[Suggestion] Taxes?

I couldn't find this being discussed in any of the suggestion threads but I think taxes would be a good incorporation into the game's economy.  It could be used as an alternative to gold mining in cases where gold mines are not available/you need more income to sustain your empire (or kingdom :p) 

It wouldn't have the incorporate the tried and true more taxes=higher unrest formula that all 4x's seem to follow.  It could be a multiplier on population growth as sort of an anti-prestige (more taxes=less people want to move into your cities). 

I'm currently playing a game that seems to have a distinct lack of gold mines.  I'm in the late game, all my "discover awesome resource" technologies have been researched, and I'm having problems raising the gilder necessary to even have a decent army.  I'm resorting to roaming around killing creeps for the gildar.

7,009 views 9 replies
Reply #1 Top

i can kind of see an argument for it, because at the moment i'm struggling to work out what, if anything is determining population growth rates. i would like to feel i had some control over it.

 

however, i think the existing game mechanics need to be balanced and refined before any new ones are added.

Reply #2 Top

As far as I know the only thing that determines population growth rate is prestige. Where Prestige amount = population growth per turn.

I like the tax idea it actually crossed my mind while playing. It's logical but I fear it would be detrimental to the value of gold deposits and all the upgrades associated with them.

 

Tax Mod Just found this you may want to check it out...

Reply #3 Top

I agree that population is an untapped pool of potential to make those large cities more special and make the level one city spam less worthwhile. Taxes would be good i think, there's a need for a population morale and rebelliousness mechanic, and probably more I haven't thought of. I think higher population is already boosting influence (or to be more precise leveling your city level is) but there is room I think to boost this further. The main reason I am spamming level one cities is to make sure I have good influnce coverage to get the monster spawn pushed back from my empire and I'd prefer to just have fewer, larger, more influential cities instead.

Reply #4 Top

Quoting Sethai, reply 1
i can kind of see an argument for it, because at the moment i'm struggling to work out what, if anything is determining population growth rates. i would like to feel i had some control over it.

End of Sethai's quote

Growth rate is determined by city prestige. There are some things that help increase it, e.g. building pubs, inns, statues, or having a sovereign with the Royalty trait.

Reply #5 Top

For better or worse, it seemed to be a conscious design decision to avoid sliders and infrastructure micromanagement in this game.  They wanted everything based on simple additive construction.

I'm personally not opposed to the idea in principle, but it would represent a fundamental change to the game philosophy.  With how much micromanagement we have in the late game just controlling units, I'm not sure more kingdom micro on top of that would be a good thing. I don't think you can just add this in, without shifting a bunch of other stuff too.

Reply #6 Top

Personally, I would rather have some buildings on higher city levels, that added to base gold/tech/arcane value. Currently, almost all are % modifiers which are pretty much useless for cities without appropriate resource.

So, without proper resource, you are pretty much forced to spam lvl1 cities which give +1gold/tech/arcane/materials.

 

EDIT:
Maybe be able to build additional workshops/studies/arcane labs in cities of higher level?

Reply #7 Top

I agree we need taxes simpley  because I am unable to generate enough gold to build a feasible army.

Reply #8 Top

Yeah it seems abit silly that a size 100+ city generates the same amount of gildar that a size 10 city does,

RAT

Reply #9 Top

I think perhaps cities should either have a base value dependant on size (+1 gold/wood/etc per size) or that buildings should have a base value as well as increased percentage value.

Also you could increase the overall influence and resource range of larger cities to emulate a more Civ-style sort of gameplay. IMHO advanced structures like barracks also need to increase recruitment speed drastically. As of now, yeah, it's definitely worth plopping down 10 cities to have ten units building.

IN the XML files you can see that before cities used to cost essence to build, I think that's a spectacular way to price them. Honestly I don't even think that's neccesary, a flat gold/materials fee would be fine. You might also want to increase pioneer build times and cost. Then there -would- be the same sort of 'time' penalty for building extra cities.