Glory to Rome FAQ
236 questions players ask · Updated Nov 10, 2026 · Full rulebook
The Cards and Your Camp
- Does your Influence limit clients and vault cards separately, or as one combined total?
- Is the Stockpile limited by your Influence?
- Are Vault cards face down, and are cards added by Atrium or Basilica hidden from other players?
- How many Order cards are in the game?
- Where do you place your buildings in relation to your camp?
- Are Jacks double-sided?
General
Set-Up
- How is the starting Pool set up, and how are first-player ties broken?
- How many Sites are there, and how many are out of town in a two-player game?
- Can you mix Imperium and Republic cards in the same game?
- Can you add the unofficial Geek expansion cards to the draw pile?
- Why does the Republic version start with no Jack in the starting hand?
Game Play
- If you perform the Legionary action more than once in one turn, must you announce all the materials you demand at the same time?
- When you answer a Legionary demand with 'Glory to Rome', do you have to show your hand?
- When a Legionary role is led, can the players who follow also take the Legionary action and make demands?
- Can you demand a Material with a Legionary if you do not hold one in your hand?
- Can a Legionary demand a Material that an opponent just played to follow the same role?
- What does placing your entire hand on the Rome Demands card mean for a Legionary?
- Do all players declare their roles before any actions are carried out?
- When you have several actions in one role, do you take them all back to back before the next player?
- If you lead Craftsman with a Craftsman in hand and another as a Client, do you act twice, and does the other player act too?
- If you lead a role and have a matching Client, do you get both actions?
- When several players follow a Legionary, in what order are the declarations and demands resolved?
- When do the Order cards used to lead or follow go into the Pool, and do Clients or Jacks go there too?
- Can you lead with an Order card that gives you no benefit, just to put it into the Pool?
- Is the Pool refilled from the draw deck when it becomes empty?
- Can you take any card from the Pool, or only the top card?
- Is there a limit to the number of cards in the Pool?
- Must you take the action of a role you lead or follow, or a Client's action when the role is led?
- Must you play a card from your hand to lead, or can you lead with a Client?
- If a completed building has an Upon Completion effect, does it trigger before your next action in a multi-action turn?
Jacks
- Are Jacks in hand supposed to be visible to other players?
- Do Jacks count toward your hand size?
- Can a Jack be used as a building material, a Client, a vault card or a foundation?
- Where do played or unused Jacks go at the end of a turn?
- Can a Jack be used to lead or follow any role?
- Can you hold more than one Jack in your hand at the same time?
- Can you play more than one Jack in a single turn?
- Can you follow a led Jack with another Jack, or follow a Jack or petition led as Merchant with a Merchant card?
- Are the Senateur promo cards the same as Jacks?
- Do the sword and feather Jack types have different rules?
- Are all six Jacks used in every game, regardless of player count?
Petitioning
- Can you petition by combining Jacks with other order cards, or petition with Jacks alone?
- Can you petition with three cards of the same role to get only one action?
- Can a petition of three cards of one colour play any role, including that colour's own role, and does it give only one action?
- How many same-colour cards do you need to petition?
- With a Sewer, can some petition cards go to your Stockpile and the rest to the Pool?
- Where do Order cards go after they are played to petition?
- Can a player who is not leading follow by petitioning instead of playing a role card?
- Can you petition for the Architect role by playing several Architect cards, and does that give several actions?
Thinking
- When you Think, how many cards do you draw?
- Can you take a Jack when you Think, even with a full hand, and what if none are left?
- Is there a maximum hand size, or do you discard down to five at the end of a round?
- How many cards does Thinking refill your hand to in the Imperium version?
- If you are the leader and choose to Think, does your turn end, and do the other players also think or follow?
- When you Think while someone else leads a role you have a Client for, when do you draw and when do your Client actions happen?
- Can cards drawn while you Think be taken by a Legionary or used for an action in the same turn?
- Can you spend a Client's action to draw cards by thinking?
- Does thinking with a Client that matches the leader's role count as following for Circus Maximus?
Hiring Clients
- Can a client you hire this turn perform its role immediately?
- Do newly hired clients count for buildings like Circus Maximus, Ludus Magna, Storeroom or Bath on the turn they are hired?
