Very well written Ghost...but to actually answer you question of why they would build this system. I think it has something to do with the UE's production bonus at high "taxation" levels. Under UE's affinity bonus it explains a production benefit scaling at high level taxation which is risky to do because happiness is tied to so many other production things...they had to come up with a reason to have high taxes when late game you could care less that you are only getting 10% of 100,000 a turn.



I like the system proposed by you two, but I thinking more of the tax they are suggesting as a cut to the federal government. If you are looking at it as system being state and empire as being federal. The state calculates some dust costs ((total earned*bonuses) -the cost of said improvements to run) then the federal government wants its share it takes whatever percent is asked by taxation or maybe tribute would be a better phrase. We aren't used to this now in days because both cuts are done at the same time to prevent the states from going no...or change numbers. In feudal times this is how taxation was done. Some poor soul had to collect the money from the lords and ladies for the king or queen after the lord/lady had collected said stuff.



What I'm thinking is the summation of ((total earned*bonuses) -the cost of said improvements to run)*Empire Cut if ((total earned*bonuses) -the cost of said improvements to run)>=0 per planet. I'm not sure what I would do with a planet that has a negative balance on it. Maybe a flat fee that scales with empire efficiency, or an underdevelopment interest. I hardly believe that a an empire would let a planet out of paying something because it didn't "have" the money.

What i would like is to be able to tax by system, and perhaps low tax leading to faster population growth.

WellyCollins wrote:
What i would like is to be able to tax by system, and perhaps low tax leading to faster population growth.

I fully agree and having just read through some of the math already employed I am quite sure that they have the brains on board to be able to implement it.

Spaceball_Harry wrote:
I fully agree and having just read through some of the math already employed I am quite sure that they have the brains on board to be able to implement it.

It's been implemented in games before. Can't recall offhand what game I've seen it in, though.

Perhap everyone is viewing the "tax" and "production" values incorrectly. The system production values are the taxes you collect at the nominal 50% tax rate. IE., the values are not what the system actually produces but only the relevant numbers that you as the government cares about for income.



Then the tax slider is merely affects the multiplier; ie., 1/2 of optimal taxes gives 1/2 income, but the happiness increase leads to better and production. Following this train of thought, double optimal tax rate should give double income.



From a processor efficiency point of view, its faster to do addition and subtraction than a multiplication; so this simple abstraction prevents you from lagging when you go to town with your tax slider every turn.

I wouldn't mind having two tax rates: The first being the Empires rate of taxation. The other being a systems individual tax. This is akin to how things work in America where I'm from. The federal government sets a tax rate and the state also has a rate. The system tax rate could be placed higher or lower depending on the wealth of that specific solar system. Just like in the US where the government subsidizes or gives tax breaks to people who live in impoverished or harsher living conditions. If you live in a solar system with 2 lava planets you shouldn't have to pay as high a tax rate as someone who was born and raised in the capital, or even a Garden of Eden planet. What would be the real world motivation to pick up and move from a lush planet full of what you want to a planet overflowing with lava or frozen solid?

Wow, that explains my futile attempts at backtracking the income factors in order to determine which improvement I should scrap.

I agree with everything said here, but let me try to rehash it a little.



1)

Tax shouldn't affect Food, Industry, and Science production (unless it's an indirect bonus/penalty from Approval, but that's something else). It should only affect Dust income in a transparent way.

A deficit cannot be taxed.

Or perhaps you can tax a deficit in RL I dunno, but in a closed economic system (such as a galactic empire; or currently the Earth) that's a false economy, based on potentially disasterous estimations, not hard facts (resulting in devaluation of Dust / overall inflation).

Finally, it's not intuitive.



2)

In game tax serves as a trade-off between the empire-wide budget profit and the empire-wide + system-wide population approval.

Why is there only an empire-wide tax? (In a way, I agree with Kingherod above.)

Why is there only an empire-wide budget?

It is understandable that the empire-wide budget is in fact the player's wallet, intended for the empire-scale decisions and upkeep, but to model it properly, it needs to aggregate the lesser parts in a convenient and crystal clear fashion.



