(Corrected) Thoughts on Furniture Buildings

[RaccKiteering]

Why do the furniture buildings exist? Every other resource is pretty well integrated. Wheat and iron are both your staples for selling, refining, and using for troops. Wood is a necessity for buildings and more troops. Grapes give you squires and wine, both great. Water becomes less essential later in the game so its limited utility makes sense. Clay is for madmen and can repair the walls.

So where in all of this do the furniture buildings fit in? At least in my playthroughs I never had such an excess of wood that it would've made sense to dedicate two entire squares to generating denarii. And requiring two buildings makes it so that when you're usually in the most need of denarii, that is, early game when you're hunting for resource buildings and when damaging spells are actually useful, it's basically impossible to get both furniture production and selling up and running.

On top of everything, seeing the buildings pop up at ALL is rarely a positive player experience except for MAYBE in the end-game. At BEST they're an annoyance that clutters up your blueprints. At worst they'll constantly show up in the early game, wasting chances to get blueprints that are essential for the mid-game.

Personally, I think that the furniture concept should be removed entirely and replaced with either an artifact that gives denarii for kills, or condensed into an upgrade for a different building, say the gold mine or the market, that allows them to generate denarii (maybe even both). This would clear up the blueprint pool slightly, making it easier to get the buildings you actually need for a successful run in the early game, while also making it more likely for players to have access to denarii-generation during the stages of the run where it actually matters.

[Grumlen]

While I agree with you to some extent, because I never bother taking either building, I also feel that generating denarii is potentially very powerful. The problem is that it doesn't feel rewarding.

The only source of upgrades and artifacts is rewards for monster waves, making them a very limited resource. Blueprints and spells aren't far behind due to how slow they are to produce via their respective buildings. This means that denarii are a potential path to getting more of these very limited resources. The problem is that I, and I believe many others, only see denarii as a consolation prize.

Denarii can only be spent at the merchant, who only visits every 4th or 5th wave (I forget the exact count). Getting denarii as a reward means that at best you're getting a delayed improvement, and usually less of one due to the prices of the 2nd and 3rd visits. In almost every case you're better off getting an actual reward instead of denarii, so I tend to ignore them.

Then furniture comes along, where you have to dedicate 2 slots of space and production, in addition to the entire resource chain, in order to have any benefit. Given how tight the early waves can be, spending time to build and run this generally isn't feasible unless you're already very strong. This turns furniture into a "Win More" mechanic, which just isn't needed. The only reason to bother is to get more upgrades or artifacts, especially since producing spells and buildings only require 1 building each, are cheaper to build/operate, and don't require you to spend precious blueprints to acquire in the first place.

My suggestion would be to have furniture be salable at the market for gold in addition to having the dedicated building to sell it for denarii. This has the benefit of making the production building useful when you don't have the pair, and being able to justify the slot early on when you need the gold to expand your eye.

[GeneralScrage]

Originally posted by Grumlen:

While I agree with you to some extent, because I never bother taking either building, I also feel that generating denarii is potentially very powerful. The problem is that it doesn't feel rewarding.

The only source of upgrades and artifacts is rewards for monster waves, making them a very limited resource. Blueprints and spells aren't far behind due to how slow they are to produce via their respective buildings. This means that denarii are a potential path to getting more of these very limited resources. The problem is that I, and I believe many others, only see denarii as a consolation prize.

Denarii can only be spent at the merchant, who only visits every 4th or 5th wave (I forget the exact count). Getting denarii as a reward means that at best you're getting a delayed improvement, and usually less of one due to the prices of the 2nd and 3rd visits. In almost every case you're better off getting an actual reward instead of denarii, so I tend to ignore them.

Then furniture comes along, where you have to dedicate 2 slots of space and production, in addition to the entire resource chain, in order to have any benefit. Given how tight the early waves can be, spending time to build and run this generally isn't feasible unless you're already very strong. This turns furniture into a "Win More" mechanic, which just isn't needed. The only reason to bother is to get more upgrades or artifacts, especially since producing spells and buildings only require 1 building each, are cheaper to build/operate, and don't require you to spend precious blueprints to acquire in the first place.

My suggestion would be to have furniture be salable at the market for gold in addition to having the dedicated building to sell it for denarii. This has the benefit of making the production building useful when you don't have the pair, and being able to justify the slot early on when you need the gold to expand your eye.

I don't disagree with any of this, although I will note that I've found the 25% to be extremely useful for an early build of the magic school. Timed right you almost always manage to get a second spell after the first wave and before the second wave which can allow your swordsmen to survive for just a little longer while you build up.

If you get the upgrade for it the building can produce spells with pretty reliable speed and effectiveness aside from various RNG giving you the Crystal transport spell and similar.

That being said if the Furniture could be sold for gold at the market it better bet at least 10 gold per furniture. Maybe 9 if you want to be clever since it takes 6 wood, 1 steel for one furniture which is probably equivalent to 6 grain = 6 gold, 1 steel = 3 gold.

It still probably wouldn't be worth it in the long run, especially due to the buildings taking up so much space and time to produce the furniture but...the other alternative is removing it from the game because frankly it just doesn't have enough impact on the flow.

[BobombNik]

While I do think having something that can generate denarii is fairly strong, the execution leaves it no place to be used. By the time you can feasibly even start to make use of this, you're having to focus on other more immediate needs without the bandwidth to make room for something 'extraneous' that will have limited and delayed reward. Also, wood is at a premium as you're trying to get established, and into the mid game.

I think the additional denarii generation is a good idea, but as the game currently functions it doesn't really work in a way that is of value and actually takes away from other areas (the building selection rewards). It might be best folded into some other building, or at least redesigned in what is required. Maybe building upgrades like the 10% chance to find gold in wheat fields, etc.