BattleMaster Community

Quote from: Geronus on September 12, 2011, 05:36:57 PM
Well you can already use Secret Societies this way, so it wouldn't exactly plug the hole...

Well, when the new system goes online, SSes will be taxed too, so yes, it would.

Quote from: Anaris on September 12, 2011, 05:43:06 PM
Well, when the new system goes online, SSes will be taxed too, so yes, it would.

Tom said that? o.0

Quote from: Ramiel on September 12, 2011, 06:26:51 PM
Tom said that? o.0

he said guilds and temples.
I can't imagine how you could tax a secret treasury of some  secret society.

Quote from: Anaris on September 12, 2011, 05:43:06 PM
Well, when the new system goes online, SSes will be taxed too, so yes, it would.

Now that is what we call "stupid."

Re Taxing temples: Makes sense to have this as an option for realms, if they want to tax temples. However, I worry about what this will do to temple funding. This will be a serious drain on temples, requiring them to be visited much more frequently to keep the treasury stocked so they don't fall apart.

Re Taxing SSs: Wut? This makes no sense. The reason the treasury cap was put in place for SSs is because they are not taxed.

Agreed.  Taxing temples should not be mandatory, and taxing SS...I can't even figure out how that would work.

Quote from: Indirik on September 12, 2011, 06:58:27 PM
Re Taxing temples: Makes sense to have this as an option for realms, if they want to tax temples. However, I worry about what this will do to temple funding. This will be a serious drain on temples, requiring them to be visited much more frequently to keep the treasury stocked so they don't fall apart.

Re Taxing SSs: Wut? This makes no sense. The reason the treasury cap was put in place for SSs is because they are not taxed.

Would have to agree with Indirik on this one.

An option to tax temples is totally fine. And would be a very, very fun political tool.

But a universal taxation of temples will undermine an already struggling aspect of the game, religion.

Quote from: Indirik on September 12, 2011, 06:58:27 PM
Re Taxing temples: Makes sense to have this as an option for realms, if they want to tax temples. However, I worry about what this will do to temple funding. This will be a serious drain on temples, requiring them to be visited much more frequently to keep the treasury stocked so they don't fall apart.

Re Taxing SSs: Wut? This makes no sense. The reason the treasury cap was put in place for SSs is because they are not taxed.

I second both of these sentiments. Keeping a religion funded takes work as it is. To tax them in addition would make it even more onerous. Religions and guilds both add a lot of flavor to the game, yet I personally have sworn off founding guilds precisely because of how much of a pain in the neck they are to manage from a financial standpoint.

And yes, the SS thing makes no sense at all.

Quote from: Vellos on September 12, 2011, 08:36:17 PM
An option to tax temples is totally fine. And would be a very, very fun political tool.

But a universal taxation of temples will undermine an already struggling aspect of the game, religion.

Yes and no.
Lords would love to have religions, and especialy rich ones build there temples in his or her region knowing it will bring him extra income.
The more temples the better.

but still an option to tax them or even an option on how harsh to tax would indeed give more dimension, fun and flexibility, like where used with BM.

Quote from: Indirik on September 12, 2011, 06:58:27 PM
Re Taxing temples: Makes sense to have this as an option for realms, if they want to tax temples. However, I worry about what this will do to temple funding. This will be a serious drain on temples, requiring them to be visited much more frequently to keep the treasury stocked so they don't fall apart.

Re Taxing SSs: Wut? This makes no sense. The reason the treasury cap was put in place for SSs is because they are not taxed.

Agreed.

Perhaps the thread should be resplit, for the talk about taxes on religions. It started here as there weren't any other thread, but it's evolving into a full discussion so it should be put apart.





Mod edit: Chenier is right. I have split this thread away from the Veinsormoot thread.

Quote from: Vellos on September 12, 2011, 08:36:17 PM
An option to tax temples is totally fine. And would be a very, very fun political tool.

Agreed. It also does not make sense to tax temples while the Lord will replenish all the taxes he receives from the temple anyway. <-- That also makes the claim that it will prevent using temples as banks invalid. It might even make it easier. The Lord receives funds he will replenish, which adjusts his gold balance, making it easier to make large withdrawals for one person.

Quote from: Vellos on September 12, 2011, 08:36:17 PM
But a universal taxation of temples will undermine an already struggling aspect of the game, religion.

Agreed. We should improve the position of religions within Battlemaster, and taxations are counter-productive in my opinion.

