Romestead Building Appeal & Decorations
Last updated: 2026-07-18
Every building in Romestead has a Building Appeal stat, and it confuses almost everyone: is it a gate that blocks your upgrades? Do you have to decorate? Here's the straight answer — Appeal is not an upgrade gate, it's an efficiency system you raise by placing decorations. This page covers what it actually does, how to raise it, every decoration's value, and the planning math so you're not spamming bushes blindly.
Building Appeal is shown as X/Y in a building's popup. You raise it by placing decorations (bushes) within that building's radius. It appears to boost the building's efficiency — but it does not gate upgrades. You can upgrade a building sitting at 0 Appeal.
On this page
What Building Appeal is
Open any building's popup and you'll see a Building Appeal value written as X/Y — current Appeal over that building's cap. The cap varies by building and by tier: a Bakery caps at 16, a Level 1 Farmstead at 6 (rising to 16 at Level 2), a Lumber Yard at 6, a Leatherworker at 6, and so on. There's a color-coded bar and sometimes a LOW/MEDIUM text rating alongside it.
What Appeal does is the part the game never spells out. Our read, from testing: Appeal improves the building's efficiency — faster work, and probably happier, more productive citizens. We haven't nailed the exact numeric effect, so treat efficiency as the working theory rather than a confirmed formula. The important thing is what it is not: a gate.
Does Appeal gate upgrades? (No)
This is the single biggest piece of Romestead misinformation, and it's worth being blunt about: Building Appeal does not block upgrades. You can press the Upgrade button on a building with zero Appeal and it will upgrade, as long as you meet the real requirements.
Three things can block an Upgrade button in Romestead — and Appeal isn't one of them:
- Resources — you don't have enough materials to pay the upgrade cost.
- A god blessing — e.g. Lumber Yard Level 2 requires a Diana blessing; Watermill Level 2 needs a Ceres blessing.
- A quest — e.g. Carpenter Level 2 is tied to Minerva's Virgil's Poem quest.
Decorations and Appeal are nowhere on that list. If your Upgrade button is greyed out, check resources, blessings, and quests — not your bush count.
The reason the confusion persists is the relationship runs the opposite way from what people assume: upgrading a building raises its Appeal cap, not the other way around. See building upgrades & job levels for the full upgrade mechanics.
How to raise Appeal
Appeal is raised by placing decorations within a building's radius. Two things matter here:
- Appeal is local, not global. A decoration only adds Appeal to buildings near it. Dropping a bush in an empty corner of the map does nothing useful — put it next to the building you want to boost.
- Decorations split into two types. Appeal decorations (the bushes) raise Building Appeal in their radius. Utility decorations (like the Brazier) do a job — light, in the Brazier's case — but contribute zero Appeal. Don't expect a ring of Braziers to raise a building's Appeal; it won't.
Find decorations in the Decorations tab of the build menu (the plant icon). They're cheap — mostly Lumber, sometimes a little Stone — but as the math below shows, filling a big cap takes a real number of them.
Every decoration & its Appeal value
The confirmed decoration values, cheapest first:
| Decoration | Appeal | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Bush Decoration | +1 | 1 Lumber | Available day one. The cheapest Appeal per placement. |
| Vertical Bush Decoration | +2 | 1 Lumber + 1 Stone | Best Appeal-per-tile once you have Stone. |
| Horizontal Bush Decoration | +2 | 1 Lumber + 1 Stone | Same as Vertical, different footprint — pick to fit the space. |
| Big Bush Decoration | +3 | Lumber (+Stone) | Most Appeal in a single placement — fewest objects to fill a cap. |
| Brazier | 0 | 1 Lumber | Utility only — provides light, no Appeal. Useful for keeping raiders disoriented, not for Appeal. |
The planning math (caps & how many bushes)
Because Appeal is capped per building and each decoration gives a fixed amount, filling a cap is simple arithmetic. To max a 16-Appeal building (a Level 2 Bakery or Farmstead), you need roughly:
- 16 Small Bushes (+1 each), or
- 8 Vertical / Horizontal Bushes (+2 each), or
- ~6 Big Bushes (+3 each).
That's a genuine footprint of objects crowded around one building — Appeal is a planning constraint, not a casual bit of set-dressing. Two things to keep in mind when you lay them out:
Upgrading a building doesn't just raise its max Job Level by +3 — it also raises the Appeal cap, often by more. A Farmstead jumps from a 6 cap at Level 1 to a 16 cap at Level 2. So every time you upgrade a building, its old "full" Appeal bar is suddenly partial again, and you'll want more decorations to top it back up. Plan decoration space around the buildings you intend to push to higher tiers.
Prioritize by radius overlap Because Appeal is local, cluster your production buildings so a single patch of bushes sits in multiple buildings' radii at once. A tight core of Bakery + Farmstead + Watermill can share decorations far more efficiently than three spread-out buildings each needing their own bush ring.
Rearranging decorations
You will move decorations around — as you upgrade buildings and shift your base layout, yesterday's bush placement stops being optimal. The good news, as of the 0.25.2_5 patch (July 10, 2026): demolishing a Decoration now returns its materials. You can pull up a bush and get the Lumber and Stone back, so rearranging your Appeal layout is free apart from the walking. Before that patch, tearing down decorations wasted the materials — if you're on an older build, that's the difference.
Later on, the Sculptor building (unlocked via the University) adds more decoration options for settlement depth. For the buildings whose caps you're chasing, see how tiers work in the building upgrades guide, and how Appeal-boosted efficiency ties into worker output in the citizen stats guide.
Common questions
Does Building Appeal gate upgrades in Romestead?
No. You can upgrade a building with zero Appeal — the Appeal stat never blocks the Upgrade button. What actually gates an upgrade is having enough resources, the right god blessing, or a completed quest. Appeal is a separate efficiency system, not an upgrade prerequisite.
What does Building Appeal do?
Appeal appears to improve a building's efficiency — faster work and likely happier citizens. It's shown as an X/Y stat in the building popup, where Y is that building's Appeal cap. Raising Appeal toward the cap makes the building work better; it doesn't unlock anything.
How do you raise Building Appeal?
Place decorations within a building's radius. Appeal is local, not global — a decoration only adds Appeal to nearby buildings. A Small Bush gives +1 Appeal for 1 Lumber, Vertical and Horizontal Bushes give +2 for 1 Lumber + 1 Stone, and a Big Bush gives +3. Braziers give light but no Appeal.
How many decorations do I need to fill a building's Appeal?
It depends on the cap. A 16-Appeal building (like a Level 2 Bakery or Farmstead) needs about 16 Small Bushes, or 8 Vertical/Horizontal Bushes, or roughly 6 Big Bushes placed within its radius. Upgrading a building raises its Appeal cap, so you'll usually need more decorations after each upgrade.
Can you get decoration materials back?
Yes — as of the 0.25.2_5 patch (July 10, 2026) demolishing a Decoration returns its materials. That means you can freely rearrange your Appeal layout — move bushes around upgrade-priority buildings — without losing the Lumber and Stone.