[WIP][REL]Tax mod

Because you can never hoard enough gildar...

from Elemental Forums

So, I'm working on a tax office mod. The idea is to add some element of taxes back into the game.

This is STILL a "beta" version. Everything works as it should as far as I can tell, but it may need a bit more play testing as far as balance is concerned (but this is true of almost everything in Elemental at this point...har har...). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

DOWNLOAD

 

V 2
Updated the way the offices work. I thought they where giving way too much Gildar, especially once other improvements added a bonus to them. This now just adds a standard multiplier of 25% to your current income. I've also upped the bonus of the Kingdom Taxation and Revenue Service. It now gives a 250% bonus, but must be built in your capital city. The offices now also give a -1 influence to the ci ty, since who actually wants to pay taxes. 

56,707 views 13 replies +1 Loading…
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Great idea, something I was hoping to do myself! Looking forward to seeing how you go about this.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


 I'm hoping that the bigger the city level, the more tax revenue it produces, but I've got to figure out if it's possible for a building to check the city size first. 

End of quote


Coincidentally, I was experimenting with doing this earlier, and whilst this should work through using a CDATA expression (check the CityLevelUpBonuses.xml for a fairly specific example) It doesn't. For no reason that I can discern, though it has been posited elsewhere that CDATA's only work for certain game modifiers.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I think I'm going to have the office upgrade as your city and tech levels up. I've attempted to try to get the game to calculate the city sizes, and I'm pretty sure that it only works while enclosed in specific tags, such as <CityLevelUpAbility>.

 

I get the desired effect the way I'm doing it, but it requires 4 entries as opposed to one.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Updated the first post with a download link and description of the mod.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top


Level 1:

Local Tax Office - This collects 1 Gildar per turn from the local neighborhood. This can be built once in each city once you acquire the Civics tech, and will automatically upgrade to the City Tax Office once you acquire the Administration tech and reach city level 2.

 

Level4:

Regional Tax Office - This collects 4 Gildar per turn from all the cities and farms in the region in which it's built. This can be built once in each city once you have the Economics tech.

 

What do you mean by neighborhood and region exactly?  Looks like a great mod.  I am always looking to squeeze a few more dollars from the peasants.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Just a suggestion..and I have no idea if it's possible at all...but some sort of variance in the tax level would be a nifty feature.  A high tax rate should have drawbacks obviously..maybe a hit to prestige as the tax rate climbs? 

 

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Just flavor text descriptions, and an in game "reason" as to why one office collects more than the other. There's no way that I can discern to actually set an area that it would collect from.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Hey, have you seen this code in the CoreGameDefs.XML?

        <!-- ** Taxes ** -->
        <TaxIncomeRateNormal>0.10</TaxIncomeRateNormal>

I don't think it works but I wonder if there is a way to activate it's functioning or something.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

@Carlzilla

Not sure of the affect, I am not home, but there is a Typo in the

<ConstructionTileDesign> entry for the Z_TaxOffice_01

It reads Z_TaxOffice) 01</ConstructionTileDesign>

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

When I update (probably this weekend) I'm going to change the whole thing. I've got construction tiles now, and I'm going to switch to the calculate method of figuring taxes.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Cool. Nice Mod btw. :)

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

So, the <calculate> expression doesn't work for buildings. I hope StarDock fixes that.

I've managed to work out another method though, which I think breaks the game less...since my previous method was just pumping way too much Gildar into the economy. The new tax calculation method simply adds a resource multiplier to your Gildar production. The play testing with this new version I've done so far seems much more balanced and fair. There's only 1 tax office now, and it visually upgrades based on your cities population. You need to have a firm grasp on the Economics skill to make use of the office. The offices now also confer a -1 penalty to influence, since who actually wants to pay taxes.

To compensate for the down play of the city based tax offices, I've increased the bonus given by the Kingdom Tax and Revenue Service to 250%. This seems like a lot, but you're only allowed one per Kingdom, and it has to be built in the same city as your palace, which may or may not be your economic capital, so it's not as bad as it seems.

 

Here's the Download: Click me!

 

To install:
Unrar the Z_TaxOffices v2.xml file to your Program Files\Stardock Games\Elemental\Mods folder.
Unrar the Tiles folder to your My Documents\My Games\Elemental\ folder.
Select yes if asked anything about overwriting...don't worry, unless you've got tiles named Z_TaxOffice_01 etc. you won't actually be overwriting anything.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Is nice.  Have you thought about adding a 'negative' to using these extra taxmen? (EVERYONE loves to pay taxes..)  Is there a way to put a decrease in morale, or prestige, or whatever, when a settlement starts sending out the sheriff of Nottingham (err... tax collectors) to increase government monies?  Just wondering.  Great job!