Major update22 Jun 2026Update 1.2The most important changes of this update concern four Attributes: Strength, Constitution, Quickness and Coordination. Experienced players already know the importance and effectiveness of Endurance, to the point that the other four physical Attributes felt less relevant, especially Constitution. The newly introduced changes aim at reinforcing their usefulness in combat and at offering more stra…
Before getting into the details of this update, I want to thank all the players who have expressed and shown their support during these years. Without you, a solo developer such as myself would never be able to create and publish games. Ironman mode and meta-progression Version 1.0 introduces a new optional Ironman mode, featuring both permadeath and meta-progression . It is unlocked after fini…
I'm happy to announce that Never Second in Rome will leave Early Access on May 5, 2026 . Since the first playable version of the game came out, there has been a demand for the introduction of some form of meta-progression , following on the heels of my first game, A Legionary's Life . Although Never Second in Rome was not designed to include meta-progression , I offered to open a discussion wit…
I'm reposting an old announcement, since the original is no longer visible on the store page. It is impossible not to notice that most of the negative feedback that Never Second in Rome is getting comes from players who enjoyed my first game, A Legionary's Life , and who are let down by the differences between the two. I want to be as clear as possible: Never Second in Rome is * not * A Legiona…
The final chapters of Never Second in Rome have been released! With this update, the content is fully done. You may have noticed that I have not taken the game out of Early Access yet. Before I do that, I'd like to launch a discussion in the forum aimed at the player who have finished the entire game, about the possibility of introducing some form of meta progression or an alternative solution.…
Since last update, as many of you already know, I've been working relentlessly on the final chapters of the game. The finish line is approaching, and if there are no delays, I should be able to release them about two weeks from now. As soon as the update is published, I will increase the price from $9.99 to $12.99. The game will consist of 20 chapters, twice as many as those released when Early…
I'm currently working on the final chapters of the game, which I hope to publish in Q1 2026. In the meantime, I've released a small patch. · Several typos and grammar errors have been fixed. Special thanks to the people who helped in this thread . · The tooltips of generic Skill and Attribute training have been expanded a little.
Chapters 11 to 15 are out! This update also includes a lot of changes and tweaks, which you will find detailed below. I've also updated the free demo . Content · Five new chapters, bringing the total to fifteen. Battle Mechanics · Imbalance causes no penalties for values going from 0 to +6 (in previous versions, it was from -5 to +5). · Imbalance can go from -4 to +16 (before, it went from -20…
It is impossible not to notice that most of the negative feedback that Never Second in Rome is getting comes from players who enjoyed my first game, A Legionary's Life , and who are let down by the differences between the two. I want to be as clear as possible: Never Second in Rome is * not * A Legionary's Life 2 , it was never meant to be, and it certainly has never been advertised as such. Ev…
I have decided to release a handful of minor changes I made as I worked on parts 11 to 15, mostly because there was a mistake in the text that bothered me. I won't hazard a guess on the release date of the five new chapters, but it's still a matter of a few months. · Tweaked some decisional parameters of enemy formations related to Disruptive Commitment Shift. · The amount of money soldiers are…
I have made several changes to the building mini-game, in order to make it less simplistic and somewhat more challenging. I have also added a couple of unrelated options that some of you should like, especially the first. Changes · Added an option to skip the animated rolls in individual combat. · Added an option to hide the exact numerical difficulty of checks in text events. · In the building…
Today's minor update is mainly about a couple of fixes. · Counters related to a specific type of mini-event should not be carried over when abandoning the current game and starting a new one. Fortunately, this did not affect any positive mini-events in the current version of the game, only a negative one, but it would definitely have affected future content. · The list of recently used events s…
Before diving into the details of this update, I'd like to take the chance to thank all those of you who have been supporting me. The resources of a solo developer are very limited, and this activity is possible only with the backing and encouragement of the players. Changes · You can give nicknames to your staff and notable legionaries. · The complex tooltips of some battle stats have been div…
Changes · Two new special orders have been added to formation combat. · The Direct commission background comes with an additional 5,000 sestertii to your starting money. The initial Sword/Shield/Javelin Skills are now 47/47/33 instead of 43/43/29. · Two new mini-events have been added. · Mini-events are more frequent. · Most of the mini-events that regard the tesserarius now also affect the Oth…
Changes · When your Formation Attack Support is negative, you are now allowed to skip the individual fights of your legionaries during battles. These fights will be auto-resolved. This comes at a cost: you will miss the opportunity to gain Valor and other advantages that an interactive combat might have yielded, and your fighter will suffer wounds according to his stats, those of the enemy, and…
In preparation for the Early Access release, I have implemented several small changes and improvements. Changes · In addition to its previous effects, a positive Supervision score offers a small bonus to the efficiency of your century's training. This bonus improves as the score increases and is applied both to the unit as a whole and to the individual soldiers. Similarly, a negative score make…
I'm thrilled to announce that Never Second in Rome is entering Early Access on February 18 at 17:00 CET (08:00 PST). The initial version will contain 10 fully playable chapters extending from the beginning of Caesar's Gallic campaign to the siege of Alesia. The free demo will remain available even after the official release, so that you can try the game before you buy it. However, I have been m…
This is a small update dealing with a couple of bugs. · Fix: Strain for extra workload should be calculated correctly when an old game is abandoned and a new one is created. · Fix: the Valor level of fallen legionaries should be saved correctly. · Fix: typo in the character creation screen.
Over the last few weeks, the demo of Never Second in Rome has proven to be very stable and I have decided that it is time to make it available here on Steam. As for my future plans, the present top priority is to create enough content for an Early Access release. Speaking of which, I think a reasonable estimate is Q1 2025; I have updated the release date on the store page accordingly.
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Announcements are the developer’s own posts to the game’s Steam news feed: updates and their patch notes, in-game events, releases and sales. The important ones are marked on the players chart.