The Recently “Acquired” Province

This is an example of the non-changing face of a city. In previous Total War games most of the demolishing took place when you took over a city of a foreign culture; such buildings had upkeep costs but may have provided no useful function or actually a disadvantage in promoting the foreign culture. Likewise, in Rome 2 the tendency when taking over a stubbornly defended city from a foreign culture is to stamp your Roman authority all over it by demolishing or converting all its buildings. By all means do this for the town slots; they can generally be converted into the Roman equivalent of the same level rather than starting from scratch, and they will provide you with increasing Roman cultural influence in your new acquisition.

But the paradox is that while, in contrast to previous iterations, you are merrily demolishing your own buildings in Rome 2 you are actually preserving foreign buildings in newly conquered settlements; such  buildings unique to the faction’s culture may be more useful than what you have available from your own culture, certainly more useful than a temporary empty plot or a slum. For example, a Barbarian culture farm may exist in a province capital; there is no equivalent in a Roman capital, so for extra food you may have a farm and a Roman building in the Delicatessen range. Alternatively there might be an Eastern culture military type palace building that provides a public order boost rather than a penalty. Why convert it to a Roman recruitment building with a public order penalty when you are unlikely to raise any new armies in that province, and why even demolish it if public order is temporarily critical and it would take several turns to bring up a Roman gladiator arena or temple in its place?

Some wealth or agriculture buildings are slightly worse than Roman equivalents, e.g. Roman irrigation ditches provide 9 food at level III, while the barbarian equivalents provide only 8 food, and can be swapped straight over. But others are identical, so there is no point in swapping unless you wish to upgrade them beyond their current level.

Later on, when the province is stabilised and far from the “battlefront”, you may go back and “Romanise” it completely.