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Thread: Economic System, explanations elusive?

  1. #61
    neep's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by OverLORDY View Post
    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.
    Well, they do help but the bonuses are typically percentages of existing trade/taxes - which doesn't help until you've got a bigger trade/tax base to work on.
    When I'm adding buildings to my city queues I'm assuming that I'll get the benefits 20-30 turns from now as my populations increase.

    When things are quiet across the empire I direct funds to those buildings., not expecting any immediate benefit.
    As long as you keep up with happiness and law buildings, as Alvaria noted you can get nice, big populations generating a lot of $$$

    Later, when wars break out the investment in buildings earlier on makes it easier to continue the fight against those pesky barbarians.

  2. #62

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by neep View Post
    Well, they do help but the bonuses are typically percentages of existing trade/taxes - which doesn't help until you've got a bigger trade/tax base to work on.
    I should note that despite how it looks, the building's bonus of taxable income bonus % is actually not linked to things like population.

    Each 1% of taxable income bonus % is worth 10/turn of income. It will be higher with a higher tax rate (ie: high: *1.2, while very high: *1.5) and the effect of a governor (*1.5 or *1.6)

    So if you had "taxable income bonus +10%" in total, that is 100/turn, or 150/turn on very high taxes, or 192/turn with a high taxes & regional governor.

    Note: This is for the total bonus across all buildings. If your total is actually negative, then it just give you nothing. The game will not lower your income if you are at -100% taxable income bonus%, or even -200% (which I have reached before).

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

    The way a tradable income bonus% works in buildings is a bit harder to get at, but as RS2 has pretty greatly reduced ability to get it, and in fact trade in general brings in a lot less (items trade value is reduced rather much) it isn't a really big deal. Though it is not bad if your homeland has lots of ports. (check if your market buildings give you trade bonus, if so, the settlement is homeland.... outside of that it will only give you taxable income bonus)
    Last edited by Alavaria; January 11, 2015 at 03:04 PM.

  3. #63

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    I think instead of buildings being useless with tax bonuses, a better alternative would be to make upkeep of units higher and increase income reduction script with each settlement gained, thus having farming and tax bonus buildings do something while preventing players from gaining too much money while also forcing them to develop their settlements. I mean, i love expended and complicated building trees but it just plain sucks when half of those buildings do nothing.

    Quote Originally Posted by neep View Post
    Well, they do help but the bonuses are typically percentages of existing trade/taxes - which doesn't help until you've got a bigger trade/tax base to work on.
    When I'm adding buildings to my city queues I'm assuming that I'll get the benefits 20-30 turns from now as my populations increase.

    When things are quiet across the empire I direct funds to those buildings., not expecting any immediate benefit.
    As long as you keep up with happiness and law buildings, as Alvaria noted you can get nice, big populations generating a lot of $$$

    Later, when wars break out the investment in buildings earlier on makes it easier to continue the fight against those pesky barbarians.
    It seems, they actually don't as these tax bonuses seem to be negated by maluses of other buidlings. Meaning there is literally no reason for us to build farms or river ports or else. It is going to be negated anyway.

  4. #64
    neep's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by OverLORDY View Post
    It seems, they actually don't as these tax bonuses seem to be negated by maluses of other buidlings. Meaning there is literally no reason for us to build farms or river ports or else. It is going to be negated anyway.
    You may actually be correct.

    I had read 'dvk's description of his revamp of the economic system and it seemed to make sense to me.
    From that, there does seem to be small benefits to building things.
    I routinely build things in my city (to both keep citizens happy and to increase trade & taxes) while the cities increase in size.
    I also try to grow my cities as large as a I can (but not too fast) while keeping them happy.

    Once the populations grow to a decent size, I do see that I'm getting a lot more money in my treasury.
    As Alavaria noted, population is the key generator of tax/trade income, and buildings help to keep things ticking along smoothly and provide small incremental monetary benefits.
    I've never actually tried to build an empire with minimal city buildings, so I can't compare the results. My fear with cities is that they will grow too large, too fast so I'm always trying to stay ahead of that problem by keeping them happy. I'm taking it on faith that building mercantile-related buildings will help in the long run.
    Maybe I've been wrong on that.

  5. #65

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    I'm not sure about the "tax" building tree specifically or how exactly it works, but as far as I'm aware the rest do all have a positive effect at least in your homeland areas. Not as much as the percentages indicate in the description, but that's still not nothing. You can always check what's really the case in the details window by seeing what changes when you queue or un-queue a building (that of course only checks how it interacts with the buildings you already have, not others which may also benefit from it but aren't yet there).

