Granaries and other comments about the demo

[Rad Carrot]

First off, I'm really impressed with this game. It really reminds me of Caesar 3, an old favourite of mine. I really enjoy the look and feel of the UI for the most part, and I've already added it to my wishlist. I'll definitely look for the full release.

I would like to raise a few issues, though:

Granaries are my biggest concern; I don't really understand how they work. I had five fully staffed granaries next to around twelve farms, and yet my farms were constantly showing that they didn't have storage. The granaries weren't full, I'm pretty sure the granary workers weren't collecting the items quick enough, but needing an almost 1:2 ratio of granaries vs farms seems a little excessive, given the fact it was the workers' speed that was hampering progress, rather than the storage level.

This bled over a little into the other buildings; my tavern didn't work for a while, even though I was making over 80 bottles of wine per day. Moving the tavern closer to the farms seemed to do the trick, but with the desirability factor lowering the land value of the surrounding area, it seemed a little tricky to have both the farms and granaries relatively close to the city without actually harming the nearby houses. If this is a feature of the game, I'd suggest adding some form of trade post that can speed up the movement of goods between your industrial/agriculture areas and the houses/commercial buildings that need them, and making it so that building doesn't lower land value. It's frustrating to have a number of farms that are full to capacity with granaries that have plenty of room and plenty of workers, but the markets and taverns not recognising they have the goods available for a while.

Further, I'm not sure about the patrician aspect - it's not really clear where they come from, or why they don't work but just pay tax. Where are they getting their money from? It might be better to have patricians work in the upper echelons, e.g. managers of buildings, and have both the plebs and the patricians pay tax, but with different levels. Having groups of people who just seem to have endless supplies of money coming from nowhere does seem unrealistic.

Also, the city gates - my city spread beyond them very quickly. I'd probably recommend making them more a town centre, and having actual walls or gates as decorative or military buildings that I can add to my city, when I'm fairly sure I'm no longer spreading in that direction. Having to decide where your city's gates are as the first step seems counter-intuitive. The town centre could work as a large transport hub too, with workers in it, even patricians who could enhance the money I earn.

Other aspects? It might be a good idea to have the engineering posts and fire stations (and perhaps all service buildings) increase their radius as they get more workers. Engineering posts didn't seem to need to be heavily staffed, but I watched a fire rage for most of the day next to one of my fully staffed fire stations, so some balance might be needed there too. Perhaps you could overstaff them briefly, if you've managed to build a single mine or logging camp out of their radius that suddenly bursts into flame, or have a small penalty whereby you can put out the fire quickly by spending some resources.

I hope that's not too critical; this is shaping up to be a really good game, and certainly one with a lot of flavour and flair. I'm really hopeful for it, and I'm looking forward for the full release, as there's a lot of potential here!

[AbylightFelix]

Hello Rad Carrot,

Thank you for your detailed and organized feedback; it is a tremendous help to us. We hope to meet your expectations and make Citadelum a great game.

Regarding the management of granaries, we will continue working to improve the experience thanks to the help of our community.

For taverns and other society buildings that require resources, I believe you may have encountered a bug. These buildings should not be near those that lower desirability, as they are designed to be built near residential areas.

Patricians are the wealthy noble houses of the city. They simply enjoy life and serve to pay the salaries of the plebeians. We want to create a clear distinction between the two social classes.

The city gates are a feature that indicates the first stone of your city. You expand from this point, although your suggestion makes sense, and we will continue working on it.

As for the engineering posts and fire stations, we are listening to all the feedback and will consider the pertinent modifications based on it.

Thank you again for your comments, and we hope to continue counting on your support!

[Rad Carrot]

Thanks devs - really appreciate the feedback. Good luck for the continuing development, really looking forward to catching the game when it releases!

[7Soul]

From a gameplay perspective, I think that once the player has a firehouse and an engineer fully staffed, no buildings in its radius should burn or collapse, ever. I'd even think it would be a good idea to make the walkers go to the buildings as a purely aesthetic thing, and have each worker cover X number of buildings in the area instead of never knowing for sure how many you need

An easier alternative would be to show like a heatmap of how good thier coverage is for each building, so I have at least an idea like "this building over here doesn't get a visit from the engineer too often so keep an eye on it!"

[Maihess]

Glad you covered the issues with granaries and farming, I'm hoping it'll get sorted out.

[Daisii]

Originally posted by Maihess:

Glad you covered the issues with granaries and farming, I'm hoping it'll get sorted out.

Agreed, that's the only real issue I'm having...should not burn down or collapse if I have the fire and maintenance buildings in that area.