System tax pays for industrial powerhouses

[dadacp]

As I understand it, the system tax was originally meant to pay for system-wide improvements such as mobilization centers. Now all it does is transfer money to the system seat of government. This can be very useful for industrial worlds.

Worlds that are full of manufacturing DEAs generally tend to have a problem getting enough AUs to pay for the full utilization of all that industry. If these worlds are set to be system seats of government then these worlds can get their money from the other planets in their systems via the system tax.

The system seat of government is an improvement to a governmental DEA. So if it's on the wrong world one shoud be able to tear down the govemental DEA and then rebuild it on another world. In the explanation of goverment DEA it states that this DEA affects the whole system when placed at the system seat of government.

Build the system seat of government on the world that is meant later to be an industrial powerhouse.

[archpsi]

or u could just make one goverment dea per system.

anyway how did u find out that system tax transfers the money to system seat??

it means i will lower the tax on all colonies and make the system tax much higher and thus the mining/farming colonies wouldnt always have super surplus in bank and be sending tons of AU to the system seat colony(industry colony)

[Darkchampion]

i always lower system taxes to 0%, hike empire taxes, and then up planetary grants to make up for it.

the AI will put the grant money where it is needed. new worlds/industrial giants.

[Medwayman]

You have to build the System seat of government. I don't think its assumed to exist on the first world in the system to build a government DEA

[dadacp]

.You have to build the System seat of government. I don't think its assumed to exist on the first world in the system to build a government DEA

I stand corrected. I've corrected my original post, thank you. I tested and found out that the system seat of govenment can be built at any government DEA, not just the first government DEA in the system. The good as it gives more flexibility to the player.

[Certa]

I've read about 10 different theories about system tax on this forum but no-one knew for sure exactly how it worked. As we know, the documentation says close to nothing about it.

Determined to find out I started to elaborate. Anyone can replicate this to see for themselves.

I removed all planetary grants from the finance screen and put both the imperial and system tax to 0%. I picked two fellow planets in a system. I unchecked the economical AI, minimized their expenses and lowered their planetary taxes to 0 and pressed turn.

In the planet tab (listed planet) I now saw that none of these two planets had any income (just as I expected). Now I placed the system tax to 10% and pressed turn.

This time one of the planets had income. The income was about 10% of both planets GDP and trade. However, on this planets economical summary screen the tax income was still 0. No sign of any system tax here.

I thought that perhaps the system tax only kicks in if there is a need for it so I tried ruining this planets economy. That's when I discovered where the system tax goes but it wasn't because I ruined the economy, it was because I kept an eye on the planetary balance. First the starting bank was 7830 and ending bank was 6464 (expenses and no income). At the next turn the starting bank was 10.4k and ending bank was 8959 (it should have started at 6464 not 10.4k). How can a dropping economy magically get better over a turn? -Because the system tax was added to the starting bank at turn but never specified. The ending bank balance should be in sync with the next turns starting bank balance but it wasn't. The difference was the system tax exactly.

On the other planet the ending bank balance was in sync with the next turns starting bank balance.

I tried it on two systems and in both cases it ended up being the planet with the system government that gets it. I don't know who gets it if there are no government, test it yourself. Even if there are weaker planets they don't get anything from the system tax so that theory doesn't work I guess.

Summary:
* System tax works
* It is calculated of GDP and trade just like planetary tax but for all planets in the system.
* The planet with the system government always gets the money.
* The system tax income is not specified but is added to the planets balance each turn.

Of course I can be wrong. There could be more aspects of the system tax I haven't found yet. At least we know it works, the money goes somewhere and it's not only an unrest factor causing some people to always put it to 0%.

//Certa

[apierion]

hmm...i have a simpler theory on system tax, but i'll admit it could be faulty - i was never sure..


Anyway,

I was under the impression that the system tax was a sort of 'guide' for the planetary viceroys as to where to set their planetary tax levels, all other things being equal.

Case in point: If planet A has a planet tax of say, 20%, and hte system tax is 15%, then he will slowly drop the planet tax down to 15%. If i go and change that planet tax directly back up or down myself, he'll leave it alone for a while, but then start moving it again after about 10-15 turns.

There is some evidence in my game to back this up as all my planets have a planet tax around 12%, which is my sys tax setting.

Of course, this contradicts everything everyone else has said to date and Honestly I really haven't thought about it that much, so I am probably totally wrong :)

-apierion

[Magister]

This could have some very critical aplications.
Anyone have any idea how to test it more accurately?
-Magister

[Coreador]

apieron -

My system tax is usually down at 5%(default? I don't mess with it), and the AI never sets planetary tax down anywhere near that. So, I don't think your theory is correct. Good guess though.

Does anyone know how people complaining about "high taxes" are decided? Is it simply adding the planet, system, and empire tax together and checking it versus some race specific threshold? Or do the different taxes weight differently somehow?

