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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week, we will be discussing Roman Farms and Storehouses.

If you would like to start with our first post on Houses, you can find it HERE.
You can also read more about our design philosophy regarding Buildings HERE.

Farms
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For almost every Roman building, we take the same approach of comparing the Romans concept art with the existing buildings in the game. Each civ has 3 different farm models with two different crops. One crop appears in a regular farm and also in a farm with a scarecrow (except for Persia, which inexplicably has no unique scarecrow and shares it with the Celtic one, much to the horror of PF2K).

Since Farms are Common Buildings, we know that every civ will have one. While no civ yet has an Improved or Advanced Farm, we found no evidence that Rome would, so we again are hemming close to the default set up for Roman Farms.

Our concept art for Roman Buildings are in black and white, and it was not totally clear what crops their Farms were growing. Also, each Roman farm had a different scarecrow, which seemed like maybe the artists were just experimenting with different looks and would not have actually deviated from the existing one scarecrow model.

So any way, we did some historical research on Roman crops and made a list of potentials crops. We started with strawberries. We think they may already be in the concept art. But they are more of a delicacy and less of staple on which to feed a civilization. Someone mentioned wheat. But Happy Smurf reminded us that Egypt already had wheat and it would be better to not double up. (Some favorites among the existing crops: wheat, pumpkins, lettuce, carrots, melons, and potatoes.) Happy Smurf wanted grapes and cauliflowers. But then we pointed out that grapes grow vertically on poles, which could look weird.

Chaos suggested "purple cucumbers," which Happy calls courgette and Andy calls eggplant. PF2K agreed, and we were off and running. But then Andy did some more historical vegetable research and broke the bad news that eggplants did not arrive in Europe until around 500 CE, so they were off the table.

Next was corn, but it is a new world crop that got to Europe after Columbus.
Then someone suggested celery. Nobody bit. Someone mentioned small olive trees, they are already in the game. We considered asparagus until Happy Smurf noted that the visuals of the stalks sticking up from the ground may challenge the game's family friendly rating. We circled back to grapes. Since the Egyptian wheat fields are a bit tall, we thought maybe we could get away with some grape vines climbing up sticks. Nobody had a problem with that. One down.

At this point, PF2K realized that Persian farms not only are the only ones with a sign on each farm indicating the type of crop but also are the only civ without a unique Farm scarecrow. The discussion continued on this tangent a bit until Chaos and Happy Smurf pledged to correct this evil when they have some free time. (PF2K's sidenote: Persian Farms have their own Scarecrow now! check it out in-game.) For our second crop, we wanted something red, as that is a traditional Roman color. PF2K circulated some images of giant radishes that grow halfway out of the ground so you can see much of the red part. We finally agreed: Grapes and Radishes. And this, my friends, is what the last few months has been like for us.

Storehouses
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Storehouses were much easier. We did not see any evidence that the Roman designs included a special Storehouse, which made sense as the game already contains three: an Improved Storehouse (Persian Aid Tent, which heals nearby friendly units), an Advanced Storehouse (Babylonian Ox Carts, basically Storehouses that can move), and a Unique Storehouse (Celtic Gold Mines, built on top of Gold Deposits, allowing safe gathering and Gold Conservation).

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Now let's put the Roman Storehouse next to his buddies and see how he fits in!

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Thank you for reading, and we will see you all next week!

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Project Celeste Development Team

What do you think about Roman Farms and Storehouses? What would you like to see next? Let us know in the comments below!

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Missed the Roman Civilization's announcement? Find out about it HERE.

Project Celeste is completely free and always will be. However, we gladly accept donations for our overhead costs, which are larger than we have budgeted. If you want to support us, you can do so HERE.

Read every Romans related blog HERE.

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