Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City
Game
Game2025
Pax Augusta
Developer Roger Gassmann
Pax Augusta is probably the most authentic ancient city-building simulation. Build flourishing cities and look after your citizens. Earn gold with production and trade of goods and build impressive monuments. Strengthen your influence and become a Roman emperor! From the Steam store page
201 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy) · newest Sep 25, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
59
Mixed
113 positive · 80 negative
95% range 51–65%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 113 | 80 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
8 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
460 of 659 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 201 · most liked firstI have to start by saying I want to love this game, I really do. I've been waiting for a decent Roman city builder for a while, and this seemed really interesting. I am having some fun with the game, but unfortunately, there are some game elements that feel broken and others that feel buggy. I realise that Pax Augusta is the passion project of a single developer and that things take time, and what was created is really admirable, so I am hoping that things will improve and hopefully I can…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I had really high hopes about this game, but the fact that you cannot load and play a save is a deal-breaker.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There's definite potential here but the game needs more work before I can recommend it. First of all, kudos to the developer, there's a solid foundation and some fun to be had. However, in its current state, the game has several major issues that make the experience frustrating. Some of the most pressing concerns include: - Completely losing your entire savegame, which is a critical issue that really undermines long-term play. - Performance problems, where the game can feel sluggish or buggy…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you value your free time, be warned—this game is dangerously addictive. I’ve played nearly every Roman city-building title since the Caesar series, but this one… this one truly stands out. It captures everything: the depth of Roman society, the authenticity of the architecture, and the historical accuracy of urban planning. Everything feels spot-on. My only wish would be for more options to beautify the city—additional gardens and decorative elements would make it even better.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game has some good aspects and impressive for one developer. BUT Selling this as anything but an early access game is misleading. The game mechanics are clunky and the campaign buggy. When finishing one task, the campaign progress is reset to an earlier task. Keeping me in a loop after 10+ hours of gameplay. Cannot recommend for anybody to buy unless being fully aware that this is an unfinished game
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game needs more time to cook. It's a full release but it feels early access. There are a lot of systems in the game and there is little to no explanation on how they work or how to set them up. Most of industrial systems are tedious once you get them going. For example, You build a lumberjack, and then you build a wood processor, then a warehouse specifically for wood. The processor will auto send to the warehouse, but of you don't manually input the from the lumberjack, nothing happens.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Firstly, I do enjoy the game, I didn't want to leave a "Do Not Recommend" and discourage the solo dev that is always in communication with his community. This is a really in depth, interesting game. When it works and runs properly, it's nice to look at and I really love watching my city come together and change as my population grows and changes. The forum aspect is intriguing, the buildings feel like they fit the game nicely, the lack of a military side is honestly refreshing. However,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game claims to be a finished release version, but it is not. The UI is clunky, fumbly and feels unfinished. Als a lot of mouseover tooltips and tooltips in general are missing. These may be minor inconveniences and may depend on point of view. Here is the worst part: The game runs very unstable and crashes are constant. the game has its charms but is unfortunately unplayable
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This Roman city builder is a great idea in theory, but its implementation could still improve in practice. I like the modular way of building your forum and other city buildings, and the realistically historical way of building your city, but that's about the only thing that sets apart this game from Caesar IV from 2006. This game is marred by bugs. Sometimes it allows you to interact with traders in your region, sometimes not. Sometimes it allows you to set the cardo and decumanus, sometimes…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is under cooked and was released too early. I only purchased it because it was out of early access, but i feel cheated by that. I love what the game is doing, and really look forward to playing it!...but at this moment it is too poorly optimised to even reach the mid-level cities without chugging. There is some save game issue where you can save all you want, but the game cannot see your save files so you are locked into one save, that autowrites, so you effectively have permadeath when…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sadly this game keeps crashing, even on its lowest graphical settings.... My PC should support this game, but every time it starts up the city building map it crashes the whole PC. I want to like this game but it keeps on crashing and makes it pain in the ass and I feel that this game deserves better.... Either this gets fixed or itll be a refund...
