Ave Roma is a worker placement game with some unique mechanisms. All workers have a value and all are common workers. At the beginning of a new turn you always start with five workers, but depending on your previous decisions you will always have different workers. In the first phase you have to send out your workers, and in the next one you have to collect them — but in most cases you get back different ones.

You have several ways to win the game. You can build buildings, support wars, convince patrons, obtain influence in territories, get money and resources, and so on. It's a complex game with several mechanisms and components.