Never Second in Rome is a turn-based historical game with RPG and management elements. You take the role of a Roman centurion in the army of Julius Caesar. Starting right before the beginning of the Gallic War, you will assume command of a century in a newly raised legion.
In a Republic dominating the Mediterranean World and yet shaken by internal strife, still traumatized by the horrors of the civil war that marked the previous generation, the arrival of a new governor in your province will initiate a succession of events that will ultimately define the future of Rome and its empire.
Very Positive
33 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
I like this game. I do not understand the game entirely, but I like it.
It's crunchier than the previous game, A Legionary's Life, and I wasn't very good at that one either. Still liked it.
Do I think it's good? I mean, yeah. I like being a mid-level dude in major events. It's one of my favorite forms of fiction. I like training my own century to aid Caesar. I like the pure fear I get dealing with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Celtic Britons. Jesus ♥♥♥♥, they're terrifying.
Do I understand the underlying mechanics? Not a chance. I mean, I almost get them, but there's so much math and a lot happening. There's guides that help explain, and I cannot recommend them enough.
Train your artillery and engineers at every chance, by the way.
If you like crunchy, kind of niche games where you're not the most important guy in the world, you'll enjoy this. If you're a history nerd, you'll probably be tempted. Hit them demo, give it an hour, and True to Caesar.
Certified banger. most negative reviews are people upset that the game isn't more like the developer's previous game. If you're on the fence about the game, it has a demo, give it a go and see if you like it before you buy.
Jogo dificil e muito frustrante, mas que com o cheat engine vira uma excelente aula de história e inglês.
An incredibly entertaining and educational journey through the many campaigns of Julius Caesar. Both the camp and individual combat segments are a broad improvement over it's predecessor with far more room for player skill and expression, while the new group combat system has come into it's own and is very engaging to learn and master. My main criticism of the game is that it's a bit too easy and generous with manual saves. You're expected to be able to win on your first playthrough, while subsequent playthroughs just mean you achieve more.
Good game in a similar vein but with clear differences to legionary's life. Personally like both, love the attention to detail the dev pays.
A fantastic game! Its similar to legionaries life, but having to go through the trauma of starting from the bottom is... harrowing lol!
Absolutely love the story and progression, Very Satisfied with my purchase!
it's a fun game and a uniquely valuable passion project for history
a text game, but it feels like you're there
Not as fun as his previous game, more like a downgrade in terms of features. I enjoyed it, but was hoping for something much better after the last one.
The game is good, and indeed gives you a feeling of being a cog in Caesar's campaigns. That said, I think it's only great for one or two campaigns (which should be around 20 hours each, so that is not bad). If you want the feeling of being a good soldier/squad leader, then this is it.
It lacks replayability though: a single good (or save scummed) run means you can experience 80-90% of the content, creating little incentive to replay the game. Differences in character aren't that much, and there's no real point in specialising heavily into a 'unique' playstyle (since century combat and events mean you need a baseline of certain stats). Essentially, characters feel quite 'samey', especially your various subordinates. If you're not too incompetent, the end result wouldn't be that different regardless of your choices or successes.
Also, it does feel more frustrating than the prior game, since there's no 'gain' if you die early. So, it feels like save scumming is just how you are meant to play the game.
As of 2026 and the "full release", I cannot recommend this game. In short, I do not believe it to be a worthy successor to A Legionary's Life as it is a downgrade in terms of quality of life features as well as not introducing any meaningful major mechanics that are good.
Compared to it's prequel, it is lacking in Meta-Progression which solves many of the achievements / stat checks that are required for certain events. In the previous game, dying was never a major setback, as due to meta progression, you would merely come back stronger to explore what some of the other options were, for instance during the first siege in ALL, you could volunteer yourself for additional fights which are tougher. However, in NSIR, there are often checks for rank and stats which snowball. For instance, if you are First Centurion of your cohort, you can be invited to a certain council which rewards you with more opinion. If you do not achieve sufficient progress in the first few chapters in terms of rank, skill or choices, you will never be able to catch up to see all of the game. If you go through the game and want to explore what you previously did not experience, you would have to restart the entire game and replay the start to ensure you got the right stat distribution and chose the right choices. This is incredibly tedious and annoying which is not helped by the poor combat system which I will talk about later.
I will not comment further because there is mention of potentially adding it, but I will say that adding it will greatly increase my personal enjoyment because it cuts down on the tediousness of the game from the stat checks.
