Taxes is global

[Tepok]

Sad news indeed.

In my PCJEUX (PC GARMER in france) something horrified me.

They said:

la gestion économique passe au second plan: les options sont rares et on ne peut même pas définir un niveau de taxation différent pour chaque région

Translated as "economy becomes secondary: options are rare and we can't even have a different taxation level for each region".

Literally, "total war" is becoming "war only".

What I like in TW games are, of course, the battles. But "total war means that the whole country/empire is completely dedicated to war", not that "only war exists". Becoming bankrupt was a rare occurance, but you still had to be careful.

If economy is simplified, then it is kind of sad. But to make the taxation system global? Come on! Regions with high unrest and low populations need to have little to no taxes. That's common TW sense...

I want Total War. I don't want civilisations and it's kind of complexity, but I don't want a game for one digit IQ. It is supposed to be an overall war game.

Basically, what I read in the article was that the game was dumbed down in every aspect but war. And that is sad.

Still, I'll probably buy it because it's the only game with this battle system (apart from "King Arthur, the role playing strategy game" [long title isn't it?] but it isn't that balanced) but if some similar games come out, CA, beware. Dumbing it down will make you loose money, because strategy games aren't games for no-brainers. These guys want fast paced games, TW isn't, and that's why we like it. We think before acting.

 

[snuggans]

well, perhaps you're allowed to exempt a certain region from tax if they are really rowdy, like in ETW and NTW.

 

[Fev]

That was the same with ETW and NTW, and I felt those were way more complex than M2TW.

 

[MeenChawitTH]

Too simplified, DIS IS BAD.
ETW's and NTW's is so darn easy already, they even had an auto-manage

Horrifying indeed.

 

[Mithiras]

I agree with the OP, the NTW and ETW tax system is waaaaay too simplified. I can understand in those games cause there was just so many provinces. But this is Japan. One nation/country. I think we can handle the tax system on our own. I hate that CA thinks that most of their players are of lesser intelligence to do this. Hell, the first shogun you had to wait EACH year for your currency so you needed to be careful about overspending. Now, trade wasn't involved in that game, so it is a bit different than now, but still. SINGLE REGION TAXATION! NOT GLOBAL!

 

[Alpha TWC]

is not so dramatic ... even better. in other games prior to ETW, at some point many provinces and each manage their own taxes became boring and repetitive .... the usual thing, lower order, low tax, etc.

The NTW and ETW system is fine, and relies heavily on trade for revenue, not only the taxes(and this is positive). For the rebellious provinces the "no tax" option should be just fine. All things change very little compared to before, even better to say: nothing really

In fact, the overall system of taxes takes away a little in the others TW before ETW, and rather addresses the repeatable of certain actions.

In TWS2 there is trade in raw materials, etc.., and is visible in the bottom panel of diplomacy.

simplifications (which are not always negative) are just good in action too repetitive, just like taxes in previous TW. is no great loss.

 

[Greve Af Göteborg]

Well it becomes more challenging as it forces you to either lower all your taxes or get no income from that region.

I accept this change as it makes the gameplay more difficult.

 

[Magefsx]

IMO ETW/NTW > RTW/M2TW. Makes more sense for that period , being a smaller country and all that (As people would figure out pretty sharpish that their next door neighbour is getting charged half the tax that they are).

 

[Alpha TWC]

Well it becomes more challenging as it forces you to either lower all your taxes or get no income from that region.

I accept this change as it makes the gameplay more difficult.

Indeed.

In fact, the overall tax system toggle practically nothing at first, do the same things, but avoids the usual boredom, the usual Repeatable and you also have the overall situation in all provinces.
moreover, increases the challenge a bit, which is good

Then I don't know if it was so logical before ETW, the most loyal provinces pay more taxes (good loyalty bonus for loyal population ...? gratitude? LoL ). A bit more logical it seems to me: everyone pays the same amount of tax, the newly conquered provinces do not pay taxes temporarily (at your option)

local taxes is fine even in the medieval period, but the global taxes are fine in TWS2.

 

[MoleMania]

Well it becomes more challenging as it forces you to either lower all your taxes or get no income from that region.

I accept this change as it makes the gameplay more difficult.

Agreed. In the older games, if a region was slightly unhappy I simply lowered the tax there and was done with it. Now it's more of an all-or-nothing situation, as you said, do we sacrifice the regions income or lower all taxes?