    Also, besides the building properties themselves, what is probably an even bigger economic effect concerns your governors. They have traits and ancillaries, of course, which depend pretty heavily on what there is in the city where your dedicated governor is hopefully just sitting and "collecting" them without moving anywhere. (You may get lazy alcoholics here if you don't move them at all, but try not to overdo it either way or generally go too crazy with any of your schemes.... unless you want to.) Anyway, if you don't want a bunch of lazy, perverted sociopaths sending your empire into ruin (although there will always be some), they better have a lot of good buildings to help them out. All sorts of buildings you might not expect are important for that. And those take a lot of time to make all over the place, so you had better keep building them if you're ever going to get there, not waste time/money on some of the temples that only decrease your rates and give a small and usually unnecessary happiness bonus. Things like squalor, tax rate, law/corruption, happiness, building costs (for the buildings you "really" want), etc., all together make a big difference in making the most out of your taxes, trade, mining and so forth. The effect is somewhat similar to just pushing a "give me more money" button by make a new wealth-generating whatsit like you had in vanilla RTW, but the mechanism behind it is a lot more complicated and takes a bit of long-term planning to do it properly. But the point is, having really great cities overall, with at least a bit of everything, is highly advisable over the long run, especially if you find yourself strapped for cash (which should never be a problem) or just want to raise enormous armies to squash everything in your path like a bug. You of course won't see big money from it the very next turn, but Rome was not built in a day.

  6. #66

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by neep View Post
    I've never actually tried to build an empire with minimal city buildings, so I can't compare the results. My fear with cities is that they will grow too large, too fast so I'm always trying to stay ahead of that problem by keeping them happy. I'm taking it on faith that building mercantile-related buildings will help in the long run.
    Maybe I've been wrong on that.
    I tend to have all settlements building non-stop from when I get them until -the end-.

    The real thing is that you want to get to your highest tax level, and then grow your city but being very very careful to not let the public order drop to the extent you have to decrease the tax level. Furthermore, if you may shift the capital, you also want to be able to handle that ideally without having to lower taxes.

    The general rule I follow is just that each 0.5% of growth will eventually lead to 5% of squalor (subject to the squalor cap, of course) and also check the garrison effect (which will probably be down to 0%). And then add however much to account for other things like spies or capital shifting (obviously if you are at max distance from capital it can't go up any more).

    This is most critical at high population numbers, as it can very rapidly increase the squalor and reduce your garrison effect. So beware of that. But once your city can maintain the tax level at the squalor cap and with 0% garrison, then just go all out. On 0-turn, the ability to get 9% growth (worth 27,000 population) from the population growth building is hilarious. You also get major growth and public order from the sewers line...
    Quote Originally Posted by Ovidius Empiricus View Post
    Also, besides the building properties themselves, what is probably an even bigger economic effect concerns your governors. They have traits and ancillaries, of course, which depend pretty heavily on what there is in the city where your dedicated governor is hopefully just sitting and "collecting" them without moving anywhere. (You may get lazy alcoholics here if you don't move them at all, but try not to overdo it either way or generally go too crazy with any of your schemes.... unless you want to.) Anyway, if you don't want a bunch of lazy, perverted sociopaths sending your empire into ruin (although there will always be some), they better have a lot of good buildings to help them out. All sorts of buildings you might not expect are important for that. And those take a lot of time to make all over the place, so you had better keep building them if you're ever going to get there, not waste time/money on some of the temples that only decrease your rates and give a small and usually unnecessary happiness bonus.
    Yes yes, this sounds very nice and stuff... and logical. But wait, the world of RS2 follows a ruleset we can actually just open up and check to verify.

    Have you checked the effects of the traits, and the triggers in the export_descr_character_traits (and the file for ancillaries)? You may be surprised.

    The biggest bonus is the "regional governor" which you get by sitting in a City (ie: Tier 3 government building). This alone means that High Taxes+Governor beats Very High Taxes (and no governor). For Romans, some very nice roman traits like Client Network or Estates (for patricians) grow mostly by sitting in a settlement.

    An Academy/Scriptorium has a lot of good stuff. But it also gives +law% which is very important anyway.