[Astatine]

Originally posted by apierion
hmm...i have a simpler theory on system tax, but i'll admit it could be faulty - i was never sure..


Anyway,

I was under the impression that the system tax was a sort of 'guide' for the planetary viceroys as to where to set their planetary tax levels, all other things being equal.

Case in point: If planet A has a planet tax of say, 20%, and hte system tax is 15%, then he will slowly drop the planet tax down to 15%. If i go and change that planet tax directly back up or down myself, he'll leave it alone for a while, but then start moving it again after about 10-15 turns.

There is some evidence in my game to back this up as all my planets have a planet tax around 12%, which is my sys tax setting.

Of course, this contradicts everything everyone else has said to date and Honestly I really haven't thought about it that much, so I am probably totally wrong :)

-apierion

I've always left system tax at 11% - originally I hoped that it would be a guideline to planet taxes like you just said but my planet taxes always drift up to 18-22% (using a "balanced" spending policy) so I'm not sure there's any evidence for the guideline theory.

[Astatine]

Originally posted by dadacp
.

I stand corrected. I've corrected my original post, thank you. I tested and found out that the system seat of govenment can be built at any government DEA, not just the first government DEA in the system. The good as it gives more flexibility to the player.

The downside is that sometimes when I take a new system over several consecutive turns I find the planets are competing to see who can build the System Seat first....

That's a minor annoyance - worse is that because the planet with the worst production is the last to finish - that is where the system government often ends up if I don't intervene. It's often a poor choice because of high gravity.

[mellojello]

Originally posted by Astatine
The downside is that sometimes when I take a new system over several consecutive turns I find the planets are competing to see who can build the System Seat first....


Though in a way that might be an accurate representation of how that situation might play out....both planets lobbying for the system seat :)

[Certa]

Originally posted by Coreador
apieron -
Does anyone know how people complaining about "high taxes" are decided? Is it simply adding the planet, system, and empire tax together and checking it versus some race specific threshold? Or do the different taxes weight differently somehow?

As far as I know all the taxes are added up together as empire + system + planetary = total % just as you said. This match my own experience well.

Looks like (I'm almost sure) all taxes are a percentage of GDP and trade together. 1-2% are expected to be lost in bureaucracy for empire and system taxes, so I heard.

If you drop the system tax from default (5-6%) to zero you should be able to raise the empire or planetary taxes just as much.

//Certa

[HastyLemming]

I've been experimenting with this lately. Almost always i can raise the local tax by the amount of lowered system tax. I think i've found a ceiling on tax though. I've found the goverment with the highest tax tolerance to be C. Monarchy, and it gets a healthy boost to recreation. Local tax defaults to 24% to start, with Cynoids. I can get it to 30% with no unrest by dropping system tax to nill. Even with a healthy dose of recreation and military dea's and lowing empire tax i can't get the viceroys to set it higher. With empire tax at standard for race and goverment i can set the local tax manually to 33% with no unrest what-so-ever, but the AI slowly brings it down. If i set empire or system tax higher the AI lowers local tax, even though i have no unrest. I can, however, pump up the oppression. But you can imagine what the cynoid can do with 33% of a 200k AU economy.

[Cobra77]

Build the system seat of government on the world that is meant later to be an industrial powerhouse.
You are right, The planet that has the system seat does get the extra system taxes to spend. I checked this out buy moving the system seat around in systems with more then 1 planet, The one with the system seat always had lots of extra money to spend. This answers the question I always had as to why my home planet seemed to be generating more money than other planets in the system that have outgrown it.
I also noticed that if the system seat gets destroyed by spys the AI rebuilds it on best producing planet in you system, Even if it was originaly on a different planet.
Thanks for the info. Just another bit of information that should have been made clear in the doc's but wasn't. :confused:

[Verves2]

Let me get this straight. System tax helps the rich get richer. Planetary Grants via Imperial tax help the poor get less poor.

[Cobra77]

Let me get this straight. System tax helps the rich get richer. Planetary Grants via Imperial tax help the poor get less poor.
YUP.:cry:
But I kind of like the way it works here, It helps make those big planets in each system ship building monsters.:D

[hoof1]

Hmmm ... that's too bad about the system taxes. I'd hoped that it worked like the empire taxes, except on a system-level (that way you could funnel taxes from the more developed planets in a system to a newer planet, w/o having to get it from the empire's tax grant system).

I might have to set system taxes to zero until I can take the time to micromanage the system seat positions on all my star systems. Right now, except for the lottery winner of who gets the system seat, it sounds like money wasted :(

[Maginot]

I have not read the whole thread, but I have a game now where at least one system has 2 (two) system seats of governments in it.
I decided to try to bolt up the tech tree and then go on a rampage.
I colonized every planet I could and set each one with no more than 4 industrial, a gov, a rec and the rest research DEA's.
This at the time the colony was formed.
I set up NO DEV plans.
I set up enough Bio and mining to see to my needs and let it go.
Ship building was slow, but since I am so far ahead of everyone else, 1 of mine is worth at least 4 of theirs.