 

[Beggar]

Out of interest, what else was mentioned in the article that you considered dumbing down?

 

[Sol Invictus]

I have no problem with the tax system of ETW/NTW. The individual tax rates for each region did get a bit boring after the player controlled a large empire in RTW. As long as we can exempt newly conquered regions in order to gently bring them into the fold I will be happy.

 

[Tepok]

Out of interest, what else was mentioned in the article that you considered dumbing down?

I forgot the magazine at work (yes, I was posting there, so what ) but there was this sentence too, that said: "Everything is made easy: taxes income, diplomacy (that stays the same [he meant by that: Not evolving]), and economy in general"

 

[MoleMania]

Well that ain't good about the diplomacy. That definitely was something I felt was lacking in Empire and Napoleon. Can't say I'm surprised though.

 

[Alpha TWC]

is not correct that there are no innovations or improvements, and we see even in the recent video: exchange hostages is new, marriage and (from NTW) request to the clan to break relations, trade agreements

if I may say one thing, diplomacy before ETW was inconsistent and that's true. Solved this problem, and maybe it is true that there are other discrepancies, however, noted that many do not know how to use diplomacy well, many claim that the IA acceptance without providing decent counterparts, however from ETW the peace offer after having destroyed the enemy 's army, AI accepted and others improvements.

By order of the options seen in the recent video, Shogun 2 have:

- Request trade agreement
- Request alliance
- Become protectore
- Declare war
- Request join war
- Demand trade embargo
- Demand break of alliance
- Military access
- Payments (tribute or one-off payment, offer o demand payments)
- Exchange hostage
- Arrange marriage

in the bottom of panel, a list of "trade goods" of the clan

the old options "offer" and "constrain", etc.

does not seem bad

 

[totalwar-zone]

is not correct that there are no innovations or improvements, and we see even in the recent video: exchange hostages is new, marriage and (from NTW) request to the clan to break relations, trade agreements

if I may say one thing, diplomacy before ETW was inconsistent and that's true. Solved this problem, and maybe it is true that there are other discrepancies, however, noted that many do not know how to use diplomacy well, many claim that the IA acceptance without providing decent counterparts, however from ETW the peace offer after having destroyed the enemy 's army, AI accepted and others improvements.

By order of the options seen in the recent video, Shogun 2 have:

- Request trade agreement
- Request alliance
- Become protectore
- Declare war
- Request join war
- Demand trade embargo
- Demand break of alliance
- Military access
- Payments (tribute or one-off payment)
- Exchange hostage
- Arrange marriage

does not seem bad

- Demand break of alliance
- Request join war

Are you sure? ( i dont look my own videos)

And what is with made peace or made peace with other faction?

Edit: Yes, trade goods stand in the last preview. For example: You must have horses to can build difficult cavalry. I like this feature (and other ones) from Civilization in the New TW.

 

[Alpha TWC]

- Demand break of alliance
- Request join war

Are you sure? ( i dont look my own videos)

And what is with made peace or made peace with other faction?

Edit: Yes, trade goods stand in the last preview. For example: You must have horses to can build difficult cavalry. I like this feature (and other ones) from Civilization in the New TW.

I'm sure, you can see in 720p http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg9wDNzy6M0&feature=player_embedded at 1.22

make peace is certainly shogun 2, the clan is neutral in the video with us, and therefore does not make sense to put the "demand peace"

If we use diplomacy with an enemy clan, instead of "request alliance" there is "demand peace" , like old TW (Broke alliance option apperar only if we are allies, etc).

We demand broke alliance, but not with us, but with other third clan. in other words, we are clan x and we ask to the clan y to break the alliance with the clan z

 

[totalwar-zone]

Ok, thx. +rep

But shame on you, wrong link.

Spoiler

 

[CoconutFred]

If we use diplomacy with an enemy clan, instead of "request alliance" there is "demand peace" , like old TW (Broke alliance option apperar only if we are allies, etc).

We demand broke alliance, but not with us, but with other third clan. in other words, we are clan x and we ask to the clan y to break the alliance with the clan z

So you're saying that using the 'break alliance' option demands a clan to break their alliance with another clan, not your own clan? Interesting stuff.

