Retention Revisited

[Bedwyr]

Yes...The fact that there's no way to tax cities right now is one of the many, many, many reasons why Dukes are overpowered at the moment.  I still think the easiest way to get around that short of revamping the tax system (which would still be my preference) would be to just auto-shunt all city income to the duchy tax pool.

[BardicNerd]

Yes...The fact that there's no way to tax cities right now is one of the many, many, many reasons why Dukes are overpowered at the moment.  I still think the easiest way to get around that short of revamping the tax system (which would still be my preference) would be to just auto-shunt all city income to the duchy tax pool.

Problem with that is that then the knights of the city have no income.  Well, I guess the Duke could manually give them bonds, but. . . .

Of course, being both the Duke of the richest city in the realm and the banker, I don't mind this idea otherwise. . . .

[Vellos]

If realms could forcibly tax duchies in an effective manner, then realms could devise new tax policies that would involve both a meaningful realm share for the nobility, and the possibility of lords giving extra income to favored knights.

Realms should be able to tax cities as proxies for duchies.

That will provoke dukes to seek "supplemental income:" ducal taxes. As is, ducal taxes are, in my experienced, widely under- or unused. If the realm could tax a city it would provoke the duke to seek vassals who he can tax. This will promote competition for vassals, as a larger duchy could run a lower ducal tax rate and still have the duke acquire the same income.

Such a system should create unrest, however. I'd love to see realms able to tax cities. I'd like to see realms penalized for taxing them at very high rates. Maybe something similar to Too Much Peace, but, instead, Too Many Taxes, which would increase the % of tax revenues that gets "wasted" (read: destroyed) as the tax rates on cities rise. Have no penalty for a substantial margin (maybe 0-10%), then an exponentially expanding penalty afterwards, starting small.

HOWEVER, returning to the topic of the thread:

Does anyone have any evidence suggesting that realms that give more gold to new players are more likely to retain nobles? Do continents with higher average incomes have higher retention (my guess: no)? Do realms that have high "realm shares" of taxes hold new players better?

Our practice of coming up with "solutions" to retention issues without having ever carefully diagnosed the problem is just not good. Until somebody has data suggesting that there may indeed be a meaningful link between gold systems that treat new characters preferentially...

Two additional notes:
1. Nobody replies to my comment about trade practices? Sad day.
2. I somehow doubt that most new characters are new players; it's a careful distinction that should be made, and "realm shares" benefit low-ranking characters, which may not actually be new players. There may be more effective targeting means.

[Bedwyr]

Such a system should create unrest, however. I'd love to see realms able to tax cities. I'd like to see realms penalized for taxing them at very high rates. Maybe something similar to Too Much Peace, but, instead, Too Many Taxes, which would increase the % of tax revenues that gets "wasted" (read: destroyed) as the tax rates on cities rise. Have no penalty for a substantial margin (maybe 0-10%), then an exponentially expanding penalty afterwards, starting small.

That already exists.  I don't know the numbers, but there is a Royal Court overhead that ramps up as you take in more taxes, with nothing up to some percentage (10% of the realm gold, I think).

Does anyone have any evidence suggesting that realms that give more gold to new players are more likely to retain nobles? Do continents with higher average incomes have higher retention (my guess: no)? Do realms that have high "realm shares" of taxes hold new players better?

Realm shares are a bad way of handling it, as that gives everyone a bump in gold and "justifies" crappy oaths for new characters.  And, as has been fairly conclusively demonstrated at the realm level (island statistics, average income per realm) at least twice on the d-list that I remember, average income is meaningless as that can mean "we have five dukes who rake in 1K a week and lords raking in 300 a week and a bunch of knights making 20 a week".  Median income is what we need.

[bluexmas]

This last point is crucial: old established Continents/realms might have high average gold marks, but if that doesn't make its way into the hands of new players (which I think is the problem we're discussing) the point is moot.

[Chenier]

Realms should be able to tax cities as proxies for duchies.

That will provoke dukes to seek "supplemental income:" ducal taxes. As is, ducal taxes are, in my experienced, widely under- or unused. If the realm could tax a city it would provoke the duke to seek vassals who he can tax. This will promote competition for vassals, as a larger duchy could run a lower ducal tax rate and still have the duke acquire the same income.

Except that if you take on knights with a share of the duchy income, as far as I know, they don't get any estates. In which case you are paying them and getting nothing in return, or just about.

[De-Legro]

Except that if you take on knights with a share of the duchy income, as far as I know, they don't get any estates. In which case you are paying them and getting nothing in return, or just about.

He doesn't mention anything there about knights on the Ducal share though, just that they could use the Dukes power to tax regions in the Duchy to supplement income in the case that the Cities taxes are subject to realm tax.

[Chenier]

He doesn't mention anything there about knights on the Ducal share though, just that they could use the Dukes power to tax regions in the Duchy to supplement income in the case that the Cities taxes are subject to realm tax.