Quote from: Nosferatus on September 12, 2011, 08:42:20 PM
Yes and no.
Lords would love to have religions, and especialy rich ones build there temples in his or her region knowing it will bring him extra income.
The more temples the better.

but still an option to tax them or even an option on how harsh to tax would indeed give more dimension, fun and flexibility, like where used with BM.

except they can't build it without him joining that religion in the 1st place. bit stupid for a lord to go around joining different religions just so they can build temples.

Quote from: Galvez on September 12, 2011, 11:51:22 PM
Agreed. We should improve the position of religions within Battlemaster, and taxations are counter-productive in my opinion.

Funny how that sounds just like the real world...


To clear up some things:

Secret Societies will not be taxed. I was discussing an idea on IRC about taxation for them, based on the concept that they will likely run some kind of "front" business, so a tax on that - at a much reduced rate - would not be a too horrible idea. But that's an idea, and the current code for the new estate system does not tax Secret Societies.

For religions, I may be talked into making the exact "discount" for religions a value the region lord can choose. Within some limits (i.e. not 100% tax reduction, but maybe between 0% and 90% in 10% increments). But that's definitely on the "post-release enhancements" list.

I find it utterly important to tax religions, because too many people have begun using them as banks. And quite frankly, the other option is to do things with limited treasuries or such. Also, because a couple of rich temples rightfully should give the region lord more gold to play with. And because it creates another source of conflict. The religion elders may want the lord to put all that gold right back into the temple - but instead of a game mechanic, there is now a human being here who could decide that he'd rather not...

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 12:20:04 AM
Funny how that sounds just like the real world...


To clear up some things:

Secret Societies will not be taxed. I was discussing an idea on IRC about taxation for them, based on the concept that they will likely run some kind of "front" business, so a tax on that - at a much reduced rate - would not be a too horrible idea. But that's an idea, and the current code for the new estate system does not tax Secret Societies.

For religions, I may be talked into making the exact "discount" for religions a value the region lord can choose. Within some limits (i.e. not 100% tax reduction, but maybe between 0% and 90% in 10% increments). But that's definitely on the "post-release enhancements" list.

I find it utterly important to tax religions, because too many people have begun using them as banks. And quite frankly, the other option is to do things with limited treasuries or such. Also, because a couple of rich temples rightfully should give the region lord more gold to play with. And because it creates another source of conflict. The religion elders may want the lord to put all that gold right back into the temple - but instead of a game mechanic, there is now a human being here who could decide that he'd rather not...

I'm all for conflict, and lords who decide they want to tax the religions is all well and fun.

What I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

On the subject of getting gold from guilds/temples... I've always wanted an option for infiltrators to break into temples and guildhouses much like they break into tax offices nowadays. Any chance this could be considered somewhere down the line?

Quote from: Bedwyr on September 13, 2011, 12:28:06 AM
I'm all for conflict, and lords who decide they want to tax the religions is all well and fun.

What I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

I completely agree.

While religions might have been tax havens for some, legit religions are costly. Indeed, too costly if you ask me. Traditionally, realms sprung up artificial religions sometimes just to keep in check foreign faiths... After playing the religion game *a lot*, I consider this to have been a poor strategy. Costs thousands and thousands of gold to properly set up the religious infrastructure of a medium-sized faith, and months and months of nothing but preaching to have good follower %.

A simpler solution: just arrest the foreign priests when they enter your lands. Just costs a small police unit, which pretty much everyone can carry around (except traders and priests). Considering how most religions have very few priests, and that indeed a good number of old faiths have died because they lost theirs, this solution takes very little effort and gold.

Some people will say that "priests are powerful", and name stuff like "Claim region" and the like. With the amount of investments required for a religion to work, you may as well ask for all these funds, send it to the family home, and just outright buy the region... Getting the required follower % in hostile lands for meaningful regions and next to impossible anyways, and claiming a region without the support of the army (which you have to, since they'll try to stop you) is likely to lead to the region revolting too.

Taxing temples will just make the religion game that much less worth it. I can understand taxing temples of religions that aren't yours, but having one's temples taxed by one's own followers? That's just pressing the financial burden past the tolerable limit.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 12:20:04 AM
For religions, I may be talked into making the exact "discount" for religions a value the region lord can choose. Within some limits (i.e. not 100% tax reduction, but maybe between 0% and 90% in 10% increments). But that's definitely on the "post-release enhancements" list.

Why not start at 0% tax, and raise it over or above the region tax level, independently of it? One tax rate per temple, of course. It would provide the tension option without worrying about the scenario Bedwyr presented.

Other idea: Set an extra % tax for followers of certain religions. This would fit very well with the medieval setting, taxing religious minorities.

