Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

This discussion seem to raise few questions:
1) fixing unrest costs the population.
I haven't seen that. Taxing to 200% reduces population, but as soon as tax is set to less or equal than 100%, the population stops shrinking (unless death scale)
2) patrolling kills a lot of population. Does it? I've never seen more than dozen or two brigands killed during the patrolling, and this is quite rare, more typical numbers are below 10. It seems to be something like 0.1% of population.
3) realism of 200% taxes, unrest and population reduction. When the army marches through the province and battles there for a month (1 turn), foraging in the process, increased unrest sounds very reasonable. The army may choose how to do it.
Being kind to population and foraging carefully (tax=0%) will not cause populatin loss may even decrease an unrest, marching through pillaging quickly on the way (tax=200%) will get some part of population killed (2% ?) and certainly will cause unrest (because of taking away herds, seed, burning houses and infrastructure etc). Pillaging (as in "pillage") for an extra month would probably mean army going in various areas of the province and pillaging all their way through, instead of pillaging quickly on the passage. As expected it causes massive population loss and unrest. The middle way (tax=100%) implies that the army loots within a reason, without taking everything and does not do the damage for the sake of it. In this case there's a mild unrest and no population loss. And one should remember that nearly all those provinces were free only 1, 2 or 5 years ago, so probably different armies are all look as invaders to them. All this looks very sensible.
4) Hit, destroy and run tactic and how it impacts the balance. I wish experienced players would comment on it. The obvious impact is that there're may be 2 kind of wars: full fledged war, where everything goes and "border dispute" where military action are limited to the border provinces and the opponents are intent on annexing those provinces rather than damaging them. This may affect diplomatic relationship, sides in the border dispute may come to peace to make an united front against other enemy. Hit, destroy and run tactic will probably be not welcomed early in the game, because nobody would want to get into this kind of war ealy on. But of course, Ermor may welcome this tactics even if it's not involved directly http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why shouldn't they cause death? Unrest is an abstraction that is intended to represents civil unrest as well as other forms of disorer and lawlessness, so unrest means there are dissenters, agitators, bandits etc. people that your patroller discourage by a few (or more than a few) hangings. Unrest is intended to be a number of factors some of these your patrollers solve by killing people, some by just showing up and putting the fear fo God into your people and in some cases they might repair bridges, clear passes of brigands or do whatever else might be reqiured to restore order.

As for your Last point I remember being frustrated by opponents using similar tactics against me in VGA Planets, but now it doesn't bother me. What would bother me on the other hand would be the possibility of allied player switching provinces between each other to share the use of a province and lower the unrest present. At present they do at least get the small penalty of increased unrest, your suggestion would reward their behaviour. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not so sure they would be rewarded if the unrest reset to 100 assuming it was higher to begin with... anyway that's all completely beside the point.

The point being that this strategy, no matter how you wish to abstract unrest, has zero consequence for the agressor, in fact he ultimately benefits from the 1 or 2 turns of additional income due to his 200% tax rate.

I don't think that my origional suggestion of capping the level that you can raise taxes in one turn is overly disruptive, and yet it would 'fix' this problem. A better solution would be to track province ownership, have supply lines mean something for tax collection (similar to supporting troops), or change the system completely. However, I recognize that those latter solutions are more work for perhaps little actual gain.

Now while the concepts of pillageing, scortched earth, and general problems from battles being fought on your farm lands are certainly valid, the failing as I see it is that 200% tax shouldn't cause as much disruption as quickly as it does. Personally I think that if you want to wreck a province you had better use your military to do it, or spend more than a few turns screwing up the tax to do it.

Again, its not a big deal to me in SP, I chose not to abuse this aspect, I just think that for MP it should be looked at and hopefully improved for all aspects of game play, as since the AI doesn't seem able to deal with this tactic (it doesn't do it itself that I've seen) it is definately cheese to use it in SP.

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The english in the 100 years war made a practice of moving rapidly through french terrotories pillaging as they went (no stopping to pillage) simply to ruin the local economy. The french would react with much larger forces and chase the english home but the damage is done. This is a very, very, close parallel to the Dom tactic you hate and yes the French hated it because it was damn hard for them to counter.

It is not a cheesy tactic at all - even a little bit. It is very historical. War was brutal far beyond what many seem to imagine. As for the idea that the local people have a community of interest with either empire fighting over them this was seldom the case in history .

"When Kings make war, poor little men must tremble"

Cheers

Keir

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm very glad you stuck with the current model. Nationalism/Nations may seem the sort of thing thats been around for ever but the standard view in history is that it arose with the rise of the bourgeoise/capitalist state. A French peasant in the middle ages suffered most at the hands of the french rulers - the community of interest many suppose didn't exist on the whole. The emergence of free cities and the conflicts between the nobles and the merchants that this entailed is another example of how disparate interest were in these times.

I think most of the criticisms of the tax system are on the level of "this doesn't feel right." This is not particularily helpful as what feels wrong to a modern person may feel quite right for a feudal lord. Could the critics respond more to the historical details being used against them and rely less on commen sense as it is no guide whatsoever when you leave behind the commen.

Cheers

Keir

Cheers

Keir

[ January 03, 2004, 20:17: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm sure.

He does and the tax rate is by the seiger.

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm very glad you stuck with the current model. Nationalism/Nations may seem the sort of thing thats been around for ever but the standard view in history is that it arose with the rise of the bourgeoise/capitalist state. A French peasant in the middle ages suffered most at the hands of the french rulers - the community of interest many suppose didn't exist on the whole. The emergence of free cities and the conflicts between the nobles and the merchants that this entailed is another example of how disparate interest were in these times.

