Despite its rocky start Civilization 7 is getting better with each update. The current DLC pack, Tides of Power, is heavily focused on the naval game, but older, land-based Civs are getting rebalanced as well, giving you plenty of reasons to see how your old favorites measure up in the new environment. The Romans, a staple of the Antiquity Age, have seen some particularly notable changes to their Traditions and Unique Buildings, making them more user-friendly but requiring some tweaks to their strategy if you want to use them effectively.
If you’re a seasoned veteran of the Legions or a fresh upstart in the Senate, we’ve got all the tips you need to bring glory to Rome in Civ 7’s 1.3.1 update.
Basic Strategy For Rome In Civilization 7
Rome’s overall strategy in the Antiquity Age is largely unchanged; you’ll still want to rush Discipline early on so you can get a Legatus as soon as possible, get to Bronze Working via Irrigation and Writing so that you can upgrade your Warriors to Legions, and generate lots of Culture so that you can unlock your unique Roman Civics.
Rome’s strength is in its Traditions, the unique Policies that are only available by researching their unique Civics. Not only are they quite good on their own (even after the changes discussed below), but Rome’s Forum and Legion get bonuses for every Tradition that you have equipped. That means you’ll want to unlock and equip all four as quickly as you can.
TIP: Happiness, by extension, is critically important for the Romans. Celebrations unlock more Policy Slots, which you need in order to equip Traditions.
While your Legions are out conquering thanks to the combat bonus they get from equipped traditions (plus any other buffs you’ve earned, like Bronze Working Mastery), you should seek to build Forums in every City you control by placing a Temple of Jupiter and a Basilica on the same tile. Forums generate extra Gold for every Tradition you have equipped, and since they’re Ageless, they stick around for the rest of the game. They’ll continue producing Gold even after you progress to another Age and stop being the Romans; you won’t be able to build more Forums at that point, but you’ll continue to benefit from the ones you have. Since you keep the Traditions of every Civ that you’ve been throughout history, you’ll also be able to equip more Traditions in each Age, increasing the output of your Forums.
Changes To The Roman Forum In Update 1.3.1
While the role of the Forum is pretty much the same as it was before, there’s an important difference in the wake of the December 2025 update. One of its component buildings, the Basilica, is now a Diplomacy Building rather than a Gold Building. Essentially, its yields have been swapped; it now produces a base yield of 3 Influence per turn, plus 1 Gold per turn for every adjacent Culture Building or Wonder. As before, it’s Ageless, so it keeps its Adjacency Bonus in later Ages, and can never be built over.
This isn’t a huge change, and won’t impact your strategy that much; you’ll still want to place your Forums near Wonders, Happiness Buildings, and Culture Buildings, so putting them one tile off from spaces with lots of Mountain Adjacency is a good plan. That way, you can put your Monuments and Amphitheatres next to the Mountains, and your Forum next to your budding Culture Quarter.
What the change does mean is that Basilicas now interact with the updated Cursus Honorum Tradition, letting your Basilicas produce Culture as long as you have Cursus Honorum equipped (which should be always, since it unlocks very early in the Roman Civics tree).
Changes To Roman Traditions In Update 1.3.1
The biggest change to how Rome plays in Civilization 7 is how its Traditions work. Three of their four Traditions have been rebalanced, with only Princeps Civitatis staying the same as it was. If you’ve been playing Rome since launch, some of these changes might take a bit of getting used to. They may even feel like a bit of a debuff, but Rome was very powerful to start with, and these changes make this popular Civ easier to use.
First off, Auxilia has been nerfed. It previously granted a 5% bonus toward Production of Military Units in your capital for each Town you controlled, but that number has been reduced to 3%. It’s still quite good, and if you’re aggressively expanding like Rome is supposed to you’ll be able to stack up some big numbers and produce lots of Legions marching forth from Rome. Don’t forget that the Legatus can found a new Town for every third Promotion he receives, so between wars send your decorated generals to claim new lands!
Cursus Honorum, one of the first Traditions you’ll unlock, has seen a pretty significant change. Previously, it provided a small lump sum of Culture each time you trained an Infantry unit. As of 1.3.1, it now gives all your Diplomacy and Military Buildings +1 to their Culture yield. In Antiquity, that includes the Barracks, Monuments, and Villas. Those last two are important because they can sometimes be bought in Towns – Monuments via Augustus’ Leader Ability, and Villas during the Power At The Center Crisis.
Since you’ll have access to Cursus Honorum for the rest of the game, it can pay to focus on building Military and Diplomacy Buildings early at the start of a new Age. Dungeons in Exploration and Military Academies in Modern both qualify, and are available fairly early.
Cursus Honorum also stacks its bonus if a building happens to be tagged as both Military and Diplomacy, but as of right now no such building exists in the game. If a Civ is added later that has one, they could be a good candidate for a Roman successor!
Finally, Latinitas is much more user-friendly. Previously, it gave a buff to any Towns with a Specialization, which made the usual decision of when to stop growing a Town and Specialize it all the trickier. Now, It simply gives +1 each of Food, Gold and Culture to all Towns, Specialized or not, doubling the bonus in Fort Towns. If you have a Settlement next to an aggressive neighbor, it could be a good idea to change it to a Fort Town sooner rather than later to get the defensive bonuses, plus the economic benefit from Latinitas.
The change to Latinitas helps it feel less like a “dead Tradition” that you equip just for the Legion and Forum bonus, since previously it only affected a very small number of towns if any. Now, there’s much more reason to equip it as soon as it’s available, even if its overall bonus is smaller.
Rome is still a force to be reckoned with in Antiquity. As long as you focus on strengthening your Government with Roman Traditions, leading your Legions with well-trained Legati, continuously increasing your Settlement Limit to fuel continuous expansion, you’ll come out of the Antiquity Age in a very strong position to leave your mark on history.