Quote from: JPierreD on September 13, 2011, 01:08:29 AM
Other idea: Set an extra % tax for followers of certain religions. This would fit very well with the medieval setting, taxing religious minorities.

It would prompt more rebellions. That's a perk, not a downside, if you ask me.

Quote from: Bedwyr on September 13, 2011, 12:28:06 AMWhat I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

I have to agree with this. What I fear this will lead to is a constant hassle of repeatedly badgering people to put gold in the temples. It's already difficult enough to keep this stuff funded. Crank up the gold drain on the treasury, and it will just have to happen even more often. You'll have to keep more gold in the treasury to compensate, and then you'll just end up having more people randomly grab it, because "Hey, 200 gold! Woohoo!"

In SA I even made it one of the elder's responsibilities to watch temples, and make sure they stayed funded. But then that player gets bored with it. It never gets done. And you end up having to constantly hound people to get it done. Why? Because playing Temple Treasury Watch is boring, tedious, busywork.

We don't play BattleMaster to become bookkeepers and accountants. As rich and powerful nobles we should have legions of functionaries to take care of this kind of junk for us. Stuff like this turns the game into a job. And that's No Fun.

Perhaps what we need is a wealth tax for religions? Allow the Lord to set a tax of x% whenever the treasury is over Y amount?

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 12:20:04 AM

I find it utterly important to tax religions, because too many people have begun using them as banks.

Which is VERY medievally correct. Religions should be heavily advantaged (or have the possibility of a heavy advantage) in the financial markets, if we want to be even remotely Medieval.

Quote from: Galvez on September 12, 2011, 11:51:22 PM
It might even make it easier. The Lord receives funds he will replenish, which adjusts his gold balance, making it easier to make large withdrawals for one person.

Galvez' point is correct. Taxing guildhouses makes running mass money transfers easier. My character in Terran has hundreds of gold in surplus with every guild he is in (which is quite a few). Why? Because he taxes their treasuries, then replenishes them. As such, those guilds never actually gain much and never have a large sum of money on hand, but Hireshmont racks up surpluses he can use to shift around moneys however he wants. And I do this very aggressively, allowing me to move money very easily.

The zero-tax on temples means the only way for me to get a big surplus for religions is to actually give them cash they get to keep. Meaning I can never get net positive transactions (except for monthly account balance changes, but those are practically meaningless in most cases). Taxing temples will simultaneously raise major new overhead, decrease the possibility of large religions and temples prospering, and make financial tricks much easier for clever lords.

Quote from: Vellos on September 13, 2011, 02:59:18 AM
Which is VERY medievally correct. Religions should be heavily advantaged (or have the possibility of a heavy advantage) in the financial markets, if we want to be even remotely Medieval.

Galvez' point is correct. Taxing guildhouses makes running mass money transfers easier. My character in Terran has hundreds of gold in surplus with every guild he is in (which is quite a few). Why? Because he taxes their treasuries, then replenishes them. As such, those guilds never actually gain much and never have a large sum of money on hand, but Hireshmont racks up surpluses he can use to shift around moneys however he wants. And I do this very aggressively, allowing me to move money very easily.

The zero-tax on temples means the only way for me to get a big surplus for religions is to actually give them cash they get to keep. Meaning I can never get net positive transactions (except for monthly account balance changes, but those are practically meaningless in most cases). Taxing temples will simultaneously raise major new overhead, decrease the possibility of large religions and temples prospering, and make financial tricks much easier for clever lords.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I would suspect that using taxes in order to establish a giant surplus with the guild/religion in this way is unintended.  Just a personal opinion but I would think it is close to violating this

"No powergaming. If the only reason you do something is game-mechanics, you should probably not do it. No declarations of war if you don't actually intend to fight, for example. No "assassinate me so the bounty stays within our realm", etc."

Quote from: Vellos on September 13, 2011, 02:59:18 AM
Which is VERY medievally correct. Religions should be heavily advantaged (or have the possibility of a heavy advantage) in the financial markets, if we want to be even remotely Medieval.

Amen to this. How do you think the Catholic Church became so wealthy? Religions have been tax exempt throughout western history. If you control a religion to the extent that you feel safe storing your money in it, you deserve it, as you're probably a relatively high ranking member. It's not like religions are easy to create and maintain. And I have yet to hear that someone has created a religion for the sole purpose of storing money, without any effort at developing it or propagating it. Now THAT would be power gaming.

