60% tax rate??? too easy income.

[nakago]

okay so I am still on my prussian campaign, which i found pretty easy. N/N level, with script diff set to -1


i now have all of asutria regions and just took Poland for lithuania. i now have 9 regions
and most of them (espceally my homeregions are taxing at 50-60% this is only with policy ticker at medium level, so i get 20000K tax income in brandonburg alone.

i got this high tax rate due to regional trait saying i got 15 or 20% bonus or something.


i know the main point of APE:TI is that you don't have ..loades of money so you have to CHOOSE what to build , well with my 9 regions i get 60K tax and 45 K in trade ( i only took 1 trading spot in each theater, 10 ships each)
I CAN build anything building i want, no need to choose. i can spam 3-4 schools and still make 50 k in profit every turn, i can make as much army as i want within pool limit, i don't not have to CHOOSE anything. this is not really what APE:TI advertised.

is this because prussia is just a damn easy faction or something wrong with the tax rate bonous, (which is riduculously high)

[boche]

okay so I am still on my prussian campaign, which i found pretty easy. N/N level, with script diff set to -1


i now have all of asutria regions and just took Poland for lithuania. i now have 9 regions
and most of them (espceally my homeregions are taxing at 50-60% this is only with policy ticker at medium level, so i get 20000K tax income in brandonburg alone.

i got this high tax rate due to regional trait saying i got 15 or 20% bonus or something.


i know the main point of APE:TI is that you don't have ..loades of money so you have to CHOOSE what to build , well with my 9 regions i get 60K tax and 45 K in trade ( i only took 1 trading spot in each theater, 10 ships each)
I CAN build anything building i want, no need to choose. i can spam 3-4 schools and still make 50 k in profit every turn, i can make as much army as i want within pool limit, i don't not have to CHOOSE anything. this is not really what APE:TI advertised.

is this because prussia is just a damn easy faction or something wrong with the tax rate bonous, (which is riduculously high)

there is still some problem with late campaign balancing, maybe you should try and edit the stratpos and add some millions to your enemies, spanish comunity testing shows countrys like austria or ottomans spamming 12 full stacks on 1 border i think that should be more of a challenge!

hopefully the late campaign will be balanced when the AOR system is finished

[nakago]

there is still some problem with late campaign balancing, maybe you should try and edit the stratpos and add some millions to your enemies, spanish comunity testing shows countrys like austria or ottomans spamming 12 full stacks on 1 border i think that should be more of a challenge!

hopefully the late campaign will be balanced when the AOR system is finished

oh this is not late campaign. I am only on 1827... is that considered late now?

[alpaca]

oh this is not late campaign. I am only on 1827... is that considered late now?

With the game starting in 1700 and ending in 1800 yes, pretty late.

However, I admit to have underestimated the cumulative effect of town wealth growth when doing the building balancing. It works fine up to 1720 or so but can then get a bit out of proportion. We won't address the issue in a patch before 1.1 though because it takes a lot of time to do this properly and not overcompensate again in the other direction.

[boche]

With the game starting in 1700 and ending in 1800 yes, pretty late.

However, I admit to have underestimated the cumulative effect of town wealth growth when doing the building balancing. It works fine up to 1720 or so but can then get a bit out of proportion. We won't address the issue in a patch before 1.1 though because it takes a lot of time to do this properly and not overcompensate again in the other direction.

but i suppose one day it will be adressed right?

[alpaca]

but i suppose one day it will be adressed right?

Yes, with the release of 1.1 hopefully, but that's still quite a while in the future

[boche]

Yes, with the release of 1.1 hopefully, but that's still quite a while in the future

fair enough is the 1.1 the AOR patch aswell¿

[l33tl4m3r]

fair enough is the 1.1 the AOR patch aswell¿

It's not really a patch -- it's almost an entirely new game.

But yes, v1.1 will be with the new AOR.

[nakago]

With the game starting in 1700 and ending in 1800 yes, pretty late.

However, I admit to have underestimated the cumulative effect of town wealth growth when doing the building balancing. It works fine up to 1720 or so but can then get a bit out of proportion. We won't address the issue in a patch before 1.1 though because it takes a lot of time to do this properly and not overcompensate again in the other direction.

LOL i meant


1729, not 1829.... lol... yeah only 29 years . since beginning of of campaign.

[alpaca]

LOL i meant


1729, not 1829.... lol... yeah only 29 years . since beginning of of campaign.

I'd say mid-game but the balancing can be off already. The problem is I balanced the buildings to have a return of investment within 20-30 turns. However, those buildings that add town wealth growth continue to follow a parabolic function which means they get pretty absurd.

If you're interested in how I want to fix that, I'm currently thinking about handling town wealth growth with a regional trait and make it saturate after some number of turns.

[Indus_Valley]

How about the Naval Academy etc. building modifiers ? As I remember they give big % increases to trade income. I don't know what the % increase actually means, but it sounds like it could have a lot to do with those big incomes when you have just a couple of nodes. Then there are ministers giving huge bonuses for trade too.

