Plebeian and Patrician housing levels in Citadelum

A big part of the game play in Citadelum revolves around your population. Which makes sense, what would a city builder be without people to live in the city? 

In Citadelum, there are two types of citizens: Plebeians and Patricians. Each of these types require similar, but also different types of food, goods and services to be completely happy.

Let's find out!

Plebeians

Your workforce is made up out of Plebeians. You need them solely to keep your city running. They work everywhere! On the fields and farms, the quarries and forests, in the baths, markets and tax offices.

Every Plebeian house you build can house 5 citizens. When you start levelling up these houses, that amount increases to up to 35.

Refer to the table below to see what your Plebeians need at what level to be able to upgrade to the next level. 

Why upgrade Plebeians?

One could argue: why would you upgrade your Plebeian houses? It's not like they start working harder or bring in more money? You could just as easily build more level 1 houses, rather than providing existing Plebeians with expensive foods, goods or services?

True, but it is still a good idea to do so. 

I like building houses in a 3 x 3 square, enclosed by a road and with space in the middle for decorations. This means I have 8 Plebeian houses per block. 

At level 1, such a block will house 40 Plebeians. At level 2 (providing wheat and water is a basic necessity), it's 64 Plebeians. 

With a growing economy, you will need more Plebeians to provide food for your Patricians, to mine iron for weapons, to make those weapons. Now you have a choice to make. Build another block of houses, or upgrade? 

If you choose to build another block of houses, that will bring your amount of Plebeians up to 128. You might need to build a new market to bring food to these people. You might need to build another fire station or engineers' post. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. 

At the same time, if I just provide carrots, onions and a bath, I'm half way there. Level 3 houses have space for 12 people, which means 8 houses will make 96 Plebeians.

From there, they need cabbage and bread. I'm already producing them for the Patricians, so that doesn't require anything extra. The upgrade to level 4 is almost free, but will get me 8 * 18 = 144 beds for Plebeians. Already more than I would have with a full extra block of houses. 

For level 5, you'll need to provide eggs and milk. Both of these are already requested by Patricians level 3. Add a doctor and herb field: now there are 25 Plebeians living in a single house, which means were have room for 200 citizens.

As you can see: with only minimal effort, the initial 8 houses can almost run a complete economy. Of course, you will want to build more Plebeian houses as your game progresses. But at some point, upgrading is worth more than building extra houses. 

The economy tab in the Management Scroll, showing the population and Patricians taxes

Patricians

If Plebeians are the driving workforce of your settlement, Patricians are the Citadelum way of having cash cows.

Patricians serve no other function than to rake in the money. Because even though the Plebeians do all the work, Patricians pay taxes. They will provide you with the income needed to finance your city's growth.

Taxes which are collected by a Plebeian, funnily enough...

Refer to the table below to see what your Patricians need at what level to be able to upgrade to the next level. Oh, and how much money they pay you. That's the fun part. 

Why upgrade Patricians?

Did you really just ask that question? For the money!

Seriously, the money provided by higher tier Patricians is insane.

A block of 8 Patrician houses with high zone desirabilty and tax income.

As with Plebeians, I like building housing blocks of 3 x 3, with 8 houses per block. Getting them to level 3 is easy enough. 8 * 684 = 5.472 Denarii per day, which will cover all the Plebeian wages required to provide all of the food and goods to get to this level. 

Add a theatre and some pig farms and you'll be on level 5 in no time, raking in almost 20.000 Denarii per day!

In other words: there is no reason not to upgrade Patricians. Other than wanting to challenge yourself, I guess.

But if you don't care about that, building extra Patrician houses and keeping up with their requirements are a sure way to never go bankrupt.