ashley26ph2003
Prince
hi
Any tips how to trade and utilize low taxe before the King increases?
Any tips how to trade and utilize low taxe before the King increases?
How to Maximize Trading in - Tax Increase?
- Thread starter ashley26ph2003
- Start date
Also, avoid selling raw materials (tabacco, furs, etc) with Europe in the early game. Sell your finished goods (coats, rum, etc) to the indians. Yes, they pay less than Europe, but you'll keep European prices high and tax rates low for longer.
I'm testing this strategy, and it's frustrating for a while, but I think it'll be worth it in the long run.
Cheers, --- Wheldrake
I'm testing this strategy, and it's frustrating for a while, but I think it'll be worth it in the long run.
Cheers, --- Wheldrake
I'll have to cordially disagree with Wheldrake on this. If you can buy 100 horses in Europe for 200 gold and sell them to a native village for 900 gold, or else sell rum worth 1000 gold in Europe (minus taxes) for 400 gold in the same village, which is the more lucrative transaction even in the long run? The trade where you make 700 gold or the trade where you lose 600 gold?
Of course, in basic "vanilla" Civ4Col, buying guns and horses in Europe and selling them to natives will net you huge profits. However, the more you buy and sell in Europe, the faster your taxes will rise.
In Dale's AoD2 mod, the purchase price of horse and especially guns is much higher. You can still make a small profit, but not the boatloads of cash you can get in vanilla Civ4Col. IMHO the small profits you can make selling guns & horses to natives do not compensate for the faster rise in taxes.
This said, I think there are many ways to go about this, many strategies to be tried out. I used to rush everything to Europe for sale, raw materials and finished goods alike. But by the time for revolution came around, my tax rate was in the 60 to 80% range. Pretty darned high. Now I'm trying new strategies to limit the tax rise, while still maintaining decent cash flow. Hard to say which one gives the best results, though, since every game is different.
Cheers, --- Wheldrake
Wheldrake -- why not trade with Europe while the tax rate is low, then switch to trading with the natives when the tax rate gets high enough that you can make more cash selling to natives despite the low prices?
And, later in the game when cash flow considerations and storage capacities aren't as pressing an issue, I try to store up raw goods until I can process them into finished material, since that effectively lowers your tax rate on the raw goods to 0%. Also, once you have a processing factory set up in a city with high rebel sentiment, you get that huge 50% processing bonus on top of the rebel production bonus, which is pure profit. When you can turn 12 tobacco into well over 20 cigars every turn from a single Master Tobacconist (and you have three such experts in every factory), you can generate wads of cash.
In my current game, despite having declared revolution, my specialized processing city is running full blast and shipping huge amounts of finished goods to Europe, generating thousands of gold per turn which is used to buy reinforcement militia units to ship back on the return trip. Course, it helps that I used the "save good results at the end of the turn" exploit to have just a 3% tax rate -- if the tax rate was in the 60% to 80% range, I might have shut down the factories long ago and turned the specialists into fortified soldiers (who can be converted into dragoons as needed), making the initial stages of the war easier to wage.
And, later in the game when cash flow considerations and storage capacities aren't as pressing an issue, I try to store up raw goods until I can process them into finished material, since that effectively lowers your tax rate on the raw goods to 0%. Also, once you have a processing factory set up in a city with high rebel sentiment, you get that huge 50% processing bonus on top of the rebel production bonus, which is pure profit. When you can turn 12 tobacco into well over 20 cigars every turn from a single Master Tobacconist (and you have three such experts in every factory), you can generate wads of cash.
In my current game, despite having declared revolution, my specialized processing city is running full blast and shipping huge amounts of finished goods to Europe, generating thousands of gold per turn which is used to buy reinforcement militia units to ship back on the return trip. Course, it helps that I used the "save good results at the end of the turn" exploit to have just a 3% tax rate -- if the tax rate was in the 60% to 80% range, I might have shut down the factories long ago and turned the specialists into fortified soldiers (who can be converted into dragoons as needed), making the initial stages of the war easier to wage.
Yes, that's how I used to play. To a "T". Now I'm testing a new strategy, as described above. Doesn't seem hugely more effective though, since once the tax rate starts to rise, it seems to rise more quickly, to levels similar to the "sell it all" strategy.
Cheers, --- Wheldrake
Cheers, --- Wheldrake
BobTheBull
Warlord
Not hearing much about this, but you should refuse the King's requests for gifts always. That's what I do, and I also refuse any tax raises for raw materials since I don't want to trade them anyway, but usually accept the one on manufactured goods. This does seem to slow down the rate of increase. Depending on the situation I may throw a party for some manufactured good and shut down that industry, using the workers and tiles for other purpses, after retraining, of course. I don't see taxes over 30%, which is still a quite profitable level.
HermannLombard
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2006
- Messages
- 277
BTB: How do you maintain a tax level as low as 30%? Even with Adriaen van der Donck and AoD II, both of which slow the rate of increase, I end up a lot higher than that.
I also or often throw parties for raw materials, especially those annoying 5% jumps. Naturally the King almost immediately demands another 5% increase on something I *want* to be able to trade. <grrrr> [Do you suppose it's unwise or undiplomatic to say "I gratefully kiss your ring, you fat ****"?]
By the way, I had one game in AoD II where I was aiming for an Economic (Trade) victory, racing against John Adams going for an Independence victory. As he was cranking out Great Generals I was desperately trying to trade enough goods, and at that point I was regretting that I couldn't trade tobacco and ore! [It's too easy to exploit that victory condition, though, and Dale is considering basing it on the value of trade rather than the quantity of trade. It does not appear easy to exploit the Industrialization victory, though.]
I also or often throw parties for raw materials, especially those annoying 5% jumps. Naturally the King almost immediately demands another 5% increase on something I *want* to be able to trade. <grrrr> [Do you suppose it's unwise or undiplomatic to say "I gratefully kiss your ring, you fat ****"?]
By the way, I had one game in AoD II where I was aiming for an Economic (Trade) victory, racing against John Adams going for an Independence victory. As he was cranking out Great Generals I was desperately trying to trade enough goods, and at that point I was regretting that I couldn't trade tobacco and ore! [It's too easy to exploit that victory condition, though, and Dale is considering basing it on the value of trade rather than the quantity of trade. It does not appear easy to exploit the Industrialization victory, though.]
You might want to be careful about cutting off trade in raw goods, since I've found a fully cranked up processing factory city can result in it being very profitable to buy raw goods in Europe and process them in that city.
Whether to throw a party might depend on the spread in price of the goods -- in my current game, the buy price for sugar is almost the same as the sell price for rum, while all the other raw versus processed commodities have a spread of 4 or more gold between these values. Even in the case of sugar/rum, though, I can still turn a decent profit despite only a 2 gold spread, because each distiller turns 12 sugar per turn into about 25 rum due to the 50% factory bonus and the high rebel sentiment bonus.
Theoretically, it's possible to turn a hefty profit buying a raw good for MORE than the selling price for the processed good you're turning it into, though I don't know if such a negative spread is even allowed by the game engine.
Whether to throw a party might depend on the spread in price of the goods -- in my current game, the buy price for sugar is almost the same as the sell price for rum, while all the other raw versus processed commodities have a spread of 4 or more gold between these values. Even in the case of sugar/rum, though, I can still turn a decent profit despite only a 2 gold spread, because each distiller turns 12 sugar per turn into about 25 rum due to the 50% factory bonus and the high rebel sentiment bonus.
Theoretically, it's possible to turn a hefty profit buying a raw good for MORE than the selling price for the processed good you're turning it into, though I don't know if such a negative spread is even allowed by the game engine.