[Saratoga]

"Worlds that are full of manufacturing DEAs generally tend to have a problem getting enough AUs to pay for the full utilization of all that industry."

I dont think so....

My great shipyards, while they dont exactly have an excess of cash, are limited by their industry and not cashflow. I have plenty of money to send the bar far into the red. And they are like 20 industry and a government.

[wisecat]

I think we should *bump* this thread to get them modders and encyclopedists to look on the theory - I mean the guys do enjoy checking such stuff out and then even write guides useful for all of us;)

[dadacp]

Stochastic investigated and came to the conclusion that manufacturing DEAs generate enough income to play for themselves, while research DEAs do not. (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=3660375#post3660375) This would seemingly make system seats good for research planets. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get the viceroy to adjust the ratio of spending between military production and research depending on the proportion of manufacturing and research DEAs. The viceroy doesn't seem to care what the capacity of the planet is, it just spends a certain percentage on military production and a certain percentage on research (as far as I can tell).

[smellymummy]

Originally posted by Saratoga
My great shipyards, while they dont exactly have an excess of cash, are limited by their industry and not cashflow. I have plenty of money to send the bar far into the red. And they are like 20 industry and a government.
but putting that bar into the red is innefficient.

You do realize, that when your increase any of the funding bars, the more it gets away from green, the more money you're paying to get those production points.

When the bar is in bright red, it costs you 5 AU for 1 PP. Dark red, it's 6 AU for 1 PP. In green, it's 1 AU for 1 PP.

The table at page 49 of the manual explains it well...

So I guess having more money for the planet, means you can push the slider much higher and still keep it in the green?

[Bhruic]

Actually, it's sort of the reverse. The more industry you have, the more money you can spend before you get out of "green" range. The amount of industry you have is the amount of money you can spend and still have it green. If you spend more, the ratio you are spending goes up so that it gets more inefficient as it grows.

Bh

[smellymummy]

thanks for clearing that up Bhruic :D

[Wayeth]

Actually, Government is your limiter on combined tax rate. It's in the table for government effects... very easy to test, tho

Play a Collective Government on Hive. Wait until mid-game. Without any tweaking, your Planetary Taxes are around 30% or more. Switch to Unification and immediately press next turn. Betcha that a significant portion of your worlds start destroying buildings due to unrest. Look at the reason... High Tax. *sigh*

Wyatt

[Zyphyr]

Wayeth.. read the date on the post you are replying to... ~7 months old. No reason to *sigh* at people not having the accurate data way back then.

[haniblecter]

There's tons of theories and beleifs of where to put the system seat...let alone the empire seat...of government.


What i reccomend for peeps to do, is place the system seat (assuming you have a nice system as is - multiple planets) on an industrial powerhouse...but one taht doesnt have alot of regions.


For example, lets say you place that system seat on yoru size 12 Gas giant. Sure, 20 or more industrial regions would benefit from it...but how much more can the funds from the sytsem seat go into overdriving your industry? Chances are you're already operating in the yellow without taking a serious hit to the planets bank. Then, by adding that additional revenue, you wont even have enough to push production into red without hurting hte bank by ALOT.

That's why i tell people to put the sys. seat on a planet that has lots of potential, but not enough regions to compete with the size 12 gas giants.


In summary:
Placing sys. seats on large gas bags is inefficient
Place them on industrial powerhouses that are smaller than size 8

[SamuraiZombie]

The planetary viceroys set tax rates roughly to the maximum they can get without creating high unrest. Every planet has local, system and empire taxes. Local taxes are obviously used for local budget needs. System taxes are sent to the system seat, giving the system's capitol a bonus to its cash flow. Imperial taxes go to the empire treasury and are spent in that Finance screen on Unrest, Research, Military and Grants. Generally speaking, when you raise system and imperial taxes, the viceroy will lower the local taxes. If you lower your system and imperial taxes, the viceroy will be able to raise local taxes. The maximum tax rates you can get will depend on how susceptible your empire is to unrest. Low loyalty or subjugated races will always have a smaller tolerance for taxes than races with high unrest resistance.

A lot of people seem to advocate eliminating or almost eliminating system and imperial taxes, bringing them down to 0% or maybe only 2% or 3%. While this means you have almost no money to spend on the Empire-wide scale, each individual planet will have a lot more money and be able to develop itself more quickly. I find in practice this tends to require more micromanagement, at least for me; I need to spend more time in the planets screen, balancing the individual planet budgets and making sure I have enough planets spending money on research, keeping their unrest down, etc. However, you definetely don't need system tax higher than about 3% and imperial tax higher than about 9% or 10%, in any circumstance. I've found 1-2% and 5-7% for system and imperial (respectively) to work best for me.

