Results 1 to 21 of 21

Thread: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

  1. #1
    King Philippe of France Senior Member _Tristan_'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Reigning over France
    Posts
    3,264

    Default Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    What do you usually do ?

    Keep garrisons in your cities and raise taxes to the max or lower taxes and keep only a token garrison or even none ?

    I generally keep a large garrison with taxes on high or very high...
    King Baldwin the Tyrant, King of Jerusalem, Warden of the Holy Sepulchre, Slayer of Sultans in the Crusades Hotseat (new write-up here and previous write-up here)
    Methodios Tagaris, Caesar and Rebelin LotR
    Mexica Sunrise : An Aztec AAR



    Philippe 1er de France
    in King of the Franks

  2. #2
    Relentless Bughunter Senior Member FactionHeir's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    London, UK
    Posts
    8,115

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Taxes as high as the place can support.
    For huge cities, sometimes increasing taxes a notch in return for an additional militia unit can still be worth it, so I'd do that.

    Overall,maximize your taxes unless you run into danger of having much more than you can spend, in which case you can reduce them.

    Early game, low taxes are advisable so your settlements expand faster and allow you to achieve higher tech. Note the AI's settlements grow at double your rate, and the only way to catch up is by having low taxes and/or a chivalrous governor.
    Want gunpowder, mongols, and timurids to appear when YOU do?
    Playing on a different timescale and never get to see the new world or just wanting to change your timescale?
    Click here to read the solution
    Annoyed at laggy battles? Check this thread out for your performance needs
    Got low fps during siege battles in particular? This tutorial is for you
    Want to play M2TW as a Vanilla experience minus many annoying bugs? Get VanillaMod Visit the forum Readme
    Need improved and faster 2H animations? Download this! (included in VanillaMod 0.93)

  3. #3

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Beyond the free upkeep units, it takes a bit of time and fiddling around moving units in and out of cities, but it is possible to figure out if the added upkeep of an additional garrison unit is more or less than the additional income from raising taxes. There are other considerations of course like population growth, governor gaining good/bad traits etc. Maybe I will write more later.

    Edit: FH posted while I was typing. Didn't know about the AI advantage. Early game cash is so important for being able to build all the basic +pop, +$ buildings that I think it is worth it to keep taxes as high as possible at that stage so you can develop your cities properly. What good is being able to upgrade earlier to Minor City (or whatever) if you haven't even had the cash to build the basic farms, trade, etc.

    You will be conquering the AI anyway, right? Higher pop for them = more sacking $$ for you.
    Last edited by ReiseReise; 12-05-2007 at 17:07.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Senior Member Cheetah's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Hungary
    Posts
    2,085

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Depends on whether I need cash or not. If not then only the free upkeep garrison with low taxes, preferably with a high chiv governor (which favours city growth). If I need the money then I might raise the tax level till my citizens turn blue (but mostly up to yellow only), but not further, also if possible still do not have more than the free upkeep garrison.
    Lional of Cornwall
    proud member of the Round Table Knights
    ___________________________________
    Death before dishonour.

    "If you wish to weaken the enemy's sword, move first, fly in and cut!" - Ueshiba Morihei O-Sensei

  5. #5
    Lord of all Under-Thumb Member Jason X's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    London
    Posts
    152

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    low taxes till the city gets to huge, then bump up the taxes
    "Patriotism is the belief that your country is better than any other because you were born there"

  6. #6
    Beware! Relentless Looter! Member Flavius Merobaudes's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Posts
    232

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    AI settlements grow double the player's rate? But that would mean they would grow too fast, resulting in public order issues. I sometimes have problems myself with keeping up with population growth. From large city level on, building times are too long and I've got to lower taxes which will make them "exponentiate" even faster.

  7. #7
    Relentless Bughunter Senior Member FactionHeir's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    London, UK
    Posts
    8,115

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Yes they do, and the AI has no problems with it because of some hardcoded script that bumps up their PO whenever it falls low, up to a certain threshold (around 80% or so). This is why you notice a huge AI city with a maxed out spy inside and 0% own religion can have 25% PO one turn and 90% after 2 turns with no building added and at times even smaller garrison (and no governor).
    Want gunpowder, mongols, and timurids to appear when YOU do?
    Playing on a different timescale and never get to see the new world or just wanting to change your timescale?
    Click here to read the solution
    Annoyed at laggy battles? Check this thread out for your performance needs
    Got low fps during siege battles in particular? This tutorial is for you
    Want to play M2TW as a Vanilla experience minus many annoying bugs? Get VanillaMod Visit the forum Readme
    Need improved and faster 2H animations? Download this! (included in VanillaMod 0.93)

  8. #8
    king of my kingdom Member DVX BELLORVM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    On the battlefields across known world
    Posts
    337

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Depends wether I need more money, or higher level cities, but generally speaking I usually keep only free upkeep garrison (unless it is a frontier settlement), and adjust my taxes to keep the happiness around 100%.

    Quote Originally Posted by FactionHeir
    Note the AI's settlements grow at double your rate,
    That certainly explains why my town militia fights against the AI's DFKs

  9. #9
    Prince Louis of France (KotF) Member Ramses II CP's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    3,701

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    It's too situation specific for a good general rule to hold up. There are some regions that I accelerate to a huge city by keeping taxes down (Antioch, Atnwerp, Stockholm, etc.), and there are some where I'd rather have them stay small longer (Arguin, Jedda, etc.) so I push the population to always be at 80% happiness.