Well if he gives all of his city's gold to the ducal share, then where do his knights get their income from?

[De-Legro]

Well if he gives all of his city's gold to the ducal share, then where do his knights get their income from?

Giving all a cities gold to the Ducal share was Bedwyr's idea. My understanding was Vellos was asking for the currently tax on Duchy share to be changed to a city tax. It would tax only the income directly associated with the city, which would make the Duchy Tax from regions something of a tax loophole. I could be wrong there.

Under Bedwyr's idea, I assume he meant either for Knights to receive their share before the taxes where transferred to the Duchy share for taxation purposes, or for the system to be changed so that knights of a Duchy receive their share from the Duchy pool instead of the city pool.

[Vellos]

My idea:

As is, the realm can only tax the "duchy treasury," which is fed by "duchy taxes."

I suggest, instead, that the realm can only tax the "city treasury" which is fed by "city taxes."

The "duchy treasury" still exists, and is a personal income for the duke alone.

What use does it have? Simple: the city tax can rake in gold for the realm. But that will weaken dukes. Dukes can respond with duchy taxes, which are currently underused. As the duchy treasury would be untaxed, it is essentially a levy by the duke on rural lords, as it currently is, but would have a stronger motive, as the reward for realms to deploy taxes on cities would be greater, due to the taxes actually being effective.

That already exists.  I don't know the numbers, but there is a Royal Court overhead that ramps up as you take in more taxes, with nothing up to some percentage (10% of the realm gold, I think).

It does exist. And it is pitifully ineffective. Despite Riombara having 25-35% of it's total tax income (including property tax and other taxes) going to the realm on the whole, realm tax overhead still only amounted to between 0.2% and 0.3% of total tax revenues. It was practically a rounding error, even though sometimes a third of the gold in Riombara is realm-distributed.

I would have expected the penalty to be at least 3-5% at that point. But maybe that's just me.

[Chenier]

My idea:

As is, the realm can only tax the "duchy treasury," which is fed by "duchy taxes."

I suggest, instead, that the realm can only tax the "city treasury" which is fed by "city taxes."

The "duchy treasury" still exists, and is a personal income for the duke alone.

What use does it have? Simple: the city tax can rake in gold for the realm. But that will weaken dukes. Dukes can respond with duchy taxes, which are currently underused. As the duchy treasury would be untaxed, it is essentially a levy by the duke on rural lords, as it currently is, but would have a stronger motive, as the reward for realms to deploy taxes on cities would be greater, due to the taxes actually being effective.

Interesting idea.

Currently, it's so damn difficult to get to apply ducal taxes, though. Most dukes don't ask for them, and lords can easily change ducal allegiance with extreme ease if ever you ask for more than they care to part with. And it's usually impossible to justify as you get more gold than any of them, too.

[De-Legro]

Interesting idea.

Currently, it's so damn difficult to get to apply ducal taxes, though. Most dukes don't ask for them, and lords can easily change ducal allegiance with extreme ease if ever you ask for more than they care to part with. And it's usually impossible to justify as you get more gold than any of them, too.

Partly right now there is little need to impose the tax, thus it is often easy to find a Duchy that will offer a 0% tax on your region. By making the regional taxes more important to the Duke, we should see proper competition in regards to these tax rates, creating another consideration as a Lord when deciding what Duchy to join. I would also imagine that those regions that can't switch to another Duchy may become the target of more aggressive taxes. If everything works as Vellos imagines, then suddenly Duke need to do much more for region lords in order to keep them and preserve their Duchy Taxes, which would become a much larger part of their income then it currently is.

[Chenier]

Partly right now there is little need to impose the tax, thus it is often easy to find a Duchy that will offer a 0% tax on your region. By making the regional taxes more important to the Duke, we should see proper competition in regards to these tax rates, creating another consideration as a Lord when deciding what Duchy to join. I would also imagine that those regions that can't switch to another Duchy may become the target of more aggressive taxes. If everything works as Vellos imagines, then suddenly Duke need to do much more for region lords in order to keep them and preserve their Duchy Taxes, which would become a much larger part of their income then it currently is.

Which, in the end, could simply be used to make the cities richer and the rurals poorer, though...

[De-Legro]

Which, in the end, could simply be used to make the cities richer and the rurals poorer, though...

Almost certainly, maybe it will force the Rural lords to band together :) Certainly should see at least some realms actually pay an internal price for food.

[Indirik]

Currently, it's so damn difficult to get to apply ducal taxes, though. Most dukes don't ask for them, and lords can easily change ducal allegiance with extreme ease if ever you ask for more than they care to part with. And it's usually impossible to justify as you get more gold than any of them, too.

Duchy taxes will still be useless. You would have to levy ruinous taxes on rurals to make up even a modest 10% tax on most cities. Unless you had a LARGE duchy and could spread it out over many smaller regions. Which the majority of duchies don't have. One duke willing to take the income loss himself and not tax his vassals in return for the extra region allegiance would throw the tax curve out the window, too.