What's really needed is a system-wide tax-free production per turn, which would represent the absolute and unskewed efficiency of the system Dust income.

That way we'd immediately see whether or not Xenotourism will be beneficial if built, and/or whether or not any of the other existing improvements should be scrapped.



So it's really the star system scope where we should set the tax and determine how much % is skimmed off for the empire-wide budget, and how much % is left for the locals to use, spend and enjoy.

This is where the local approval/happiness becomes transparent, because it is a direct consequence of this ratio.



However, I understand why the original concept simplifies this part, as it can surely get tedious very fast after expanding into a large empire.







****

So here's my suggestion:



There are three different settings per star system: Frontier tax | Outer tax | Core tax

An outpost would receive the Frontier tax automatically and that would be set in stone until the said outpost earns a Colony status.



From that point onward, player can change between the other two tax settings at will.

Not only this could also serve as a reminder of what we think of the solar system at hand, but this information could also be displayed and changed from the Empire Management screen through the additional single-icon column.



Also, as a sidenote, I'd expect from a grand strategy title to allow me to filter the list based on categories such as this. For example, "I'd like to see the systems where the Outer tax is applied." That way I know what figures I expect to see in this list, and tweak the factors accordingly, liberated from data noise.



Then we get to set these three major taxes in the Empire Management screen (instead of just one empire-wide tax). So the tax ratios can still be set globally, without any local intervention.





Here's the math:



system wide balance (SBal): (dust_income - system_improvements_upkeep - system_hero_upkeep - any_other_upkeep)

system wide tax (STax): max(0, (SBal * local_tax_percent)) + tax_high_approval_bonus (max will yield 0 for negative numbers)

system wide approval (SApr; in %): ((SBal - STax) / system_population) - planetary_penalties - overpopulation_penalties - any_other_penalties + improvement_bonuses + any_other_bonuses

empire wide income (EInc): sum(all STax)

empire wide approval (EApr): median(all SApr)



I think it is really straightforward, as it simulates the economy much more intuitively, and still provides an ample room for strikes, rebellions, and unplanned disasters in general.



As for the median, it is really simple: 1 very rich system (i.e. worth 10), 3 mediocre (worth 5), and 7 poor ones (worth 1) can be written down as [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,5,5,5,10].

The median in this case would be 1, because that's the value in the middle of a sorted list. In game, though, the actual values would be much more varied, so it would adapt more smoothly.

Median is much better than the arithmetic mean in these cases, because it takes into account the weight (or the volume) of the population.

Arithmetic mean would show that [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,100] is the same as [9,11], while in reality that's far from truth. Median would appropriately show 1 and 10, respectively.





So, for example, in a system with three worlds -- Arid, Arctic, and Jungle -- populating the Arctic world, after the Arid was fully settled, would decrease the approval (unless this is negated by some positive effects) because these new colonists don't contribute to Dust production as much as those on the Arid world. In other words: the approval is averaged per capita. Every 1 Pop desires 1 Dust to provide a 100% Approval. Therefore, this 1 Dust acts as a collateral, an investment into social and economical stability. Or, in essence, it is a growth insurance. More populated systems require more maintenance, and self-sustainability basically emerges as an efficiency indicator of sort. A Dust-inefficient system must be specialized at producing something else, otherwise it should be considered as underdeveloped or, much worse, ill-developed.





At one point there are 5 (billion?) people on a Medium Arid planet (there aren't any improvements in the system):

SBal: 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 25 Dust

STax: max(0, 25 Dust * .3) = 7.5 Dust

SApr: ((25 Dust - 7.5 Dust) / 5 Pop) - .5 Dust = 300% Approval (let's say that the approval penalty for Arid planets is now -.5 Dust, not -5; think of it more like a permanent Dust expense for the colony maintenance)





After some time the Large Arctic planet is fully colonized (5 Pop):

SBal: 5 Pop * 1 Dust + 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 30 Dust

STax: max(0, 30 Dust * .3) = 9 Dust (we can see the tax income has increased by 1.5 Dust)

