Changing the tax rate on planets

Staples of the 4X genre sound like good things to add. No brainer?

I am all for an independent tax system however the devs already posted to the effect that they dont want one mainly because of the micro aspects if I understand things correctly. I firmly disagree with that position however. I believe it will add a nice layer of depth to the title.

Meh I would enjoy more of an indepth planet system myself, I remember in haegemonia where you'd get "special" characters which you could assign to planets, It made you feel more connected to the game.

If you say - Started out with a few "special" Characters, Say 2 governers and yourself.

The skilled governers could increase tax income on the planet, and help spread culture etc while you could postion yourself on the flagship / capitol ship of your fleet and get some odd bonus for it, like increased leveling as you help train the crew .

I'd also like the ability to focus planets in certain directions.

For example you could focus your planet on research - Which lowers the income, but gives you more research facility slots but denies you the ability to build ship construction platforms, trade or adequate defenses.

Or you could have a more milatery world where you gain more slots for ships, and it's cheaper to build up a fleet there. We have a kinda similiar situation with some planets being better for other things, But I'd like that expanded upon.

Heck I'd even love a more indepth system, where for example you could choose to build advanced medical facilitys upon a planet which would increase population, or some form of ion cannon for planetery defense.

Heh, sorry I went off on one there this has nothing to do with the thread subject just a list of my odd little thoughts.

I believe its a poorly simulated tax system that shouldnt be implemented in a serious game.

I also believe that revolts are purely the job of the Advent and the Insurgent research, no use in making it even more common.
besides, god knows EVERYONE would crank it to the max and only drop it when people start whining about it, and with all the rest thats going on in the game THAT would be too much.

if they want to do something more serious, than that makes sense. but not some half-baked "lets tax-em more" idea.

I really do feel it will add a lot of depth, open revolts chance of the planet belonging to a neutral player, I think this will add a lot of depth, and interest, yes it will mean micro managing but there are players that like that, and would like this kind of depth to a game

I thought culture already boosted tax income by 10%.

The problem with Micro is that it makes multiplayer too hard. The more micro you add, the more the game resembles a clickfest and the less strategy is used. If Sins is going to be considered a "classic" it HAS to have a strong multi player element. I think right now they have found a pretty good balance. Still plenty of room for strategy, but not so complex that it becomes "he who clicks fastest wins."

If you look at the people who win multiplayer tournaments in warcraft3 for example, they click their mice 100-150 times a minute. I hope sins doesn't turn into that kind of game. In most RTS's, strategy isn't all that important, all the strategy's are worked out pretty fast, it's whoever can implement them better.

While the problem with little no macro is it makes the game simply too .. well simple if it's going to be on a real-time scale.

Rather than about clicking, it becomes about who can pump more into one area at once while praying to the gaming gods they'll win. I don't want to lose simply because my enemy has a planet extra, and can produce more units than me.

Or that he colony rushed early on so gained more resources, when I decided to go for a slower approach and build up my empire properly.

Ultimatly I find the combat , the economic and planet growth system thin - I know it's just beta but they do want opinions. This simpy might because I'm fighting the AI, but I can just send my fleet into an area and that's it i've won, With a few extra clicks and monitoring my ships to make sure nothing stupid happens I can confirm a victory if I outnumer the enemy.

The building system isn't much indepth, it's pretty much the same for every planet with slight differences for each it's very rinse and repeat rather than strategical. I do love the elements of a huge system, where I can scout the enemy, ambush him at his weak spots and send fleets upon fleets of ships towards him.

Supreme commander is an example of how not to do a strategical game, Supcom is glorious but it simply puts so much onto the players plate that he can't do anything that smart - it becomes about building and clicking then fighting, From playing lots of MP of supcom I've not really once seen a master tactic which overwhelmed me or something which I really thought " That was smart". It was simply someone who's managed to fire off a nuke faster than you built your anti-nukes, or spam you with an experimental, or catch you off guard early on.

There wasn't any epic ambush tactics or anything like that, mainly due to the simple time it took to construct everything and the fact you had to baby sit all your forces. But saying that - supcom still is a good game.

when is the last time a group of people revolted due to unweildy taxing? never, poland has something around a 90% tax rate and its people sit around and do no complaining WHATSOEVER (even though I believe they should)

and besides, people on fringe planets ALREADY decide to not pay 85% of their taxes, what are you going to do about it?

if you want an alternative, make it so that you can choose to sacrafice some of the material resources that you receive from the planet to boost the economy there.

just because it has never happened doesn't mean it never will, what Im saying is it would spice up gameplay, but there has been revolts over other things, like the UK revolting over the petrol prices, even though it was short lived, and didn't change anything, but we are talking on a planet scale not a country, so I say again, just because it has never happened doesn't mean it never will,

but it does mean its not normal in the human psyche, and there would go the arguement for not busting taxes through the roof

spicing up gameplay would be coming up with a cool new system, not this regurgitated, "if you dont have it, its not a 4X" crap.

I was not directly advocating the current tax system. I was promoting the idea of a more robust system other then a simple flat tax one. Hopefully one that incorporates several dimensions and is tied into other game system mechanics.

one way is, terran planets could allow you to tax the population more then ice and dessert. but if you manage to build a broadcast centre near them, and increase the culture level, you could tax them a bit more but still not as high as a terran planet, thus to simulate the harsher conditions of the other world types, you could tax them the same but revolts could have a chance of accurring,

A proper tax system would add a LOT of pointless micromanaging. I don't want a game where I spend 1/6 of my time adjusting tax rates on each of my planets to the level just below a revolt (BORING!).

Besides, since the ONLY intelligent move to make would be to raise the tax levels as high as you can before suffering a revolt, why not just automatically have the taxes adjust themselves to that point?

Of course, if you allow the tax system to adjust itself automatically, you have to ask yourself why even bother having it in the first place.


I would prefer a game where the winner was decided by careful civic development, wise research, intelligent fleet composition, smart fleet deployment, and good tactical sense.

We will not be adding an adjustable tax system (ala GalCiv II) to Sins.

Yay!

Ya, even my current favorite uber micro turnbased fantasy 4X game got rid of forcing tax management in the latest version. (Dominions 3)

tax management is made for games like simcity...

while fighting a war against Multianna I don't want to be worried about a revolt on planet X because my taxes were .001% too high...

Here's the problem with having an planet-to-planet adjustable tax system....
MICRO-MANAGEMENT...Such a tool is fine for turn-based game like GalCiv2, which provides warning and gives a player ample time to respond...but I can see the little "Ding - the denizens of Planet Khyron are unhappy coming in the middle of a space battle...and being rightfully ignored...the developers are trying to merge the 4x and RTS genres....so some of the more mind-numbing administrivia like resource collection are going to be streamlined

PERHAPS, such expansive tools could be made available via tougher game settings...default mode no, but a "You asked for it" mode....

I like the way Total War handles taxes; you can let them AI controlled to be the highest possible before the population rebels, have them kept in the middle or lowest all the time for population growth. Than the AI calculates them corresponding to the "happyness" structure, law structures etc. built in the city.