Aurvandil's War Machine

[Regulus Blackmore]

We have never sold food to the Zuma, only to D'Hara so far. As I said, constant investments. Not by the same character, but by multiple characters every so often

There isn´t any region with "Booming" production right now. Also, investments are able to raise the production to 200, perhaps 250%, during two or three days. A noble would receive 100, 125 gold coins instead 50.

You need about 60-70 gold coins to maintain a unit of 700-800 cs every week, plus repairs, but most of the gold would be used recruiting... will fall the numbers of the Army of Aurvandil sooner or later?

[fodder]

The situation between Auravandil/Madina could be compared to RL China and Taiwan. It's a question of who's legit when X has the land and the name but Y has the people.

eh,  what?

[Indirik]

There isn´t any region with "Booming" production right now. Also, investments are able to raise the production to 200, perhaps 250%, during two or three days. A noble would receive 100, 125 gold coins instead 50.

It doesn't work quite that way. When you do an investment, the boost to production drops daily. And the higher it is above normal, the faster it drops. So if it goes to 200% on day 1, it will probably drop to 170% on day 2, and 155 on day 3, etc.  So over the entire tax week, you won't have double production. You may average out to 140% or so. Maybe 150. So your knight that normally gets 50 may end up with 75 or 80 gold, at most.

[Chenier]

Thought for discussion:

Maybe frequent investments by the same character with no family contributions should suffer penalties/diminishing returns just like requests for family gold?

I want to be clear I'm not making an accusation of abuse. Heavy investment, IMHO, is not abuse. I'm just wondering what people would think of placing the same or similar restrictions on family investments as we do on family gold.*

*Especially as investments are an infinite loop. If all recipients of taxes reinvest in their family, it generates more gold, for more investments next time. This can be continued ad infinitum to allow a small realm to accumulate large sums of gold. With, say, a 5% return on investment (not counting if you raise productivity from below 100% and thus gain food output for sale), it would take about, what, 15 investments to double your money? If you ran 1 investment every 4 days, you could double in 60 days? If a whole realm did that, you could double your realm's effective income in a couple of months, provided you didn't spend any of the excess gold and had perfect coordination.

90% of my investments are at a 10 gold loss. I have invested often in Iato and rurals in Fheuv'n, and except this last time, it was always at a 10 gold loss. It was not an infinite loop of money creation. Rather, that 10 gold penalty was my "fee" to not need to take a honor hit and to not have to bother redistributing it.

I am overall in disfavor of restrictions to how we can use family wealth, because of 1) there are so little ways to use it and 2) it dictates us how to RP our family. This second point is what bothers me the most. Why should the game tell me that it's not okay for well-off family members, who in their days received plenty of help, to back up another family member reach his ambitions. Nobody outside of the family needs to know who gives money to who, and there are plenty of ways to RP justify "investing" in family abroad.

[Zakilevo]

The restrictions are there for a reason. Your family is not your bank. You can't just have another character in Atamara or somewhere to send gold to your family so some other character on Dwilight or some place can get that gold. You should only play with the gold you get in whichever continent your character is on. Should be grateful that we can ever ask our family for any financial support.

[vonGenf]

The restrictions are there for a reason. Your family is not your bank. You can't just have another character in Atamara or somewhere to send gold to your family so some other character on Dwilight or some place can get that gold.

This is true, generally speaking. If you have a character on Atamara, you should have a reason to have a character on Atamara. Just producing family gold is not an excellent reason.

You should only play with the gold you get in whichever continent your character is on.

That's bringing things a bit too far. Surely if this was intended, then it would be restricted to work that way.

If you keep calling on family gold, you do get diminishing returns. This is to stop you from having a one-way funnel. As long as you don't receive these warnings, you should be in the clear.

[Chenier]

The restrictions are there for a reason. Your family is not your bank. You can't just have another character in Atamara or somewhere to send gold to your family so some other character on Dwilight or some place can get that gold. You should only play with the gold you get in whichever continent your character is on. Should be grateful that we can ever ask our family for any financial support.

If we couldn't, then there'd be no point for being able to send gold to the family at all.

And since we can, it makes little sense that we can't RP it as we deem fit. These are medieval families, not 21rst century north-American families. If the patriarch would say "give a part part of your (huge) income to your brother so that our clan's influence spreads to his parts of the world", then the son would do it. Sure, the patriarch would expect some returns on those investments or he'd stop demanding it, but the game's a poor judge of whether that's being accomplished or not.

[fodder]

eh... constant investment... if you are doing it on your own, it means you'll lose money. because even assuming 100% efficiency (eg.. you chuck 300 in, the region gets 300 out) you are splitting the dole with someone else. (knights, duke)

well.. it depends on the region...  anyway... if all the stakeholders in the region do it.. it does mean organised funds funnelling from elsewhere to that region.

[Chenier]

eh... constant investment... if you are doing it on your own, it means you'll lose money. because even assuming 100% efficiency (eg.. you chuck 300 in, the region gets 300 out) you are splitting the dole with someone else. (knights, duke)

well.. it depends on the region...  anyway... if all the stakeholders in the region do it.. it does mean organised funds funnelling from elsewhere to that region.

Why should the only returns that count be profits in gold? Gold is just a means to an end. And when one's ambitions are great, it often doesn't matter if the gold flows through one's hands or another's.

[Vellos]

well.. it depends on the region...  anyway... if all the stakeholders in the region do it.. it does mean organised funds funnelling from elsewhere to that region.

That was my thought. In a well-organized setting, it could be a problem.

Not a huge issue, just a thought.

Personally, I have never had a zero- or negative-return investment.

[Anaris]

I am overall in disfavor of restrictions to how we can use family wealth, because of 1) there are so little ways to use it and 2) it dictates us how to RP our family. This second point is what bothers me the most. Why should the game tell me that it's not okay for well-off family members, who in their days received plenty of help, to back up another family member reach his ambitions. Nobody outside of the family needs to know who gives money to who, and there are plenty of ways to RP justify "investing" in family abroad.

It's not just intended to be a "realism" argument. It's a balance issue.

[De-Legro]

I for one would not be sad to see family gold, and all the problems/arguments it causes, disappear. I've been in far too many realms where people are paranoid that inactive players are siphoning money off to the family for use somewhere else.

[fodder]

Why should the only returns that count be profits in gold? Gold is just a means to an end. And when one's ambitions are great, it often doesn't matter if the gold flows through one's hands or another's.

the whole point of a constant investment circle is that you can do it all the time.  if you keep losing money, and doesn't get it back from whatever source, then it'll end. with multiple families doing it, it'll take longer to "run out" so to speak. if ever.

[De-Legro]

the whole point of a constant investment circle is that you can do it all the time.  if you keep losing money, and doesn't get it back from whatever source, then it'll end. with multiple families doing it, it'll take longer to "run out" so to speak. if ever.

Except you can replenish the family gold using characters from other islands. The goal may not be to introduce a perpetual money machine using a single character, but rather to increase the gold in a realm you care about at the expense of a realm you don't care about.

[JPierreD]

eh... constant investment... if you are doing it on your own, it means you'll lose money. because even assuming 100% efficiency (eg.. you chuck 300 in, the region gets 300 out) you are splitting the dole with someone else. (knights, duke)

well.. it depends on the region...  anyway... if all the stakeholders in the region do it.. it does mean organised funds funnelling from elsewhere to that region.

Most of the time, at least on the old tax system, the investment was profitable (the region produces more than it consumed with the investment), not taking into account when it's not fully populated (thus production is below 100%), so the food production also gets boosted.