Romestead Building Upgrades & Job Levels
Last updated: 2026-06-04
Romestead's progression doesn't really live in a tech tree — it lives in your building upgrades and your citizens' Job Levels. Most "I'm stuck" moments in the early game come from not understanding how these two systems interact. Here's the clean rule.
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The one-line rule
Each upgrade to a building adds +3 to that building's max Job Level. Higher Job Levels make the citizen work faster and unlock new recipes at that workshop.
If you can't craft a recipe you know should exist, or your citizens are "topped out" and idle, the answer is usually upgrade the building — not recruit more citizens, not move buildings around.
How you actually trigger an upgrade
The Carpenter's Workshop's in-game description reads "Unlocks the ability to upgrade buildings." Once the Workshop exists in your settlement, the upgrade ability is unlocked globally — you can initiate an upgrade from any workbench in your town, not just the Carpenter's. The interaction flow:
- Build the Carpenter's Workshop. (Which requires beating the Giant Owl first — see our Guardian of Minerva guide.)
- Walk up to any workbench in your settlement (Carpenter's external one, Workbench in your house, etc.) and press E.
- The upgrade menu opens with a camera-pan mode. You can scroll the view around the map and select any building you want to upgrade.
- Each upgrade requires the resource cost (varies per building), and sometimes a specific god blessing or quest completion.
No Carpenter's Workshop = no upgrades anywhere. Build it first; after that, the nearest convenient workbench works fine.
Building Appeal — a separate progression axis (NOT an upgrade gate)
Every building has a Building Appeal stat shown in its popup as X/Y, with the cap varying per building (Bakery 16, Farmstead 6 at L1 / 16 at L2, Lumber Yard 6, Leatherworker 6, etc.). It's tempting to assume this is a gate that blocks upgrades — but it isn't.
You can upgrade a building with zero Appeal. The Appeal stat doesn't block the Upgrade button. What Appeal appears to do is improve the building's efficiency — faster work, possibly better output, possibly happier citizens. Brian hasn't done solid testing on the exact effect, so treat this as the working theory rather than confirmed mechanic.
Appeal is raised by placing decorations within the building's radius. Each decoration adds Appeal to nearby buildings only — not globally. Common decoration values:
- Small Bush Decoration: +1 Appeal. Costs 1 Lumber. Available day one.
- Vertical / Horizontal Bush Decoration: +2 Appeal each. Costs 1 Lumber + 1 Stone.
- Big Bush Decoration: +3 Appeal.
- Brazier: 0 Appeal, but provides light. Costs 1 Lumber.
For the record, what actually blocks an Upgrade button in Romestead is some combination of: (1) not enough resources to pay the cost, (2) a god blessing not yet purchased (e.g. Lumber Yard L2 requires Diana's blessing), or (3) a quest not yet completed (e.g. Carpenter L2 from Minerva's Virgil's Poem). Decorations / Appeal aren't part of that list.
Upgrade resource costs
On top of the Appeal gate, each upgrade also consumes materials specific to that building. Observed costs:
- Altar → Altar Level 2: 5 of one material. Unlocks teleportation between L2 altars (a network — you need 2+ L2 altars to use it).
- Material Storage → Material Storage Level 2: 6 of one material + 1 of another. Holds more.
- Farmstead → Farmstead Level 2: 3 items required. Max farmer Job Level rises from 4 to 7; Appeal cap rises from 6 to 16.
The cost UI uses the standard X/Y (owned/required) format with color-coded indicators.
Upgrading a building doesn't just raise the max Job Level by +3 — it also raises the Appeal cap, often by a much larger amount. The Farmstead jumps from 6 Appeal at L1 to 16 Appeal at L2. So an upgraded building can keep growing past its old Appeal ceiling, and you'll likely need more decorations to unlock the NEXT upgrade tier. Plan decoration placement with this in mind.
How Job Levels work
- Every citizen assigned to a workshop has a Job Level shown in the building UI as
X / Y(current / max). - The numerator is the citizen's current level for that job.
- The denominator is the building's current max — not a global cap.
- Citizens gain Job Experience from doing the job. XP scales sharply between levels (we've seen 196 XP needed for a single level mid-tier).
- When a citizen hits the building's cap, you'll see the tooltip: "Max job level reached for this building. Upgrade the building to increase the max job level."
How building upgrades change the cap
Each building has a base max Job Level. Upgrade the building and that cap raises by 3.
| Building | Base Max | After 1st Upgrade |
|---|---|---|
| Carpenter | 3 | 6 |
| Bakery | 4 | 7 |
The base max varies by building — Carpenter starts at 3, Bakery at 4. But the +3 per upgrade pattern looks universal across building types.
The Roman-numeral badge
Look at your citizen's portrait in the building UI. There's a small badge with a Roman numeral matching their Job Level — II for level 2, III for level 3, and so on. It's the fastest way to check progression at a glance without opening every panel.
What higher levels actually unlock
The game tells you directly in the upgrade tooltip: "Higher level citizens work faster and unlock new recipes."
- Faster work — same job, less time per craft. Compounds heavily across a busy workshop.
- New recipes — specific craftable items become available only when the assigned citizen reaches a high enough level. This is why two players with identical buildings can have wildly different recipe lists.
This is the mechanism behind a lot of "I can't make X" forum posts. If a recipe isn't appearing, check both: is the building upgraded enough, and is the assigned citizen leveled enough?
When to upgrade vs recruit a new citizen
Two situations, two answers:
- Your worker is at max for the building (e.g. Job Level 3/3): upgrade the building. Recruiting another citizen here is wasted — they'll cap at the same level and you'll just split XP gains.
- Your worker is mid-level (e.g. Job Level 2/4): let them keep grinding. Adding a second citizen now splits XP and slows the leveling of both.
- You have an empty building you actually need: obviously recruit. But fill one citizen per workshop until they cap before adding a second.
This is also why the Bronze guide matters — the Mining Expertise requirement for Tin likely ties into this same system. Whether you can pull Tin depends on your mining building's cap and the assigned miner's level, not just a flag on the citizen.