Dev Diary 23rd May 2019 - Economic Rebalance

Based on player feedback, we have made better balancing the economy and the pace of growth in the game a prime priority, to this end we have released updates with a few major changes:

Household Costs and Property Revenue

We have balanced and tweaked the Household Costs a fair amount so that the issue of racing up classes automatically does not happen, and the player is faced with a more interesting challenge of managing their income much more strategically for growth.

We have also balanced the costs and revenues of most Property types to this end

Market Events

We have subdued the effect of market events a little so that the deals offered are now in the 0.75x to 1.25x range which I feel gives a fair chance to still secure good deals while not being as heavily exploitable as before

Stewardship's effect on Property and Cash

We have introduced a soft cap on the number of items of each property type that you can effectively profit off based on the Stewardship skill of your household. The higher your effective household stewardship, more the property you can own, manage and profit from. This should better reflect the reality of having to actively manage property to turn a profit.

The way the calculation works is it takes your Paterfamilias Stewardship skill at full value, his wife's Stewardship at half value, the Stewardship of his children over the age of 7 at a quarter value and that of everyone else in your household at one-eight's value. It ignores the Stewardship of any characters that are busy doing something else like say studying philosophy in Greece.

Similarly we now also have a cap on the amount of cash you can hoard, based again on the same Stewardship and Class calculation. The cap is high enough that you shouldn't be hitting it until you reach a fairly high class. Any cash you earn over this limit will be wasted.

We will be adding alternative places to spend your cash other than Festivals and Elections in the upcoming updates

What's next

These changes and the numbers behind them will continue to be balanced, especially with your input. I understand that this change may make the game a bit harder for most people, but I am hoping it will continue to be challenging enough to be fun. If you're finding that it is cutting down on your enjoyment of the game or if you find that the challenge it presents is too punitive, please do let me know; as I said we are continuing to test and balance it further for the game to be fun while also challenging.

We are working on and will soon be releasing an update with more Senate interactions, followed by updates centered around Rome's wars and expansion and the Roman Client-Patron system. You can read more about these planned updates here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1063790/discussions/0/2530372519559337823/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1063790/Citizen_of_Rome__Dynasty_Ascendant/