King demands - how do they work ?

[Babibo]

Hi all,

I just started a game with the Dutch, and took the leader who's supposed to suffer less tax raises.
However, during the first 20 turns, I had 3 tax raises, which I refused each time since they induced a "food Party", a "fur party", and a "wood party", and I didn't care not being able to trade these goods with Europe.

Is this sheer unluck ? Or is there a bug with the +100% time between tax raises ? Does the king make frequent tax raises when he is unhappy (which was the case, since I refused to kiss his ring each time).
In the latter case, it would mean it's not a good idea to refuse the tax raises since by making the king angry, you will suffer even more tax raises later. By the way, are there ways to make the king happy ?

To sum up, what are the mechanisms behind the tax raises ?

 

[Refar]

Tax Raises depend on the amount of goods you traded only.
Kings mood has a very minor effect (Him beeing very will let you trade a few % less till the next increase.).

Throwing Party is bugged and hence useless.
(Is does not subtract from the above mentioned amount of goods, hence you are still eligible for a increase. The king will ask again in a few turns)
Dales Patch adresses this, but from my experience not fully fixes it.

And i know no way to raise him above cautious.
He will sometimes forget some of your mischiefs however, so you can refuse the most ridiculous demands (1999 out of 2000 gold after your fist trade at turn 10...) without making him permanently mad.

 

[Freddy K]

Tax raise %-amount is random, and can be very high especially in short games. If you protest you can hope that the kings demand will be lower the next turn.

I was able to protest a 5% raise in the early game by throwing a food party, next turn the King suggested 3% to which i agreed. That's 2% less tax for the entire game.

In another game the king stopped asking after 5 parties...
More on how it works (if you understand XML-code, I don't )
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294500

 

[Refar]

Getting a increase by a lower number is usefull early, but not decisive - the time untill next increase will be shourter if you only got a low increase (This is why throwing party does not work well in the first place - 0% tax increase means that you don't get more goods to trade untill next one is up.)

I am not sure about stopping after 5th time... Maybe there is a limit ?

 

[Freddy K]

Maybe, I can't really argue the point by analysing the code, it's a mix of total traded yield thresholds, the king's mood and random chance etc. Just how these variables are orchestrated is hard to tell.

Maybe a comparison of games and how much tax by which turn, could be more enlightening, but there is no way to track the total amount of gold generated from europe trade AFAIK.