Hear The Bell Toll - Death & Taxes

Video overview

• Hear The Bell Toll (Death & Taxes) is a city‑builder roguelike hybrid demo. The player’s job is to keep paying a tribute or the city (and player) dies — tribute is calculated as population × tax rate.
• The demo shown is free and was played on the highest available difficulty.
• The commentator in the video is John from the Many A True Nerd channel.

Tribute formula: population × tax rate

Core gameplay mechanics

Card drafting

• Each year you pick buildings from a hand to place, merge, or save.
• Hand size is limited and influenced by difficulty.

Tribute and progression

• Tribute = population × tax rate.
• To meet rising tribute demands you must grow population and/or manipulate tax modifiers.

Building placement and merging

• Identical buildings can be merged to increase level/tier; merging often provides bonuses (for example, extra population).
• Some buildings have adjacency effects:
  • Windmill: gives +tax for every adjacent empty tile.
  • Market: gives gold for adjacent residential.
• Structure types (structure/faith/cult/commercial/authority) interact with calamities and banners.

Resources and statuses

• Gold: used to buy more cards, convert into upgrades (via trumpets), or purchase banner changes.
• Statuses include crime, sickness, unrest, and attacks. They impose penalties but can be converted into bonuses by special buildings (e.g., witch’s hut).

Calamities

• Periodic disasters with differing rules that force adaptive play. Examples:
  • Locusts: disable structure effects.
  • Zombies: reverse cult/faith effects.
  • Recession: can double tribute or halve commerce/industry.
• Calamities require planning and flexible strategies.

Banners

• Banners are powerful global modifiers you choose; they can be replaced or sold for money.
• Examples shown: commerce synergy (+gold per commerce building), permanent tax raise, multiplier based on unrest, trumpets (convert gold into upgrades), guillotine, Divider (converts some population/tax balance).

Notable buildings and typical uses

• Shanty Town / Housing Complex: massive population boosts; ideal late‑game targets for repeated upgrades and merging.
• Windmill: tax provider that scales with adjacent empty tiles — very strong early, limited as the map fills.
• Market / City Hall: generate gold or tax when adjacent to residential; useful to create commerce synergies.
• Inn / Tavern / Factory: commerce/industry buildings that boost income but may interact poorly with some calamities.
• Clinic / Hospital / Sanatorium / Crematorium: reduce sickness or unrest. Crematoriums are particularly effective for large unrest drops.
• Jail / Courthouse / Guard posts / Chapels / Monastery: authority and faith buildings that reduce crime and unrest.
• Library / Quarry / Lumberyard: provide tax or other bonuses; upgrading them raises yields.
• Cultist Hideout / Chapel: affect faith/cult status and interact with calamities (e.g., zombies).

Strategies and key tips

• Early game

  • Use adjacency mechanics (place windmills while there are many empty tiles).
  • Build a couple of commerce buildings early (markets) to unlock commerce banner synergy for steady gold.
  • Balance buildings that generate gold (to buy cards) with those that increase population/tax.

• Merging and upgrades

  • Merge identical buildings to increase levels and stacking bonuses.
  • Sometimes placing a second instance toward a synergy is better than boosting a single building.
  • Use trumpets to convert gold into immediate upgrades when needed.

• Status management

  • Keep crime, sickness, and unrest low with authority, health, and faith buildings — low statuses can multiply tax or prevent penalties.
  • Crematoriums and monasteries can massively reduce problematic statuses during calamities.

• Calamity preparedness

  • Track upcoming calamities and adapt builds (e.g., avoid relying solely on structures during a locust swarm).
  • Faith vs. cult buildings matter depending on calamity type (zombies help faith, hurt cult).

• Population-centric late-game

  • Convert most investment into residential/population growth (shanty towns, housing complexes) and then convert that population into tax via banners and upgraded tax buildings.
  • Continually upgrade residentials to maximize the population pool that drives tribute income.

• Banner management

  • Choose banners matching your specialization (commerce for gold, Divider to convert population into tax, trumpets for upgrades).
  • Be ready to remove or swap banners to adapt.

• Shop and rerolls

  • Rerolling can find key buildings, but sometimes saving gold for upgrades is better than overspending in the shop.
  • Buying cards for future merges can be worth the cost even if you can’t place them immediately.

Playthrough highlights and lessons learned

• The player focused on building enormous population and converting that into tribute income by using commerce banners and many upgraded residentials.
• Careful management of crime, sickness, and unrest with jails, clinics, chapels, crematoriums, and monasteries prevented penalties and unlocked strong multipliers.
• Timing merges, placing markets for commerce synergy, and using trumpets/upgrades at key moments allowed survival through successive calamities (locusts, zombies, recession).
• The demo ends at year 25; the player beat the demo on the highest available demo difficulty by optimizing population growth and status control.

Miscellany

• The demo is generous and playable for free now; the full game will add more difficulties and content.
• The video ends with John’s usual banter and a small humorous aside about road systems and “zebra/giraffe” buildings.

Featured gamer / source

• Many A True Nerd (John)