Pax Augusta

by Aethyna Apr 22, 2025 | 1 Votes | 76 Played | 0 Reviews

7 rate

Genres:

Simulation

Graphics:

Labels:

City Building , Historical Setting , Management

Platforms:

Publishers:

Senatis Gain the emperor’s favor by building cities along the Roman border, and climb the career ladder by amassing your private wealth and fostering good relations with other politicians in this historical city builder. Will you be able to become one of the most powerful senators in the empire, or will you crumble under the pressure? Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Inspired by Caesar III, Pax Augusta is a historical city builder set at the decline of the Roman Empire. In this game, you play as an up-and-coming governor, whose ambition is only matched with your skills. Gain the emperor’s favor by building cities along the Roman border, and climb the career ladder by amassing your private wealth and fostering good relations with other politicians. Will you be able to become one of the most powerful senators in the empire or will you crumble under the pressure?

Plotline

The game is set after the death of Julius Caesar, which sees Octavian, known now as Augustus, taking over the reins of power, trying to reshape the empire to his vision. Being an ambitious noble looking to make his mark on the world, you, with the support of your parents, decided to take the leap into the world of officials.

As an up-and-coming governor, it is your job to set up new cities along the Roman borders, fulfill any requests from your superiors, including the emperor himself, and ensure that you can amass plenty of wealth and influence to climb the career ladder further… perhaps all the way to the senate… and beyond!

Gameplay

As someone who isn’t familiar with Caesar III or any game within the series, but is more familiar with other kinds of city builders from that era, including The Settlers, SimCity, and Master of Olympus: Zeus, Pax Augusta has a gameplay that strikes me as being very in-depth and fairly complicated.

Yes, you still need to build houses next to roads and certain undesirable buildings away from the population, but there are just a lot more variety to even the most basic functions. For instance, you’d think there’s only one kind of strip house – the earliest type of houses you can build – in this game, but no! The game comes with 10 different kinds of strip houses, with some of them having different dimensions. In fact, the variety is important here since the game actually penalizes you if you keep duplicating the same house type.

Of course, there are other necessities that need to be fulfilled for a house to be “functional” enough to attract new residents a.k.a. workers, including access to water (a well at least), food (a market), religious structures, and others, as well as bonuses such as building the homes at the main street. On a similar note, there are plenty of road types too, with some designed to appeal to residents – best for highly populated areas – and others designed for moving goods faster – best for your industrial areas.

For anyone familiar with city builders in general, Pax Augusta also has a host of “undesirable” buildings which are crucial to your city’s growth but won’t go well with the superstitious Roman residents in your city. These buildings often have an influence radius that you’d want to avoid placing any houses in. There are also structures, such as the Forum and the Market, that are kind of like a DIY version, where you can assemble the entire structure part by part.

On certain maps, there may be native settlements present that can somewhat hinder your city’s development. There are actions you can take to resolve this, either by letting them stay but they will pay you regular “tribute”, or by forcefully evicting them. You’re the governor, after all, and your word is gospel – at least within the district you control.

In terms of progression, you don’t have a typical tech tree where you can just “purchase” or have researchers attain the research you want. Instead, you get to hire a bunch of engineers whom you can then send on learning trips across the empire to pick up new tech that you can then apply to your own city. The cost of retaining engineers and training them can be a lot, though, and how successful that learning trip can be also depends on the kind of training you send them to. Know that cheaper doesn’t always mean better in this case. Engineers are also used to “scan” for resources or suitable spots to build certain structures, such as bridges.

Of course, there are plenty more features in this game, from handling corruption to trading with other cities, to even determining the festival schedule for your people. You can even buy slaves and request salary increases from the Governor you report to. Ultimately, the goal here is to rise up the political ranks, unlock larger and better blueprints, and attain the most respected office in the Roman Empire.

As fun as Pax Augusta may seem, the game still feels a lot like an Early Access title and definitely could use a lot more time in the oven. The tutorial, for instance, can be lacking in some areas, and I’m not a fan of having to go to an external site to watch more tutorial videos for some of the more basic game functions. At one point, I had so much trouble trying to place a lumberjack as instructed by the game, only to find out that the game had already predetermined the only spot I could place the lumberjack without letting me know. And there I was, trying to figure out why, despite following the instructions down to the T, I couldn’t place the lumberjack in the spot that I wanted to.

Optimization-wise, the game is nowhere near the acceptable level. In fact, the game crashed during the tutorial in my first run, and stuttered badly on my second run... though, I did manage to finish the demo in the second run, which doubles as the tutorial… and this is on a rig that can run any current triple A title at 4k resolution flawlessly.

There are also some questionable design choices that hinder the overall experience. For instance, you can’t place buildings unless they’re connected to a road, meaning you need to memorize the exact location you plan to build on, lay down a road to that spot, and hope you got it right.

That said, the game is truly an impressive feat for a single, albeit very passionate, developer to create from scratch. The game isn’t perfect, but it does have some solid foundations to build upon further… and who knows? Pax Augusta might just become an indie hit! Since the game isn’t in Early Access, one can only hope that the developer will still improve on the fruit of his labor to get the game to a level that would make it more playable.

Graphics/ Sound

Pax Augusta showcases a semi-realistic isometric art style that not only aims to authentically capture the essence of ancient Roman cities, but it also pays homage to the art style of the games it was inspired by, specifically Caesar III. Needless to say, the immersion here is fantastic. There’s even a camera mode for those who enjoy taking picture-perfect screenshots of their city. In terms of sound, the game provides a selection of relaxing tunes that not only match the theme and setting of the game, but they also go well with the more chill vibe of a city builder. The ambiance here is great too – you can actually hear the thunderstorm that’s ongoing besides just seeing the heavy rainfall.

Conclusion

Pax Augusta has promise and a great concept, but as it stands, the game has more cons than pros. It’s unfortunate, but the game definitely needs a whole lot more time in the oven before being fully released. Hopefully, the developer will be able to take this opportunity to gather crucial feedback, improve the game, and get Pax Augusta to become the indie gem it could be.

New Game Added: Pax Augusta

by Aethyna Apr 22, 2025

Gain the emperor’s favor by building cities along the Roman border, and climb the career ladder by amassing your private wealth and fostering good relations with other politicians in this historical city builder. Will you be able to become one of the most powerful senators in the empire, or will you crumble under the pressure?