I dislike some of the new additions in NSIR, particularly the new combat system where you sometimes play as your legionnaries in combat. Whilst skippable, these combats count towards your performance as a centurion which makes sense. However, whilst some might enjoy winning combats and doing well with poorer stats than your centurion, I personally do not enjoy this. I would personally prefer this to be more "RNG'ed" and done off screen, rather than being tedious battles that I have to fight and desperately win in order to gain valor for my century. The century fights in my opinion ruin the experience of much of the fighting system in NSIR, due to having more needless fights as well as exaceberating the pain of combat being RNG.
Speaking of the combat being RNG, I do actually enjoy the combat system and its implementation. The century vs other units system is great and an improvement over ALL with the weird phalanx fight. This and the individual combat is the backbone of the game.This is the one thing that the game does right, I believe there can be improvements to the system or new mechanics but this is one of the few things I cannot complain about.
The "generation" mechanics added for named legionnaries and staff members / officers is quite disappointing as well. This is due to you moving between different legions, resulting in you never being particularly attached to them. Rather, emphasis will be on generating them to have the right stats for certain checks in the game. For instance your optio requiring certain javelin and charisma skills to launch a counterattack which results in rewards of opinion or better combat situations. The much vaunted transfers to new legion are merely just replacing your old century and minions with a new century and minions of better stats.
Some of the side "minigames" do not bring any addition to the game, rather just being stat checls. The foraging minigame does not add any sort of meaningful gameplay. Theme-wise, this is absolutely what would a centurion would do, but I feel that its implementation and gameplay mechanics are extremely poor, just being a clicking exercise which sometimes leads to ambushes and combat.
Lastly, I feel that the content and gameplay loop is disappointing. The writing is interesting to keep you attached to the story of you and Caesar's journey, but it just results into a Training -> Battle loop, with very linear elements.
To conclude, I do love this sort of game. But I cannot recommend this game due to the direction that the developer wants to take this series. I understand the developer has their own vision of the game, but I feel that they are not aligned with player enjoyment or improving the mechanics of the game which are why players enjoy this niche the developer has created. This game is a slight improvement over A Legionary's Life in terms of polish and writing, but I feel that there are many mechanics that are just tedious and not contributing to player enjoyment, rather just making you want to smash your head into the wall.
A spiritual successor to A Legionary's Life, it keeps some of the combat mechanics, introduces new ones and, again, tells an immersive story of a life of another legionaire, albeit a (much) higher ranking one. Great atmosphere, music, nice visual style. Worth spending your time and money.
Rich both historically, strategically, and in terms of the story
Amazing game, didn’t want it to end
An amazing game! It really puts you in the shoes of someone from the time, and from a perspective that is unique! I was yelling and shouting during my victories and cursing when the tides were not in my favor. A simple game with a lot of depth that I forsee many playthroughs of.
I really REALLY want to like this game, but compared to its predecessor it just feels really meta build. All of the guides you find to help you understand the game better basically break down to "you need endurance as your top stat and intelligence/charisma helps" then you have to train your men on VERY specific things to make the combat in the game even viable. In this devs previous title "A Legionary's Life" (LL) you had a very rough start with a system that while tough felt fair even if you did get screwed over by dice rolls. On top of that death in that game had a meaning with each running bringing new dice rolls with both successes and failures. When I saved the troops in the Hispania act because I heard the combat over the breeze for the first time I felt like a champion. I win a major battle of the gaullic wars in this game and I feel nothing besides wanting the next combat to be fun
This game makes me feel like a frustrated father hoping to just get one hit on the enemy before my 5 turns of combat is over and then also hoping my entire cohort doesn't fair Caesars goals of getting a enemy formation down to 1900 from 2200 despite them regaining all their fatigue and cohesion because we had a double rest period.
I know someone will say "you just dont understand the combat mechanic system" but when I have more understanding of Hearts of Irons IVs old Naval system more than I understood the RNG of this games combat systems there is a major issue. I read one of the guides and it basically said "I know this is a frustrating part of the game" about 5 times for different mechanics. That is not a difficult mechanic it is a plain UNFUN mechanic.
Become an eyewitness to the last days of the Roman Republic and the birth of a new empire. Romae Aeterna
[h1] Coinvolgente! [/h1]
Un gioco fatto davvero bene consigliato per gli appassionati di Roma!
