Right now apothecaries give no desireability bonus - opposed to healer houses. IRL personally I’m glad to have an apothecary nearby so I can go and fetch some medicine when I’m sick. I think it would make sense for apothecaries to contribute to the desireability of nearby homes.
Also another thing I noticed is that medicine seems to never be consumed, even if you have a few hundreds of sick villages (specifically, caught by small pox) and hundreds of medicines. Not sure if the pure presence of medicine still contribues to healing sick villagers but it would make sense to see a consumtion of medicine that increases the villagers healing process.
Medicine gets stocked by Hospitals (upgraded Healers Hut), which is where it’s consumed. The workers don’t tend to restock it until it hits zero, hence the appearance that your excess Medicine isn’t being consumed.
Hm I see. Never noticed that. But since not every villager who is sick automatically always goes to see a doctor it would make sense if villagers would go and pick up some medicine at the apothecary shop → desireability to have one nearby
Not in all cases. I had cases with large small pox outbreaks where there were enough free beds at the healer houses but villagers not going there for some reason. But apart from that it could be another mechanic in case there are no more beds available at healer houses, so medicine could still help but might not be as effective as it would be in a healer house.
Smallpox is a virus, and so the game doesn’t cure it with medicine. Villagers go to the hospital with Smallpox for isolation (which ironically leads to them infecting people on the way, a complaint you will see in other threads)