Nova Roma from Lion Shield and Hooded Horse is a self-described “city-building game where you must appease the Gods, enact laws and develop complex supply chains to meet the needs of your citizens”.
That all sounds well and good on paper, but does this Early Access title deliver on its promises, and is it worth checking out before it’s final release build?
Nova Roma
Nova Roma kicks off with the player fleeing Rome after it succumbs to its own greed and corruption. Fleeing to an island with a band of citizens, you must set up a new Rome. The game currently features two modes. Standard, which is the way it’s meant to be played or “Sandbox” mode, where you have full control of everything and can spawn in citizens, resources and invaders at will. Playing the latter disables Achievements, though, and the Sandbox mode is clearly for testing or for fun.
Back to the main game mode, however, players will start off with an Outpost they can place anywhere on a freshly generated piece of land. You can pick between more land-heavy islands or more sparse islands when generating a map, and you get a seed code too for sharing. Once you’ve placed your Outpost, you’re good to go with your city-building adventure.
Building Your Roman Empire
Players will have to place clear forests and stones, place roads and start building their future Roman empire. The game gradually eases you into this process by telling you that your people need houses. Soon after that, it’s water. Then it’ll be a Temple to worship one of the Roman Gods. This is where things get interesting.
Depending on which Roman God you pick, you’ll get access to different perks. However, these perks do not come without their caveats. For example, if you pick Jupiter and if you upset him, your city will have an increased chance of being struck by lightning. Each Roman God has their pros and cons, and as you grow your city and build more temples, you’ll gain access to more of the Gods.
Favour, Progression and Resources
Pleasing the Gods and completing objectives they’ve set out for you yields Favour. Earning Favour is essential to gaining access to new technologies and buildings. The early game is fairly straightforward and extremely chill. You can slowly but surely build up your city, attract new citizens via ships that will visit and drop off people and start gaining access to new technology. Before you know it, you’ll be building masonry buildings and stone works to service them with enough raw materials to repair your structures.
You will need to use the terrain to your advantage too with some areas of land being far more fertile than others. These plots of land will be ideal for growing better crops such as Apples or Grapes. Grapes can eventually be used to make wine at a Winery. And so on and so forth. It’s all very intuitive and flows into each other as you progress. Players will just need to be conscious of what they are spending their favour on so as to keep progressing at a brisk pace and not get bogged down with unnecessary resource heavy construction.
Gameplay, Combat and Difficulty Options
Therein lies the joy of Nova Roma. The game is currently in Early Access but there’s already enough here to keep you busy for hours and hours on end. In fact, I played for a solid 3 hours in one go and time just disappeared as I kept working towards objectives set for me by the Gods.
The game currently also features combat in the form of invasions from angry Romans who are displeased at your defection from their capital. You’ll have to recruit a militia and arm them and send them out to face the invaders. Thankfully, depending on the difficulty settings available in the game, you can choose to ignore this aspect of the game completely on the casual difficulty setting and just enjoy a cozy city-builder instead. However, it’s nice to have the additional challenge on the normal difficulty setting.
Performance and Early Access Feedback
Currently the only gripe I have with the game is that the “Fast forward” option, even on the highest setting, is not fast enough and I still have to wait a long time for things to get done. This isn’t a huge issue though and I’m sure other gamers out there have already provided feedback to the developers to address this issue. Time will tell if it does get addressed though.
Graphics and Sound Design
Graphically, Nova Roma looks fantastic with a low poly, vibrant aesthetic that has a lot of style. The buildings look great and the animations and flashy effects are excellent. Floods and fires look believable and the flow of water looks very appealing. This is even better later in the game once you start building dams and aqueducts and get to see your city in its full glory.
The soundtrack of Nova Roma features an orchestral score that’s very calming and chill. It’s great to listen to while you’re building your city and doesn’t get annoying. Some voice acting for the Gods themselves would be nice to hear in the future.
Final Thoughts
Overall Nova Roma is a very well rounded Early Access city-building title that draws from the genre’s greatest strengths. So far it’s already shaping up to be something worth playing and has already hooked me. Lion Shield clearly know what they are doing and with the game being updated so often, I have high hopes for Nova Roma when it eventually gets to its 1.0 release. Give this game a try. You won’t regret it if you’re a fan of city-builders.
Nova Roma – Launch Trailer
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
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