- Can you discard a client, or swap one out for a new hire, when your Clientele is at its Influence limit?
- Do clients go back to the Pool, or leave your Clientele, after they have acted?
- Do your own clients act when you lead a role, or only when opponents lead?
- If a Client can count as another type (Storeroom, Ludus Magna), does it act for every role?
- Must you take a Client from the Pool when you follow a Patron and one is available?
Building Structures
- Does the material built into a structure change whether it counts as Stone or Marble?
- Can you take a card back from the pool and play it as a building?
- How do you start a building on an out-of-town site?
- Can you start an out-of-town building while in-town sites of that material are still open?
- Can an Architect action and a Craftsman action be combined to start an out-of-town site?
- When you start an out-of-town site, are both actions used up, or can one be spent elsewhere?
- Do completed out-of-town buildings give influence and victory points like in-town ones?
- Do out-of-town buildings need extra materials beyond the two actions?
- Can an out-of-town site card ever be used as a Foundation or as a Material?
- Does a completed Tower let one action lay a Foundation on an out-of-town site?
- Can you hire Bath or Bar clients first and then use the Bath action to start an out-of-town site?
- Can two buildings made from the same material be under construction at the same time?
- Can you build two buildings with the same name in one game?
- What happens to the Material cards used to complete a building?
- Does a Villa need a Stone to be completed?
- Must the Materials added to a building match its colour?
- How many Material cards can one Architect or Craftsman action add?
- How many Materials does a building need to be completed?
- When a building is completed, do its influence and function apply on that same turn?
- Can the card you played to lead or follow be used to start a building?
- Does laying a Foundation take both a role card and an Order card?
- Is there a limit to how many buildings you can start in one turn?
- Can you add Materials to a building owned by an opponent?
Demanding Materials
- With a Legionary action, do you reveal your whole hand or only the demanded card?
- If you take several Legionary actions in one turn, must you reveal all the demanded materials together, and can one card serve twice?
- Does demanding with a Legionary action protect your hand from players who follow the card?
- Can a Legionary take materials from any opponent, or only from neighbours?
- Can a Legionary take cards that other players played to lead or follow?
- If a Legionary demand takes your last card, can you still demand or switch to Think?
- Where do cards gained through a Legionary go, to your hand or your stockpile?
- When a Legionary is led, can the players who followed also demand materials?
- Can a Legionary take material from a victim's stockpile, or only from their hand?
- Can a Legionary demand a material that is not in the Pool?
- In what order are a Legionary's demands made and resolved, and do followers demand after the leader?
- How many cards do you receive when a Legionary demands several colours?
- In a two-player game, does a demand take one card from the opponent or two?
- Can a player who followed a Legionary demand back the material the leader took?
Ending the Game
- If a Gate-enabled action takes the last in-town site and completes a Forum, does the Forum win still count?
- Does completing a Forum Romanum end the game by itself?
- When does the game end?
- Does the game end when one material's last site is used, or only when all in-town sites are gone?
- If the game ends in the middle of a turn, does the player who triggered it still finish their action or card effect?
- If a Thinker draws the last card of the deck, is the leader's role still used?
- When the last in-town site is laid, can its building still be finished?
- Can you take all the in-town sites of one material to deny them or to end the game early?
- Can you use several Architect or Craftsman actions in one turn to take the last in-town sites and end the game?
Scoring and Winning
- Does a Forum win have to be declared, or is it automatic?
- Does a Forum win need at least one Client of each type, and does completing the Forum win at once?
- With a Storeroom, can a Client that is not a Laborer count as a Laborer toward the Forum win?
- If a player forgets their Forum is complete and the game goes on, can they claim the win later?
- How is the Vault scored, by the number of cards or by the value of the Materials in it?
- How are the Merchant bonuses awarded at game end, and what happens on a tie?
- How is a tie on victory points broken?
- Are site cards scored at game end on top of completed buildings?
Appendix I – Building Functions
- If a Road lets you add Marble to a Stone building, does a Gate count it as a Marble building before it is complete?
- Can the Statue's 3 VP count before the Statue is complete if you own a Gate?
- Does finishing a Scriptorium complete partly built Marble buildings that already have Marble in them?