One point that I feel has not been raised yet - what exactly is so bad about people using guilds and religions to evade taxes in the first place? Is there a contention that this somehow hurts the game? If so, I fail to see how. I do not understand why subjecting all money everywhere to taxes is so important. Tax evasion is as old as taxes and a time honored tradition of privileged classes everywhere, not least in medieval Europe.

I don't even see why religions need to drain cash in general, the catholic church made tons of cash off of tithes and stuff like that from the masses.

Quote from: Slapsticks on September 13, 2011, 05:06:57 AM
I don't even see why religions need to drain cash in general, the catholic church made tons of cash off of tithes and stuff like that from the masses.

The income from the masses was probably quite marginal, the income from the Nobility in tithes, dispensations (funny how you could divorce if you had the gold) and bequests was substantial. Once you had that income, and you factor in that their own commercial holdings were tax free in many countries, and you had a real wealth machine, but that is the key that BM doesn't have, The Catholic Church had the ability to develop income streams and hold real profitable land, religions in BM cannot.

Quote from: Bedwyr on September 13, 2011, 12:28:06 AM
I'm all for conflict, and lords who decide they want to tax the religions is all well and fun.

What I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

Agreed.

Forced taxation of religions will only make having successful religions harder to have in the game. There are enough difficulties in maintaining religions and temples as is. This is really not a good idea, IMO.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 13, 2011, 05:16:40 AM
The income from the masses was probably quite marginal, the income from the Nobility in tithes, dispensations (funny how you could divorce if you had the gold) and bequests was substantial. Once you had that income, and you factor in that their own commercial holdings were tax free in many countries, and you had a real wealth machine, but that is the key that BM doesn't have, The Catholic Church had the ability to develop income streams and hold real profitable land, religions in BM cannot.

You shouldn't discredit the taxes of the masses, imo. After all, how did the nobles become rich? By taxing these very same masses. Per head, they contribute a lot less... but since they are so many more than the nobles, it kinda balances.

Quote from: Chénier on September 13, 2011, 06:23:37 AM
You shouldn't discredit the taxes of the masses, imo. After all, how did the nobles become rich? By taxing these very same masses. Per head, they contribute a lot less... but since they are so many more than the nobles, it kinda balances.

Actually they became rich by requiring them to labourer on the nobles fields in order to secure access to their own fields. Peasant and the masses having any income that was actually taxable only occurred later in the medieval period. Most the masses were subsistence living. Remember part of the reason for the feudal system was that a true cash economy wasn't really in existence.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 13, 2011, 06:44:40 AM
Actually they became rich by requiring them to labourer on the nobles fields in order to secure access to their own fields. Peasant and the masses having any income that was actually taxable only occurred later in the medieval period. Most the masses were subsistence living. Remember part of the reason for the feudal system was that a true cash economy wasn't really in existence.

The standards for wealth vary by the age and area. At a certain time and place, simply not having to work for your own food was being as rich as it gets.

Quote from: Chénier on September 13, 2011, 06:52:12 AM
The standards for wealth vary by the age and area. At a certain time and place, simply not having to work for your own food was being as rich as it gets.

Yes, but wealth as a general concept is somewhat different to taxes, which have a much more specific connotation

Quote from: Chénier on September 13, 2011, 06:23:37 AM
You shouldn't discredit the taxes of the masses, imo. After all, how did the nobles become rich? By taxing these very same masses. Per head, they contribute a lot less... but since they are so many more than the nobles, it kinda balances.

with regards to source and implementation.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 13, 2011, 06:57:54 AM
with regards to source and implementation.

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the catholic church's income evolve much like the nobles' did through time? Starting mostly as crops/work in field to keep the priests fed before moving on to monetary demands (given at the church, as opposed to having a tax collector run around?).

Quote from: Chénier on September 13, 2011, 07:21:56 AM
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the catholic church's income evolve much like the nobles' did through time? Starting mostly as crops/work in field to keep the priests fed before moving on to monetary demands (given at the church, as opposed to having a tax collector run around?).

The Catholic church was a dirt poor persecuted Jewish Sect until they got some nice Roman imperial backing, with all the wealth and resources that entails. Even at the height of its power, those of the priestly order that relied on peasant tithes for income, where generally as poor and down trodden as their parishioners. You don't hear about fabulously wealth village preachers much.

At higher levels, where the priest could be expected to have the patronage of one of more noble families, then we are talking about wealth generation. While each parish did send back some income to the next chain in the hierarchy, most of the village parishes had enough trouble ensuring that the tithes keep the poor village priest from starvation. Towns would have done relatively better in this regard.

