[00:01] John. This is many a true nerd and welcome to a Nova Roma which is a city builder but Roman. And that's all I need to know. Damn it. No, seriously. I
[00:13] really appreciate how simple the setup is here. So, basically Rome's on fire. As a result of that, you should probably go and set up like, you know, a new Roma go and set up like, you know, a new Roma or Nova Roma, if you will. Oh, now this.
[00:27] or Nova Roma, if you will. Oh, now this. This will do nicely. A beautiful chain of islands here. Loads of flipping of fish down by yeah this big south island. That's a sort of food together with yeah decent natural resources including a
[00:43] giant pile of marble for when I go bananas, declare myself emperor, and start engaging in needlessly expensive civic vanity projects. Spot on. Okay, slight issue with our brand new glorious city. By the way, it turns out basically
[00:58] city. By the way, it turns out basically this entire cooking island is yes barren and we can't like grow anything on it and there's only like a trickle of fresh water and it's over here where it's quite difficult to access. So, okay,
[01:11] we're abandoning that colony. Luckily, there's another island right over here. Hang on, just get out of the way, clouds. Yes, this one. This looks much better, right? It turns out when you're setting up a society, building it nearby
[01:26] to a source of fresh water, that's a good idea. Sorry, it's my first day building an ancient society. Thus begins the epic journey of John Anantium. Our the epic journey of John Anantium. Our outpost is down. Let's get building. And
[01:41] yes, we've immediately got whole bunch of very cute little Romans pottering about looking for work to do. You'd like a place to live? Okay, that does feel like a good place to start. Yes. And a basic hovel would do the job nicely.
[01:56] Though we're going to need a wood for that. So, right, for the time being, yes, what we're going to do is just assign this entire area for land clearance because we're going to be wanting to build and farm on all this
[02:09] get on with that because there's literally nothing else to do. And as soon as that is done, presumably there we go. wood starts going up. Using that
[02:22] we go. wood starts going up. Using that wood, we'll just lay down some simple wood, we'll just lay down some simple dirt roads. And then beyond that, yes, some basic holes. So, right, everybody gets a place to live. Congratulations.
[02:36] So far, so simple. But this is where Nova Roma gets a little bit more interesting, which is this being an ancient society, there's a real focus on temples and religion. a small temple in fact being literally one of the first
[02:50] buildings you want to construct. The reason being yes when this game says it doesn't mean in like you know an abstract beliefy sort of way. In this
[03:02] abstract beliefy sort of way. In this game the gods are very much literally flipping a real and when you build a temple they all show up and you need to choose who it's dedicated to. So, for example, had we gone for our original
[03:16] island, we would have been going before Neptune in a hurry in a desperate productive. But under the circumstances, yeah, this is a temple right in the center of town. So, it's going to be surrounded by
[03:30] people's housing. So, I'm going to say Jupiter, king of the gods, who improves citizen happiness. That's probably a good starting point, though. Yes, we will be building more temples in time. And based on where we are and how much
[03:45] of farming we're going to be doing, Series is potentially very interesting in the future. But yes, Jupiter, I feel like you, sir, are a good first pack. where we get to the part of the game I find particularly interesting, which is
[04:01] in many citybuilders, you build the science building, you know, a research lab, a school, something of that nature. and it generates abstract science points you spent on research. And that's not how Nova Roma works. In this game,
[04:17] everything is tied to the gods. They will literally appear and give you missions on this occasion. My first one being grow my population to 20 citizens. When I do that, I gain a favor points and that's how I unlock new technology.
[04:33] So yeah, it's all about completing a missions from the gods. That's how you make progress. So immediately say we could get some small apartments out, much more efficient, highquality housing. In fact, you know what? I'm
[04:46] going to immediately replace these hovels with a proper apartments because they're just much nicer buildings. Like, you know, they're right next door to me. So, I would like some fancy buildings, though. Oh, that is taller than my
[04:58] palace. That I'm not so okay with. And I kind of want the tallest building in town. Damn it. Oh, I just noticed, by the way, it's um autumn when we're the way, it's um autumn when we're supposed to be harvesting crops.
