Income and population mechanics

[Torgon]

Then don't build the third fortress until turn 20 or whenever to avoid looking like a target. It doesn't change the fact the more gold early = more fortresses and labs earlier and more mages earlier. Start over taxing on turn 15 after you've had a chance to crank out a forester instead of immediately. Adjust accordingly.

Are you really saying that you never, ever, ever end a turn with 50 gold left over after mage recruitment, troop recruitment, infrastructure development, with a fortress that hasn't produced a mage? I find that statement somewhat ridiculous. At some point in the first 20 turns you're going to have a chance to recruit a forester, and prior to that use the one you start with. I may not be the most min-max player ever, but I hardly think I'm coming out of nowhere with this.

I already pointed to one strategy guide written by a very good player (much better than myself) that's not to far off exactly this. Yes your using a summons rather than a recruit-able, but you're still using a mage turn + gems to get them.

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Torgon

I already pointed to one strategy guide written by a very good player (much better than myself) that's not to far off exactly this. Yes your using a summons rather than a recruit-able, but you're still using a mage turn + gems to get them.

The difference between recruiting a patrol unit for 1 mage turn and 1 mage is, actually, very far off from being the same thing.

I stand by my original conclusion, recruiting one extra forester and perpetually patrolling (20%-30%) in the capital is a close call, you could go either way; trying to do it everywhere is a bad idea.

I did make one mistake in that post, in forgetting that man got a forester for free, which makes it more viable. I still think it's a mistake with G3 though; by turn 50 your capital is worth about 660 a turn under the original scales if you don't overtax.

Note that turn 50 is usually about the point that your upkeep starts to get close to your income if your doing well and you have neutral scales.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

The difference between recruiting a patrol unit for 1 mage turn and 1 mage is, actually, very far off from being the same thing.

I stand by my original conclusion, recruiting one extra forester and perpetually patrolling (20%-30%) in the capital is a close call, you could go either way; trying to do it everywhere is a bad idea.

I did make one mistake in that post, in forgetting that man got a forester for free, which makes it more viable. I still think it's a mistake with G3 though; by turn 50 your capital is worth about 660 a turn under the original scales if you don't overtax.

Note that turn 50 is usually about the point that your upkeep starts to get close to your income if your doing well and you have neutral scales.

I agree. Trying to do it everywhere is not viable. But I stand by the assertion that you probably can get a few more than one forester out, and if you have them you might as well overtax your high pop provinces to get the income boost.

As I said before MA Man is not quite as castle ready as LA Man but they're moving in that direction, and putting up a slightly higher number than the average nation is far from worthless. Especially in CBM 1.92 where your wardens and lord wardens become recruit anywhere. With large number of high strength stealthy troops + large numbers of stealthy nature mages + normal units with a castle defense bonus + relatively high defense cheap castles you can exert a lot of control over the landscape. And as long as you're putting a few extra castles up, you might as well churn out a forester or two.

The G3 point is somewhat irrelevant to whether you overtax or not. Whether its O3G3 or O3P3 or just O3 the math doesn't work out to be wildly different. The more positive scales you have the better overtaxing is, but its hardly useless even with neutral scales. The G is not really about income its more about keeping your crones healthy, and without it they tend to get diseased WAY too often. I've lost far too many precious E2, W2, A4 or N5 crones to disease, and loosing one of them is a pretty huge blow.

As to what your capitals worth by turn 50, I'd rather sink my capital to get more gold now thus enabling me to grab someone else's capital. MA Man is not exactly a late game powerhouse (somewhat better with CBM but still not great), and unless you're expanding early your probably not going to fare well. I'd rather do everything I can to front load my income and expansion, thus overtaxing where you can.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

Not exactly, a second early fortress and lab is a great start, a third early fortress and lab makes you a big fat target at exactly the time rush builds are looking for one.

Actually, I'd say the more fortresses you have the less you look like a rush target. In the early game, sieges are a pain in the neck.
It's even less of a concern for Man because a) everyone knows their fortresses are going to be even harder to break than average and b) everyone assumes they're gimps in the late game.

Which, y'know, they probably are at that.
But more often than not they do get to see it, because in my experience people try to snuff either easier or more ultimately dangerous targets first.
It doesn't help that Man's early game is actually pretty strong - longbows and knights with magic weapons shut down many different sacred rushes, air magic stops elephant rushes dead in their tracks, a handful of spies quickly make rushes that depend on cap-only units or mages unsustainable.

[shatner]

A mod I have been contributing to was released recently which introduces a new nation which has high admin castles, a cheap patrol-bonus unit, a cheap patrol-bonus commander and a cap-only mage who reduces unrest in the province by 4/turn. While I didn't set out to make that nation eminently over-taxable, things did end up evolving that way. For those folks who really want to test the viability of growth + over-taxation, MA Jomon would be a good place to try it.

I noticed elsewhere in the forum a bit of misinformation I want to disabuse people of: having a unrest reducing unit in a province does NOT reduce population as though you had been patrolling it. Again, that theory was posted elsewhere and I have personally tested it and found it wrong (test data will be provided upon request).

However, unrest reduction does behave a little differently than you might expect. Say you have a province that has an initial unrest of 50 (say from previous over-taxation or a bad event or something), is being taxed at 110% (which generates 2 unrest/turn), and contains a unit which reduces unrest by 4/turn. You'd expect to have the unrest there be reduced by 2 a turn (plus any unrest reduction you get from having friendly dominion) and you would be right. However, say that same province has 0 initial unrest, 110% tax and that same unit stationed there. You'd expect to have 0 unrest each turn (since it's being increased by 2 and decreased by 4) but instead you'll have 2 unrest at the start of each turn. That's because the unrest reduction of your unit happens before the unrest increase of your over-taxation. In fact, it seems to work like this:
1) lower unrest from abilities
2) collect income
3) raise unrest from taxation
?) I'm not sure where in all this lowering unrest from patrolling goes...

So, say you have a province with 100 of these unrest reducing units and you are running 200% taxation. What that means is that you will be getting money from that province at 200% each turn (as though you had zero unrest) but the province will have 20 unrest. That will reduce the number of resources that province has to recruit units but it will NOT reduce the income that province is generating. In that situation you are effectively trading some of your recruitment capacity for extra money.

This presents a new taxation scenario for you number-crunchy folks to chew on. Oh and try the new mod out; I think you'll find it interesting.