Dota 2
Dota 2
Game
Game2026
Nova Roma
Developer Lion Shield
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. From the Steam store page
433 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
88
LovedLoved
322 positive · 42 negative
95% range 85–91%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 322 | 42 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 15 | 2 | 45 |
| Mastodon * | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
1,629 of 1,724 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
87% recommend · 244 yes, 35 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 279 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (2,246 of 2,404 positive).
Players praise the game as a strong city builder with great potential and a solid foundation. [1][2][3] Many note it builds on Kingdoms and Castles with improved mechanics like water physics and modular buildings. [4][5][6] Some reviewers find the game still needs refinement, citing bugs, missing features, and frustrating systems. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [8]
I loved Kingdoms and Castles, so I was really looking forward to this game as well. Unfortunately, in its current state, I think it still needs a lot of refinement. That is why I cannot recommend it — at least not yet. The game is clearly built on the foundation of Kingdoms and Castles, which is not a problem by itself. In fact, that foundation is still strong. The problem is that many of the new additions feel …
- [1]
Great city building sim, and has a lot of potential beyond what's already here. If you're into more relaxed city building sims you'll love this game, and I recommend giving it a shot. The bones are great, there's just a couple of tweaks that are needed to the resource management in the game to make it even better. I've spent <$30 on games that are not nearly as great as this one, and I imagine as the Early Access …
- [2]
Kingdoms and Castles excelled at what it set out to do, creating a neat, fun, and replayable colony sim. Nova Roma takes the best aspects of Kingdoms and Castles and gives them new depth. Organizing logistics is rewarding, building up population is fun. There are more aesthetic options to experiment with balancing function and form, and the added complexity is streamlined so as not to overwhelm. It's clear that Lion …
- [16]
A great little roman city builder with a fun focus on water physics. It's very indie and still early access, but the devs are incredibly active and update the game almost every day. Brutal performance issues though that nearly cooked my GPU until I limited FPS and turned fog off, so beware.
- [3]
Lifelong citybuilder fan here. This is a promising addition to the genre. Some of my favorite parts are: -Flexibility in how and where you path your aqueducts - they don't take up buildable space beyond the start and end square. Designing them, esp trying to path a new one through an already densely built-up area, is an enjoyable challenge -Realistic waterflow mechanics - elevation, degree of slope, and water volume …
Summarised from 34 of the 343 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Nova Roma talk about deep and satisfying city-building mechanics; those who didn't talk about missing quality-of-life features like mass citizen reassignment. Which matters more to you?
Reactions
60 of 433 · most liked firstLove the game but it's missing QoL stuff. Number one request would be for you guys to add a button that mass reassigns all citizens to a home closest to their current place of work. For example, if I build a forester, and a hovel next to it after some time, pressing this button would reassign the foresters to said hovel immediately. Otherwise, would be great to have AI rivals like K&C, and multiplayer.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I got to 60 hours and decided to shelve it for awhile. Too many things need to be fixed to get to a solid late game. For the price, enough time spent to make it of value, but half of this was as good as AFK waiting for silly gated tech points to unlock, sometimes soft locked because you haven't built something you can't build... because you don't have the tech' points to unlock it. A path needs to be worked around this issue, otherwise you're playing a cookie cutter game to progress to get…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great city building sim, and has a lot of potential beyond what's already here. If you're into more relaxed city building sims you'll love this game, and I recommend giving it a shot. The bones are great, there's just a couple of tweaks that are needed to the resource management in the game to make it even better. I've spent <$30 on games that are not nearly as great as this one, and I imagine as the Early Access period progresses, there'll be even more to dig into over time. The game was…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you've played Kingdoms and Castles, the other game by this developer, then you already have a good idea of what to expect. I played the demo extensively and the full game is effectively that with more stuff. Same charming style and sound you'd expect, but a tradeoff of (at the time of early access release) not having enemy AIs building their own plots in favor of a deeper management of your city itself and more ways it can fall apart internally. Definitely a more laid back experience than,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Truly a fantastic launch weekend for Nova Roma. So far it's garnered over 2,200 peak concurrent players and an overwhelmingly positive review score. We could not be more proud of the development team. Thank you to everyone who has played the game so far! You are true Roman spirits.