[05:11] So, okay, the thing about the crops that we're supposed to be harvesting, we do have a small problem there. You know what? This is going to be fine. Okay, the whole point is this is very fertile soil. So, we could just like sew the
[05:25] fields now and still get one to harvest in before winter. Okay, so it's in before winter. Okay, so it's literally just started snowing. Right, right, right, right. So, new plan. Jupiter sand. I can have some tech
[05:37] points in the event that I have two temples. And with tech, I could rush to fishing huts. Fish will keep us alive during the winter. If some of you could still produce some wheat, however, that would be appreciated. Yes, I don't fancy
[05:53] their chances, to be honest. No. Okay, here's the important bit. All right, we have got two temples. This temple by our fertile farmland is definitely going fertile farmland is definitely going over to Siri. Welcome aboards.
[06:08] And those checkpoints are going straight into fishing. All right, the fish are mean the sea doesn't entirely freeze over. Hopefully the sea doesn't entirely freeze over. Here we go. There's literally some fish right here south of
[06:22] town. That'll be perfect. Okay, this is mildly embarrassing. It's spring again and we appear to be alive and just so the food's almost run out. And yes, I supplies we brought with us. So, okay, the game is nice to you for your first
[06:38] year. Next winter, not so much necessarily. So, uh, right, get these fields in production. This is looking good. Our farms looking very healthy. And yes, we will have fish coming in, too. Oh, and here's interesting. Some
[06:52] people possibly from the ruins of old Rome came to visit but didn't decide to Rome came to visit but didn't decide to stay. Then maybe yes wasn't enough happiness or housing or jobs or whatnot floating about. So okay, looking at the
[07:06] houses here, this one is the happiest. Why are you so happy? Has road access or more specifically why you unhappy? A large part is presumably right. You're not getting access to goods. Well, fish will be coming in soon. Don't you worry
[07:23] though they would also love grapes and wine right in which case let's get working on that and factoring in yeah the temple of a series right here let's
[07:36] just get some basic grape vines down over in this bit of the world no need for anything too fancy yet our society isn't that big honestly we probably overproduced on the old wheat farms here like I'm not sure we need 16 plots
[07:51] Oh, and speaking of which, you're right. I think the harvest just came in. Right now, you're storing that. Yes. Here in the outpost. So, right, we are now swimming in a food. Oh, and here's interesting.
[08:07] Sometimes the gods don't just want you to do something, they want to be given something. Siri wants a giant pile of wheat. It's that she was the one that produced most of it. So,
[08:21] you know what? You're going to have that though. Oh, bloody hell. 35. That's a lot of wheat, sir. We don't really have that much wheat. And right, for the time being, we can't rush straight to the winery for the simple
[08:35] reason that yeah, we need a pottery in play to do that. So, right, the ttory kind of diverges, but then comes back together again. But you know what? That's fine because yeah, that means we need a forester and a charcoal maker.
[08:50] And I'm pretty sure I did see that yes, our houses would prefer to be burning a charcoal, not warts. So, we'll get a bit of yes, a replenishable or renewable forest or whatnot going on over here. And then right next door, a charcoal
[09:05] And then right next door, a charcoal maker because yeah, that produces smoke that people don't like. So, going to be wanting to Yeah. Keep that over here wanting to Yeah. Keep that over here away from the houses. So, right, this
[09:18] winter I promised we were going to deliver and we have delivered. We have got plenty of wheat and plenty of flipping grapes. So, you guys just come to the granary I built here by the farming district. Help yourselves. And
[09:31] farming district. Help yourselves. And there we go. Grapes, wheat, fish. You guys are getting a happier love. And speaking of which, right, we need a pottery because one, people just want pottery, but two, yeah, pottery lets us
[09:47] turn those grapes into wine. Oh, this is cute. By the way, I can literally add tiny shops into the actual apartment buildings, which was a real thing in often quite tall, but yeah, the ground floor was left emptied out, so you could
[10:02] run a small street stalls out of them. So, oh, that's super cute. though on this occasion are right. We'll need a money to make that happen. Okay guys, good news and bad news. The good news is we did successfully get some grapes in
[10:17] this year. The bad news is yes, we do actually now have taxes in this society. But yeah, at this point we only need loads of wheat or loads of money or a new temple. So yeah, we can get a new god on sides. I mean, this over here
[10:32] where I've just put down a new fishing mcjaba, that feels like that's a pretty big fishing spot. So, welcome to our society, Neptune. Speaking of which, how are we doing on
