Taxes in 1.1 Beta, big problem

I do want to emphasize that I really appreciate the 1.1 changes overall though. I can't wait to experience the better AI in terms of faster ships (and I've already noticed the changes in how it evaluates tech value). Of course, I would of gotten further along with this sort of thing if I hadn't spent a couple hours messing around with vastly and impressively improved ship designer. Kudos on all that.

This thread is just meant as constructive criticism. Hopefully it is interpreted as such.

I interpret this post as a mathamatics professor/graduate student hopped up on speed, red bull, and crack cocaine, who was locked in a room with galactic civilizations and a TI-83 calculator. Geeze dude, if I read derivative one more time, I will shoot something....

Can I suggest you post this in the 1.1 Beta Glitch Report stickied at the top of the page.... or we'll be drowning in glitches!

you still need some high pop worlds for influence and invasion fleets, but it does seem like things are a bit wonky right now with income from taxes.

Also early Expansion is freaking painfull right now since you have to somehow grow the population fast enough to keep up with even a modest colonisation schedual,

On population, I just beat the new Beta AI (max AI w/o cheating) ONLY because I had high populations. Recheck ur numbers plz, or post ur equation, cuz high population is ABSOLUTELY necessary, I had money to buy 2-3 discovery spheres a turn and get a tech win , despite getting totally beat down by the new AI

*If you need some sort of justification. I wouldn't be suprised if this is how it worked in the real world, but I don't have proof off-hand.

Larger populations allow for greater specialization in addition to economies of scale, but once you move beyond a relatively small population (a few thousand people) the gains are minimal. In any case, I can't think of a single real-life reason why tax revenue would be equal to the square root of the population. Unless you're going to say that a very small population is able to almost completely utilize the productive potential of a planet's resources (making the other people just take up space) then there's not much of a real life justification for it.

Even if you don't take the opportuniy cost of squares lost to farms and entertainment into account, the higher tax rate that you can sustain with a smaller population might make a smaller population more profitable in all cases, depending on how much the tax rate affects morale in the 1.1 version.

I interpret this post as a mathamatics professor/graduate student hopped up on speed, red bull, and crack cocaine, who was locked in a room with galactic civilizations and a TI-83 calculator. Geeze dude, if I read derivative one more time, I will shoot something....

What is the deal here? If you don't like complex analysis of the economy that's fine, but you ought to realize that the system is complex and the only reason the game works the way it does is because of the underlying complexity of the models. The OP wasn't branching off into some theoretical construct, he was just looking at the system as it currently exists and commenting on some things that don't seem right.

I appreciate what he's done, and for you to come out and call him a drugged up mathematics grad student locked in a room with a Ti-83 is completely unnecessary. Besides, any self-respecting math grad student wouldn't be caught dead with a Ti-83. Everybody knows the Ti-84 is more than 50% more powerful and looks cooler too. And crack? That is so 1980's.

On population, I just beat the new Beta AI (max AI w/o cheating) ONLY because I had high populations.

That proves nothing. Do you know what your revenue would have been if you had been building stock markets instead of farms and entertainment? If not, then you're not really in a position to say that your higher population was better than the pure economy approach.

I did a little simulation in excel based on what I heard about the new tax system and it seems that the ideal number of farms has been slightly lowered on very good worlds but didn't changed that much on normal worlds. Before the patch was a balanced mix the best solution. Now seems it that 3-4 farms is the best even on very good worlds, this is caused by the deminishing returns of farms. Having good dedicated cash cow worlds is still worth it, they can still produce gigantic sums of money. But you now need to build more stock exhanges and less farms.


Excell results:
http://www.imagehost.nl/view.php?file=images/htY83996.jpg

Is three entertainment centers enough to overcome the morale penalty of having 29 billion people? And if so, by how much could you increase your tax rate if you just had the entertainment centers without the additional population?

Having more than 25 billion people gives an 80% morale penalty, instead of 9% from having 5 billion people. According to the Wiki, you could raise your tax rate from 33% to 60% and still have a 15% morale advantage based on the population difference. The morale penalty increases sharply if your tax rates are already high, but even if you can only get a 10% tax rate increase from that morale you still end up with a significant income advantage once the stock markets have been added into the equation using the space that you saved on farms.

More realistically, it looks like the question is to have one farm or none, unless you've got a people-farming world for invasions or supporting colonies.

I don't know about you guys, but I try to place a farm on every single 10+ size planet. It has nothing to do with profit maximization, but having a population of around 13B/planet is a great way to ward off invasions. I can not afford to defend every planet with a decent fleet and so invasions do happen. Large populations are a great way to thwart them:)

But keeping on topic, I entirely agree with the OP. I see no reason to base tax rates on a sq rt formula.

Economically, it's much better to have the stock exchange versus a farm. Before it was a question of percentages, basically it was a question of whether or not the added population of a farm compared to the existing population would be more than however many percent that your econ building gives. Basically you end up with planets with 3-4 farms, and as many econ buildings as you can fit on the planet after the necessary morale buildings.

