Suggestion: Tax S&D Transactions Per-Item with Integers

[Garem]

Full Suggestion Title: Tax S&D Transactions Per Item with Integers, Remove Percentage Taxation at Item Cost; Gear Buy/Sell Tax Free, Owner Operated via Town Center

I find it perplexing that we're dealing with pennies of gold.

I suggest that the Percentage tax on good price be removed in favor of a simpler Flat Tax based upon S&D use. Instead of the current system, where you have to figure out if a 10% tax on sales at 24 gold justifies the 30% tax on a 5 gold cost in favor of the 12% tax on a 22 gold sale at a 5% 6 gold cost... anyone else lost yet?

How about there be a simple tax in integers on transactions of ANY sort. It'll look like this:

You can buy 100 items at 6 gold with a 2 gold tax and sell at 20 with a 3 gold tax
OR
You can buy 100 items at 5 with a 3 gold tax and sell at 24 with a 4 gold tax.

Doesn't that look nice? Wouldn't that make merchanting a lot more fun - and taxation more predictable for fief-owners? Even EVE, the mother of all spreadsheet games, keeps it simpler than we do. There are so many numbers flying around right now it's head-spinning.

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What about non-economic items like equipment?

Keep them at a percentage if you want, although I don't think people should be allowed to access fief-owner developments without going through the fief-owner first. If the owner wants to sell items, isn't that what the Town Hall is for? It gives him total price control, so taxation isn't even necessary.

[dodnet]

You can buy 100 items at 6 gold with a 2 gold tax and sell at 20 with a 3 gold tax
OR
You can buy 100 items at 5 with a 3 gold tax and sell at 24 with a 4 gold tax.

So if I buy 1 good for 5 gold, I have to pay at least 1 gold tax (thats 20%)? Wow... this makes traders live even more expensive

What if I want to buy 1 straw hat? 100% tax for that?

[Lt_Anders]

leave it percentage based, but make it easier to shift the tax to 10% before making it harder.

[Garem]

So if I buy 1 good for 5 gold, I have to pay at least 1 gold tax (thats 20%)? Wow... this makes traders live even more expensive

What if I want to buy 1 straw hat? 100% tax for that?

Supply and Demand is the true commodity of Strat 4.0 anyways. Plus, fief owners of low-cost fiefs are soon realizing that it's not nearly as lucrative as high-cost fiefs. This method that I've described provides the additional benefit of making both equally profitable, which is important.

Let's assume 5 is the cost of the low-cost fief and 20 is the cost of the high-cost fief, and we assume both cost equal numbers of PP (not accurate, but simple numbers used for this example; the principle stands). To get the same return-on-investment per PP spent, if you want to make your income-per-day 200 gold (for 200 Prosperity), you have to have a 20% tax on the low-cost but only a 5% tax on the high cost.

So if you're a low-cost fief and you don't have high taxes, like 20%, then you're making significantly less than the high-cost fief owners for just as much expense of PP.

As for straw hats, that is addressed in the italicized question in my original post. Short answer: No.

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Anders, that might help the current system become better, especially for low-cost fief owners, but it won't fix it and certainly won't help make it simpler and sensible. We can achieve both with the suggestion I've made.

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@Everyone

If this doesn't make sense, I'm more than happy to explain as well as compare and contrast.

[Garem]

Bump because this is still annoying and I like my ideas enough to want them seen.

[PhantomZero]

Your ideas are somewhat wrong. Low-price fiefs can do more transactions per day, both buying and selling than high-price fiefs. Also, your PP costs to get down to 5 are much greater than getting it up to 20, from 15.

A little investment into prosperity would bring greater gains to low-price fiefs.

However, the main reason people see high priced fiefs making more money is because people take goods there to sell. Taxing the distance bonus is really where the money is made.

[Garem]

Your ideas are somewhat wrong. Low-price fiefs can do more transactions per day, both buying and selling than high-price fiefs. Also, your PP costs to get down to 5 are much greater than getting it up to 20, from 15.

A little investment into prosperity would bring greater gains to low-price fiefs.

However, the main reason people see high priced fiefs making more money is because people take goods there to sell. Taxing the distance bonus is really where the money is made.

Oh, I know about the PP cost of 5 and 20, that's why I added the notation in parenthesis saying "this is not accurate". It was just easier math that way to express my point.

Only an enormous amount of prosperity investment can help low cost fiefs make the same amount of money. Taxation is done not per-unit but at sales cost. So if you finally get your taxes high, it STILL won't reap in the rewards of the high-cost centers. 10% of 24 is more than 10% of 5. You'd have to have five times the prosperity of the high-cost location to start making the same amount of money.

And you're totally correct about the last part; distance bonus tax only sweetens the deal for the high-cost fiefs.

Phantom, wouldn't a tax-per-S&D system be both simpler and fairer? And by using integers, a lot more predictable and easy to use for fief-managers and traders respectively? I don't see any benefits to the "Buying/Sales Tax" system at present.