[10:45] fish supplies? You know what? That's actually looking control. So, yeah, we don't need to be tossing down more fishing things. When we do, put them over here. Okay, stuff's starting to get a bit more complicated
[11:00] here. Winter of year 4. Series would love a gigantic offering of, you know, wheat. We kind of need that wheat to make it
[11:12] through the flipping winter in a way. So, right, maybe next year if we hold off for too long, possibly she's going to get angry. I'm not sure. And on top of that, we're low on stone. Meaning, if
[11:28] we want to actually yeah, do proper stone mining, we need to start expanding in this direction to access the stones around the mountain. So, I'm going to say we should do that. Absolutely. But I feel like, yeah, it's going to be
[11:43] a bit difficult for you guys to commute all that way. So, right, we'll build you a nice road and possibly build some like, you know, small wooden hovels out here. Okay, Zeus, however, can have his money cuz right now we don't need that
[11:57] for anything particularly urgent. And having done that, right now we want something a lot less complicated. Build a forum. And right, forums make Build a forum. And right, forums make people happy. But they also cost gold.
[12:11] So, right, we will set that up. Just a basic cheap little forum as soon as we basic cheap little forum as soon as we can, though. Oh, fancy marble forum. You say, John, do not worry about marble just yet. We are not a society made out
[12:24] of marble. Oh. Um, new problem by the way. So, um, it turns out it started way. So, um, it turns out it started raining and the river has expanded a bit
[12:36] into town. So, it turns out there are downsides to having a society on very fertile land right next to a river, which is in case you the river decides to, you know, expand into you.
[12:49] Right, right, right, right. Sorry about that, guys. I'm honestly not sure what we could really do about that situation aside from just wait for it to stop bloody raining. Okay. On the plus side though, there's been a very good wheat
[13:02] harvest this year. So, we are going to make an offering to Series. And highly conveniently, her second mission is grape vines, which we can also complete straight away. And as we enter winter and thus farming calms down a bit, yeah,
[13:17] we should have some spare hands available to help build our first Oh, it's such a tiny forum. That's a pathetically tiny forum. Okay, can we expand the forum just a little bit? That's so sad. That's the saddest forum.
[13:32] Oh, screw it. It's just a starting forum. Okay, just a little baby forum to start us off. We'll expand it later. But yeah, this does mean we should also yeah, this does mean we should also focus on masonry in order to repair
[13:44] buildings because some of them are in a poor condition after that flood and the winery cuz that's what people are flipping once. Oh, um, slight issue by the way. I thought we were doing quite well, but um right, Zeus has just shown
[14:00] up. So, apparently there's an invading army on the way. So, um Zeus, any chance you'd like to recruit a militia at your outpost? I was hoping you might just
[14:13] smite them with thunderbolts cuz we've given you a lot of money. Oh, when you see an invasion in progress, I can literally see the boat. It's on the Right, right, right, right, right, right. Outpost is my main building.
[14:28] right. Outpost is my main building. Begin recruiting troops. Yeah, everybody in here, congratulations. You guys are going to be a local militia at this accurate for Rome cuz the whole point of Rome is it has a professionalized
[14:41] system and whatnot. That's why it was so successful. But screw it. We are quite a small Roman colony. Yes. So, just out of interest, interest, where are those troops? Like,
[14:56] I see a bunch of you are in here. setting our society on a fire right now. There we go. There are Roman troops. Excellent. So, you guys just march in
[15:09] this direction and Oh. Oh, hang on. Oh, I think they've realized that we're cocky Roman. So, yeah, you better cocking run, mate. Stand down. Everybody back to your jobs, please. Especially if your jobs include
[15:23] putting out fires, cuz they did just set a few buildings on fire. Okay, before we were attacked by those barbarians, was about to say year 8, I'm feeling pretty good about our society. Okay, people are mostly pretty happy, pretty healthy as
[15:38] well. I've come up with some good solutions. like say yeah we've got proper bridges leading out to the stone quarry and I've set up a lovely automated wagon that just goes back and forth gathering the stone delivering it
[15:50] to the town center so we're not wasting loads of time walking out there every time we need more bloody stone so as a result of that yeah I think we can now focus on you know making some good stuff that people are actually going to enjoy
[16:03] in this society like for example uh hang on hang on hang on a bakery So, okay, in Well, okay. We're swimming in wheat. Charcoal is a little bit more in demand.
