The game penalizes - balances in CA parlance - a successful player by reducing income in two ways:
- commodity prices drop even if supply remains constant (or even decreases!) reducing trade income.
- tax rate penalty under "administrative costs".
The first will eventually recover if you stop expanding your territory.
I have not yet seen the administrative penalty inch lower - instead it remains fixed after 10 turns of peace at war (i.e. war with a dozen nations or so, but no conquests). Has anyone recovered their tax rates, or is the administrative penalty fixed with respect to the number of regions you own?
By 1736 GB campaign tax income has not increased much (only up to 17K) despite massive economic improvements on my part. However, I own ~55 regions (all of the Indian theater, except for Baluchistan & Ceylon, and most of the American theater) and suffer from a massive tax penalty of ~22%. I haven't added any ships to a trade port since 1710 or so, as the commodity prices went down to ridiculous levels during my expansion phase.
The beginning phases (up to 1720-25) were better balanced compared to pre-patch. But by this phase, the tax penalty has simply gotten to an absurd level.
Essentially, there is no purpose to building an empire... I could make more money with half the regions - but then I'd need an even larger army to defend my regions, thanks to the reversion to the METW2 "AI will declare war on human neighbor, even if relations are perfect" diplomacy...
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