Overview
If you’re new to the Grand Ages: Rome and want to get a quick write-up of how to play the game, then this is what you’ll want to read.
How the game works
The main principle of this game is to “plan according to radius”. Each building has a radius, which gives you a huge advantage instead of having to plan roads as you normally do in strategic city-builders. A house has a radius and within that radius you just need to build a place for the inhabitants to work. If you have a Farmer’s Market that distributes food, it will distribute food within the entire building radius. A middle class house, Equite House, will require entertainment, so you have to make some kind of entertainment producing building which has that Equite House within its radius. The rest of the game works the same way and it works really well, if I may say so.
Another point where Grand Ages: Rome is different is on the consumables section, which is divided into (building) materials, food and other. In normal city builders (the ones I have played prior to Grand Ages: Rome), you have to have some kind of raw material production, such as meat, marble, iron, stone etc. which are then transported to shops that refine them into wares which your citizens will buy. You are highly dependent on road building from your raw material production to the shop, on to the warehouse, where it’s picked up by a merchant which will then hopefully distribute the goods to the right houses.
Grand Ages has the same principle of producing and refining, except all consumables, raw and refined, are stored in a metaphysical storage. It isn’t located anywhere on map, but if you’re producing the materials, you’ve got them and can spend them. This makes it a huge relief when playing the game, because if you need food distributed in a certain area and you have 4 Meat and 4 Wheat, you can build a Farmer’s Market right where you need it.
Preface – Grand Ages: Rome Gold Edition
When I originally wrote my “Tips on how to play Grand Ages: Rome”, I forgot to mention that this guide presumes you own the Gold Edition, which is including the expansion – Reign of Augustus.
In case you don’t own it, for reasons I cannot explain, then the expansion really improves the base game with the following features (excerpt from Steam store page):
- 4 new buildings: Senate, Tax Office, Odeum, Hospital
- Roads – connect your city to the major Roman roads to gain additional resources, units travel faster on roads, certain buildings generate additional resources when placed next to a road. (You can easily complete the game without using roads, but they look nice)
- Authority – certain buildings (both new and existing buildings from the first game) generate Authority that can be used for various effects that benefit the player or hinder his opponents – putting out or starting fires, summoning an allied squad, accelerated research, etc.
This is extremely useful and there are a total of 9 authority actions. The most useful are the following:
Emergency Supplies – If you run out of building materials, you can’t build anything (obviously) and that means you cannot do anything. Use this action to get +20 of every building material for 5 minutes.
Buy Slaves – Gain 20 Slaves immediately. Slaves are used for Slave Markets, which then can staff your farms or your mines, or you can sell them at Trade Posts or Ports, where they are very good value, compared to many other resources you can sell there.
The other 7 actions are not really worth it, except maybe Sabotage, but that one only works in multiplayer. You won’t need to put out any fires, unless you’re being attacked by enemies or you’ve planned your city poorly, not meeting the needs of your population. The rest are self-explanatory.
- Remove tool for roads, trees, platforms and decorations. Yes, this was not present in the base-game and if you placed something by accident or in the wrong place, there was no way to get rid of it.
Housing
So let’s get on with the guide and start with a few words about the 3 different kinds of housing.
The Insulae
The lowest working class, the Plebs, lives in these houses. They’re the backbone of your civilization, taking care of basic work like working the farms, the schools, theatres, farmer’s markets, and logging sheds and many other necessary occupations. Get some basic production of wood and bricks going quickly, as each Insulae consumes 2 Wood and 2 Bricks. VERY important: If you get more than 50% food satisfaction to Insulae, they will produce 3 Goods (which can be upgraded to 5 through the talent tree). You will need Goods to support a population of Equites, the middle class. Each Equite House consumes 2 Goods, and 1 Stone.
Some “jobs” like the logging sheds, brickworks, stone quarries, marble quarries etc. can be occupied by slaves from a Slave Market, though at a reduced efficiency compared to Plebs, unless you acquire that particular talent from the talent tree. A Slave Market will provide infinite labourers to all production facilities within its radius, and they really come in handy if you need materials from mines, quarries or farms that are too far away to make a sensible location for building Insulae.
The Equite House
The Equites are the middle class in Grand Ages. They are invaluable to a blossoming civilisation, because occupy higher level jobs that Plebs cannot do, such as Prefectures for putting out fires, religious facilities like Temple of Vesta and Mars. They can even take some of the plebeian jobs and perform them with better result, like better entertainment satisfaction from working at the theatre.
Also, a population of Equites is necessary for any civilisation that needs military. VERY important: Each Equite house contributes 10 recruits to the army, and Equites are the only workforce working in the military industry, producing weapons, horses etc.
NB: Equites are more demanding than Plebs, which basically require only food and work to be contend, and as such they also require entertainment, otherwise they will generate crime.
