First turn

[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)

[sector24]

I asked the same question awhile back and this was the answer I found most useful:
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10% extra tax creates approx. 3 unrest.

3 soldiers will approx. remove 1 unrest.

Those figures are only a rough guide but I find useful in maximising my tax income.

-Meglobob
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Obviously things change when you have patrol units, or flying units like Harpies.

[ano]

That is really a rather rough guide, because if a unit has precision below 10 its patrol value is significantly lowered. For example, cheap markatas and lobo guards are very bad patrollers due to this reason (it was not obvious to me some weeks ago). And slingers or militias are excellent for the price because they have 12AP and 10 prec.

[moderation]

ano said:
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)

Before I go test this myself, does anyone know how much extra gold this provides? It sounds like you will cut the long term gold production in your capital by about 1/3, so maybe 50-100 gold per turn depending on your scales. Interesting idea though.