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its been almost a year with almost no major updates, nothing stated or posted from the developer and no road map for whats next. I understand its a smaller operation, but this game just doesnt deliver on the potential it has. Maps are overly constrained and gameplay gets boring after a few playthroughs. If you want a decent Roman City builder that will be updated for years to come, save your money and buy ANNO 117. I hope Pax Augusta does change, but also I have little hope.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Would very much like to support the developer, think he's done an amazing job so far. Game mechanics are solid, and i agree with other's comments about huge potential here. But i've had to request a refund - massively long load times (transitions are not avoidable eg visiting empire maps to get theatre troops etc), and frequent crashes (entire cities and hours of gameplay can be lost) essentially make the game unplayable. I think the first thing to implement is an auto-save feature to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After a very promising start, nothing really happens anymore. The game isn’t finished and as far as I know there has been silence since October last year. Might change this review at some point, since I see a ton of potential.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Augusta, a Roman-era citybuilder with a focus on realistic buildings and with Impressions Games style gameplay, released on Steam (demo available).. cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28355276
unlabelledView post →I really wanted this game to be good. The setting, the vibe and the game play were really good. It just kept crashing on me. If the game can be more optimized than I would give a positive review.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is amazing with incredible detail and historical authenticity. It is a shame that a single developer can achieve this yet AAA companies keep releasing slop with little historical authenticity. The only issues I have in the game is really the optimization. Once your city grows to a modest size, the FPS drop like crazy and you basically can't zoom out to see your city in its entirety because the lag becomes unbearable. Also another issue I think is the size of the maps. They are quite…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Save your money, this game is not very good. As a city builder, it is a disaster, far too simplistic, which is beneficial because it does not provide any truly relevant information to base decisions on. The save system in story mode is incredibly frustrating and almost enough to stop playing the game altogether. But by far my biggest complaint is that the game developer is simply a control freak forcing you to play the game his way or not at all, that's fine my vote is not at all
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was recommended to me by a professor because its related to the subject she teaches and it truly is very accurate. Its a bit hard to understand in the beginning but you can easily figure it out as you play.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly the UI is dreadful, and some game dynamics are basically never explained, but there are some things in this game I REALLY appreciate. The modular buildings offer so much variety to plan the city the way you want it. I hope they will keep up the great work and keep improving it
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Evolutionary gameologists would find this game a missing link between Anno and Manor Lords in city builder evolution. From Anno, very restrictive grid based maps and basically no logistics. To Manor lords, realism, limited building modularity and world devoid of color. The lack of color (you can chose color levels but it's still too gray lol) is not helping the average looking graphics. These are by far my worst criticisms of the game and might be a dealbreaker for many. Of course there are…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An impressive Ancient Roman city builder with humble Unity visuals, a reasonably approachable economy, pleasant music, and a surprising variety of different sprites for buildings. I can see the scaffolding for an extraordinary game in Pax Augusta. Unfortunately, she's in some rough shape. I can forgive the unforgiving construction system which refunds neither money nor materials after demolishing a building (it's okay - just never make mistakes I suppose), but I ran into some gamebreaking bugs…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Easiest mode, there is no wiggle room, its you don't do the exact play style it 'calls' for, you will lose. And there is no real help / tutorial in the game. I have deleted and started over to many times to make it enjoyable
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really, REALLY wanted to like this game. As a history nerd, specifically of the Roman Republic and Early Empire, it hits a lot of the right buttons, but as a game it just isn't there. I followed development for a good long while and part of me wonders if it was rushed ahead of the new Anno game, because even the English localization is just... not good. The tutorial is extremely bad at explaining how building should progress, and mechanics just seem clunky at best.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can’t help but feel optimistic about this game, simply because I’m desperate to find a worthy successor to Caesar III (the most beautiful Roman city-building game of all time in my opinion). The gamplay is lovely. The idea of moving around the map, founding multiple cities, and progressing through ranks within Rome is fantastic. The level of detail is amazing, the building designs are excellent, and the residential placement system is creative and allows for some artistic neighborhood…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Augusta (in development), a Roman-era citybuilder with a focus on realistic buildings and with Impressions Games style gameplay, releases a demo on Steam..