[16:15] So, we can make more charcoal burners if need to be. But yeah, not only is bread nice, bread smells good. So, it's going to cheer up local people. So, yeah, if I build it out here, that's going to cheer up like three different decentsized
[16:31] houses. Lovely. Now, admittedly, having built a large number of Yes. So largely wooden buildings are right next to each other in order to maximize adjacency to positive stuff like the forum. Fire does spread pretty fast these days and
[16:46] hilariously this is historically accurate. Yes, Roma had a lot of very densely panked wooded buildings and as a result fire spreading was a real bloody problem. But yes, luckily we do have a stonemason set up. So yes, he could just
[16:59] take stone, use it to fix up these buildings. Some people might die, but the buildings will be fine. But yes, as more stone starts piling in and brought in by this lovely wagon here, I'm thinking this society needs and deserves
[17:15] thinking this society needs and deserves a big central showstopper building. Oh, a big central showstopper building. Oh, here we go. A small theater, which fits beautifully right here in the center of town. But
[17:28] then again, would it be better? You know what? I think it would be better next to Yeah, the forum. So, we've got a forum and a theater right next to each other. Beautiful. Also, small afterthought. Possibly we
[17:43] should have like, you know, walls and guard towers and whatever just in case those barbarians come back. Like, we're swimming in wood right now and it's floating around to help construct these walls. I appreciate the society and me
[17:58] seem to be roughly operating on the same wavelength, which is basically all our builders are ignoring the whole, you know, defending ourselves against barbarians thing in order to prioritize the small theater. And I agree that is
[18:11] more important though. Oh, blaming, right? Actors are expensive. We may need to put everyone's taxes up to pay the actors. Sorry, I didn't realize that. Okay, some time has passed and I think our society is doing very
[18:27] and I think our society is doing very bloody well right now. Coming up on 250, 300 odd people, lots of housing. You may have noticed, by the way, we've got flipping a stone roads. Not everywhere, obviously. Like, you know, we're not
[18:40] cooking made of stone and or money. And even better, we've got things like, you know, a fire brigade and they like the stone roads cuz it means they can get to fires faster. So, fires have been a lot less of a problem. Damn it. The problem
[18:53] we do have, however, is as the population gets bigger and people move into bigger and fancier houses. Yes. While they could get water from a well, they want a water tower supplied by an aqueduct. And the thing that's most
[19:08] annoying everybody right now is yes, hygiene. They want a cooking bath house. Meaning it's now time to do yes, the single most Roman thing we can do. And
[19:21] single most Roman thing we can do. And that is unlock a cocking aqueduct together with yes a flipping water tower. And we do have mountains with water floating around nearby. So okay, bloody hell. How does this work
[19:35] precisely? Cuz I suspect this is going to be difficult to do. You see the water tower? That's fine. Bit of stone, a bit of gold. We're golden. So yeah, water tower round about here on the residential side of town. That feels
[19:48] like a good first step there. You guys are going to love a water tower. Absolutely. The issue is going to be Yeah. actually feeding it with water from the nearby mountains because I suspect we're going
[20:05] to be needing more cooking quaries. And here we go. The tower's height is 25 m. So obviously, yeah, this water around here, no bloody good whatsoever. We're
[20:17] going to need to start, yeah, nice and high up and then just make the aqueduct to flow down into town. Honestly, up here might be the easier path. Then we straight down over here where there's currently nothing. Okay, we've got some
[20:33] people sitting around doing not much right now. You guys just head up into the mountain and start gathering all this loose stone for me. Okay. In fact, yeah, clearing this entire district feels like a positive thing to do. So,
[20:48] feels like a positive thing to do. So, you guys just get on with that for now. And yeah, once the path is clear, we can start building an aqueduct down this lovely bit of land and then just loop it in over here. So, that's not so bad cuz
[21:01] just deforesting this area. Now we really we're just leaving the wood sitting around. Not sure whose job it is to collect this w. But yeah, we'll start to collect this w. But yeah, we'll start you right here now. Uh how much stone is
[21:16] it going to take to uh hang on? Hang on. We need to go to uh hang on? Hang on. We need to go right. Wait.
