Visual Guide on Taxes in ETW Campaigns What is best?

[superdave31]

So, I seen in a guide once that if you reduce taxes on the middle class in campaign that it will improve your economy long term. It would do this by increasing population growth. Well I am putting it to the test on Great Britain. Interesting results I must say. Let me know what you think.

[poa]

i think that is a flawed way of thinking. i keep it at low to get towns/ports to spawn, but once that is down the more i can cram out of the region the merrier, because it will fund my expansion, and my expansion pays better than any long term gradual tax increase can compete with

[superdave31]

Poa yes I do agree with you. Mostly what I am talking is early game to start. I agree once towns are built then need to keep taxes lower isn't needed. Well, unless public order is bad but even then.

Yeah auto resolve sucks.

[xcorps]

So, I seen in a guide once that if you reduce taxes on the middle class in campaign that it will improve your economy long term. It would do this by increasing population growth. Well I am putting it to the test on Great Britain. Interesting results I must say. Let me know what you think.

If you want to set up an improved economy for the late game you want to lower taxes on Nobility. This reduces the tax penalty on +per turn.

Increasing pop growth won't generate any revenue, except through the new town emergence. Once a region no longer has any towns to grow, population growth is completely meaningless. Your revenue is not affected at all by population. Depending on the region, lower taxes without a decent food supply may only make a couple of turns difference. It might require that you build a bunch of farms and possibly fisheries if you have +40 turns to the next town emergence, like in South America. It's possible that you will not be able to grow new towns with any taxes on the town. New town emergence is absolutely important, but so is +per turn. In the late game it's not unreasonable to hit +125 per turn in the wealthier regions. That kind of growth requires Enlightenment though, and once you've gone through the entire Society tree to hit that growth chances are you've grown all but a few of your towns and you can raise taxes to whatever level you like on the non-nobility to provide better base income.

But trade is still the way to go if you want a strong economy. The per turn growth to trade routes can make a huge difference. Controlled expansion so that you aren't at continual war throughout the 1720's through the 1750's will make you unstoppable. In my current Spain campaign it's 1731 and my net income is 17k per turn. At 1720 it was about 4k per turn. I haven't created any new armies since then, and I'm only at war with Austria and Genoa at the moment. England still exists, but they're relegated to Algeria and two of the 13 colonies. Other than that, I'm not hostile with anyone but the Natives in North America. By the time 1750 rolls around I expect my net income to be 50k per turn. I'll be researching the upgrades for industry and will have the Enlightenment techs mostly finished. New Spain will be a powerhouse, and I currently have all but 4 of the trade nodes. I could fund 4 more army stacks and probably a couple of Naval stacks as well but I'm currently dumping all my per turn revenue into upgrading towns and repairing the Navy I'm using to pound Austria's attempts at disrupting trade. That alone is worth 3-4k every 5 turns from selling prizes which pays for the Navy.

I don't play to rush the objectives though, I play to build. YMMV.

[superdave31]

Well I did not realize that about reducing taxes on nobility in the late game. So, thanks for that info. Almost sounds very Trump like lol.

Your Spain campaign is sounding like a good one. That is the only nation that I have only done a campaign for under 3 times.

[Akarios]

Actually, yes - population growth does affect income in a region, though in a very disconnected way. As the population grows, the income from subsistence farming goes up, improving wealth growth in the region, thus providing more money through your tax rate. However, this is a VERY slow process and as you concluded, you're way better off with trade and conquest, though any mods which make it harder to hold a region will require an ever larger army as you expand, so there a limit there too.

[Akarios]

ETW uses a very simplistic tax system. Lower class (working class in Absolute and Republic type governments, middle class for constitutional monarchies) taxes affect population growth (and long term the region wealth growth through increases in subsistence farming). Upper class taxes (Nobility or Middle classes depending on government) affect region wealth growth. Try not to draw too many parallels between ETW and real world tax system. If anybody tried running a nation the way we can in ETW, that person would be killed due to rebellion very quickly.

[superdave31]

Well I hope Trump is reading this then lol.