Economy Observations, Tips, Etc.

[Trithemius]

Quite right, early on the Modern buildings are useful - but I think this gets less so as the game end approaches. There is also the issue that income from buildings will not be seriously comprised if the province changes hands, whereas town wealth seems to take a beating.

[andrewt]

If you're talking about the province specialty buildings, I don't think the "modernized" versions are currently useful. The traditional option generally has +200 income while the modern one has +2 growth. That means it will take 100 turns for it to be equal and another 100 to get back the lost income.

You also get an unhappiness penalty in exchange for more modernization points. However, by the time you get there, you'll be too close to max modernization for it to be worthwhile.

[quadalpha]

If you're talking about the province specialty buildings, I don't think the "modernized" versions are currently useful. The traditional option generally has +200 income while the modern one has +2 growth. That means it will take 100 turns for it to be equal and another 100 to get back the lost income.

Ach, that is correct. I can evidently no longer do maths.

[Trithemius]

I guess I am really milking my game for turns? :)
I have gotten over +200 out of my modern buildings on Satsuma now, but I wouldn't bother building them anywhere else based on the pure numbers and the sensitivity of the accrued benefits to invasion. I do tend to get carried away with roleplaying though myself... my generals seem to enjoy burning down gambling parlours and dojo - the cultureless wretches!

[Forward Observer]

I wonder if the following is a valid strategy or simply out gaming the game? You may or may not remember that, in the first Shogun, taxes in the form of Koku were only collected once a year in the fall. All one had to do to maximize their income was to raise the the tax level to the highest level on that particular turn and then lower the rate down to nothing for the other three turns. Since you weren't collecting anything for those turns anyway, it kept the peasants happy.

Of course in Shogun II, one collects taxes every turn. What I have taken to doing in my current campaign is raise the taxes to high for every other turn. Needless to say, this gets me the message that everybody is about to revolt, so then I simply lower the taxes on the next turn to put all the happiness level indicators back to green, or at least yellow. Everybody is happy for a turn, so I rinse and repeat.

What this gains is an extra 25% or more in income every other turn. Now I know that the higher taxes also impedes overall growth, but that extra revenue can mean the difference in getting something like a port started a full turn earlier than if I left things alone.

Given the returns on some of the long term investments like ports, farms, etc., I'm wondering if this tactic more than offsets the extra loss in growth every other turn. Once my economy is up and going, I usually stop doing this since it is also easy to get distracted by other game aspects and forget to lower taxes on that next turn. It's an unpleasent surprise when every province revolts on a single turn.

Does the extra income, which allows earlier starts on the more profitable long term investments, offset the minor growth loss in the short term---and, is this simply an exploit or a valid tactic that a savy Diamyo would use?

Thoughts?

[47thlegion]

'I usually stop doing this since it is also easy to get distracted by other game aspects and forget to lower taxes on that next turn. It's an unpleasent surprise when every province revolts on a single turn.'

yeah tell me about it, i had taken to raising and lowering taxes to squeeze every penny but once i had just had a long battle and when it came back to the campaign screen i forgot that i had had the taxes on high as i had lowered them before the battle so ramped em up, revolts everywhere!!!! thats what u get for 'playing' the tax game!

[Kurisu]

There's actually an additional local growth penalty applied when the tax increase results in negative public order in a region. It's applied on the following turn and is labeled 'discontent' in the tooltip when you mouse over 'other' factors for town growth. So growth gets hammered 100% of the time if you cycle maximum tax every other turn in any region that goes red. The follow-up discontent penalty is -10 I believe, though I think I've seen it at -25 (have to check). That may be a catch-all penalty for any turn-to-turn dip into the red for public order (have to check that too) but either way, you may be crippling growth much more than you think by employing this strategy at regular intervals.

Used sparingly, though, it's certainly a valid and effective means of generating cash for emergencies or rush building, Also, in the beginning when growth is marginal anyway, it's probably worth it to stockpile cash for business buildings and such things that will quickly recoup your lost wealth. That's been my take thus far.


edit: The discontent penalty applied to town wealth is -25. I was playing a mod (The Rights of Man) where that penalty is reduced to -10, presumably to help the AI which has a tendency to tax the bejeezus out of itself when it runs into trouble.