positive · AI labelView post →First, this game uses a clear extension of the "Kingdoms and Castles" engine. It's very much improved and added upon, to the point where "K&C" is obsolete. I can't imagine returning to it. I love the addition of water physics and the ability to terraform. There's also an added level of customization to certain buildings, such as bathouses, apartments, and forums, I appreciate and hope will be fleshed out further. Something Nova Roma adds which was needed in the first game was a tech tree.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I loved Kingdoms and Castles, so I was really looking forward to this game as well. Unfortunately, in its current state, I think it still needs a lot of refinement. That is why I cannot recommend it — at least not yet. The game is clearly built on the foundation of Kingdoms and Castles, which is not a problem by itself. In fact, that foundation is still strong. The problem is that many of the new additions feel underdeveloped or poorly implemented, and instead of making the game feel…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →River flooded my clay pit, clay pit says "cant operate because it needs to be closer to the water" 10/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ok, overall this is a pretty fun city builder with some nice graphics and obviously very similar gameplay as K&C! But, after 15 hrs of playing, 2 starts, some things really bother me. One, logistics and cart routes. Why is this so clunky, I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. First I have to set the logistics on my many storehouses, then supply to certain trades, then set cart routes?? It’s too much, and I don’t want to do it. I wish it was automated at first, and then you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Kingdoms and Castles with extra steps, love it, buy it, just buy it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →playing this game makes you realize why Christianity spread so fast throughout the empire, the gods are all massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →ROME HAS BEEN REBUILT. 🏛 This Nova Roma player has faithfully reconstructed all of Ancient Rome in their map seed. 8,416 citizens. 212 years of game time. An absolutely unreal feat. OP: https://www.reddit.com/r/NovaRomaGame/comments/1tk8436/i_rebuilt_rome/
neutral · AI labelView post →Kingdoms and Castles excelled at what it set out to do, creating a neat, fun, and replayable colony sim. Nova Roma takes the best aspects of Kingdoms and Castles and gives them new depth. Organizing logistics is rewarding, building up population is fun. There are more aesthetic options to experiment with balancing function and form, and the added complexity is streamlined so as not to overwhelm. It's clear that Lion Shield understood what made Kingdoms and Castles so good, and they made another…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All set up for some solo Nova Roma, an excellent game from Stan Kordonskiy #BoardGames
positive · AI labelView post →one of the best city builders ive ever played, its still in early access but already has a lot of content and you can spend many hours building your dream Rome. the difference is that besides the seriousness of building a city from scratch, taking into account the happiness of the citizens, access to water and everything else, you also need to please the greco roman gods by building temples and making offerings. if any god gets too displeased they punish you by making something bad happen in…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've had a great time on this game so far, and while I'm still hooked this game even in early-access has one fatal flaw: No auto-save function. I spent several hours on a new save, but when when I tried to quit neither the "save" nor the "save and quit" function was responsive. I made the mistake of quitting anyways assuming it had saved, only to see that my hours-long save no longer exists. Obviously this is partially my fault, but for future players I highly recommend that an auto-save…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →✅ Pros Deep and satisfying city-building mechanics Unique water system (aqueducts, dams, terrain shaping) Managing gods adds an interesting twist Strong economy and supply chain gameplay High replay value with different strategies ❌ Cons Can get repetitive in the late game Learning might be hard for beginners overall 8/10 very solid game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lifelong citybuilder fan here. This is a promising addition to the genre. Some of my favorite parts are: -Flexibility in how and where you path your aqueducts - they don't take up buildable space beyond the start and end square. Designing them, esp trying to path a new one through an already densely built-up area, is an enjoyable challenge -Realistic waterflow mechanics - elevation, degree of slope, and water volume all matter. It's a fun system. Looking forward to seeing how the game…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Amazing job from the developers, been waiting years for this since i first saw that they were making the game. OG kingdoms and castles player right here.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game overall, but things need fixing, Gods feel too needy and always complain too fast for progress. People for some reason live far away from work even if houses are close,materials need micromanaging to be where you want them. The game actually ends pretty fast even from first playthrough and i got all the Gods angry for some reason. Overall 6/10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wait for more updates. Right now the game has promise and the devs are actively working on adding new features, balancing, and bugfixing. But sometimes the game is unplayable due to its bugs, and even if you dont encounter one, there isnt much to work towards once your city is stable. It's an amazing game, but i'd wait a bit so they have more time to work on it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Roman city-builder Nova Roma from the devs of Kingdoms & Castles arrives in January #NovaRoma #IndieGames #PCGaming #Linux #LinuxGaming
