There 8 settlement and 16 city buildings you can build in Imperator Rome. Some are really good, and some are nothing but a waste of your building slots. So, which buildings are good and which buildings are bad? Find out below on this detailed Imperator Rome buildings tier list guide!
1. Great Temple
The Great Temple is a god tier building with Grand Theater in Imperator simply because they’re converting culture and religion of pops. Always build the two in capitals of provinces needs converting. Though you need to build a solid economy first to finance Great Temple and Grand Theater buildings because they’re very expensive.
Great Temple is the best building in Imperator Rome simply because it converts religion. Converting culture is equally important but you need to convert religion first to convert culture without any penalties.
2. Grand Theater
Is the same as Great Temple but instead of converting religion, Grand Theater converts culture.
State same religion and same culture pops never revolt, give more levies, and more taxes. So, you’ll want to integrate highly populated cultures for quick boost and convert almost everyone else.
3. Mine
Mines are the backbone of your commerce as well as farming settlements in the early to mid-game.
Each settlement produces 1 trade resource as a default. They can also produce +1 for each 15-17 slave available in the settlement. What mines and farming settlement buildings does is to reduce the required slave population for +1 resource surplus. So, to make money via selling resources, you want to build mines! They’re very good especially on expensive resources such as precious metals
Pro tip: Hover your mouse over mine and farming buildings to see if it’ll increase the resource surplus upon building. Can also move slaves to the mining / farming settlements to get that +1 resource surplus bonus.
4. Farming Settlement
It’s exactly the same with mine buildings except they’re built on settlements producing food.
Always build farming settlements on your capital because your capital will be highly populated and high populations need lots of food.
5. Foundry
Imperator Rome foundry building can be unlocked by activating blacksmith apprentices in the martial advances > material sciences technology tree. It requires 4 inventions from top to bottom. Which isn’t a big deal, besides you get -10.00% heavy infantry cost, +10.00% heavy cavalry discipline, +2.50% discipline, and -10.00% army weight modifier on the way.
So, always build foundry on the province capital cities.
6. Port
Port building is a great way of attracting migration. I usually build it on a province capital to get the most out of capital city. You can also build ships from ports.
A level 3 port will allow you to build medium ships. Can build heavy ships with a level +5 port as well but that also requires maritime tech which I don’t even bother.
7. Aqueduct
Aqueduct is the first buildings I build playing as Rome or any other nation to be honest. Why? Aqueduct building increases population capacity.
By increasing population capacity of your capital or province capitals, you can build metropolis which is the backbone of your economy. Can also display 3 relics on metropolis religious centers which is another must have bonus. Thus, aqueduct is among the most important buildings you should build ASAP on important centers.
8. Marketplace
Marketplace buildings work in a very strange manner. They increase the number of import routes slightly and in a very complicated way. So, never bother building marketplace on provinces other than your capital. But for your capital province, build nothing but marketplace!
Having many import routes for your capital will allow you to get unique capital surplus bonuses for resources. For example, having iron surplus gives +10% heavy infantry discipline. It’s literally godlike. Imagine having capital surplus bonus with at least +15 different resources. How to do that for Rome?
Build +2 cities in Latium, build roads all over Latium to increase trade route bonus, get province investments giving +1 building bonus, and build nothing but marketplaces. That way you can import +30 resources to Latium and get those sweet capital surplus bonuses easily.
9. Mill
Mill is a good economy building but very situational. What it does is to increase desired slave ratio and slave output. So, when it’s useful?
I always max out the mill buildings on metropolis capital cities. Because capitals are the main destination of slaves. Mills can increase resource production and definitely increase tax! Again and again, it’s all about stacking bonuses in Imperator Rome.
10. Tax Office
We build nothing but marketplace on our capital province to get more import routes. But that’s not a valid strategy for the rest of provinces. Because they don’t get surplus bonus and you can’t be bothered with import routes on every province. (Auto import don’t always work.)
Instead, we build foundry and tax office on every other province capital we have for strong economy. It’s all about stacking. Building foundry and the max amount of tax offices on your capital province with minimum 40-50 pops will yield high return of investment.
11. Court of Law
Does increase citizen happiness and citizen desired ratio. Is good for rebellious cities with a population hosting a citizen majority.
This building increase happiness and increase province loyalty.
12. Slave Estate
If I can’t build mine or farming building on a settlement, I go with slave estate for boosting economy. Rest of the settlement buildings are useless anyways.
Keep in mind though, slave estate boosts the economy of a settlement slightly. Only build it on populated settlements with at least 15-20 pops.
13. Granary
Granary increase food store of the province it’s built. Food storage isn’t always an issue, is it worth building?
The answer is yes if you’re playing tall and no if you’re playing wide. 12 months of food stored in your province store does increase the population growth. It’s a nice bonus to have if you’re playing tall. When I play tall, I tend to build one granary on each city for population growth. But you can increase your population way faster by fighting, conquering, looting, and enslaving.
14. Academy
Does increase noble happiness and noble desired ratio. Is good for rebellious cities with a population hosting a noble majority.
Can’t compare with court of law.
15. Forum
Does increase freeman happiness and freeman desired ratio. Is good for rebellious cities with a population hosting a freeman majority.
Not as good as court of law.
16. Library
Does increase knowledge production. But somehow, I’m always a-head of time in technology no matter what playstyle I do.
So, if you’re obsessed with technology and playing tall, build couple of libraries on your provinces. Otherwise, don’t bother because library slightly increase research points and pop conversion and do nothing else.
17. Fortress
%99 of the times fortress is useless. Always demolish fortress buildings to get rid of fort maintenance.
However, there are some cases where fortress building can be useful. Your capital for example. You don’t want your capital to be sacked by a sneaky army you fail to see.
Or a strait or mountain pass where you’re bordering a powerful empire.
18. Provincial Legation
Is a settlement building increasing migration and assimilation slightly. Now this is very situational.
Usually, you want migration and assimilation bonuses in the highly populated capital city. But there are some cases where you conquer a province with zero cities and don’t want to build cities. Then you simply build provincial legation on the capital settlement to increase assimilation speed.
Another use of provincial legation would be for colonization. How? Simply build one next to an uncolonized land to increase migration and then colonize the empty land once you have enough population. Though you can do the same thing simply by moving pops from province to province.
19. Training Camp
Manpower does not determine the number of levies. Population determines the levy numbers. Since you never run out of manpower in Imperator Rome, training camp is pretty much useless. I usually destroy training camps to get 20 gold and +1 free building slot.
20. Barracks
Another manpower building, this time for settlements. You already know what I think about manpower in this game, it’s useless.
So, don’t bother with barrack on settlements. Either build mine / farming settlement or go for slave estate for extra tax.
21. Earthworks
Another useless building you should never build and should demolish if it’s built by the nation you’ve just conquered.
It gives slight hostile attrition, for defense, and combat width reduction at the cost of -10% population capacity. Very useless even on chokepoints / borders. Just upgrade your fort instead if you want a strong defensive position.
22. Tribal Settlement
Unfortunately, tribal settlement building has no use and pointless. Imperator Rome is a half-abandoned game and that’s why buildings like tribal settlement stil exist.
Simply ignore this building and demolish it if you have any to get a little bit of gold refund.