The Patrician Villa
Finally we have the upper class, the Patricians. These luxurious inhabitants have high demands for food, entertainment and religion and will eventually fill valuable job positions of the highest quality. Not only are their demands high, but they also consume 2 Marble, 2 Olive Oil and 2 Clothing per Villa! Outrageous, I know. However, if you use your talents right, you can reduce the consumption of a Patrician Villa to just 2 Marble – that’s going to come in handy, trust me.
Patricians will occupy only the finest jobs, such as the Library, the Philosopher’s Academy, the Pantheon, the Courthouse, the Senate, the Baths, but can also work in Inns and Taverns instead of Equites. Surprisingly, Patricians can also work in the Temple of Saturn, which can be occupied by Plebs. Naturally, the religious satisfaction provided by Patricians is much higher.
How to earn Denarii
Okay, that was the housing section explained. Are you by any chance wondering “How am I going to finance all this?” Well I’m glad you asked!
The first and quickest way to money is religion. Once you get some Insulae built, food satisfaction, and all the basics, you will want to construct a Temple of Saturn. The Temple of Saturn earns you money depending on how many Insulae you have built within the radius of the temple. VERY important: Build 3 Temples of Saturn to earn the “Blessing of Saturn” which doubles the money earnt by each temple. Another thing you can do is build a Trade Post which is used for trading by land and is staffed by Plebs.
In early game stages, you will be able to tax your citizens through the Forum, but will suffer a 30% popularity penalty for doing so.
Temple of Saturn & Trade Post
Once you get some Equites in your population, you can do the same thing. The Equites work at Temples of Vesta and Temples of Mars, and I would personally recommend the Temple of Mars. The Temple of Mars earns you money depending on how many Equite Houses and Patrician Villas are within the building’s radius. Patricians can also staff the Temple of Mars, but it only changes the religious satisfaction, not the income. The Temple of Vesta is not a “bad building”, but only earns money through alms from citizens. These can be taken “with force”, but you’ll lose 20% popularity rating for doing so.
Temple of Mars and Temple of Vesta
Just a quick note on Popularity: Your popularity percentage will be equivalent to your average food satisfaction. Therefore taxing citizens or taking alms can be worth it to gain cash as long as you have the average food satisfaction to back it up. You can also gain a temporary popularity gain if you build your city on certain principles. Just to mention a few: Always build Insula directly next to each other, try to build Equite Houses next to Patrician Villas, Brickworks will benefit from being built near a natural water source (the ocean), and lots of Equite staffed buildings give a small popularity boost if you build them next to roads. (Roads are otherwise completely useless as per my experiences.)
The Equites are responsible for trading by sea and will staff your Ports. If you have access to Ports which are built on piers by the water, then I recommend getting a Lighthouse as well, which will help you scout for more sea trade routes.
Finally, the Patricians (and Equites) can work at the Tax Office, which will grant you a steady income, but also disable the option to tax through the Forum. Patricians can also staff Temples to Jupiter, which give great religious satisfaction and some, maybe little income. By now you may be thinking that the Patricians don’t give much in return for their high demands, and you’re almost correct. With the right talents set, Patricians can give you 5 slaves per Villa, but more importantly they work 1) at the Hospital which gives a city-wide treatment for hygiene and 2) at the Library and Philosopher’s Academy generating research, which I will explain now.
Hygiene & Research
Hygiene is important to your city and getting 100% hygiene satisfaction across your city is very easy. It involves two things: A fountain (small or large), which needs a water supply, either a natural one (like the ocean, yes you read that right) or from an Aqueduct, and a Herbalist’s Shop, which is staffed by plebs and gives treatment within its radius. Eventually you will get the Hospital building, staffed by Patricians will gives hygienic treatment city-wide.
Before you get all these fancy buildings, like the Herbalist’s Shop, the Prefecture, the Temples to this and that, the economic upgrades for your farms, the top-notch Patrician buildings like the Pantheon and the Philosopher’s Academy, you need Research and you need to research each building through a tech-tree. The tech-tree is first accessible when you build a school, and the school will generate research points based on the number of houses in the radius. The more research points, the faster the research. After the school, you’ll need the Library and the Philosopher’s Academy to speed up research.
Military
A final topic needs to be addressed: Military. Military can play a huge part of the missions you will play, and as such I’ll give you a quick run-down of how it works. As you’ve already read, each Equite house gives 10 recruits to the city, so make sure you have enough to produce an army. Each military squad requires XX available recruits to be formed, but they will also require upkeep.
Squads formed from the Barracks and Military Academy require Iron, but you can also research and hire different Auxiliary units, whose upkeep cost may be Olive Oil, Wine or Goods. VERY important: Remember to train your squads, as that will give you an advantage in battle.
All right, that was the short strategy guide to playing Grand Ages: Rome – have fun and check out the mission list in the Walkthrough section, if you’re interested. Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,