I wanted to like the game, but the mechanics are pretty unsatisfying. I was hoping there would be more vibe and atmosphere that the creator would lean into, but most of the game is just these tedious "combat mechanics." That would be fine if they were interesting, but they really aren't. I feel bad because I can tell the creator really tried with this. This isnt some half-baked attempt at a money grab, so I wont be asking for a refund.
I was a big fan of the previous "A Legionary's Life", so I was super happy to see a new game in the same vein. This provides the same gameplay loop with a lot of new wrinkles. I love the new tactical battle system, it delivers an experience that I feel like I haven't seen before in other strategy games or SRPGs. I feel like some of the tooltips could be a little more explicit with how the math works, but compared to other games this is one of the easiest to see how the calculations work.
The historical depth is really, really cool here. I'm a history buff but not that knowledgeable on Rome, so this felt like a little bit of edutainment. I can't necessarily say what liberties might have been taken, but as far as I've been cross-referencing on wikipedia, it seems really solid, even down to the movements of particular legions. That is, if you care about that sort of thing. It's a nice bonus.
The main campaign is long for this kind of game; I just hit Chapter 16 of 20. I feel like this is sort of a Darkest Dungeon situation; it's not meant to be played like a roguelike, but if you encounter adversity, you're going to want to reset and try a new build. The length of the game means that I'm not sure if a different build will make that much of a difference since you grow so much over the course of the game. Not sure if I'll be replaying this as much as Legionary's Life just due to the sheer scope of this one.
That being said, I love how you can manage your century through the years. You'll grow attached to some of your subordinates and try to guide them through some tough battles, losing some along the way. They don't have any particular personality, but just putting a name to them and being able to give them a nickname goes a long way for my imagination. On a sort of related note, I like that the game doesn't just scale your enemies to get stronger and stronger over the course of the game like you might see in a JRPG. The rises and dips in difficulty reflects the real-life situation on the ground, where you wouldn't be facing enemies that level up after each dungeon. I don't necessarily like switching to another legion in order to reset the levels, but it's done well and I enjoy training the new guys up.
Something I have some mixed feelings on, though, is how the stats play out in battles. All your stats are 1-100 and when you face a check, you're just facing a d100. I totally get that there's not much way around this, but it feels like I'm fighting against a die rather than my enemy, and then on the enemy's turn I get bailed out not by my own abilities, but by the d100. Yes your stats do play into that calculation, but I don't know, something about it doesn't feel that way. Maybe it's just the balancing and I'd rather stats play *more* of a factor, but I do appreciate some amount of pure randomness as exists in real life. Totally valid way of making the game, just thought I'd say something.
In case I miss the discussion about meta-progression, I respect the dev's vision first and foremost, and I do believe that having meta progression goes against the idea of building up your centurion and your century, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want it. I love supercharging my build and shattering every early enemy and getting every tough achievement. For me, it can really only add to the experience, and if I don't want to take any upgrades, I just won't select them.
yes
Caesar's [i]Commentaries on the Gallic War[/i] are brought to life in this game, and you're a centurion in the middle of it! You start the game as an experienced, powerful warrior, while the real challenge is to use the training mechanics to whip your century into shape. The individual combat mechanic from [i]A Legionary's Life[/i] has been refined a little to reduce the randomness, but the main event is its interaction with formation combat, which tests different skills and circumstances for your century. Your century's performance is essential to victory and earning your promotions.
The game is at its strongest when you can get engaged in the strict historical accuracy of the first-person narrative. The actual mechanics are complex. They're a thoughtful simulation of ancient combat, but there's a lot to learn at the start, so you might feel frustrated if you don't understand them or pleased when you get the hang of it and success begins to depend on wise preparation rather than dice rolls. That largely determines the difficulty you'll experience. Some balancing work will hopefully make the game more accessible to new players in Early Access.
There is some room for replay value with different character builds, but fewer forks in the narrative than in [i]A Legionary's Life[/i]. You can't miss much unless you choose to forgo challenges that might be difficult (but which you don't need to fear, since you can reload when you die). Yet even so I've replayed it several times waiting for the final chapters to come out. If you're in the niche this type of RPG is for, there is nothing as satisfying as [i]Never Second in Rome[/i].
Old player of the precedent opus "A legionary's Life". After hours playing this game ( stopped at the last chapter currently available) and banging my head against the Rng/ mechanics . I must call it quit and after trying to appreciate the game, i can't.