And agreed with the OP. Taxes are way too simplified even when considering the time period. And imo, exempting 1 region from taxes completely is worse than simply lowering the taxes.

 

[MaximiIian]

I never bothered with the tax systems in the Total War games, so this doesn't bother me much at all. I just used the money cheat and that solved all of my problems.

 

[CoconutFred]

ETW had a money cheat?

 

[Grimreapo]

As I said in the other thread, I think that being to tax you nation per region makes the game way too easy (Tax the happy, untax the mad) and historically I'm willing to say that it was impossible for the central govement to have the amount of control that you did in the TW games before E:TW. The game is set in FEUDAL Japan, so as long as the governor system is worked out then it should be the case of sending the right man to the right job and do something remotely realistic than playing around with sliders...

And CA is dumbing down on this? Hardly, one has to remeber that even a game with a complex economy like Victoria II only has a national tax scale...

 

[Sir Winston Churchill]

That is sad to here. I was really hoping we'd go back to taxing by region, or at least have the option for it so we could still appease those people (a.k.a teenie-bopers who are completely inept) who can't manage region-by-region taxes.

 

[Greve Af Göteborg]

That is sad to here. I was really hoping we'd go back to taxing by region, or at least have the option for it so we could still appease those people (a.k.a teenie-bopers who are completely inept) who can't manage region-by-region taxes.

The new tax system is actually more challenging and forces you to make difficult decisions.
So the old system was actually the newbie-friendly one.

 

[The Vengur]

taxes weren't very important during this age in japans history, most income came from farming and horse sales.

 

[Gigan]

So you're saying that using the 'break alliance' option demands a clan to break their alliance with another clan, not your own clan? Interesting stuff.

And agreed with the OP. Taxes are way too simplified even when considering the time period. And imo, exempting 1 region from taxes completely is worse than simply lowering the taxes.

The break alliance with another faction option is not new, it was in NTW.

 

[MaximiIian]

ETW had a money cheat?

if I know. Never played ETW.
I played STW, MTW, a little bit of RTW, and MTW2. They had a money cheat, albeit different mechanics for each game system. MTW2's actually had some challenge with it, since it only gave 40k at a time, whereas STW and MTW shelled out a million on the spot.

 

[empr guy]

the money cheat is what makes a TW game completly unworth playing.

and they might as well scrap this new engine if they cant change things like this ridiculous taxing system (completly unrealistic, simplified as much as possible [i hope they dont take it out completly in the next title ] , and rather useless as a tool to try and rule an actual country), the dumb one on one 'hollywood' style duels that ruin melee, and the new style of towns that the AI will sacrifice its armies so it can raid one of your farms.

of course the game can still turn out good, but i dont see how dumbing down the game itself and focusing almost exclusivly on graphics upgrades can make the game any better then the more moddable and better overall previous titles.

 

[MeenChawitTH]

I hope we can just also do "request make peace with".

 

[Grimreapo]

No, being able to tax by region during this age is stupid and lets look at why the region thing is stupid by reason:
"Oh heck, King William's taxes are killing us, why does he tax us like this? Must be a punishment from god!"
"Funny you should talk about that, I was talking to the traveling merchant and it seem like those folks in Yorkshire only pay a quarter of what we do!"
"But why? We have been nothing but loyal and have accepted our new Norman overlords unlike those up by York, those rebel bastards."
"But thats why you see because we are loyal the king think we are not a threat he think he can tax us as much as he wants but because of the recent troubles up by Yorkshire he has to lower taxes so they dont rebel no more."
"Wait a second... We all hate paying taxes, so what if we rebelled?"
"But why? The King has been nothing but good to us..."
"Why should we pay higher taxes for being good? We should rebel and not be forced to pay such high taxes like those Yorkshiremen, why be loyal when the traitors are rewarded with less taxes?"
"..."
*Essex rebels*

Oh and let us take a quick reminder how how Feudralism works:

Back then the King/Lord would assign someone to look after some land in return for a tithe, how much that tithe was depend on the person in charge of that bit of land, if the person was talented and loyal it would be alot but if the person was dishonest it would be little. Its pretty obvious that S2 is not a Feudralism sim but I want titles and governors to matter reducing the Micromanagement the player must do (Note: This is all what the old tax system was little more than changing sliders) but rather using the characters under his command.