Death and Taxes... well mostly taxes...

licker · #1 January 2nd, 2004, 06:52 PM

Its an old trick, its a new trick cuz the mechanics of Dom2 are a bit different with respect to taxes. Yep I'm talking about the take a province raise taxes to 200 and basically destroy the province (if you keep it a couple of turns).

Personally I don't use this tactic in SP games because its completely bogus (not the troll mind you). Perhaps its more bogus because the AI doesn't know how to handle it, but I still find it to be annoying, especially when discussed as strategy since I feel it definately falls into the catagory of cheese.

Anyway, without going into specifics on why its cheese (that'll probably follow in later Posts anyway...) I'm going to suggest that there be a tweek to the way taxes can be changed. First you should be able to drop taxes to any level you want, but when raising taxes you should only be allowed to do it in increments of 20% when going above 100% (I was gonna say 10%, but that would really slow things down too much). That's the quick fix. A more difficult fix would be to change the relationship between taxes and unrest in newly conquered provinces which would involve keeping track of province ownership history.

Anyway the simple fix allows for easy management of your provinces, dropping taxes to fix unrest then going back to 100% (or 120% for those overtaxers out there), however when trying to 'ruin' a province it would take longer, *unless* you were willing to spend a turn or two pillaging or blood hunting. It just doesn't seem right to me that you can conquer a province, then in the next turn move out all your forces have the taxes at 200% and wind up with a useless province at no expense to yourself (in regaurds to time).

Well agree disagree discuss...

Teraswaerto · #2 January 2nd, 2004, 07:12 PM

Does one or two turns with taxes at 200% really ruin a province? How much pop does one turn with 200% tax kill?

Whismerhill · #3 January 2nd, 2004, 07:13 PM

although I use this strategy,
I agree with you entirely,
cranking ennemy territory taxes to 200% before the ennemy has time to react looks like a little an instant-plunder to me
and furthermore you cannot plunder a fort you're besieging but you can raise taxes anyway !

you can plunder a territory but that takes two turns (one for conquering & the other for plundering) not one only !

ywl · #4 January 3rd, 2004, 12:23 AM

I often go the other way in my SP game, i.e., I decrease the tax rate to 0 while seiging. The income of the defender is set by same tax rate. So, if I set it to zero, I can deprive the defender of the income and have less trouble quenching unrest when I get the castle.

licker · #5 January 3rd, 2004, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Does one or two turns with taxes at 200% really ruin a province? How much pop does one turn with 200% tax kill?

One turn no, two turns... maybe, its not so much about killing pop as it is about the killer unrest (over 100), but the title 'unrest and taxes' didn't have the same ring to it

licker · #6 January 3rd, 2004, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ywl:
I often go the other way in my SP game, i.e., I decrease the tax rate to 0 while seiging. The income of the defender is set by same tax rate. So, if I set it to zero, I can deprive the defender of the income and have less trouble quenching unrest when I get the castle.

Really? The defender gets income from beseiged provinces? I didn't know that (though I don't get seiged that often...

) Anyway, I don't see any abuse in setting taxes to zero.

PvK · #7 January 3rd, 2004, 01:14 AM

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

aldin · #8 January 3rd, 2004, 01:51 AM

I'm certain I dont understand the way this works, so I'd appreciate feedback. Your home province starts with ~30,000 people, right? Growth boosts that by 0.2% per turn per scale, right? Patrolling kills 10 population per 1 unrest killed patrolling, right? So if 140% tax rate produces 8 unrest (it does), doesn't Growth 2 more than offset it (+120 Growth -80 Patrolling)?

Thanks for the responses!

~Aldin

apoger · #9 January 3rd, 2004, 03:02 AM

>Patrolling kills 10 population per 1 unrest killed patrolling, right?

There is also pop loss due to the tax rate.

Keir Maxwell · #10 January 3rd, 2004, 03:39 AM

I'm not convinced that the whole raising tax for unrest etc is so cheesy. As I understand it (and I may well be wrong) unrest reduces supplies so setting your own provinces to 200% tax in the face of an on rushing army you can't beat right now seems a very legitimate approach. Being of scottish ancestry I can appreciate the impact of burning your own land in front of the enemy to deny them the use of it.

In terms of raids on enemy provinces which capture them briefly and raise taxes its like having an option to pillage in the turn you take the province - it take as a bit to round up all the booty so you don't get it straight away. "Move and Pillage" should probably be an order but till they do it raising taxes to 200% is ok by me.

The idea that it only takes a couple of turns to destroy a province by over taxing does not fit my experiance. I have bought provinces back from 100-200 unrest just by leaving them at 0% tax. It takes awhile but so it should. It generally seems to take a bit less time than it would to get the unrest to that level at 200% tax. Reducing unrest by low taxes *seems* to me more reliable than the added unrest from high taxes but this might just be dominion impact decieving me. In my experiance unrest is decreased 3+% per 10% less taxes and increased 2-3% per 10% increased taxes. My guess is both figures are 3% and the deviation is the impact of dominion as the higher the numbers involved the closer the maths seems to get to the magic 3% per 10% tax.

I'm not saying there are no abuses or unrealistic possibilities and some have been mentioned - I'm justing putting forward the view that the present system has its strengths and any changes should reflect this.

cheers

Keir