    Not to mention in the typical manner, one can of course also do a simple Very High Taxes, no governor system. Which I used when taking over world with Sparta. In the 80 or so turns, a lot of governors didn't even have time to accumulate the "Growing Economy" type traits. Which you get with a good faction leader and just sitting in a settlement yourself.


    Also, waiting for a governor to get a trait you want is ... yeah. Get a building for public order, you can control all that. As the sublime being controlling the faction you can directly do the building thing, governors traits/ancillaries in general mean you are handing control to an RNG, and the RNG really hates you. So don't give it that kind of power over your empire.

    Some traits are very predictable (or at least regular) and have actually decent benefits worth noting. Make use of these. There aren't many of them. Chasing a really minor benefit that triggers 1% of the time, if you have these really expensive buildings (which don't do much else because you are at -100% building tax bonus) .... er, I will pass, thanks. There has got to be a better use of the cash.
    Last edited by Alavaria; January 11, 2015 at 03:21 PM.

  7. #67

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Also, waiting for a governor to get a trait you want is ... yeah. Get a building for public order, you can control all that. As the sublime being controlling the faction you can directly do the building thing, governors traits/ancillaries in general mean you are handing control to an RNG, and the RNG really hates you. So don't give it that kind of power over your empire.
    There is no version of this mod without an RNG. You want there to be better chances of good stuff and worse chances of bad stuff. Increasing the probability (however slightly) for good things, by taking actions you get to control, is doing the reverse of what you're saying. You're not letting it all happen willy-nilly and just suffering the consequences, ignorant of what's really going on. You're actively using your powers as the ruler to turn the chances in your favor. I don't understand what there is in this to object to or be confused about.

    Some traits are very predictable (or at least regular) and have actually decent benefits worth noting. Make use of these. There aren't many of them. Chasing a really minor benefit that triggers 1% of the time, if you have these really expensive buildings (which don't do much else because you are at -100% building tax bonus) .... er, I will pass, thanks. There has got to be a better use of the cash.
    Many are five, ten, twenty-five percent, etc., and those chances add up for every turn in every province. Over the long term, in a big empire, you are bound to see the effects in action. I have no idea how I would be able to play a campaign where that wouldn't be the case -- not even "steamrolling" would be enough -- unless we start cheating and just practically giving me the entire map in one sitting. Besides, to me, it's much more satisfying to know that there are lots of little effects here and there of these buildings, instead of no effect whatsoever. Perhaps they're not so enormously important, and many things should of course take precedence over that at any given moment (like making sure you have a large enough army to defend yourself), so I can be fairly relaxed about the kinds of choices I make in every settlement when it comes to things like this. But choosing not to do any of it at all, especially while you're swimming in so much money that eventually it can't be used for anything else, is just pointless.

    And the most expensive buildings aren't the ones we're talking about here. These are wells, farms, fora, mines, trade expeditions, tax/trade temples, and so forth. Those all have effects, some of which are obvious and some of which are more behind-the-scenes. Just denying it, or trying to play it down or minimize it for some odd reason, isn't going to change that.

  8. #68

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Like I said, I'm usually building non-stop in every settlement right until the end, so it's hardly an issue of there being some tradeoff.

    RS2 isn't that hard economy wise. Though, apparently not for everyone.

  9. #69
    Marcus Rutilius Scipio's Avatar Foederatus
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    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Hmm, I read this whole article and started changing my construction and economical policies, so now I'm only building buildings that increase trade, increase population, and lower corruption. One problem though...I used to build all of these "useless" tax buildings when I played as Rome. I started playing as Rome again with your strategy. So, when I build tax buildings only, I used to get 100-150 thousand denarii per turn. After reading this article and building non-tax buildings...well, I'm getting only 20-30 thousand denarii. Did I do something wrong? It's true that my cities aren't as developed as they were yet, but I don't think that would make that huge of a difference? Also, I looked at some statistics, and I've got strange numbers: Carthago with 12 thousand people gives only 1,100 denarii, while Hadrementum (I spelled it wrong probably) has 2 thousand people and gives 1,200 denarii. This doesn't make sense to me. The only difference is that Hadrementum has a slightly better Governor. However, i checked his traits, and there was nothing that gives him that high of a tax bonus. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