I think most of the criticisms of the tax system are on the level of "this doesn't feel right." This is not particularily helpful as what feels wrong to a modern person may feel quite right for a feudal lord. Could the critics respond more to the historical details being used against them and rely less on commen sense as it is no guide whatsoever when you leave behind the commen.

Cheers

Keir

Cheers

Keir </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Historical details? What on earth do historical details have to do with this? Dominions may borrow from history/mythology, but its not a historical simulator of some kind. Now before you take those words and use them against me, let me remind you that what I'm after is modifing a game mechanic that not only 'doesn't feel right', it quite simply isn't right in the context of its effect on the rest of the game.

Simply put the freedom to *raise* taxes, especially in provinces with existing unrest, to the maximum level makes no sense. Moreover, historically it simply wasn't possible, again in the context of the abstracted unrest and taxes in dominions, without useing some kind of military or other *stationary* force to enforce compliance. I have no problems with using pillagers to do this, but the free destruction one gets from simply setting taxes to 200%, *especially in newly conquered provinces* is simply abuseive of the system.

Now please tell me what would be wrong with my original suggestion of capping the amount that taxes can be raised (over 100%)? Does it have a negative effect on the game overall? Does it not fix the 'problem' that at least some people are concerned with?

And please, keep the history lessons in the books, they are not germain to this discussion of game mechanics. (though they are otherwise quite interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ever heard of Lord of the Rings? Y'know the fantasy series by that Tolkien dude? Yeah the expert in ancient Languages and history who created a believable world because he understood the structures of certain levels of human development, the way human thought and language changes with different social orders. Its not a coincidence that the Lord of The Rings is so widely aclaimed.

Dominions is, to my understanding, deeply rooted in our history and this is a big part of why it is so good.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hang on you don't care about history? So what is your basis for saying something is odd then? As compared to what?

The ability to raise crippling taxes existed and was excercised. Whole populations were deported, slaughtered, had one hand chopped off, decimated and many other atrocities. So why can't we raise taxes to 200%? Is 20 unrest really such a big deal? It only takes one turn to recover at 0% taxes. Economic warfare was extremely commen in history - especially when hard to take strongholds abounded. On of the reasons you choise to fight a battle is to stop your crops being burnt.

The english tactic in the 100 years war, described previously, represents the exact form of warfare you object to so where is the problem in terms of history?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. As noted by others, the existing system allows people to choose to either conquer peacefully (lower taxes to 0%) or conquer brutally - raise taxes to 200% or somewhere in between. Its a good feature and I think your suggestion would be kill joy.

"Ooh no big bad tyrant you can't be a brutal conqueror, no you have to delay a turn in each province to pillage and thus cripple your campaign"

Sod that - instant taxes = booty from pillage during conquest. No problem.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually I think the history is very relevant and if you want to make a counter case what are you going base it on? Your own personal grasp of the logic of fantasy universes? Sorta leaves us lacking a commen ground. Sure magics and real gods changes things but this is how the peoples of ancient history percieved the world anyway so their perspective is very relevant. The way the ancients fought is also very relevant as they faced many of the same physical constraints.

Cheers

Keir

[ January 04, 2004, 01:07: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

>The ability to raise crippling taxes existed and was excercised.

Not without troops to keep the peace.


This entire discussion is foolish. It has been established clearly that "taxes/tax rate/unrest" is actually an abstraction.

Licker: If you don't like the system, make your point courteously and hope that if enough people speak out, that IW will care. Frankly I'm with you in not being particularly happy with the whole economic system.

Keir: If you like the system, just say so. No need to rationalize about how the system is realistic, it isn't, and it's not even meant to be.

Now shake hands and be friends. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

Sounds like the two sides of the discussion are still imagining different events behind the game effects.

In general, I think Illwinter's explanations are easy for me to imagine making sense.

Setting tax to 200% doesn't for one turn cause effects that are difficult to quickly recover from, in the game.

I think having tax levels for each province makes a lot of sense for a fantasy/medieval game world. Generalizing, most medieval peasants spent their entire lives within a day's march of their home, and on average were kept in their economic position by "taxes". Each local lord would deal with their people in their own way. I imagine that consistent tax policy across an empire would be exceptional. Which isn't to say that a convenient control wouldn't be handy, but the Nation Overview seems to do a good enough job to me.

100% tax probably means the peasants get to keep enough food not to starve. If a new lord arrives and says they have to give everything they have, or twice as much as they used to give, this is not going to require more than the existing people who used to collect and bring the tribute to the previous lord. The effect will be that people won't have enough to eat, and will start to get ill, to go into hiding or leave, for people to start taking from each other, and other various peasantly chaos.

As I wrote earlier in the thread, ya it should be more damaging and lucrative if you use actual troops, but I don't think it'd be entirely necessary. Few if any peasants are going to think of or attempt organized direct mutiny, even against local non-military honchos.

I still haven't studied how the system works in all cases, but I haven't seen any numbers that show anything that looks broken to me.

My only suspected criticism would be that perhaps the population should grow a bit more in times of peace and low taxes. Sometimes population migrates away in impressive percentages, but it only very rarely seems to arrive anywhere else.

PvK

[ January 04, 2004, 09:55: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...
 

Even if there are no armies, there might be enough officials to do their work. Did the Sheriff of Nottingham have an army of few thousand men? I think he didn't. Said by Johan earlier in this thread:

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