[21:31] It's red degrees bad, red degrees bad, green degrees good. So, okay, just running a test track here. The game seems happy with the angles. 3.1° is
[21:44] fine for keeping the water moving, and it would take 350 odd stone to do. Still, as winter sets in, the land clearance guys have made up into the mountain. So, they're doing a good job just chopping down some stone right now.
[22:00] We've got big deliveries coming in via yeah cart from the mines over here. So, okay, I think we've already saved up just about enough to make this happen. And there we go. Boom. It's going to take the builders a bit of time to get
[22:15] this done, by the way, cuz yeah, this is quite a flipping undertaking. Oh, yeah. quite a flipping undertaking. Oh, yeah. Now, this this is what I want to see. A whole bunch of tiny mini Romans just bouncing along with the rocks and wood
[22:29] and whatnot in their hands, tossing up an aqueduct. Oh, I'm having a lovely time today. Small update, by the way. Somebody, I'm pretty sure that's a Vulcan has declared that um I'm neglecting his worship. I'm going to be
[22:43] honest, my friend. I can't remember what it was you asked for, but apparently, yes, leaving God requests unfulfilled for too long causes trouble. build a more grand temple in my honor. Also, oh, did you just start that fire?
[22:58] been like, you know, the god that showed up and whatnot. That was definitely up and whatnot. That was definitely Vulcan, right? So, yes, that is Vulcan. Like, you know, the people who work nearby to your temple are very happy
[23:13] he's very good at like, you know, encouraging industry. So, I built it right in the center of the industrial zone. The point is in a matter of moments as the last a few wheelbarrows full of stone again are brought in guys
[23:27] just the tiniest bit of stone. I think society is basically entirely out of literally taking a wheelbarrows out to the cocking stone mines to bring it back one by one. I have completely exhausted all of our reserves here. Oh, here we
[23:43] all of our reserves here. Oh, here we go. Here we flippy go. And with that, go. Here we flippy go. And with that, the aqueduct is complete. Length of 400 m. The water is now, you can literally watch the water flowing.
[23:58] Oh, yes. Now, there's something at the other side that's going to be, you know, eating up the aqueduct. And by the way, you are very cocking. Welcome, Neptune. You too, Jupiter. And also, you can have more gold, too. That's fine. Make sure
[24:12] you have a large temple. I do need one of those. That's true. Cuz Vulcan's really cocking angry right now. Right. Unlock large temple. Grand temple. No, not grand temples, John. Large temples will do. And yes, I think possibly we
[24:27] replace this small temple with a proper big one to make, you know, flipping Vulcan chill outs or not, cuz we're going to be needing a marble for that. time being. Sorry about that, Vulcan.
[24:40] The point is we can now at long cooking last have a bath complex. So pop you right here in range of yes that water tower and then we just need just a cold
[24:52] pool and a hot pool together to make a dynamic bath house which we will definitely be having. And okay, we could have a garden or a library. Okay. Well,
[25:05] obviously yes, we're having a library. Absolutely. Okay. It turns out, well, guys have chilled out a bit cuz you've got a proper water tower, but until you bath complex, you're going to continue being a little bit on the annoyed side.
[25:21] being a little bit on the annoyed side. So, right, unfortunately, cooking and marble once again. Where's the marble? Oh, never mind. There's literally some marble right here. It's not much, but it'll go. Also,
[25:34] city keeps bloody flooding and the walls are stopping the water from escaping. So, uh, given the walls are not complete anyway, I've just taken them down to let water drain out during flood seasons a bit more easily. Okay, the point is we
[25:47] should now have, yeah, plenty of resources to build a very bloody big bath. So, yeah, we're going to start off with a 2x2 cold pool. All right, that
[26:01] seems good. And we're going to put a 2x two hot pool right next to it. We can two hot pool right next to it. We can afford that, too. Absolutely. Then a very small lovely bath garden that just sort of goes around the outside here.