While i was waiting that game, and really anticipated the cohort gestion/ management. I was agreeably surprised at first in comparaison to the first game: This was what the first game lacked! An impact of actually being a centurion! Training priority, time managing etc...
Then came the battles. And the experience turned sour.
Non instictive mechanics, which are extremly tied to RNJesus 's mood, meaning ? You have to save scum to hope winning, or at tleast survive the battles ,even when you understand the mechanics.
Until its not possible that is, no mistake is repairable in the battles, no leniency of any kind.
let me be clear on that point, in the precedent game, it was the same. Hell it was expected ! We all died kick with our first characters to learn the mechanics and better our stats. thats what i loved about L's L.
But here, since there is no gameplay+ mehcanic, it means if you get the wrong decisions or just bad luck ( as it often does, even with the good stats) you better start the current battle if not the whole game back to the start.
Without this previous mechanic, there is no point trying for me, it's just a grind against the machine and luck itself, which make this game unbalanced in my opinion, more frustrating than anything else.
I understand the wich of the developper to make a more narrative motivated game, but i dont see how it is incompatible with that mechanic ? i didnt need to become a god of war in the last game to appreciante the story. In fact, when you manage to get bonkers, and the story refleted it, i found it rewarding! because it meant that you truly understood the game! Godly stats meant nothing if you did not play smart after all.
To resume= Either rebalance the battles mechanic (or training of the cohort) or put back the new game + mechanics, until then, the battles are too frustrating to appreciate the whole.
Was Extremely excited at launch for this game as A Legionary's Life is one of my favourite games. This is very different to that game but once you get the hang of it I feel that this game is perhaps even better. Dev is very communicative and honestly even the planned increased price feels like a steal. I hope there will be an option to up the initial payment to meet the price for the full release.
Giving a +1 because I feel like Mixed Reviews don't do justice to this kind of game and developer. I've played the an early version of the EA and I think a lot of work is being done to improve the game, even as it is I had a lot of fun and I'm dying to play it again once the full story will be released.
good
I want to recommend the game. I am giving a positive review because I enjoyed the game. But I do feel as if the mythic quality of his first game is somewhat lost in this "not a sequel". In Legionary life you could eventually become a legendary warrior of Rome after a lot of grinding and a lot of trial and error. NSR doesn't seem to have that same quality of, I just achieved the impossible and the game recognized that. Then again I played the game a while ago and I'm only posting a review now because I saw the recent reviews.
While I agree this should not be the former game, I feel there are aspects of the former game that should be carried over to achieve the same enjoyment of the game. If my Legion is well trained and able to hold their own, against the enemy, there should be a moment in the game where we're given a flavorful reward for the effort. Otherwise there's no point in over achieving and training my century to be a block of death for Caesar's war efforts.
I wanted to wait to see the final chapters before giving this review because I don't know what the developer wants to do with the story and I didn't want to pass judgement until that happened because I am on the fence. But right now I don't think there will be a moment in the game equivalent to breaking the Phalanx at the end of the first game or winning the foot race. Moments like that are what made the first game special. I haven't played Chapters 11-15 yet so I don't know if he adjusted. I'll find out when he posts the last 5 and we'll see if he was able to replicate the magic.
I'll reiterate that I don't want a copy of the first game, but I want there to be opportunities to excel and prove I mastered the game.
Good.
Crashes at continue in act 3 every time
Awesome!
This game is great! It has a steeper learning curve than the first and could do with a better explanation of its mechanics, which I think is why century combat can be unfun at first. But man once you get that unruly beast of century into shape, beating Gauls has never felt more satifying.
Story is good and engaging, lots of replay-ability, a no-brainer purchase at its low price.
If you're like me and enjoy games where you build stats and see those stats consistently and meaningfully reflected in the game's mechanics, or someone who has bad luck/finds RNG to be a pain... This is a pass. I got to the first battle of Part 5 before I finally had to call it quits and accept that this game is not built for me.
The game is fun for plenty of people, I am certain of that. If you enjoy it, I am more than happy for you.
To the developer: I see that you communicate with your players. I like to see that in a developer, and I wish you all the luck. This review is not a criticism of your ability to make a game. This is a review for people like me who aren't going to enjoy this kind of heavily RNG-based gameplay.