unlabelledView post →I hate games that tell me where I have to place my buildings.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Love the mechanics but the space to build anything is so limited it is like you are being punished. Interested to see how this developed but really needs more work to be enjoyable for longer.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to recomend this game, I really do, and I do enjoy it, but I absolutely cannot say that anyone should get this game in its current state and it needed, absolutely needed at least a few more months in the oven due absolutely horrific performance and localisation issues. I play Cities Skylines 2, I found its performance on release acceptable to me, I can deal with stutters and such. However, this game, without a agent system like CS:2, and seemingly not a lot that is intensive going on,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So, I love Roman games, and I mean stretching from the time of the Republic through the Principate and even into the Eastern Roman/Byzantine era. I've given it some time, and I've watched the videos which are listed as a tutorial by the lone developer. Overall, I think he's done a decent to good job, but the UI needs work. It's not organized well, and so it seems clunky to me. Additionally, a lack of tooltips when you mouse over icons makes it difficult to learn about the UI and makes…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This has a lot of promise, if you like city builders in the vein of the Anno series, this will lock you in. HOWEVER, don't buy this right now for the price its at. The autosave system is absolute doodoo, it sparsely saves and you're gonna crash every hour of play on average, you'll lose 30-60 minutes of progress if you aren't constantly hitting the save button. The game is overly simple, but runs like trash, don't buy this full price until the game can actually run consistently without eating…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game needs save slots, as well as some more intuitive or guided UI elements, the core gameplay seems promising but I wish it was a bit more polished. Additionally the ability for more finegrained keybinding would be great as well as better tools tips over the various core resources. I will say right now its not a recommend, but if they release a few patches i'll update my review.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfortunately I have to join the chorus of negative reviews here. The game is just too raw. The gameplay seems deep and that it will be fun, but is constrained by odd design choices and some gamebreaking bugs. - Performance issues - UI elements failing to update - If you fail a mission on the middle of the campaign, and want to restart, you can't. Have to start the campaign all over again Odd design choices: - You cant place buildings without roads, making it hard to design the city the way…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Augusta, a Roman-era citybuilder with a focus on realistic buildings and with Impressions Games style gameplay, released on Steam (demo available)..
unlabelledView post →DO NOT BUY THIS GAME UNTIL IT IS FIXED!!! THE GAME CONSTANTLY CRASHES, AND WHEN IT DOES IT DOESN'T SAVE YOUR GAME!!! I WANT MY MONEY BACK...
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Def one of the best city builders I've played. Bravo for the attention to detail. Could use some more polish but what a great time.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A more unplayable game I have never encountered before. And at full place it is expensive garbage. Broken mechanics, unworkable campaigns, no saves, just like the real Roman Empire. And just like it, you may go under never to shine again.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As an history and Roman city builder fan, I can say that this is the best tile based Roman city building game ever since Caesar III. Pax Augusta is newer version of Caesar III with tons of beautiful details, realistic dimensions and historical accuracy. This is the real Caesar IV that we expected from Sierra studios 20 years ago. Finally somebody(Yes, only one man) did it! Great job!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Best game ever ,have been to Rome and Pompeii ,the research and authenticity that has gone into this historic game is amazing . I am hooked . I know it is still in its early stages can be a bit buggy (not criticising) for one man to achieve all this is awesome. Tony.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In theory this would be the perfect game for me, being a big fan of strategy and management games and of Roman history. Also, I understand this is a passion project of a single developer, so I tried out the game expecting a few inconveniences. But it is so unpolished, and it has so many annoyances and UI sloppiness that the game has zero immersion for me and becomes increasingly annoying to play. Shame.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game has terminal bugs. At some part of the campaign, the mission starting script just doesn't load and the only option is to restart campaign. Waste of time and energy. Otherwise good :D
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game has some minor bugs but nothing game breaking. It isn't as polished as any of these AAA building games like Anno or similiar. But it's the roman empire and for just a single developer, the game is really great.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love games like this! Made by one talented guy with so much love and care, it’s insane. I just want to say thank you for creating something so uplifting that I stopped being pessimistic about the gaming industry. You symbolize something I thought was lost in this sphere: genuine passion and commitment to making great games. I’ll share a few thoughts about the game but keep it short: it works great! There were some stutters, but they were fixed with the recent patch (props for that!), and I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is good. If you like city builders and you like the ancient Rome setting then you'll love this game. The only the reason I can't recomend this game is because your cities will be deleted for no reason. Its a crazy bug, but based on what I've seen online, I'm not the only one experieincing this. If this bug gets fixed then I could recomend the game, but I've lost hours building a city only to have it deleted.