[26:17] And you know what? That's true. I forgot the flipping bath library. Just stick a the flipping bath library. Just stick a couple of them on the end. Beautiful. And I'm gonna be honest, this whole city wall thing just isn't working, is it?
[26:32] Right. Just demolish that to make more room for nice houses nearby to the bath house. Damn it. Okay, good. Only just realized that yes, my bath reservoir doesn't actually have any water in it. Like my baths are not wet currently.
[26:45] Like the library works and the garden works. That's fine. But yes, we need to actually create a separate spur line in the aqueduct to feed water to you. Oh, also I think the barbarians just uh showed up again. Oh, there's a lot more
[26:59] of them this time. Okay, we've got a lot of people who aren't doing anything right now. All of you guys just jam. Get over here and like I was about to say man the walls, but like there's really not much left at this point. I may have
[27:13] overdone taking down the walls. So, okay. Are you guys planning to come ashore right now? So, I think we can catch you as you're Oh, they're bloody. Wait, wait. They're kind of splitting up. This is not good.
[27:28] Right. just toss javelids into you guys. The problem is I've only got one unit of militia. Do I have any way of getting No, I don't have any way of getting more militia. Right. Basically, everybody cocking run. I will
[27:42] It kind of feels like my Romans have got their number, so hopefully they'll like slaughtering them and pushing them into the water and whatnot. But
[27:55] yeah, I'm pretty sure they just wanted to set fire to two buildings then leave. Where'd you guys come from? Oh, I think there was like a fourth army somewhere, but I completely missed it. Okay, we have definitely killed like one of them.
[28:10] So, those guys won't be back. The rest of them might be, but honestly, I feel Like, we've got a fire brigade that could just put the fire out. That's not could just put the fire out. That's not really an issue. Okay, the point is
[28:22] water is now making it to the bath. So, the cold pool is now operating. The hot pool is operating, too. Rather, it's going to be operating soon cuz yep, there is some charcoal here. So, the water is being heated up. There is a
[28:35] library. There is a lovely garden. It's a bit of a tiny garden, but like, you know, it's there. But, oh yeah, just look at that. The houses located between, you know, the bath and the theater and the grand temples and all
[28:48] the rest of it, they're now up to 85 happiness with overall happiness at 77. Health is good. Building integrity is pretty good. Oh, yeah. This I'm pretty
[29:00] happy with. Still, I would say as I look over my tiny little colony. Ah, how about we wrap things up there? This here is Nova Roma. And oh, I've had a lovely
[29:13] time playing this. Like, you know, it's nothing groundbreaking or anything, though I do like, you know, the text to being objective based as opposed to some sort of abstract science currency. But yeah, it just works really bloody well.
[29:27] And I've just built this tiny city right here in one corner of one island. And biggest island is the one next door that the farming wasn't looking so good. And then there are more islands up here and
[29:41] more islands up here as well. By the looks of it, yes, in the long run, you're going to be building docks and setting up shipping infrastructure to link separate little mini cities together or whatnot. So, as I say,
[29:54] arguably there's nothing hugely groundbreaking here, but yeah, it's just a very, very wellexecuted example of precisely the sort of game it wants to be. So, well worth a look, I'd say. link in the description below and if I'm in
[30:08] the right mood on the right day, maybe just a baby, we'll see a bit more of this in a live stream or whatnot. So, let me know if you'd be interested and we shall flipping see. But in the meantime, I've been John has been many a
[30:21] true nerd and this has been the delightful Nova Roma. Thank you very much and goodbye. I've created a small problem in my road system, which is it's literally impossible for anyone to ever go back
[30:36] into town. And this building shall be where we produce our zebras. And this much taller building next door is naturally where we produce the giraffes. Does anyone remember how the road system went? I think it was something like