[nakago]

I'd say mid-game but the balancing can be off already. The problem is I balanced the buildings to have a return of investment within 20-30 turns. However, those buildings that add town wealth growth continue to follow a parabolic function which means they get pretty absurd.

If you're interested in how I want to fix that, I'm currently thinking about handling town wealth growth with a regional trait and make it saturate after some number of turns.

well it wouldn't be so bad if the tax rate is not that high, example Brandonburg is at a town wealth of 25000, but the regional tax bonus (you get that popup saying your region gets + xxx% in tax) which is usually +20% to the already default 35-40% so you get like 60% tax off of that 25000. (which is 15000 tax income just in 1 region!!!) all my other regions gets 50% or above due to this tax% bonus. that is not realistic anyways, you cannot tax your people 60% and expect no revolt. how about remove the regional tax bonus to start?
=====
trading is not my major source of income, and i can set a house rule like no more than 5 trade ships etc. but this tax bonus thing is really out of hand. this destroys APE:TI's very purpose as stated in the manual, which is you have to choose which building to build , you have to choose what tech to research since your resource is limited.

well with this huge tax income i get (+50K every turn at 1725, off of 8 regions) I defintely DO not need to choose what to build and what to research.... i guess i can set the script difficult to -2 and then up campaign diff to H or VH...

[alpaca]

The tax rate isn't the problem, really, as things can be scaled pretty much arbitrarily. It's so high because the tax sliders shouldn't have such a huge effect on your tax income in my opinion. So I scripted a higher base tax rate that depends on population. Since units and buildings are a good deal more expensive in the mod 50k is a lot less than in vanilla. This was also done to decrease the importance of trade income when compared to tax income.

Anyways, if you want to try any quick fixes you're welcome to get your hands dirty. I won't address this for now, but I assure you that I will do so in the next version.

Edit: Also keep in mind that normal campaign difficulty is not meant to be very challenging to good players. The difference for the player economy in the difficulty settings in APE:TI is more noticeable than in vanilla so try switching to very hard. Makes the early game a lot harder, though.

[nakago]

Anyways, if you want to try any quick fixes you're welcome to get your hands dirty. I won't address this for now, but I assure you that I will do so in the next version.
----------------------------------
haha, that's okay i will leave the tinkering to you experts, will just wait for the next version!


Edit: Also keep in mind that normal campaign difficulty is not meant to be very challenging to good players. The difference for the player economy in the difficulty settings in APE:TI is more noticeable than in vanilla so try switching to very hard. Makes the early game a lot harder, though.

LOL i guess I should consider my self a good player now, i switched my script diff to -2 and gave my self handicaps like not recruiting anymore elite troops and fighting with no generals. I know it is hard to compensate for mid-late game, but yet still not make early game impossible... this is a problem that plague all strategy games like Civ. etc etc. early game is interesting, mid - late game becomes cookie cutters (you build all buildings, your army and gold and tech are 10 folds of your opponents.

[Santini]

Would it be possible via script to simulate the rampant corruption that is the hallmark of far flung empires? 9 regions isn't too large, and it's clear that he's only been diplomatically lucky/skilled, but I think that going beyond x number of regions should result in an exponential decline in taxes.

Just an idea.

[alpaca]

Would it be possible via script to simulate the rampant corruption that is the hallmark of far flung empires? 9 regions isn't too large, and it's clear that he's only been diplomatically lucky/skilled, but I think that going beyond x number of regions should result in an exponential decline in taxes.

Just an idea.

Depends on the 9 regions we're talking about. If they are France, Rome, Spain, England, Austria, Constantinople, Hindustan, Moscow and Carnatica, it's pretty damn too large for my taste. This is just an example to highlight how the number of provinces you own is actually not a good way to determine administration problems. You cannot aim to have a realistic simulation of unrest for empires I think - all you can get is some counter-balancing game piece. To be honest, I'd rather not have administration cost at all than base it on the number of regions because large empires with poor regions already have disadvantages over small nations with wealthy regions because defending them is more difficult.

[userstupidname]

well i am playing as sweden, even with all my core regions i am making over 10.000 easily and its just about year 1704-06

My capital have 100 in town wealth, all i did was get all my money into economic structures in the beginning :/

[l33tl4m3r]

well i am playing as sweden, even with all my core regions i am making over 10.000 easily and its just about year 1704-06

My capital have 100 in town wealth, all i did was get all my money into economic structures in the beginning :/

Yeah, it has already been noted and the tax rates, and many other things, will see rebalances in the future!

It is fairly easy to stockpile money in post-v1.4 because of the less aggressive AI as well. While making over 10k per turn are you sporting a school? The subtraction for upkeep on schools do not currently show so while you report 10k a turn, with a school it is closer to 5.5k a turn.

I'm lucky to never have a "too much" money problem until well into the 1740's.

[LdN]

In the year 1742 of my Portuguese campaign I draw in about 395k before schools, have all but 1 tech researched/bought and own 34 regions... I routinely give my allies, or those fighting my enemies, about 200k a turn total... I started making about 100k+ a turn by the year 1720 (I think)... Hooray for trading and only having one enemy at a time(better AI and loads of cash to buy peace)