Economic System, explanations elusive?

[dvk901]

I wonder if people would find an economy guide useful, there sure are a lot of interesting features in the RS2 system...



Sort of, but I don't have the cash to repair settlements, which frequently I don't actually bother trying to stabilize after taking them. This results in a bunch of settlements rioting and possibly even rebelling (and being re-capped) which naturally leads to damaged governor's buildings.

I only just noticed it happened in Syrakousai (because the Royal Palace gives +15% law, others give maybe +10% law). A chance to double-save (save on repairs, potentially make more income).


There is a way to code so as to prevent this, of course, but it is less obvious to the player. You make an undamageable building (the cultural building) have the penalties dependant on the level of governor's building.

Would you be willing to provide one? That would be nice.

[Alavaria]

People seem to do just fine ... at least "this is too hard" or "I am confused" posts are fairly rare.

That and I imagine everything would still have to be explained per person again. Guide or not.


One wonders how many people never check Settlement Details to see if their "Developed Industry X" building actually gives more tax income, or if "Temple Y" actually reduces their tax income. Or perhaps they assume the effects are via script. Though that's clearly not the case.

[Alavaria]

Here's another interesting tidbit for everyone to see:

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType greek_cities
and Treasury > 280000
console_command add_money greek_cities, -40000
console_command add_money greek_cities, -40000
end_monitor
monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType greek_cities
and Treasury > 200000
console_command add_money greek_cities, -40000
end_monitor

What does this mean?

If you have 200,000 cash at TurnStart, you'll have 200,000 (barring the expansion control which is separate, and actually checked AFTER this one)
If you have 200,001 cash at TurnStart, you'll have 160,001


Furthermore, having 160,001 and 280,001 at turn start has the same effects, which means if you suspect you're going to push past 200k at TurnStart, you can basically train a bunch of troops and not worry about their upkeep, they might be saving you money!!

This is only if your income less wages and upkeep is too massive. You should also make a habit of storing/investing your excess cash, and not letting it sit in your faction's treasury. Keep everything building, and if you're still sitting on extra, save it by queuing up buildings. I like to queue up stuff that I would build next, though certainly I think you can store your money by queuing up expensive buildings (never letting them actually be built in any way) and then cancelling construction.

---------------------------

Now, let's pull up the background script for a specific campaign. I am running Sparta, so look for that script in the Play_sparta folder. Search for "console_command add_money greek_cities"

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;CAP MONEY - TURN START
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType greek_cities
and Treasury > 280000
console_command add_money greek_cities, -40000
console_command add_money greek_cities, -40000
end_monitor
monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType greek_cities
and Treasury > 200000
console_command add_money greek_cities, -40000
end_monitor


AND THEN

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;CAP MONEY - TURN END
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;


monitor_event FactionTurnEnd FactionType greek_cities
and Treasury > 80000
console_command add_money greek_cities, -20000
end_monitor

As a result, as long as my Treasury sheet estimates my starting balance will be a decent amount below 200,000, I should be good. If I'm sitting at 0 in my treasury and my treasury sheet still thinks I will be over 200,000 then I should be spamming more stacks, if only to have the men moving towards the front and their inevitable death in battle...

Let's experiment, ok? So here's endturn, what will you expect my starting balance to be next turn?

Spoiler for Answer: 

If you said somewhere around 170k, you were right

You will notice that the pre-button push estimated 232k, while the actual was different... it might be due to the way the game handles you losing settlements and therefore not getting tax for them or something

In the example above, you can see that the game will "try" to add about 143,000 to my treasury, but I will get whacked with penalties. So, if I hold my armies steady, I can probably raise my income by 40,000 more or so, and as long as I keep my treasury near 0 when I End Turn, I will not get hit by any of these penalties.


Alternatively, if I "stored" 50k, holding 40k, then:
TurnEnd: Below 80k, no penalty
Add 143K.... at 183K
TurnStart: Below 200k, no penalty

Just storing 50K has saved me a loss of 60K, and I can take that cash out of storage, meaning my Treasury will have 110K more with this one weird trick.

[Doge Almighty]

I've no idea what you have just said but its was one pretty solid, gud read. Enjoyed it ;3

Edit: twc plz

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Alavaria again.

[Alavaria]

The "income penalties" in RS2II have specific triggers. (Having >80000 at TurnEnd, and having >200000 or >280000 at TurnStart).

As always, the more you know, the better you can make use of your limited resources, instead of having the script just eat them...

[ur-Lord Tedric]

It's just the Money Cap - having too much money (just as in RL) would simply result in (hyper-) inflation - the Money Cap is just a simple way of coping with that.