  10. #70

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Marcus Rutilius Scipio View Post
    Also, I looked at some statistics, and I've got strange numbers: Carthago with 12 thousand people gives only 1,100 denarii, while Hadrementum (I spelled it wrong probably) has 2 thousand people and gives 1,200 denarii. This doesn't make sense to me. The only difference is that Hadrementum has a slightly better Governor. However, i checked his traits, and there was nothing that gives him that high of a tax bonus. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?
    Yeah, when a settlement builds the tier 3+ government building (ie: at 6000, 12000 and 24000 population) you get a massive -50% tax income bonus on it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Marcus Rutilius Scipio View Post
    I started playing as Rome again with your strategy. So, when I build tax buildings only, I used to get 100-150 thousand denarii per turn. After reading this article and building non-tax buildings...well, I'm getting only 20-30 thousand denarii. Did I do something wrong? It's true that my cities aren't as developed as they were yet, but I don't think that would make that huge of a difference?
    You're going to have to be more specific than that.

    The Rome faction is unlike most factions in that all the settlements in Italy start with a significant boost. Almost every other faction only has one or two settlements like that.
    Last edited by Alavaria; September 03, 2015 at 05:46 PM.

  11. #71
    Marcus Rutilius Scipio's Avatar Foederatus
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    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Oh, I get it now. The thing is...all of my provinces are at least cities (tier 3+ government buildings), while in my other campaign I tried to keep the population as low as possible, so Squalor wouldn't increase. No wonder those small northern Italy villages give so much money. And to be honest, I do have a larger army right now then back then, so that's another factor. Finally, my generals and family members are pretty bad governors in my current campaign. So I'm guessing these 3 reasons would make up for the loss. Thanks for responding, Alavaria. I knew that the government buildings had -% tax income, but I never wondered how much. Also, would you recommend keeping the provinces with lower population because of that -% tax income or would you recommend increasing the population for the base tax?

  12. #72

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Usually you can't really keep them that small... there's no harm in trying but almost inevitably they'll grow too high in population and then the higher tier buildings will be needed just to hold it.

    Also, in settlement far from capital, the corruption is just massive.

    Also, if you're looking at the "income" the game puts on the map, that's not very useful due to the way the game calculates it.

  13. #73
    Marcus Rutilius Scipio's Avatar Foederatus
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    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Okay, got you. Thanks again, Alavaria. Will use your advices from now on. I'm sure they'll prove to be useful.

  14. #74

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    What would be interesting is a 1-turn campaign (eg: I donno, Capua) which focuses on population control.

    Or a 0-turn (like Sparta, heh) which tries to max out populations. I was going to do this but I won really fast so...

  15. #75

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Wonder if anyone has tested so see if the cap on Squalor effects on growth is in our current version of RTW: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...?37586-Squalor

    Squalor can get you up to -25% growth, however in a 0-turn game, some settlements can actually go past this, and presumably the population will then grow geometrically, leading to instane tax income

  16. #76

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Alavaria View Post
    I forgot to mention, besides 1. Law (reduces corruption)...
    2: Increasing public order makes settlements more profitable by
    A. allowing you to use the minimum garrison (1 unit of the cheapest skirmishers)

    I consider this cheating

    Local population, especially in newly conquered areas will not be intimidated by the cheapest levies.

    In real life was - those cheap levies wold not only not intimated them and prevent thoughts about rebellion, but quite opposite, you will look weak.

    Also, since they are low disciplined, they will most likely decrease public order and happiness by plundering, raping etc locals.

    Also, save from your home regions, you could not raise levies for guard duties in newly conquered lands ( even in your home region you will need some decent looking militiamen force, not peasant archers or acontistai..), but you sent professionals there until situation calms down, and than again you can use some miltia..but again, not the cheapest one, which were raised as cannon fodder in the times of war and not to be meant to be troops on permanent duty.
    Tribal Total War

  17. #77

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by 4th Regiment View Post
    I consider this cheating
    I'm explaining the way the game works; I don't really care.

    Quote Originally Posted by 4th Regiment View Post
    Local population, especially in newly conquered areas will not be intimidated by the cheapest levies.
    But they're brainwashed by all the temples is what happens. The way public order depends on garrison means you only really need to avoid... having no garrison.

    Yeah they're not intimidated, the garrison effect is 0. So?

    Quote Originally Posted by 4th Regiment View Post
    In real life was - those cheap levies wold not only not intimated them and prevent thoughts about rebellion, but quite opposite, you will look weak.

