Forum
“All roads lead to the Forum.”
Unique building of Rome — replaces the Marketplace.
The Forum is the centre of Roman public life: part marketplace, part law court, part political stage. Trade flows through it, but so do contracts, elections, and civic works — a Roman Forum doesn’t just move money, it gets things built.
Stats
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Cost | 40 Production |
| Maintenance | None |
| Required Tech | Currency |
| Prerequisites | None |
| Civilisation | Rome only |
| Replaces | Marketplace |
Effects
- +2 gold per turn in the city.
- +1 production per turn in the city.
The Forum counts as a Marketplace for all purposes: it satisfies the Bank’s prerequisite, and Rome cannot build an ordinary Marketplace.
Strategy
Rome’s identity is infrastructure — half-price roads, the improvement-building Legion — and the Forum funds and accelerates all of it. The +1 production seems small until you multiply it across a wide Roman empire building granaries, walls, and wonders a little faster in every city, forever. Like the Marketplace it replaces, the Forum costs nothing to maintain, so there is never a reason not to build one. Get Currency early and put a Forum everywhere.
Historical Background
The Forum Romanum began as a marshy valley between the Palatine and Capitoline hills, drained in the 7th century BCE by the Cloaca Maxima, one of the world’s earliest sewers. Over a thousand years it accumulated temples, basilicas, triumphal arches, and the Senate house — the political and commercial heart of an empire of fifty million. Every Roman town from Britain to Syria was laid out around its own forum in imitation.