[Grimbold]

So i read the first page of this thread and, according to you Alavaria, after the changes to the economic system, the player should put a greater focus on public order / law buildings? That and the higher levels of buildings with economic benefits have no significant impact on your income?

Are those the main conclusions or am i just confused?

[Alavaria]

So i read the first page of this thread and, according to you Alavaria, after the changes to the economic system, the player should put a greater focus on public order / law buildings? That and the higher levels of buildings with economic benefits have no significant impact on your income?

Are those the main conclusions or am i just confused?

Check in a bunch of your settlements (especially large and huge cities outside your homeland). Buildings with Taxable Income Bonus % frequently do not increase your income. Generally, this is caused by a combination of (Governor's building has fairly large negative tax bonus) and (buildings to maintain public order also dig the hole deeper).

Public order -> Increase tax rate
Law -> Reduces corruption
Mining and Trade are ok as well.


In some cases, the AI has built (or started with) super developed settlements. This does imply if you are spending 300 turns building you can probably... probably get there too. Mind you I have 120 settlements endlessly building, so it isn't as though I'm not constantly cramming cash there.

Additionally, if you get the governor's building damaged, it will turn off all effects penalties from that building, if for some reason you feel like damaging the Imperial Palaces. (Royal palaces outside my homeland have -110% tax bonus)


Still, losing 160,000 every turn to the script is pretty hilarious. Which I imagine happens to some number of people.


For Roman campaigns, I think you have multiple settlements which have large tax bonuses--check the "Roman Cultural Building" I think. (other factions have their big bonuses in only one or two towns), so you would treat those as being highly developed (other factions will look for their Treasury building)

[Alavaria]

It's just the Money Cap - having too much money (just as in RL) would simply result in (hyper-) inflation - the Money Cap is just a simple way of coping with that.

To the extent that the income etc is related to production, not really. You can easily imagine a case in which we produce a lot and hardly mint any currency, in which case you will encounter deflation. But this isn't about printing fiat currency, I think the unit of money in RSII is a form of silver coin? Though the Spartans are supposedly using bars of iron.

(Story-wise, instead of "monetary grade gold" or whatever, they trade/hold wealth in "weapons grade iron". Though they do use some sort of IOQ promisory notes).

(Story-wise, actually a lot of tax is not collected, as settlements are allotted budgets for construction, which actually mean that their tax payments to Sparte are reduced.) Though the game of course implies a ton of gold is going from one end of the empire to the capital and then going back to be spent...

----

You can avoid the script's effects to a fairly large degree (This is with a 115-120 region empire with only 7 stacks of really low tier troops, and I can still avoid all the "inflation") if you play smart.

Real-world proponents of large-scale government deficit spending should note that the spartan empire runs a balanced budget... the investments are not reallythe best but it isn't as though I could lend it to someone... as they'd probably be at war with me and then I'd have to exterminate them. Something about Persian gold

[Grimbold]

Check in a bunch of your settlements (especially large and huge cities outside your homeland). Buildings with Taxable Income Bonus % frequently do not increase your income. Generally, this is caused by a combination of (Governor's building has fairly large negative tax bonus) and (buildings to maintain public order also dig the hole deeper).

Public order -> Increase tax rate
Law -> Reduces corruption
Mining and Trade are ok as well.

Wait a second, if public order buildings both diminish the income and increase it by greater tax rate, what at point do such types of buildings generate a positive effect?

[Alavaria]

Wait a second, if public order buildings both diminish the income and increase it by greater tax rate, what at point do such types of buildings generate a positive effect?

The trick is they don't actually reduce your income... because taxable income bonus is not the same as your increase in tax rate. You see, this is what gets people.

THIS is what taxable income bonus % means:
10% of "taxable income bonus%" ==> Add 100 to taxes at normal tax rate.

However, there is a low bound, you cannot go to like -100% and be at 0 tax income.

So if I'm at 1000taxes, and have hit this lowerbound (say I am at -50%), putting on another -20% does nothing. But I can increase my tax rate to High, letting me get 1200 taxes.


Basically it's like this:
TAX= ( amount due to population + amount due to taxable income bonus ) * ( tax rate multiplier) * (governor multiplier)

amount due to taxable income bonus has a lower bound. If you accumulated -1000% taxable income bonus, your tax will not go below the amount due to population.

amount due to population is like 1000 at 6k population up to something like 1500k at 24000 population or something.

But I can increase the tax rate (Low -> Normal -> High -> Very High)/

[Alavaria]

Let me provide a concrete example: Massalia in my Sparta campaign. This is what it might look like:

Tax: 1000
Corruption: 200
Public order: 85%
Tax Rate: Normal
Taxable Income Bonus %: -60%

This is about right, the governor's house gives -110% Taxable income bonus, the AI has build some stuff etc.


