First turn

[Aezeal]

I hear a tactic is to set tax high first turn and then patrol.

What tax rate is generally used to avoid pop loss and to avoid having a high unrest next turns?

If there are more such tactic for early turns I'd like to know.

[Zenzei]

As far as I know any tax rate over 100% reduces population.
I've found out that awake Keeper of the Bridge pretender set on patrol allows you tax at 200% with no unrest, population does drop fairly fast though.

[OmikronWarrior]

High taxes drops population and patroling to reduce unrest drops population. Combining the two is problematic. As a strategy for the first two or three turns, though, just to help the player get out of the gate, is doable.

[thejeff]

It's usually done by patrolling with the starting army, while you recruit a few tougher troops to attack with next turn.

Some go straight for 200%
I usually aim around 130-140%
Usually no unrest with that.

You get a nice little early gold boost for the critical early turns, with only a slight hit to your longterm cash flow, which you should be able to make up with taking more provinces with less losses.

[Karlem]

My normal rule is:

For each 10 troops in the army: 25% extra tax rate.

It usually means no unrest.

[ano]

If you play a race that has good cheap patrollers (Bakemono, for instance or any race with slingers) then it's worth considering taking high growth to heavily patrol in the first 15-20 turns in the capital. The income boost will be quite solid and the population will drop by year 20 to only about 20000 (with tax 160-170 and growth 3)