Taxing and Patrolling... is it worth it?

[earwicker7]

What is everyone's feeling on raising taxes while, at the same time, having your units patrol to keep down unrest? Is it a good short term strategy for certain situations, a good long term strategy for certain situations, or neither of the above?

[Executor]

I use it as a short term strategy.
It's good for early wars when you find yourself short in cash, sacrificing a few thousand people to taxing/paroling is very much worth it if it gives you a military advantage and the ability to rush someone, or defend against an onslaught.
If you take good scales and growth for example you can gain a substantial lead in gold for early wars and not even lose much population.

[Redeyes]

Most people do it on turn one.
Some nations are exceptionally good at it (Caelum with their flyers!)

It can be a good idea to do it in provinces fixed income through gold mine, they'll have high income even when its population 0.

[iRFNA]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

It can be a good idea to do it in provinces fixed income through gold mine, they'll have high income even when its population 0.

Who mines the gold??

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by iRFNA

Who mines the gold??

I think they fish for it.

[OmikronWarrior]

Yes, I have been experimenting with LA Man, combining Judges (patrol bonus of 20), Growth-3, Order-3, and fortresses to great effect. All those multipliers add up to a lot of extra gold.

Think of it this way, if your troops are not currently invading territory, then they cost upkeep with no immediate benefit. Having them patrol is a no brainer, and overtaxing at 120% will only due minimal population damage, which Growth-3 seems to largely mitigate. Obviously, you miss out on the longterm growth benefits, but without running the numbers it would a lot of turns to make up an extra 20% income from a province with a growth rate of 1.006%.

Obviously, anything less than Growth-3 makes this highly questionable.

[Swan]

Originally Posted by iRFNA

Who mines the gold??

Sometimes being a god is useful.

[DeadlyShoe]

I often heavily overtax for the first 5-10 turns. One game I overtax-killed 5,000 of my capital population. It does give you enough burst gold to get extra forts up, or buy extremely expensive starting units like Mammoths. So often its worth it, even if your capital isnt worth as much in the long haul.

[Squirrelloid]

Depends on initial population.

So, iirc, 10% taxation generates 2 unrest per turn and patrolling away 1 unrest kills 10 population. If i'm misremembering numbers, the below is wrong, but its not that hard to calculate with a spreadsheet.

Assuming only G3 scales, a province that starts with 10k population will, in cumulative income, do better with taxing and patrolling until a whopping 93 turns have passed. (Of course, this assumes you have nothing better to do with the troops patrolling as I'm not counting their upkeep against them here.)

A 5k pop province, however, will net lose population in this situation, and will only be better in terms of income for 45 turns.

So, barring better uses for troops, patrolling is certainly better for 10k pop provinces for most games (since by the time G3 breaks even, the game is basically over.

[DeadlyShoe]

Those numbers must be off in some way, I would have taken 40 turns at 160% tax to kill 5k peeps.

I think Growth really is irrelevant to overtaxing, because it doesnt actually mitigate the population kill; you're still losing just as much tax in the long term. The notion that you can have a stable income is a mirage since those 120 scale points were supposed to give you an increasing income that you are now missing out on.