    Also, since they are low disciplined, they will most likely decrease public order and happiness by plundering, raping etc locals.
    Also what you're describing is represented ingame as the -15% Public Order penalty for "No Garrison". Too bad the world of RTW-BI.exe only cares that there's -a- garrison. In fact I frequently use things like a unit of 2/243 hoplites as the garrison.


    Also too bad you can't just literally murder everyone and just move your own citizens huh, the Real Life Romans had us up on that one.
    Last edited by Alavaria; September 19, 2015 at 08:24 AM.

  18. #78

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    No hard feelings, I just said how I like to play ..to mimic real life.

    So, no peasant archers as garrison troops...I use some decent looking semiprofessional, militia force..

    I know it is harder, more expansive...but it was like that ..and make game more challenging
    Tribal Total War

  19. #79

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    This thread is a Game Mechanics discussion, see: Title.

    If you want to talk about real life and all your own little rules do it in another thread. People will be confused, and it's bad enough already when they look here for answers about how the game works.

  20. #80

    Default Re: Economic System, explanations elusive?

    But they're brainwashed by all the temples is what happens. The way public order depends on garrison means you only really need to avoid... having no garrison.

    Yeah they're not intimidated, the garrison effect is 0. So?
    It's probably worth mentioning that it's apparently only a function of population. If the population is very large, a max garrison of 243x19 units (+1 slot for a governor, since that's the most important factor by far) is not going to have a big effect on public order. It makes some sense that the ratio is merely ~4600 soldiers (max) compared to whatever the population is, and of course that's not going to be a very realistic or useful garrison that would have a mixture of different types of troops (i.e., not all large infantry units). I don't remember exact figures anymore when I tried it out a long time ago, since I don't make a point of having stacks like that to play around with, but it'll only account for maybe 20% in a huge city that has just managed to reach 24k. I don't remember the maximum garrison bonus either, when the population is small enough. Anyway, if you've got something like 50k people there, you might not even get 5% out of the garrison. It very well can be 0%. It's as if they're not even there, so there's no reason to bother unless you need them to defend or to discourage attackers (or of course for the sake of realism).

    Of course, all of those units come with upkeep costs, so you're much better off financially if you just construct some buildings which increase law, happiness or health. That's why they are there.

    ... I mean, I see people doing "let's play" videos, and they don't build things constantly in every city! It's preposterous. Or they don't seem to have a plan at all, pay attention to what their governors are like or if there even is one. They generally don't seem to understand the whole point of campaign-map mode, which is not just moving your armies from one battle to another and making more armies to move.... Then you wonder why your economy is terrible. Gah....

    Anyway, depending on the units in question (if they're elite enough to count as "disciplined" soldiers for you, which wouldn't actually imply they're nice people who get along with the civilians) then even having daily games/races could be a cheaper option. I mean, just do the math: the upkeep for Celtic Heavy Spearmen (certainly not the most expensive option) looks like it's 581 per turn. 581x19 = 11,039 game-bucks. Never mind upkeep for governors, because they're indispensable no matter what. I don't think I need to point out that that's a ridiculous amount of money you'd be spending simply to have sufficient public order in one city, if the max effect were big enough which it is not. That's why you don't do it that way. When you could recruit the super-cheap 240-man militia units in BI (forgot their name: the really terrible ones that carried a pitchfork or whatever), that was something I could do if I was in a real pinch, in addition to constructing ASAP, though I'd still avoid it whenever possible. But definitely not in this mod, with reasonably expensive units that would actually make sense in a real army. Which I think is a good thing.

    In fact I frequently use things like a unit of 2/243 hoplites as the garrison.
    That's slightly risky, you know. You're not playing with fire, but you are playing with earthquakes, volcanoes and plagues. You're testing the gods!

    Regarding population growth generally, I always try to keep it positive. It generally grows a little too fast for my taste, but I still don't like to see any of those nasty red icons anywhere. Wells/hospitals/etc. are generally some of the first things I build because they have such a big (and relatively inexpensive) effect on public order. Notice that you get entertainment icons AND heart icons, plus there are more people to tax. The same kind of reasoning is why any sort of law building is near the top of the list: you're increasing order, reducing corruption, and especially with schools you're improving your governor as well. In any case, growth for me is always pretty fast. I apparently don't have exactly the same construction or recruitment priorities as Alavaria, but whatever I'm doing doesn't stop me from being filthy rich in any campaign I play. If anything, I just get more rich as things continue to grow and expand, so I can dump more and more money into long construction queues and extra armies that I don't really need.

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