- Can a Road and a Gate make a Scriptorium count as a Marble building, so its own power completes it with one Marble?
- If you complete Circus Maximus partway through a Craftsman lead, do Craftsman clients whose actions were already used get the extra action?
- Does a building completed mid-turn give extra actions for earlier actions in the same turn?
- Do Circus Maximus or Slave Market bonus actions apply when you think instead of leading or following?
- Is a Statue built on a Stone foundation a Stone building, a Marble building, or both, for the Gate and Road?
- How many materials does a Statue need, and can they be Marble or the Site's material?
- If a Stairway makes a completed Statue public, does every player score its 3 VP?
- When a Prison steals a completed Statue, does the Statue's scoring change, and is the Prison use forced?
- Can a Stairway be used on a building that is still under construction?
- Can a Prison take an incomplete Marble building working through a Gate, or can a Stairway add to it?
- Does a Stairway change who owns an opponent's completed building?
- Once a Stairway makes an opponent's building public, does its function stay shared for the rest of the game?
- If a Prison steals a building that a Stairway already made public, does its function stay available to all players?
- Can one Stairway be used more than once to make several buildings public?
- Can a Road or Tower add materials to an opponent's completed Stone or Rubble building when using a Stairway?
- Can a Scriptorium complete any building with one Marble, including a purple one or one still under construction?
- Can Rubble from a Tower finish a building early through a Scriptorium?
- With a Road and a Scriptorium, can a Stone building be completed early with a single non-Marble material?
- Can Rubble from a Tower count as any material toward the Forum Romanum win?
- Does a Stone building with Marble added count as a Marble building for other rules, or only for the Gate's power?
- Does a Bath let a newly hired client act immediately?
- When Bath gives a newly hired client an extra action, do the clients you already had act too?
- If a client gained through Bath completes a building, does the new Influence allow more Patron actions and room for another hire that turn?
- Can you hire a client beyond your Clientele limit using Bath's extra action?
- Can Architect and Craftsman actions from two Bath clients combine to lay a foundation on an out-of-town site?
- In what order do Pool, Bar and Aqueduct effects resolve on the same Patron action?
- Does the Academy's Thinker action trigger after a Craftsman action you could not use, or one taken only with a Client?
- When does the Academy's Thinker action happen: right after my own actions or after all players finish?
- Does a Shrine combined with a Temple give an 11-card hand size?
- After completing a School, can you use only some of the Thinker actions it grants?
- Can a Vomitorium plus a School be used to discard and redraw repeatedly until the draw deck runs out?
- Can a Tribunal combined with School thinking draw more than one Jack in a turn?
- Can you play extra role cards for a Palace right after completing it, outside of leading or following?
- Does the Palace let you play several cards of the same role to repeat its action?
- With a Ludus Magna built, does each Merchant client count as any one role, or as every role?
- With Bath and Ludus Magna, can one Merchant client be used for every role in a single turn?
- Can one Merchant client count as different roles toward a Forum Romanum win?
- With a Forum and a Storeroom, does a Storeroom client count as a Laborer for the Forum win without a separate Laborer client?
- Can you build a Forum first and meet its win condition later?
- If a Forum is made public through a Stairway and two players win at once, who wins?
- Can a Jack be discarded with a Latrine or a Vomitorium, and where does it go?
- Can a card discarded to the Pool with a Latrine be taken by the leader's Patron action in the same round?
- Does the Vomitorium let you discard only part of your hand?
- Does the Atrium let you draw an Order card from the deck when your Stockpile is empty?
- Does the Archway let you start a new building using a card from the Pool?
- Does Fountain let you draw cards and then build with cards already in your hand during the same Craftsman action?
- With Fountain, can I keep the card I draw in my hand if I cannot or do not want to build with it?
- Does the Aqueduct let you take a client from your hand in addition to the Pool client on a Patron action?
- With an Aqueduct and an Insula both built, is the total (Influence + 2) × 2 or (Influence × 2) + 2?
- If the Bar lets you draw an extra client from the deck on a Patron action, must you choose the Pool client first?
- Does a Bar let you refuse a client drawn from the deck?
- When the Bar lets you take a client from the deck, do you draw the top card or search for one?