SApr: ((30 Dust - 9 Dust) / 10 Pop) - .5 Dust - 1 Dust = 60% Approval (but the approval has dwindled because half of the system pop is relatively poor; too much of this, even if there are very rich systems in the empire, would severely impact the global approval, because of the median; also, same as above, the Arctic approval penalty is now -1, not -10)





However, if we lower the tax from 30% to, let's say, 15%:

SBal: 5 Pop * 1 Dust + 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 30 Dust

STax: max(0, 30 Dust * .15) = 4.5 Dust (the tax income is halved)

SApr: ((30 Dust - 4.5 Dust) / 10 Pop) - .5 Dust - 1 Dust = 105% Approval (but this is much better for the colonists)





This leaves some room for colonizing a Small Jungle planet (5 Pop), in order to capitalize on industry, for example, and after it's populated we may even raise the tax to 25%:

SBal: 5 Pop * 2 Dust + 5 Pop * 1 Dust + 5 Pop * 5 Dust = 40 Dust

STax: max(0, 40 Dust * .25) = 10 Dust

SApr: ((40 Dust - 10 Dust) / 15 Pop) - .5 Dust - 1 Dust = 50% Approval (not too shabby for a fully populated three-planet system clean of improvements)







Note that the excess approval could or should yield some small bonuses for the FIDS production (depending on the planets' exploitations), including Dust. However, this extra Dust should be automatically taxed (and would show up as a tax bonus or something similar). These are very small % bonuses that serve really just as an incentive for the player to keep productive systems in a mood above 100% (note that this is better than ecstatic) -- to allow player to be generous if (s)he feels to, as well as to add some depth to the fact that the countless invisible souls live, work, and die for the player (in case of the souless races, though, disregard what I've just said, including the bonuses, unless they work better after infusing Dust).



Also, it is possible with this model to get a negative local approval, reflecting the situation in which the colony is not self-sustainable (i.e. a Methane giant colony would cost 2 Dust per turn, yet 1 Pop can produce only 1 Dust per turn, which is clearly a bad situation). To compensate, player should improve the system using the Empire-wide budget immediately, or the colony will collapse on its own. These situations are relatively rare, and could be easily avoided.





This is only a rough sketch, I apologize if I'm missing something important, but I hope you get the idea.

It is very simple to grasp (I think), and it shouldn't deviate much from what's currently in the game.

Also, I think I've repeated the basic math mentioned before (tax applies to balance, not income) -- that's clearly a key component of this much-needed overhaul.

Tax shouldn't affect food, industry, and science production (unless it's an indirect bonus/penalty from Approval, but that's something else).

That's the way it works. Lower taxes will get you an approval boost, thus leading to a boost in FID.

VieuxChat wrote:
That's the way it works. Lower taxes will get you an approval boost, thus leading to a boost in FID.

I see.



But how does this apply then?

There are 2 problems with the tax system in game right now:

1) Taxation before upkeep

and the solution is

{ Sum of [(Systems'Income-Costs)xTaxRateonlyifpositive] } - costs of heroes, ships, diplomacy and military structures

Clearly, it is the other way around in the game: taxes apply before upkeep.



But anyway, if we're both right on some terms, that means that the display information is the main culprit.

Because there is nothing inherently wrong with having tax-induced-approval-related bonuses on production, but it is wrong not to have the system base production values visible at all times.

Perhaps all approval-related modifiers should be displayed as modifiers, like this: Food 142 +36

The approval bonus can be seen in the empire bonuses when in the empire management window, or in the tooltips.

And at the moment the taxes are applied before upkeep.

Then I must suggest that you read my post in entirety, even if it appears as an enormous wall of text.



Those two points are just quick observations of the game goals. I wanted to be sure I'm on the right track, before I've started solving the problems OP suggested, by combining the ideas of others in this topic with my own.



In short:

- Taxes are applied after upkeep (extremely important, because that's how taxes work as you can't tax non-profit nor deficit).



