[PvK]

I haven't studied the details of the effects of high taxes enough to have an opinion on the cheese level, but I see your point. Effortless collection of super-taxes could be cheesy. On the other hand, it could make sense, depending on what the effects are.

It makes some sense in this game world to be able to march an army through and collect some taxes right away. The conquering army could appoint local sub-warrior honchos to collect taxes.

However, setting taxes to max without any troops present should be noticably less lucrative, and noticably less damaging, than having troops actually plundering the province.

I do like the idea of having provinces remember whom they are mad at. Liberate a province from a hated tyrant, and they won't be mad at you. Try to conquer people who loved their former god, and you may start with massive unrest. Etc.

Playing casually with the existing system, it tends to seem ok. Violence causes unrest, low taxes and patrols reduce it, and I haven't seen any weird results. However I'm still enjoying leisurely playing the game against the AI and not trying to exploit the system.

What actually happens when you over-tax? I know unrest goes up and some population dies. How much? How long does it take to repair a province with high unrest by setting taxes to low or zero? It's always seemed pretty quick (a few turns) to me in the case of unrest from sites/events/magic/blood-hunts/battles.

PvK