[PhantomZero]

Only an enormous amount of prosperity investment can help low cost fiefs make the same amount of money. Taxation is done not per-unit but at sales cost. So if you finally get your taxes high, it STILL won't reap in the rewards of the high-cost centers. 10% of 24 is more than 10% of 5. You'd have to have five times the prosperity of the high-cost location to start making the same amount of money.

You wouldn't need five times as much prosperity because 25 eats more S&D than it does with 5. So while increasing prosperity by 2 would give a 25 fief only 1 additional transaction per day, it would give a 5 fief 4 additional transactions.

However, two fiefs with the same S&D the one with the higher goods price will end up making more money.

If everyone had high-priced fiefs though, there would be less goods being moved. Meaning less money for traders. The biggest bonus is coming from owning the low-priced village yourself. Then you can buy up all the trade goods for cheap, and prevent other people from doing so. Since you can't sell all of those trade goods at one spot, you will have to move between cities, or put them up for sale in the city itself for a better price and hope someone else comes along and buys them to continue moving around.

Whereas buying goods at the same price as you are selling would only net you gains from the distance bonus.

[Garem]

You wouldn't need five times as much prosperity because 25 eats more S&D than it does with 5. So while increasing prosperity by 2 would give a 25 fief only 1 additional transaction per day, it would give a 5 fief 4 additional transactions.

True, I wasn't factoring this in. That being said... it's yet another calculation that my proposed system would eradicate. So perhaps the magnitude of the problem of high-costs being superior to low-costs is more accurate taking that in context, but as you say...

However, two fiefs with the same S&D the one with the higher goods price will end up making more money.

If everyone had high-priced fiefs though, there would be less goods being moved. Meaning less money for traders. The biggest bonus is coming from owning the low-priced village yourself. Then you can buy up all the trade goods for cheap, and prevent other people from doing so. Since you can't sell all of those trade goods at one spot, you will have to move between cities, or put them up for sale in the city itself for a better price and hope someone else comes along and buys them to continue moving around.

Is anybody needing to do this? I manage the NA trade routes. I've never needed to use Town Centre/Hall. Doing so needlessly complicates the problem I keep facing- plenty of goods, nowhere good to sell them. Based upon the existing system, you'd think it would work the other way around.

In sum, yes, there is some balance on the problem by the increased use of S&D thus limiting the number of high-cost transactions. This is also frustratingly and unnecessarily complicated. Taxing 1, 2, 3, ... gold per S&D and removing that increasing S&D cost makes both high- and low-cost fiefs equally lucrative and vastly simplifies a system where the developers have, seemingly arbitrarily, complicated a very simple concept with weird limitations (a la PP's a day, tax change limitations, prosperity limitations, so on and so forth).

If you like the nonsensical system that exists, I won't change your mind, no worries. If you want a system that makes a hell of a lot more sense, this is an easy way to do it. No more fluctuations in how much S&D is used when trading 1 good, no more disparity between fief profitability based upon development towards selling or buying, no more getting taxed .0247 gold and other ridiculous numbers.

[PhantomZero]

Is anybody needing to do this? I manage the NA trade routes. I've never needed to use Town Centre/Hall. Doing so needlessly complicates the problem I keep facing- plenty of goods, nowhere good to sell them. Based upon the existing system, you'd think it would work the other way around.

Well it would mainly be for independents who may not have permissions or wouldn't want to risk venturing further, but doesn't want to miss out on some of the extra profits to be made.

My biggest problem comes with the equipment that costs less than 1 gold, and that some items would round up and not be worth some of the items that would round down. You would clearly always want the better items that get rounded down, meaning less variety. Though I suppose you could always just say you get multiple items for every purchase, but that wouldn't make things easier. You would have to inflate the costs of all equipment to keep it balanced, since everyone would also be making more money I guess.

Honestly I don't like the trade good/S&D "chadzonomics" system at all, but trying to implement a real economy would be a large amount of effort.

[Turboflex]

Can't be greedy about only selling at high price fiefs. There's still lots of S&D sitting around in fiefs with 5-15 price, you're still making solid money buying at 5 and selling at those prices once you factor in a 300% F.A.G. bonus. You can compensate for making less than what you'd make at 25 by increasing size of caravans.

[Garem]

This suggestion is intended for trade goods, no equipment. I only speak of equipment in the last sentence of the first post. Town Centers work, and make sense.

The whole "let's use integers" speaks only to taxes. Although I'm a proponent of rounding. That being said, the equipment that costs less than 1 gold isn't worth using now that it's free (for defenders; nobody should be attacking with that gear, ever).

Equipment, meaning everything that isn't a trade good, shouldn't even factor into S&D. Why? It's not like buying swords reduces the local demand for commodities like bread and cheese. In fact, if anything, sales of swords should increase the demand for commodities and luxuries. It's a silly limitation.