- The remainder from the base production is what determines the local approval, and it is based on total system population. This aspect isn't covered by the game at all, that explains the exponential rise of Dust in mid/late game. The Dust income is directly proportional to the empire research results and the always-accelerating expansion -- combined -- without any matching maintenance costs (because 1 Pop costs the same as 17 Pop, kind of ridiculous), which is why all fixed prices become rather trivial after some time.



- FIDS high-approval-based bonuses still work, however any bonus Dust is automatically transferred to the Empire (extremely important, because that way the base Dust production isn't obfuscated and it can't be reused by the system that produced it). Science is global so it essentially follows the same rule (skips the system), excess Food will vanish, and Industry might be used for brute conversions as normal (however, I don't think that should allow the player to artificially support the economy, it should be more like an amortization for not building anything -- it's a strategic fail to own a system specialized for building, and not building anything -- it surely has to be much less efficient to make Dust out from nothing than to harvest it, don't you think?).



- There are three global tax categories, which can be used to track and list systems by economy type and current phase of development, as well as to simply tag the systems for more depth in the player lore (there is always a clear distinction between the core worlds and the outer colonies, however this is not emphasized in the game).



- The three global tax categories actually simplify what Kingherod proposed (star system tax setting), and streamline that approach in design, while not deviating much from the actual state of the game. The tax bars are still configurable via the global management screen, and the system scope isn't cluttered with an additional tax bar.

Another solution would be to remove dust upkeep cost from dust enhancements buildings. This way, it is always at least somewhat profitable and pretty easy to figure out if it is worth to build or not without complicated calculation.

I agree with the newly proposed taxation system, if I were some sort of intergalactic leader, that is likely how I'd run it.

Agree.



It is a GOOD thing that player can so easily manipulate tax rate, i.e. if he wants to keep his production/growth rates as high as possible, and immediately see what impact it would have planet- and empire-wise. A tool clearly meant to be used extensively.



And with that - yes, it is a BAD thing that this makes some other decisions so unclear. Effectively, you can adequately decide whether an improvement is of any good or not only if you keep your tax rate fixed - and even then you will need some counter-intuitive calculations (is the system self-sustainable or not), as is already said in this topic.

Topic starter speaks about dust-related improvements, but is is so for all other buildings as well. When I think whether or not I should place an improvement, I decide it based on that this system can basically support. The inability to compare a positive impact with the reduction in dust production on the planet makes me just make some wild guesses.



And that goes for governor AI, too. Clearly, it has no means to calculate whether it is sane or not to put a building - so he just builds them all! And, for that matter, there is no way a player could tune this behaviour - he does not know it himself

What I would like, for instance, is to allow or to forbid the governor to make a system individually unprofitable, and this could only be possible if the suggested changes were made.

By the way, the "morale" boost mechanics may be changed to support this as well - for instance, tax rate may have no impact at all on non-profitable systems (always slightly poor ), and the impact could to some extent be a function of untaxed part of the income - that is, the more money empire "wasted", the more happy people on that system are

Here, read my post on the previous page (or don't lol, it doesn't matter really, although I did spend some time). The only thing I haven't tackled with is population growth, but otherwise I'm confident that this solution covers every wish/suggestion mentioned in this topic.

+1 I agree on an overhaul of the slightly confusing taxation system

This system makes more sense to me than most. I mean if I bought something I'd pay the full price. If I started a tourism company by myself I'd pay 100% of the cost. If me and 15 others did so we could do so by spreading the cost and I'd pay about 7%. If 6 of us did so we'd pay about 17% each if we spread the costs evenly. I think this tax system is taking that into consideration. Raising taxes lowers profits, lowering profits deminishes gains. Deminished gains sometimes lead to losses. You can't take a loss and be more productive at the same time. I think there is a fine line that determines when a government can gain from taxes and when it starts to lose from taxes.

I don't think this system needs an overhaul. I think a simplified explaination, that doesn't have opinions in it, would be helpful.

From what I've been able to gather, there is a very simplified explanation listed in the first post, via a link to another thread that describes how the system works. As it is, the system actually works in a way that is very confusing, to the point that certain bonuses to Dust gain are not actual bonuses at all, but rather just a drain on production. If you build a system improvement to generate more Dust, there should never be a point in which it nets you less.