I now build some temples of law, giving me +10% law, with a penalty of -20% taxable income bonus

Tax: 1000
Corruption: 140
Public order: 95%
Tax Rate: Normal
Taxable Income Bonus %: -80%

So you see the corrption has gone down. But now I can increase the tax rate, so

Tax: 1200
Corruption: 160
Public order: 75%
Tax Rate: High
Taxable Income Bonus %: -80%

So I went from (1000-200) to (1200-160)


Alternatively, if I built industry to add 20% taxable income bonus:

Tax: 1000
Corruption: 200
Public order: 85%
Tax Rate: Normal
Taxable Income Bonus %: -40%

... yep


The critical part of the RTW engine that it is important to note is that: 1. it sums all your taxable income bonus% together, and 2. it does not penalize your tax income past a certain point. Going from -50% to -1000% does not hurt you.

Sparte has a treasury giving me 1400%, so yeah, I will take a hit there. Massalia which is at a net of -60%, less so.

Note also that Corruption will massively eat away at your gains in some settlements (it seems to take a fraction, up to maximum of half, of all settlement income) so don't laugh at it.... it depends on distance to capital and law.



A simple test you can go in game:
1. Open settlement details
2. Look at your tax income under settlement details
3. Queue up a bunch of temples, wells etc (a lot of negative taxable income bonus %)
4. Does the game say your tax income will fall?

Pick a frontier settlement. In many cases, even building a minimum of temples (to just be able to hold the settlement) as well as penalties from the governor's house will put you into like -100% or even worse (like Carthago is -150% or something). Building 160% worth of industry is pretty hard, you'd be better off just slamming law and getting High/Very High taxes.


-----
Carthago Nova, sitting at -100% taxable income tax bonus. You can try... to build, remember also that you will also need to add more public order as the population grows!!



Sweet -110% of taxable income bonus%. Note that it does at least give 15% law.







If I went to Very High taxes, I would push my tax income from 1065 to 1331

I could also potentially reduce my corruption, gaining me up to 601 more


Alternatively I could try to build 100% of taxable income bonus buildings, and as population grew, end up lowering tax rate, or having to build happiness buildings... yeah, not as neat. 6000 population is 20% squalor, so if it grows to 24000population, that's another 60% of public order to deal with. Currently Carthago Nova will indeed grow to 24000 population.


It is different if you've been building for 300 turns in the settlement next door to your capital.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

The question is, what determines the base tax? Is it just a straightforward pop based equation?

Yes, afaik it is.

[Alavaria]

The question is, what determines the base tax? Is it just a straightforward pop based equation?

Just population.

So as far as "tax income" (eg: the entry on the financial page) goes, you can still get more tax despite having like -1000% taxable income bonus% if you increase

• population (small effect, I consider 6-12k to be ideal)
• tax rate (probably what you have in mind when upgrading your buildings. Very High if you can, but High with a governor)
• governor (you will probably go from Very High to High taxes, but worth it)

[Guedes]

So, i decided to replay my old rtw gold edition that i found these days oh my drawer and looked out for some mods that would give me some different gameplay specially on the campaign part of the game, since i am an economic fanatic (i have masters degree on economics actually).

I found this mod, played a few times than came here for some economic explanations.

Thing is, the new economic system of this mod seems complex, but in the end it is as simple and shallow as the rtw vanilla really.

As someone pointed out already, the +tax buildings are worthless, and i dont know why they even exist since they give so little in return compared to their costs (and a majority of them gives huge happy penalties too). Also, there shouldn't exist any tax penalty on the happy/health/prettymucheverythingelsebesides+tax buildings too since the penalties seems to cap at some very low %. So, the thing is, just build +health +happy buildings just enough to keep your populations happy and tax the * out of them (try to keep the tax at very high in every settlement), since the tax penalty wont matter anyways after the second or third building.


Now, about population growth; the +9% pop growth buildings are OP and shouldn't exist (and the other 2 that gives 3% and 6% too, or they should cost much more). Theres no reason why the player shouldn't buy this ones in every settlement possible since + population means + tax and money, the squalor penalty to happiness wont really matter since theres is so many cheap +happy buildings available anyways, and they are too cheap compared to farms. Population growth buildings should cost a lot in this game.

If you combo this buildings with the +health ones you can have some cities with some extremely bs high populations which can give you crazy amounts of money just in taxes. This shouldn't happen unless in really high population centers like Carthage, Alexandria and Rome really.

The rest are just cost saving measures that any smart player would do even in the vanilla version, like try to minimize unnecessary army upkeep, reduce corruption, unrest, etc.