Now though, the income is a square root of the population. For those who fear math, here's an example you don't need a calculator for: Square root of 25 is 5, square root of 36 is 6. Basically, if you manage to get 9 more people you would only get 1 more credit. To get one more credit, you need to get 13 more people for a total of 49. This is probably one of the worse forms of diminishing returns in existance. Because of this, realistically you would NEVER want to use a farm, it's just not efficient to do so. The ONLY case where it would be beneficial to do so, would be if you had one of those +300% farm tiles on a large world.

Now, having said that, it's still better to have at least 1 farm on most of your worlds 7 size and above purely for the population and it's benefits to influence and defense. It also gives you a reserve to draw from for troops to invade people. So, now that we have established that most worlds will have 13 billion people (5 from initial colony, 8 from intensive farm), there is absolutely no reason to put one more farm on there. More farms = more morale buildings because of lower base morale, and the returns would be much less than before. Instead, you could fill all those slots with econ buildings for a much more benefit.

The result? The current taxation system have basically turned the large econ world formula from 3-4 farms, 6-8 morale buildings, the rest econ buildings, into 1 farm, 2 morale building, the rest econ building. This is the most beneficial in terms of the amount of money this world will make. As a side effect of this, it is so much easier to keep people happy, you can tax 69% without much worry. So grabbing a morale resource or two and you're completely set to conquer the galaxy.


In conclusion:

Does it make sense? no, certainly not to me. My first thought was that the people are evading taxes and are hard to catch on high population worlds. Of course, I'm immediately reminded by the game summary that SAYS the people listed on a world is the people who pay taxes. The only thing that I can think of to explain this is that the planetary government is taking basically all of the money from you (so they can build roads and homes or w/e for all those people, I guess).

Do I like it? no, before, making econ world was a skill in balancing farms, morale, and economic buildings. Even though I definitely knew a formula, there was still always adjustments that needs to be done everytime population reaches a new level. Now, I just put them all down, in order, like a planetary queue at the moment I colonize the planet. I NEVER have to look at it again, unless I have a ton of extra cash (that it probably made for me) to go in and buy it a ton of upgrades. Some might argue that this is a good thing, and I won't disagree, but it does make the whole "design and build your planet" part of the game way too simple for my taste.

Can I deal with it? Oh yeah, hell, I even told you guys how to make a ton of cash really fast in this post alone. The point is not that making money is harder, it just changes how you go about making money. It's a switch away from farms and morale buildings to more economic buildings. I don't really mind less influence, I'm getting annoyed that I keep conquering everyone culturally without an influence starbase anyways (which might actually be a good thing).


What else? This is just a beta, Brad already mentioned that he's already planning alternative methods to handle this because he doesn't really like it very much either in one of the journal replies. Having said this, I don't think we need to complain much more. Right now, it's a beta, I already told you how to make a ton of money if you still choose to play it as it is. IMO, it's not THAT big of a problem. However, if it seems so to you, then simply revert your game to pre-beta and wait for the full version. You did make a back-up right?

I agree that going beyond a single farm (on atleast PQ 8+ worlds as I wouldn't bother raising pop on less than that) is rather inneficient, unless your playstyle relies on obscene population numbers -- I can't think of any, though.

Even before the patch, this is what I did: 1 farm on PQ8+ worlds, and 1 entertainment center. IF I had a farm on any world, then I definately loaded up on stock exchanges. Now, since 1.1, it makes more sense to do this than before.

Once you lay down stock exchanges is when you can start raking in the cash from a high taxrate, due to their moral advantages. But before that, I find I can make more cash per week by selling techs to the AI, so I invest heavilly in research labs at first.

I've found that one entertainment center and 1 or 2 stock markets will support a 17 population with a 59% tax setting quite easily and not drop below the 45% popularity rating. Works for me and I get great income and a lot less chance of losing my planet because my population is only 5. In multiplayer I would roll over your planets so fast you wouldn't know what hit yah with low poplations like you have.

This is probably one of the worse forms of diminishing returns in existance.

No

Airlines and Hollywood are. Airlines because of how they are currently being run, and Hollywood because of "Hollywood Accounting"

Is three entertainment centers enough to overcome the morale penalty of having 29 billion people?

yes it can be enough.

You have 3 stock markets who each produce 10% morale = 30% morale
You have 3 entertainment buildings who each produce 30% morale = 90% morale
This already gives you +120% morale and you also get additional morale bonuses from: the morale related techs, resources, certain trade goods/wonders, maybe racial and party bonuses and certain events can also influence morale. In the pre stock markets era can it be harder but once you have them do you get a huge amount of extra morale. Economy buildings are high on my priority list so I get them fast anyway.