The thematics are really good, the historical setting and how the scenes play out are very well written, and I enjoy being able to push my centurion and their century to reach various skill checks and train their skills. But that's... It, really.
As a player, I do not like sitting there beating my head against game mechanics trying to seek shreds of stuff that I find fun. For myself, game mechanics are supposed to be fun and engaging, not a source of frustration-- even if it means sacrificing some of the realism. I attempted to search up guides and advice told to others to see if I could find ways to enjoy the game, but the consistent statement that continues to come up is that the RNG will just screw you over, arbitrarily and randomly, and there's nothing you can do about it. It is part of the experience.
What follows is a bit of a raw expression of my experiences:
Everything is competing d100's. That means within any variable, before any other modifiers are added, you are rolling between a 1 and 100, then comparing that with your opponent's 1 to 100. Failing a roll typically means a negative consequence. Passing a roll often means requiring passing another roll after that to have a positive consequence, otherwise you have a largely neutral consequence that extends the length of a fight. In certain circumstances, you must also roll (with modifiers) significantly beyond what your opponent rolls to have a chance at a positive effect.
All this means that there is more chance for *negative* outcomes than there are positive ones, and all are in service to either requiring overwhelming force (and luck) or a slow, painful back and forth.
Consistency and meaningfulness are lacking when the number ranges are that drastic. It doesn't matter if I'm rolling at a +25 or a +50 to hit their head because they might block it anyway, or if you're within a certain roll range, you'll only damage their stance and not their health. Every fight feels like a slog, depleting the enemy's stance while trying to preserve your own-- oh, and remember to conserve your fatigue, otherwise your character is going to die.
How do you do that? By not fighting long drawn-out fights... Which the RNG makes difficult. And by cycling your Centurion back from the frontlines to the rear... Which you can't *stay there* for more than a single round of combat, and it takes several rounds to build up enough of an arbitrary meter to keep you from losing morale, then your troop's opinion, and finally your commander's opinion.
That inherently means that the game is at all points a fight against RNG. The longer the RNG draws out fights, the less rewards you'll get, and the more likely you are to die-- either forcing a rollback to an earlier save (often involving 15+ minutes of combat) or a complete restart.
When it begins to feel like my stats don't matter, I don't feel invested in what I've created or what my character is living through. I start to just click through things, and stop thinking through my actions-- because why care, when it's really all up to a pair of dice rolls? Sparse moments of joy break through a mire of constant annoyance at little things that accrue throughout the experience- a passed skill check because I built my character's stats in mind for it, a lucky string of RNG after *tens* of savescum resets that let me overcome an otherwise unchallenging fight.
Save scumming is also an issue; RNG naturally encourages players to save scum and there's no way around that. It's a feature, not a bug, of RNG-based games-- and if there was any criticism I could leve against games of this nature, it's that they need to stop fighting that base truth or leave it as an ironman setting. This game is **relentless** about when and where you can save, making every rollback a painful experience and making the weight of the RNG's assault all that more intense. At any one point, I'm not worried about a single pair of competing d100's plus modifiers... I'm worried about three. Or six. Or nine. Or twenty, depending on how bad my luck can get.
I understand you aren't meant to do everything perfectly, but it gets really bad when things my character is supposed to be good at-- or my legion is supposed to have been trained for-- suddenly don't matter as much as what the d100 decides to roll. Every single roll can swing so wildly that my skills honestly do not feel like they are contributing *enough* to matter more than that roll. It matters so little that my character might be a strategic genius, or a powerhouse on the battlefield-- at any point, RNG can come in and ruin an entire campaign, quickly causing fatigue buildup and, depending on the length of the battle, the death of your character and a restart of a run.
To those who would suggest I do more than critique/suggest I offer alternatives or an improvement:
There is no fix for this. Because everything in the game is reliant upon those competing d100's, and the only consistency is within a handful of skill checks and random events, it is inherently built to be what it is-- a game heavily built around the use of a very large RNG number causing major swings and unreliability in its core gameplay mechanics. I'm also not interested in suggesting a fix for the game, because this style of game exists solely due to having a crowd who enjoy it.
The RNG nature is part and parcel to the game, as is the size of the dice number. Reducing the size of the dice would require too major of a rework to the entire game, and so unless you're willing to commit to and accept the frustration of RNG deciding you don't get to have fun, then you will constantly find yourself at odds with Never Second in Rome.
Good game.