Last but not least, the trading buildings are not worth too in the beginning of the game, however, i noticed a trend of increasing trade revenue as the game progresses and because of that, the +trade building became worth in the long run. Anyways, the player shouldn't buy a lot of building in this mod.

Now, the good thing is that the economic/military focus thing is REALLY nice and have some really nice potential BUT, as thing are now, they are useless too. Theres no reason to go for economic focus, in fact, theres little reason why to focus anyways in the majority of settlement, but if the player wants, he should always go for the military one, since the economic buildings as explained before dont give you anything.

Anyways, besides all that, the mod is good specially on the military/factions part of the game and, as shallow as the economics are, i understand that must be some extremely hard work to mod the economic system because of the dumb AI and idiot economics of the vanilla version of the game. So, nice job anyways

Thing is, as shallow as the economic system of this game is, what people (specially historians) dont like to admit is that before mercantilism shines, pretty much a major part of the human economic system (with some rare exceptions), since prehistoric times, was based, directly or indirectly, on military expansion and PLUNDER. Even in the roman empire heydays that some historians like to attribute some type of complex economic system, it didnt really exist at all; the trade routes with the east weren't that big really (it was too dangerous to travel those days, so the commerce was incipient with outside the empire borders) and only one or two goods were really high commercialized within the empire (like wine), the mine industry only exist because of the military force too (forge weapons to the military and coins to, guess what, pay the military). 90% of the populations was just inserted in a subsistence economic model. Roman empire was a military superpower, not an economic one, just look at its end, the tribal invasors were economic superpowers? No, they didint had any economies at all, they just invaded, conquered and plundered and thats it. Romans were defeated by them because they didnt had the military might of the heydays (because of cultural decadence, political turbulence and other factors that weakened their military force) and were fighting with mercenary forces. If we were to make a comparitive with nowadays, its would be like the USA being conquered by some starving and malnourished somali pirates because for some reason the usa military force was in shatters.

So yeah, in the end, the shallow economic system in rtw is somewhat historic.

P.s.: sorry for the occasional misspelling and english erros, english is not my native language.

[Alavaria]

Fortunately massively taxing people is fine as long as you have enough temples for them. Taxing them at max, forever is perfectly sustainable.

I think only Romans get the rebellion script, which doesn't have anything to do with happiness or whatever.


Ironically, over time your corruption etc will go down as you build more buildings that give law.

Now, about population growth; the +9% pop growth buildings are OP and shouldn't exist (and the other 2 that gives 3% and 6% too, or they should cost much more). Theres no reason why the player shouldn't buy this ones in every settlement possible since + population means + tax and money, the squalor penalty to happiness wont really matter since theres is so many cheap +happy buildings available anyways, and they are too cheap compared to farms. Population growth buildings should cost a lot in this game.

If you combo this buildings with the +health ones you can have some cities with some extremely bs high populations which can give you crazy amounts of money just in taxes. This shouldn't happen unless in really high population centers like Carthage, Alexandria and Rome really.

Yeah, any settlement can hit Huge City.

Though in some settlements which get say 6% or more growth due to grain, you can REALLY go nuts with the population. At least once you have the settlement's public order stable at 100% squalor, go wild since the population can't cause any more public order penalties to you.

[Grimbold]

So, summarizing, spam buildings that increase growth, public order and law, because more population = higher taxes = more money.

[Guedes]

So, summarizing, spam buildings that increase growth, public order and law, because more population = higher taxes = more money.

Generally yes. I've noticed that some settlements produce more income on mining and trade (dunno why, i think when there is gold in the province it gives more income for mines, same with some tradeable goods impact on trade income), so in this settlements may be worth to build trade or mining facilities (specially mines, in one of my settlements the first mine build gave me 500 bucks per turn instead of the basic 300 of the others, which is quite a good deal).

[neep]

Generally yes. I've noticed that some settlements produce more income on mining and trade (dunno why, i think when there is gold in the province it gives more income for mines, same with some tradeable goods impact on trade income), so in this settlements may be worth to build trade or mining facilities (specially mines, in one of my settlements the first mine build gave me 500 bucks per turn instead of the basic 300 of the others, which is quite a good deal).

Trade is dynamically calculated each turn, changing as better markets are available. Plus, some cities just seem to have better trading networks (likely due to the resources they have available and the connections they can make to other, big cities).
Also, don't forget that your Governor's traits and ancillary's can also raise more mining income.

[OverLORDY]

I kinda feel betrayed. All this time i thought all those buildings were doing something, that at later levels, bonuses would increase and get me a profit. I just realized i have been wasting money left and right, trying to develop cities.

So overpopulation is the only thing that nets money. Well, thanks Alavaria for your explanations and research. Guess i am going to go and turn my cities into overpopulated slums now.