In Tegulis Romanis, players play as the influential families who built Rome from the ground up, working to build Rome into a glorious metropolis. During the game, the players will lay tiles onto the random boards which make up the landscape on which Rome was built. Each tile shows a building, which will belong to the player when played on the board but is not considered "built" until it has its required resources. Resources are on the back-side of the buildings (the players must decide which buildings to not play so they can place resources), but resources on the board have no "owner" so they can be used by buildings belonging to any player. Once a building has its resources it is now "built" and gains the owner points or special abilities (the player may now build in the mountains, the player draws extra tiles, etc.). The players each have the same starting pile of tiles, with another set of "advanced tiles" available to any player, most of which actually require other buildings as "resources" themselves.