And if so, by how much could you increase your tax rate if you just had the entertainment centers without the additional population? Having more than 25 billion people gives an 80% morale penalty, instead of 9% from having 5 billion people. According to the Wiki, you could raise your tax rate from 33% to 60% and still have a 15% morale advantage based on the population difference. The morale penalty increases sharply if your tax rates are already high, but even if you can only get a 10% tax rate increase from that morale you still end up with a significant income advantage once the stock markets have been added into the equation using the space that you saved on farms. More realistically, it looks like the question is to have one farm or none, unless you've got a people-farming world for invasions or supporting colonies.

They reduced the effect taxes has on morale in the patch until we know how it works can't we aswer those questions, we shall have to wait and see Thought I do agree that the diminishing effect of population seems to go very fast(having more then 2 farms seems to be unwise on pre planet class 15 worlds) . But even a small increase in planetary base economic output(can only be generated by population) gives a gigantic amount of extra money if the planet has a lot of economy bonuses. Stock exchanges, economic capital, techs, racial abilities and resources can all give economic bonuses resulting in very high total bonuses.

Cool, thanks for the reply. Great work on the spreadsheet, by the way.

Going over things again it seems I was a bit off in my original calculation. It seems one farm is good on a planet with 10 or more squares free for its economy, and you should only have two farms if you are devoting 15 squares to your economy. 3 farms aren't wise unless you have upwards of 20 or so devoted to your economy (meaning 20 squares that only have entertainment centers, farms, or economic buildings). I plan on going over my calculations a few more times (but the above takes into account the happiness bonus from econ centers).

This would probably indicate that you should never put a farm on your homeworld; it simply isn't worth the extra effort to keep the people happy along with the needs for factories, etc. Indeed, you probably shouldn't have a farm unless your planet has 15 free squares and two farms are out unless you have 20. So farms should be very rare for economic purposes.

I work out some figures that take into account the rapidly diminishing returns from happiness buildings. Certainly at 20 billion people you need a bonus of 102% to have the same morale as a 5 billion people planet, and slightly more than two entertainment centers on the 20 billion people planet for each entertainment center on the smaller one. So that can rapidly eat up land area (faster than the above perhaps on bigger planets, making more than one farm less desirable). Of course a morale resource can help to offset this. I should also work out some numbers to calculate the tax difference between different planetary setups. The point is the higher your tax rate, the more entertainment buildings you need on bigger worlds grows faster than on smaller---bigger in the sense of population.

Even given my apparent mistake (I blame it on weariness last night), farms do seem to be far less desirable than they should be. With diminished growth rates you aren't going to see much benefit from a farm in the early game either.

I find that my economy is thoroughly in the black before even I build a single market center or farm.

Also I find that on abundant/abundant/abundant, those planets are ABUNDANT!! Economy starbases are where it's at.

Something maybe out of whack in the beta. I just had a game where I had around 6000 bc a turn over-run. I couldn't spend it qucik enough... i'd go to 5-6 planets per turn and buy stuff....

I think taxes / prices / rates of expendature need more tweeking.... With anomolies in the early game you can really build your infrastructure up way too fast.

Pop is good to have for a lot of reasons besides taxes ... generating troop transports and defending against invasions for starters. For that reason alone, I'd do some farms. For a PQ7-14, I'd probably do farm + 2 entertainment, then stack available squares with money buildings, PQ15+ maybe 2 farms + 4 entertainment, then money buildings. For the one or maybe two ocash planets you need.

In multiplayer I would roll over your planets so fast you wouldn't know what hit yah with low poplations like you have.

Sure, just let me know how to play mulitplayer and we'll just see! Oh yeah, there's isn't any... darn... well, until then, you'll just have to put your E-penis away.

In multiplayer I would roll over your planets so fast you wouldn't know what hit yah with low poplations like you have.

Depending on how big a difference in monetary incomes we had you might never get the change. I haven't worked out the numbers, but a higher income means you can spend a lot more on maintaining your military. Give me a huge military and you won't get a transport with a support fleet close enough to any of my planets to invade--the low populations won't matter. If I choose growth bonuses then I won't be hurt by building transports much to boot, so I'll have plenty of people to invade other worlds.

Anyhow, my main point is that with the situation as it is, farm bonus squares are not very useful (and I usually put non-farms on them). This is unfortunate and I believe there needs to be incentives to have a high population on a planet beyond warding off an invasion you couldn't stop--afterall, if you can't stop the invasion, then it doesn't matter too much how many people you have, they'll bring along enough people to take the planet.

It seems to be there is good reason for base taxes to have a better than linear progression as population grows. You encourage planetary growth over expansion that way for one, and you add value to farms and more strategy is involved in planning out a city. There's also a bit more involved in keeping people happy, as larger populations require more per person than smaller ones, and the larger ones have more say when an election rolls around--so a 45% happiness rating is too low, to say nothing of losing the production bonus in such a city.

As it is, population has almost no meaning beyond invasion, defense, and happiness. It is totally unrelated to your research efforts and your production, and has a very diminished value as far as taxes go. People should matter more than this, imho.