Possible solution to closed borders : lower PP cost for taxes

[Butan]

Price, discounts, loom level, prosperity : the PP cost is fine (even though there should be an option to "reset" individual parts of them, and not the whole fief all the time)


Taxes PP price is a bit high (5 PP per -/+ 1% ), but anyway you dont even care about modifying it for multiple reasons.


I detail my point here:

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If you are a fief owner, you basically have three options about taxes :

- you dont change it (5%) or even lower it (to 0% or even less, if you want to reward trade, but its rare), and you OPEN YOUR BORDERS = congratulations, you are a selfless moron good person, but you will not have a lot of money and will die if faced with a faction of the same size which have closed borders and billions of plate armors +3, which will then annex your fief and close its borders.


- you dont change it (5%) or even lower it (to 0% or even less, if you want to reward trade, but its rare) = most fief owners do that because they can spend their PP on more important thing, but then they have to be REALLY careful about SD thiefs, because default tax (5%) doesnt bring enough gold to the bank = most fief owners close their borders and kill traders on sight, and try to use their own S&D themselves (greedy bastards!)


- you change it to more than 5%, lets say to 30% (which is the average trade cut you can ask on a trade agreement where you use someone's else S&D and MANUALLY have to drop a part of your benefit/goods bough in the fief), then you are a satisfied person whenever someone buy/sell from your fief, and you can open your borders, everyone's happy..... BUT WHAT THE FUCK IT WOULD COST 125 PP JUST TO DO THAT ! 

When you take into account that, increasing the tax (extremely costy PP-wise) to an efficient level is not enough to bring money, you have to increase/decrease the price (extremely costy PP-wise), then also increase prosperity (moderately costy PP-wise)... you come to the unevitable conclusion : better close my border and employ watchful trigger-happy sentries.

The worst effect of this is that factionless/neutral traders just cant play this game if they dont have buddies on strat, or look long and hard to find a trade agreement (that will probably dont give them more than 1/3 of what they earn). Then most "solo" guys just cant compete in this game and quit : less players, less fun. Even "bandits" factions have a real hard time playing strategus, if they dont have a big faction backing them up.



The 2 alternative ideas/solutions:

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Option 1]

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lower PP cost for taxes
example : 2 PP per +/- 1% tax

Or my favorite idea

Option 2]

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replace the option with "changing tax to X% for X PP"
example : 25 PP to bring it from 5% to 30%, then if you're not happy enough, with that, 25 PP to bring it from 30% to 40%.

Then it will become smarter to just define any commercial policy. One of those commercial policy would be "open borders for all, but you have to pay some tax first!".
Then you could even have a kind of "struggle" between factions/fiefs for who have the best prosperity/tax ratio ? Atm the only thing factions/fiefs are struggling for is emptying their own S&D before someone else does! And thats normal under the current situation.


Personally I think its too human intensive to have sentries looking for trade robbers, and would definitely open my borders if I had a good way to make sure that if a foreigner wants to trade, I get a nice fat cut for my hard-earned prosperity. Then it would not mean that I let my enemies trade inside my fiefs, so commercial raiding + its evil twin the trader killer will still exist    But it would not be the end all be all of today



Possible problems:

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- If there is no limit to taxes (-oo% or +oo% taxes for 25 PP ) implemented in strategus, it will need to be added to limit abuse (example: -100% to +100%).
- If there is no cooldown on changing taxes, one could definitely fuck things up on a short notice = abuse = need cooldown (like respec)
- very high tax would mean a kind of closed borders (but then its not really a problem)
- very low tax would mean giving free S&D (but then its not really a problem)
- Evil lone factionless traders will be able to upkeep  10K armies and completely wipe any resistance they meet, also will be able to buy plated charger to transport goods and paying each robocop outfitted merc 1000 gold in each strategus battle = abuse = wipe strategus

[buba]

Good ideas.
I hope a strat dev will pick this up and at least give you some feedback.
I dont mind defending my S&D, I think its a fun thing to do.
But it does kill off any independents out there.

[Haboe]

you OPEN YOUR BORDERS = congratulations, you are a selfless moron good person, but you will not have a lot of money

Apostates have dhirim area as free trade.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


But what you say is true, most factions can't afford to open their borders, or even a part of it.

If tax increase would be cheaper, i wouldn't mind raising it and opening my borders...