Now, you’ll need wood and stones to build structures. In this game, you can ask the citizens who don’t have anything else to do to cut wood or mine the smaller stones.
Keep in mind that most of the structures that you build in the game have to be near a road that’s connected to the outpost. Roads also serve as a pathway for your citizens, so that they won’t stray into the woods and will instead follow the road back to the outpost and to their homes.
Mining Stone And Gathering Wood
There’s an option on the bar at the bottom of the screen, towards the right, which reads “Clear Land.” Select this option. After that, click on an area with trees or small stones. You can also drag the cursor to select multiple pieces of land.
This will allow the citizens to go and cut down the trees to gather wood. It can be very useful early on, when you desperately need wood to start building other structures.
As you progress, you can also build a Forester and a Stone Quarry. The Forester has to be placed in an area that’s full of trees. It will automatically produce wood and regrow the trees.
The Stone Quarry has to be built adjacent to a stone deposit. Similar to the Forester, it will produce stones and deliver them to a nearby stockpile or your outpost.
Keep in mind that the Forester and the Stone Quarry can be built away from roads, but it’s recommended that you connect them with roads anyway, and set up a few residential structures nearby. This way, the workers don’t have to travel all the way from somewhere else.
Increasing Your Population
Once you have some wood, you can set up hovels for your citizens to stay inside. Later on, you can unlock advanced residential buildings that can house more citizens.
However, keep in mind that the residential areas also have their own needs. You’ll need to build wells around these structures to provide them with water. Furthermore, you’ll also have to provide them with warmth in winter by building a charcoal maker.
As your population grows, its needs will also grow. You can click on the building to see if the citizen wants a specific type of production, and if you provide that, they’ll be happy.
Note that all types of buildings can get damaged over time, and they may even suffer from fire in certain cases. So, you’ll have to build a Masonry. The workers at the Masonry will automatically repair any buildings that have been damaged.
Once you’ve built enough homes and you have some free beds in the city, a ship will periodically arrive bringing immigrants.
Some or all of these immigrants may decide to settle in, or they may not choose to do so, depending on the happiness of your current citizens.
Temples, Upgrades, And Unlocks
As you start settling, you’ll have to build temples. You’ll then have to dedicate each temple to one of the mythical deities available in the game.
Once you’ve done so, they’ll ask you to do certain tasks, such as setting up a structure or offering a certain type of resource.
As you complete these tasks, you’ll gain Favor Stars, and you can use these Stars to unlock new and advanced buildings in the table.
You can also use these Stars on temples themselves, which will give you a bonus specific to the type of mythical god that you’ve dedicated the temple to.
Keep in mind that each deity has separate tasks, and if you want, you can build multiple temples at the start to gain more Stars by completing their respective tasks.
Note that if you don’t build a temple for any of the mythical gods, they may become angry, and then calamities, such as floods, lightning, and drought, may befall your citizens.
Growing Food
There are multiple types of food in the game, such as wheat, grapes, and fish. You can grow crops by first unlocking them from the build tree and then placing these crops on fertile land.
Land has different levels of fertility, and high-fertility land may yield more crops. Once you select a type of crop to set up, the game will show you the fertility level of the land that you’re trying to grow crops on. Land near river beds is usually highly fertile.
Note that if you keep growing a crop on the same area, the land may temporarily lose its fertility.
If this happens, you will then have to destroy the crops. Wait some years for the fertility to return to that piece of land, and you’ll be able to grow the crops there again.
Furthermore, the outpost can store some food, but you’ll eventually have to set up a Granary or two to store the food properly.
For fish, you’ll have to set up Fishing Huts near Fishing Spots in the sea. Once you select the Fishing Hut, look around the island for a location to place it in. The game will notify you if there’s a suitable place.
Once you’ve got these necessities settled, you’ll be able to continue and grow your city by fulfilling the demands of your citizens while also producing a ton of resources as your city heads towards a golden age.
This concludes the Into Indie Games beginner’s guide for Nova Roma.
Please visit the game’s main hub for more guides here. Don’t forget to check out the following interesting pages:
- Into Indie Games Homepage
- Project Songbird Complete Walkthrough
- Crimson Desert – Walkthrough Hub
- The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin – Walkthrough Hub
- Solasta 2 – Walkthrough Hub
Fahad Suleman is an avid fan of fighting games who spends most of his time writing walkthroughs and reviews for cozy indie titles or mashing around in Tekken. If he’s not writing or playing any games, you’ll often find him watching historical videos on YouTube for hours.
