Do you remember the hours of playing Runescape? The days gone by thinking of Age of Empires or Crusader Kings? Well, it’s back. Houses of Rome is positioning to become the most engaging RPG with Web3 and DeFi underpinnings. Their goal is to facilitate an incredible user experience without even knowing there is a DeFi-based treasury (The Bank of Rome) underneath it. So as a user, you just play the RPG and realize gains. As with all Web3 ventures, there is risk involved with gamification. But this article is intended to give you an overview of what Houses of Rome is, how to join in, and a small look into the RPG with links to learn more.

Houses of Rome

Launched in November of 2021, the early days of Houses of Rome were focused on building out the DeFi infrastructure. For some, this is a very important aspect to understand. If you are interested in diving into this part of Rome you can visit the official Houses of Rome Medium and read more about rebasing here and a deeper dive here. As Houses of Rome has developed, the game has become front and center to the experience because they believe, as I do, that gaming will be central to widespread adoption of Web3 infrastructure and the use of digital assets such as NFTs.

The Houses of Rome

Each individual House has two senators, two scholars and another role per House such as orator or scribe that participate in the overall governance of the Houses of Rome. Houses are currently divided into 8 factions:

• Chaos: Ecosystem
• Kings: Marketing
• Consuls: Governance and community
• Moonsama: Engineering and marketing
• Kek: Community & marketing
• Grapes: Community & marketing
• Sempronia: Engineering
• Spoons: Storytelling & marketing

The Game

The game is inspired by the likes of Runescape, Crusader Kings and Mount & Blade. These are deeply immersive game experiences with a focus on the strategy aspect of role-playing. In Rome, everything is centered on the 3D warmap. Battles, trading, building and scheming will all take place here. The core of the gameplay is centered around Campaigns and Battles. Here is an excerpt from the Houses of Rome Wiki on this topic.

Battles in Houses of Rome are similar to dungeons or raids that require taking part in new tiers of dungeons and raids to level up your character. Each battle has a set amount of XP and loot available that you can earn. All characters, regardless of sROME contributed to a battle, will earn the same amount of XP for taking part. However, locking more sROME in a battle increases the probability a player has to earn additional and/or higher-tier loot at the conclusion of that battle.

As you can see, by participating in battles you will be able to level up your character by obtaining XP and have a chance of getting loot. Don't we all just love loot? Although not required, the more sROME you lock into a battle the higher the chance at better loot. An interesting feature to battles is Raid Parties where multiple members of the same house, regardless of individual level, can join together and have an averaged combat level. This is a good way to help out lower level friends obtain better rewards and enriches the collaborative experience.

Many other features of campaigns and battles are surely being developed as you read this article. Campagin 1: Estruscans is soon to be released and will incorporate these battle and loot mechanics from day one.

The Market

Well now you’ve won your first battle…you’ve got all these items, what can you do with it? As you collect loot, items and XP you enhance your ability to win future battles and up the quality of future loot! Besides loot, Houses of Rome has baked in some other tantalizing features.

Interestingly, you will also be able to mine resources while waiting for the next campaign or battle. You can only harvest these resources by leveling up skills such as woodcutting, mining, smithing, and construction. With these resources you can construct items to boost your chances in battles and raids or even craft weapons and armor. You can’t get wood without an ax, right? To actually harvest these resources in game, you must own the right tool. Currently there is the axe (wood), pickaxe (mining), smithing hammer (smiths) and construction hammer (builder/contruction). Prices from the following vendors, at the time of writing, are as follows. Remember, the game is not fully live as of yet

• Woodsman: Sells the level 1 axe for woodcutters. Currently charges travelers 5 sROME to purchase an axe. The woodsman sells up to 500 axes each month.
• Prospector: Sells the level 1 pickaxe for miners. Currently charges travelers 5 sROME to purchase a pickaxe. The prospector sells up to 500 pickaxes each month.
• Builder: Sells the level 1 smithing hammer for smiths and level 1 construction hammer for builders.

House of Rome is building out more features to participate and enrich the in-game experience! There is little doubt the game will deliver more immersive and engaging features, but maybe you are just here to earn. One way to earn from the game, besides continuing to play, is to jump on the marketplace.

Within the confines of Rome, there exists a marketplace where goods, weapons, items and even full characters can be traded and sold with sROME. All of these items are NFTs (ERC-20) and are owned by you. Here is an example of the in game marketplace

Appears to be very intuitive and probably familiar to most browser based gamers.

How Do I Get In?

For when the game is fully live, you can follow the onboarding outlined in detail here to make a character. The price of characters is currently at 3 $sROME, but the team has mentioned multiple times they plan on monitoring this so new players aren't priced out of the game. Otherwise, follow these steps to conscript to a House today and be a part of the future RPG!

1. Connect or create a Metamask account, connect to the Moonriver Network within Metamask and purchase $MOVR the native Moonriver token
2. Go to Solarbeam DEX, connect the wallet you just set up and exchange $MOVR for $ROME
3. Go to Houses of Rome website and stake 1 ROME through their platform. You will receive 1$sROME in return for staking your $ROME. The cost for conscription is subject to change, so keep an eye out on the discord
4. Once you have $sROME, go back to the 3D map on the homepage and select “Houses”
5. Choose the house you desire to join! This will then direct you to choose a character class (archer, infantry, cavalry)
6. Join Houses of Rome discord which will direct you the faction’s discord you have selected to join up with your House!

You are now ready to build Rome, strategize with your House and level up your character all while earning APY. Welcome to ROME.

To learn more about Houses of Rome and the details of the game, check out their wiki. Ready to stake your Rome? Go straight to the romedao.finance and start earning APY today. Remember to always do your own research; this article was written for educational purposes — so that you can learn more about Houses of Rome.

There is a new YouTube channel coming to town that I am helping with some content. Follow them here as a video on Rome is coming soon