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Love building Roman cities, spent countless hours on Caeasr III. The details in Pax Augusta are excellent, and although much easier than old Caesar III a good experience altogether. The campaign could be longer and more challenging, but for a sole developer this is still better than many major publishers.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I do recommend this game. BUT only to experienced/adventurous players. This is coming from someone who only played the story mode up until now. The game doesnt really have a tutorial so it took me 4 attempts to get things running in the first settlement. So dont be dishartened when you fail a few times. Thats not because the mechanics are overly complex just because they are just different enough and not really explained. Before this ends in a novel i just want to highlight a few positives…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DO NOT BUY!!! There has not been an update since Okt 16th 2025, No communication with the community. I am pretty sure he abonden the game.... it had potential but I guess not another EA scam as in its current state this is not a complete game... even though he 1.0 released this mess it really was a EA release I guess lying is now a thing thats accepted on steam. Steam should step in an froce a refund this is insane behaviour the game is buggy broken and unupdated for almost a year. I have been…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a pathetic attempt at a city builder. You have one safe for every game mode. The production lines like delivering wood to your iron industry doesn't work. Once you have a big city and you empty the food stocks, there is no way to recover even with all off map production you can buy. The perfomance is bad. The game has soft locks in the campaign mode. Wait a year and maybe this alpha will be finished.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is fun and challenging to balance resource production, money, citizen satisfaction and city growth. Travelling on the world map with your wagon is an interesting take on story/career progression and very cool IMHO. * I wish I could, but I can't recommend this game in its current state though due to too many obvious bugs. * Definitely come back in a couple of months and see if the developer has ironed out the bugs and polished the game off a bit. It's a one man developer and massive kudos…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ehhhh... It's fine considering it's from a small dev team so took that as something that can be improved. The story line progresses, and then I get to Britain.. WOOH this map sucks! The only place where one of the bridges can be built butts up against a pre-placed farm that you can't delete or move or get around, so wagons just drop off into the ether and you can't make a decent road system. IDK what to do because there is already a lack of space to place buildings. I restarted it three…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is excellent in concept and and much of its design, but in its current state, it's impossible to have fun playing. My saves don't work, the game crashes when accessing the map, and I lose the city in the same way as if I haven't saved (the whole city dissapear). Please, before adding more content, fix these extremely annoying bugs that many basic games don't have!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's not like its advertised. Its loading screen takes forever and freezes. I have a gaming pc and it still was like that.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a cool Roman city builder, but it desperately needs some accessibility features and improved UI. It's a one-person team, so you can't be too mad about slow development, but it lacks polish.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to love this game, but there are too many bugs and my saves won't load.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game still needs a lot of revamp. The maps feel too small, the sandbox is the only real way to play, the career and story mode, your people will starve to death or you'll run out of money and be stuck... far to easy and unnecessary. There are no food production buildings until you reach a certain pop cap and they have to be happy, otherwise its locked/re-locked... which again, leads to starvation. yes, you can get food from local tribes or other settlements but sometimes it's broken and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I saw this game had a few good reviews and decided to give it a chance. I was worried it would be just another Banished clone, but boy was I wildly and happily surprised. I'm partly through the story mode at this point, and thoroughly enjoying my experience. I'm having a blast, I love the naming conventions being historical, I am loving the story, and I love all the added functions. Using a guy to go scout the city map to discover resources, having a world map to explore and sort of "power up"…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very basic game. Compared to this even Caesar 3 will look advanced :-)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't usually go for management/building games but as a Roman enthusiast this game hits so many buttons I couldn't resist. The attention to detail in terms of period accuracy and little touches is - frankly - amazing: right down to the little fish transport barge modelled from the original held in Xanten. Very impressive. Not found any bugs so far but as this is a labour of love by one individual I can understand why others may have encountered them. Seriously, if you love these types of game…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lost my whole entire city due to a bug that I worked 10 hours on. Thanks.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →nice game, but 16 GB RAM + 18 GB swap for a 700 people town are heavy
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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