  10. #10
    Member Member WhiskeyGhost's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Gulf Coast
    Posts
    330

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    If only the AI would build an infrastructure to go with the double growth rate, they might actually have some sort of an economy (rather then the "Cheat" based one. You know what im talking about, like how a single province faction can field 5 full stacks without losing money )


    "Don't mind me, i happen the have the Insane trait....." -Me

  11. #11
    Guardian of the Fleet Senior Member Shahed's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Leading the formation!
    Posts
    7,918

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Almost always low taxes, unless war emergency funding required.
    Encourages growth and chivalric governors.
    If you remember me from M:TW days add me on Steam, do mention your org name.

    http://www.steamcommunity.com/id/__shak

  12. #12

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Usually normal taxes because my economy is built up enough to the point where I don't need outrageously high taxes to make extra cash.

  13. #13
    Platinum Member Member Anonymous II's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Norway
    Posts
    142

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tristan de Castelreng
    What do you usually do ?

    Keep garrisons in your cities and raise taxes to the max or lower taxes and keep only a token garrison or even none ?

    I generally keep a large garrison with taxes on high or very high...
    Small empire (early game) = usually high taxes and chivalrous governor in the biggest towns.

    Big empire (from turn 40 and onwards) = low taxes. The economy is strong due to trade and looting of enemies' big cities - I don't need the money.

    Another thing is that my oldest cities probably are built up with happiness-buildings at this stage, so there are just small (and thus low-income towns anyway) and/or newly aquired towns that have trouble with low happiness. Thus normal taxes would be the lowest taxlevel in the developed cities.

  14. #14
    Ice stink there for a ham. Member Mystery Science Torture 3000 Champion, Mini Putt 3 Champion, Super Hacky Sack Champion, Pencak Champion, Sperm Wars Champion, Monkey Diving Champion Yoyoma1910's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Yarr me matey. I be livin on the high seas.
    Posts
    2,528

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Low taxes will often cause governors to gain negative taxing vices. If you have a governor, and you want him to gain chivalric virtues, using high as opposed to very high is often adequate.

    If your going to use low or normal, you may not want to have a Governor in the province. This also occurs alot in castles.

    My kingdom for a .

  15. #15

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    On high tax levels the governors might get dread, or lose chivalry (they even lose chivalry from the "fair/noble in rule" line on normal tax level, or when stationed in castles).

    Early in the game I tend to need a lot of cash right now, so I tend to set the taxes as high as I can get away with when using upkeep-free garrisons only. It´s the castles I try and get up to speed rather than the cities since early in the game the castle units are way superior to the city ones. I offset it by keeping a rather low castle/city ratio (one castle per four or five cities).

  16. #16

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Your governors lose chiv/gain dread when they complete a building, based on the tax rate and happiness. I don't remember the exact numbers and I am not going to look it up, but high taxes, 100+ happy = chiv; high taxes, low happy = dread; low taxes, 100+ happy = chiv but also bad taxman traits. Justice/judge traits also figure in their somewhere. There is a Trait Guide somewhere in this forum, look it up or unpack and read the files, you will gain so much knowledge it will change your life, like when I was age 12 (now 23; damn, almost half my life ago) and learned that websites were nothing more than text files.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    PS high taxes = high or very high.
    Last edited by ReiseReise; 12-07-2007 at 14:51.

  18. #18
    Merciless Mauler Member TheLastPrivate's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    South Korea
    Posts
    336

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    It's a LOT better to keep it at the lowest until it reaches huge city/citadel because not only low garrsion = low upkeep on garrison = more mobile forces, but more heads = more taxes. And having MORE to tax will always be better than stunting growth with tax rate. Also you tech fast = faster trade buildings and guild upgrades and better agents as well.

    Once it hits huge raise the tax so it benefits from the increased population more.

    I'm pretty sure somebody with an economics degree can present us with a graph showing the marginal benefits of tax rates according to population...


    Gae Ma Ki Byung:
    Possibly the earliest full-armored heavy cavalry in human history, deployed by the Goguryeo from the 3rd century A.D.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    The controversy however is do you need immediate income for early expansion, or can you afford to have lower profits now to benefit more later. And, what if stunting the growth of your 5 current provinces allows you to raise armies to take 5 more provinces? The "economics degree" would probably advise you to do a cost/benefit analysis. What the conclusion would be I cannot guess, the cost of endless wars vs having more provinces, etc.
    Last edited by ReiseReise; 12-07-2007 at 14:57.

  20. #20
    Lord of all Under-Thumb Member Jason X's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    London
    Posts
    152

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    if you're rushing, whack em up. if you're turtling, keep em low till you get to huge.

    if turtling, keeping taxes low is particularly important as russia, as your population is so low and you don't get to bump up chiv by (ab)using crusades.
    "Patriotism is the belief that your country is better than any other because you were born there"

  21. #21

    Default Re: Garrison/Low Taxes : What's best ?

    Doh, posted then answer my own question, this is edit.
    Last edited by ReiseReise; 12-07-2007 at 15:56.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Single Sign On provided by vBSSO