[Skymage]

I am one of the low tax advocates.

I believe in eliminating the system tax because it is empire wide and 1 shoe does not fit all (At least in my games). I also believe in low empire taxes roughly ~3-6%. This gives enough funds to startup planets AND gives 'roy the chance to handle unrest on his own (This allows me to keep my imperial unrest slider at 0).

As far as micromanaging ... 1) I don't have to deal with unrest because 'roy can handle it with enough funds at his disposal (here he actually does a good job), 2) Because I have infrastructure in most of my dev plans (including 'all planets') and because I lock my build queues the only places I need to micromanage is ensuring research is being done (not too much) and pruning my resource DEA's

SkyMage

[Awsric Armitage]

Another Bump to the front page. Thought you guys might be bored so more good information moved to the front page of the forums for your browsing pleasure.

[The Wagster]

Good work with the bumping:up:

It stops them getting deleted as well.

[Awsric Armitage]

Yeah, it really bothers me losing good threads. Created a link up thread so that should not happen anymore. Hopefully.

A lot of bumpedy, bump, bump though. And no date. If you know what I mean. Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink, ...say no more!

I gotta have a pint now. May be two...oh hell, an even three otta do'er.

[Severus Snape]

I usually keep my system tax at 2-4%, but I'm much more fond of the Empire tax (12-18%, depending on government). I agree with hanniballecter on the placement of System Seats; I don't place them on the largest worlds, which can usually fund their own DEA's without the system taxes. I pick worlds between sizes 5 and 8 for System Seats and load those worlds with industry DEAs, which are partially funded by the system taxes.
The only exception to this is when I colonize a system that has only a few, small planets. In that case, I designate that system for research/resource production, and one planet as a "Research Powerhouse", and place the system seat there so that the system taxes can fund the Research DEAs.
I don't know if this is the most efficient way to deal with system seats/taxes, but it has worked for me. One tip: In the late-early to mid-game and after, use one of the player defined development plans for a System Seat design, and make Government the top priority in that plan. When this plan is applied to Industrial system seats, the bonuses to industry from the Government DEA-enhancing structures can be massive. In late-mid to late games and after, when I've researched/acquired a number of Gov DEA-enhancing techs, I make Government the primary or secondary priority in my "All Planets" plan, so that all planets can benefit from this.

[mpotto]

So MoO ]I[ is a socialist's paradise with nothing being build that isn't paid for by the government? No wonder so many Europeans love this game :eek: (doh!) :eek: . :confused:

[Bolo Mark 33]

So MoO ]I[ is a socialist's paradise with nothing being build that isn't paid for by the government? No wonder so many Europeans love this game (doh!) .

I don't know. Seems more mercantilist (http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/mercantilism.html) to me.

It is interesting that, while there are different government models, there are no different economic models in MOO3. They all seem to be the same... It would be nice to be able to play capitalist, socialist, communist,etc.

EDIT: And lets not have this thread devolve into a debate over the systems listed above. Only posts regarding MOO3, please. I don't want this thread to get locked down. :)

[mpotto]

Different government models would be nice, like Civ 3 in space. My comment was intended to fire some people up (although it may have scared more away) because I find the state run economy unrealistic. Strictly speaking it is probably more similar to the fascist model than socialist one (in less you really jack up the taxes :D ). Although I imagine it would be quite difficult to implement.

[Colt374]

Bump... important info

[pedxing]

in the later stages of a game, i love cranking down Imperial Tax and bringing up System Tax to compensate.

no sense in filtering all that money up to the Imperial level, then back out to big production worlds, when the big production worlds can just collect it locally!

by this point in the game, i'm usually making most of my Imperial income from Trade anyway, so the tax money is no great loss.

but it does require picking the system seat carefully in multi-planet systems! if you (or 'Roy) manage to mis-place it on the wrong world, rebuilding it on the right world will break the Mob Center in that system, which can be a hassle...

[Naggarok]

in the later stages of a game, i love cranking down Imperial Tax and bringing up System Tax to compensate.

no sense in filtering all that money up to the Imperial level, then back out to big production worlds, when the big production worlds can just collect it locally!

by this point in the game, i'm usually making most of my Imperial income from Trade anyway, so the tax money is no great loss.

but it does require picking the system seat carefully in multi-planet systems! if you (or 'Roy) manage to mis-place it on the wrong world, rebuilding it on the right world will break the Mob Center in that system, which can be a hassle...



Could anyone write a small summary ? This thread is like 3 years old, some kind of summary would be great. I usually dont mess with the tax % or the system seat of goverment at all, but if it would help my empire, then i would like to know more details.