neutral · AI labelView post →A great little roman city builder with a fun focus on water physics. It's very indie and still early access, but the devs are incredibly active and update the game almost every day. Brutal performance issues though that nearly cooked my GPU until I limited FPS and turned fog off, so beware.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fantastic title. Fantastic Devs. I was a fan of Kingdoms and Castles, and a fan of Nova Roma after playing the DEMO. This title brings more inventive features and systems to the table while retaining the mechanics of the older one. I'm personally a huge fan of the new water flow simulations and the modular buildings. I look forward to the full release of the game! :)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game. i have two wolves inside me, a history nerd, and a city builder player. both are kissing
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A little rough currently, but Kingdoms and Castles was eventually polished up very nicely so I expect the same here. Core mechanics are fun and work well.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →a little bonus, another review that went up at @pastemagazine.bsky.social before the holiday - Nova Roma, a heavy worker-placement game with a LOT going on, definitely one of my top 10 games of the year: bit.ly/4eSlrfP
neutral · AI labelView post →I'll start with a thumbs up because it literally just released and it's already on sale for 20% off, which is pretty neat. It's been on my wishlist for a while, so i was going to buy it no matter what, but that said, I will say that it is still a kind of interesting start. Now, in the demo, I could only play on easy, so since I had more options, I started my first run on normal. Right away there were things standing out that didn't happen in the demo. Some new Gods are available that weren't…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game Pass Wave 2 March 2026: 3.19 - Disco Elysium 3.24 - Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 3.25 - Absolum 3.26 - Nova Roma 3.30 - The Long Dark 3.31 - Resident Evil 7 4.2 - Barbie Horse Trails 4.7 - Final Fantasy IV news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/0... [1/2]
neutral · AI labelView post →Premium: -Clair Obscur Expedition 33 (4/2) -Final Fantasy IV (4/7) PC: -Nova Roma (Game Preview) (3/26)
neutral · AI labelView post →I cannot recommend this game in it's current early access state as of April 2026 (update 09) with 20 hours of play time. The core gameplay is solid and it's a great not-quite-anno-but-close-to-anno city simulator with functioning supply chains and water mechanics and all that, but some of the higher-level mechanics are completely broken right now. The God system seems to be an afterthought and half-baked. It is very difficult to focus on the game when a random God (always Vulcan) suddenly…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game. Still needs more work. The difficulty is scalable. I'm more of a cozy, city builder gamer that every now and then will want to dabble in a bit of RTS combat. The game's RTS components need more work to make the combat fun. The city building aspect of it is phenomenal. The way that buildings, or communities, sort of naturally form around certain areas of production in your city (farming, mining, industry as examples) as you go about your expansion feels great. I never felt rushed and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game, haven't found any other game that gives the feeling of playing Caesar III again.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Excellent game, only complaint is it's easy to miss when you are being raided until it's too late. A change in sound or a notification would be great. I can see myself spending hundreds of hours on this.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Solo mode all set up for my first game of Nova Roma. Been wanting to try this for a while, so it became a nice early birthday present from my mom. Now I just have to learn it! 😁 #BoardGames
neutral · AI labelView post →Been waaaay too obsessed with Nova Roma lately, but, in my defense, it's a really good city builder. Not even taking into account it being an early access game, it's probably my favorite city builder to date. Especially with the water fluid simulation as a key feature. #novaroma
positive · AI labelView post →Really love the Game. Tho it's not perfect by any means. My Personal opinion is 7/10. I lacks a lot of QoL features and some minor bugs but overall it's really solid. Loved Kingdoms and Castles really and this is just this but new Features and better. If you loved Kingdoms and Castles then you will like this.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Theres another review by Sistermatic that mirrors my experience and words it much better, but I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. Its really cool on paper and a lot of stuff works well, but for the price tag there is too much jank at the moment. I love the dam and aqueduct system, I've seen someone say that the aqueducts should be plannable like the dams and I agree. Logistics are in need of a complete rework. Its a complete mess as is. Maybe I'm missing something but some tabs with…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Still very bare bones, but enjoying it so far. The water mechanics are great, something you don't often see in city builders. Enjoying the Roman setting, although some parts still need to be fleshed out. If you're looking for a cozy city building game, I recommend this one.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →BEFORE YOU IGNORE THE THUMBS UP I just gotta say, I gave this a thumbs up strictly because the game does what it sets out to do and technically is not a bad game. However, I wish I could give it a neutral button because I would still highly recommend you wait until the game gets a discount or is finished before playing. Not because it’s glitchy, buggy or unfinished. Cuz it’s not really buggy or glitchy and you’ll barely notice it’s unfinished. And overall its very well designed, it’s fun,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Have some pretty amazing friends. We played through chapter 4 of My City, a game of Nova Roma and some classic Wizard to close out last night
neutral · AI labelView post →This a fun Roman city-building game! It reminds me of the nostalgia of playing the Caesar game back in the day, while not having some of the issues I remembered having with that game. I'm enjoying this game so far!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →City-builder Nova Roma from the devs of Kingdoms and Castles delayed until March https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/city-builder-nova-roma-from-the-devs-of-kingdoms-and-castles-delayed-until-march/ #NovaRoma #IndieGames #PCGaming #Linux #LinuxGaming #Unity