- Does a Patron action granted by a completed building, such as a Domus, trigger the Bar?
- Do Bath and Bar let a player chain Patron and client actions into a long combo?
- Must you perform the normal Merchant action before the Basilica's extra card bonus applies?
- Do in addition actions, such as the Dock, still happen when the Pool cannot supply the full action?
- If a client gained through Bath matches the role you are leading, does Circus Maximus let it act twice?
- When an immediate building effect triggers while another immediate effect is still resolving, which one resolves first?
- Do client actions count for building bonuses such as the Aqueduct, and does each client count separately?
- With a Sewer, can used Orders from playing several cards in one turn be split between your Stockpile and the Pool?
- With a Sewer, can three same-colour Order cards played as a Jack all go into the Stockpile?
- If you have built a Sewer, do cards you play to petition go into your Stockpile, and does it help other players?
- How does the Prison work when you complete it?
- When a Prison steals a building, does the Prison's foundation go to the opponent?
- When a Prison steals a building, where does the material under that building go?
- When a Prison steals a building, what does the original owner keep, and does the thief take their Influence?
- Can you steal, or build a second copy of, a building you already have in play, such as a Circus Maximus or a Villa?
- Can a Prison steal a building from a player who already has a Prison in play?
- If a Prison steals your Gate, do you lose the Statue's 3 VP bonus on an unfinished Statue?
- Does a completed Prison stay in play after the stolen structure is placed on top of it?
- If a Prison steals a Road, can a building that already has Rubble still take Rubble?
- Can you build a second Prison after completing one?
- Does a Bridge let a Legionary action take materials past an opponent's Palisade?
- Does a Bridge let a Colosseum take clients from a player who owns a Palisade, or from players beyond the neighbours?
- Does a Bridge let a Legionary take from an opponent's Stockpile when they have no matching material in hand?
- Does a Bridge still do anything in a two- or three-player game?
- Does a Wall protect against a Legionary action, and does a Bridge get past it?
- Does a Palisade protect you from the Colosseum?
- Can a Palisade protect an unfinished building from being torn down by a Domus Aurea Legionary?
- Who are the victims of a Legionary action when you own a Domus Aurea?
- With a Colosseum, do you take every matching client from an opponent, or only one per demanded match?
- When a Colosseum is used, does it take from the opponent's hand as well as their Clientele?
- How does a Colosseum interact with a Legionary action?
- If an opponent's Colosseum takes your Legionary client before you act, can you still use that client?
- When two players each own a Senate, who takes the Jacks first?
- Can the Senate take three cards an opponent played as a Jack?
- How long do building abilities last after the building is completed?
Appendix II – Republic vs Imperium Version
- How many cards does a player start with in the Republic version versus the Imperium version?
- What is the difference between the Imperium and Republic versions of Glory to Rome?
- How do you tell Imperium cards from Republic cards?
- Do the Republic cards replace the Imperium cards or get added to the deck?
- Does the Black Box edition include the Republic variant?
- How many matching cards does a petition need in the Imperium and Republic versions?
- Can two matching cards be played as a Jack?
- Can you draw an extra Jack with a Tribunal when you think after declining to follow, not only when you lead as Thinker?
Appendix III – Unofficial Geek Expansion
- Can a Bacchanalia draw that reaches the last card of the deck still place the drawn cards?
- Can the unofficial Geek expansion cards be mixed into the deck with the Imperium or Republic version?
- Does 'any player' in Plebian Council mean you need more Laborer clients than every other player?
- Does Plebian Council count a Storeroom client as both a Laborer and a Legionary?
- Is Plebian Council part of the standard Glory to Rome deck?
- Does Plebian Council end the game immediately mid-round once its win condition is met?
- With a Solarium, where does the Material go when I complete a building with an Architect action?
- Can you complete a Solarium with a single Marble after a Scriptorium is built?
- If Aerarium copies one of your own completed buildings, what Influence do you give up?
- If Aerarium copies a Prison's effect, how much Influence must be paid?
- How do Castra Praetoria's completion and Legionary effects work?
- Can Castra trigger when enemy Legionaries take cards from your Clientele or Stockpile rather than your hand?
- Can a client hired through a Domus act in the same turn?
- What does a Triclinium let you do, and when?