Industry and Wealth

[Xipe Totec]

The type of government is crucial also in determining how much you can tax and also grow town wealth. E.g. in my current Prussia campaign I set up a revolution after Frederick died in order to benefit from increased town wealth growth and trade route growth. However, I found that I actually made much less income as a republic due to the difficulty of setting taxes above the lowest level, and still needed garrisons to maintain order. I was struggling post-revolution to maintain the necessary armies, being at war with Russia, Poland and Austria. I was totally regretting my revolution and had a crummy set of ministers with major unpopularity. In all my previous campaigns I enjoyed seeing the tyrant guillotined or axed and kept a republic through to the end of the game.

This time I cooked up a counter-revolution and set up a constitutional monarchy. Paradise! The people were suddenly really happy to be surrounded by factories, pay exorbitant taxes and needed no repressive garrisons. They also didn't need religious or pleasure buildings except where I had universities, so they could be replaced by more factories. I found myself jacking up the nobility's taxes to pay for factory upgrades as it was obvious that bigger and better industries would boost town wealth growth far more than low taxes. I suddenly found myself able to afford enough armies to crush all my enemies, and send two stacks off to conquer the empire of the U.P. who declared war on me out of the blue, and whack the pirates in the Carribbean who were nicking my ivory.

Of course you need the technology to benefit from factory upgrading. With absolute monarchy or republic the happiness hit from industry is a killer. In my opinion the big earners in the game are plantations and factories. The bonus factories give to town wealth growth is huge. Enlightenment techs also give a big boost to town wealth growth, especially the last two tiers.

Early game I like to keep lower class taxes as low as feasible. More towns means more wealth or much needed happy buildings. Once you have grown all the towns you can tax the granny out of the poor sods with no problems. Industry upgrades and armed forces are not cheap so I like to clobber the upper class twits as well. The extra money you make will more than compensate for the loss of town wealth growth from the higher taxation, in building upgrades and armies to conquer new lands.