neutral · AI labelView post →This is a definite buy, no question. It's simplistic in terms of city building, but seems to nail the crucial aspects for creating a diverse industry for your town and managing the growth of everything you have. The dam building and aqueduct/water management system is SO much fun and improves of their first game greatly. The army management has improved a lot as well and I've enjoyed the grind for building the army up to defend against raiders. The god appeasement is also quite enjoyable and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun little game. Has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, even with just 300 pops, performance drops noticeably unless the camera is directly top-down over your village. Trying to angle the camera to get a better view comes with slowdowns.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've never bought a game in early access before, but after playing the demo for a few dozen hours I decided to take the plunge, and I'm not regretting my decision.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Building towns is fun but i didn't enjoy all the gods stuff, just got annoying after a while. I know these guys made Kingdoms and Castles though so I have high hopes for the future of this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really enjoy this game and the mechanicsm, please continue to develop this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game seems to need some significant optimization. I have an RTX 4070 laptop GPU and i9-13900H CPU with 32GB DDR5 RAM, and even at fullscreen 1920x1080 resolution at 60Hz, with all extra graphics options turned off, it makes my laptop fan run at full speed the entire time the game is running. The textures aren't even that detailed (which I don't mind low-poly, low-detail "cartoony" graphics, as long as the game doesn't peg my GPU like this does). And yes, it's a laptop GPU and not…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Both one of the most simple and complexly challenging city builders I've ever played. The god system starts as a boon and as long as you keep up with it, it keeps giving and giving. The moment you get one god yelling at you, you better make a temple for all of them because they aren't far behind. Kindoms, Castles, mountains and damns. Bravo
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →At the frontier between the city-builder and cosy-game, very balanced gameplay I love it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this game is amazing! i played the demo for hours before early access came out, and i loved it! i like the bigger tech tree and all the new stuff. i think that this game is *definitely* worth the purchase 609/610!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Roman city-builder Nova Roma from the devs of Kingdoms & Castles arrives in January https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/10/roman-city-builder-nova-roma-from-the-devs-of-kingdoms-castles-arrives-in-january/ #NovaRoma #IndieGames #PCGaming #Linux #LinuxGaming
neutral · AI labelView post →Good game, I've done about 6 playthroughs now and bit repetitive now. Waiting for new updates!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have a bias in favour of games that touch upon ancient history, and this is no different. However, not regarding any love for Roman history, this is a great game. Is it perfect? No, of course not. The game is still in early access at the time of writing, that means that there are buildings you cannot yet build, features that may not work yet, or features that do not work well. However, enough of the game works to make it a very enjoyable experience. One note that is important is PC specs. I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →from my first 26 minutes of the game i can already feel this game is gonna be a great successor to kingdoms and castles been waiting for about a year i cant wait to play more update 1: played 8 hours now some iffs but overall amazing game iff 1: sleepiness is crazy(it got fixed apparently) iff 2: rome attacks get way too crazy way too early on (year 40 == 26 armies on normal) other than that the game is peak and it makes sense its early access i cant wait for full release
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A solid sequel to Kingdoms and Castles, with some definite big improvements. Overall it’s incredibly fun and addictive if you love city-builders. That said, a few obvious areas still need work: 1. The water mechanics combined with land generation feel very off. Overflows can happen from day one. Very often the intended riverbed and the actual water flow don’t match at all. Flooding is a real pain in the early game and happens a lot even without heavy rain. 2. Maps can get boring. One big,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This title remains in early access development, with the advancement system still largely restricted. The divine relationship mechanics exhibit a notable lack of consistency, as deity anger triggers appear to lack clear, logical progression patterns. Furthermore, the quest objectives required to appease various deities often lack meaningful differentiation, creating repetitive gameplay elements. The advancement tree's unlock mechanisms demonstrate a critical dependency on…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played through the game in around 7 hours. Overall felt decently polished and a nice game in the style of its predecessor. For someone new to the series I very much recommend this game. You'll probably spend a bit more time enjoying the mechanics/ creative aspects of the game. However, as someone returning from Kingdom & Castles this game was a bit disappointing. It felt extremely similar, with some refinement and some jankiness. The main thing I think is lacking is some difficulty/…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fans of Ceasar III who have been looking for the same sort of Mechanics in a Roman world will love this!!! 5 minutes in and I knew this game was for me!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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