Alot more wealth was gathered by selling positions like Bishop to the highest bidder from noble families, indulgences to wash away the sins of the rich, and the ever popular bequests of land when a noble died. I'm not saying the tithes didn't generate an income mind you, but the income the catholic church earned was never mostly based on it and like most things a great deal of the wealth was build of existing wealth.

what if.... you make it a 3 tier money structure? i mean.. you want money to go into religion and not as bank.

global treasury <--- as old
local treasury <--- only priests (elders too?) can take money out from that, income from peasants go there directly. anyone can put in there.
strongbox <--- where nobles get to use it as their mobile bank.. but with a fee and subject to the usual thefts (by priests, who dump it in the local treasury no less)?

Or maybe change the size of treasury according to the size of a temple?

Starting from the lowest,
Size = Treasury size
(1) = 20 gold
(2) = 40 gold
(3) = 60 gold
(4) = 80 gold
(5) = 100 gold
(6) = 130 gold
(7) = 160 gold
(8) = 200 gold
(9) = 240 gold
(10) = 300 gold
(11) = 400 gold
(12) = 500 gold

Quote from: Zakilevo on September 13, 2011, 08:17:14 AM
Or maybe change the size of treasury according to the size of a temple?

Starting from the lowest,
Size = Treasury size
(1) = 20 gold
(2) = 40 gold
(3) = 60 gold
(4) = 80 gold
(5) = 100 gold
(6) = 130 gold
(7) = 160 gold
(8) = 200 gold
(9) = 240 gold
(10) = 300 gold
(11) = 400 gold
(12) = 500 gold

I believe this was done with Secret Societies to limit their use as hidden treasure vaults.

I hear you.

Limiting the size of treasury doesn't work well, because it needs to be very large to enlarge the temples after a while. And while I originally thought those prices were just insane for the higher-up levels, every world in the game has a couple huge temples.

But I understand that a constant money drain is not much fun. Still, I want to tax temples, to make them not banks and also to keep money moving around. But I hear you. So here are two ideas to solve the issues:

a) change the tax amounts - half taxes for guilds, and quarter taxes for temples. I could also add a "tax free" minimum amount, maybe 10-50 gold per size. That would give the temple some amount to cover regular expenses with that is not taxed.

b) change the tax type - I could store the amount of gold put into the treasury between tax days, and tax only that, i.e. turn it into an income tax. This would also reduce the lord = massive balance problem a little, but it would reduce income through guildhouses dramatically.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 09:03:13 AM
I hear you.

Limiting the size of treasury doesn't work well, because it needs to be very large to enlarge the temples after a while. And while I originally thought those prices were just insane for the higher-up levels, every world in the game has a couple huge temples.

But I understand that a constant money drain is not much fun. Still, I want to tax temples, to make them not banks and also to keep money moving around. But I hear you. So here are two ideas to solve the issues:

a) change the tax amounts - half taxes for guilds, and quarter taxes for temples. I could also add a "tax free" minimum amount, maybe 10-50 gold per size. That would give the temple some amount to cover regular expenses with that is not taxed.

b) change the tax type - I could store the amount of gold put into the treasury between tax days, and tax only that, i.e. turn it into an income tax. This would also reduce the lord = massive balance problem a little, but it would reduce income through guildhouses dramatically.

What if you taxed gold as it was placed or removed from the temple? Then you don't need to store the amounts since the last tax day. I guess the problem here would be trying to place certain amounts of gold in an account for the taxes, but with the proper UI that should be handled pretty easy.

Talking about guilds and taxes, it would be handy if a certain upkeep was automatically detracted from a Lord's tax share and added to the temple treasury on tax day, provided that the guild house is located in said Lord's region. Even knights should be able to do this. Pretty much in the same way as funding militia.

It sucks to go away on a campaign and see your guild house shrink in size because you were unable to refuel it's treasury in time.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 09:03:13 AM
b) change the tax type - I could store the amount of gold put into the treasury between tax days, and tax only that, i.e. turn it into an income tax. This would also reduce the lord = massive balance problem a little, but it would reduce income through guildhouses dramatically.

This option sounds much better to me. You would, for example, deposit 100 gold in a temple located in a 10% taxed region, and it would reply something like this to you: "You have deposited 95 gold in the temple. 5 gold goes to the local lord's tax office" (if the 50% taxes' reduction for temples is still on, of course).

i'm not sure why expanding temples can't be done with global treasury..  sure... it would mean priests or whoever don't have to carry a load of gold from 1 side (rich followers) of the continent to another (poor, just starting up) to build it up.

for that matter, why not have the "deposit tax" go into global treasury as opposed to the lord.

or remove "banking" altogether for non-priests.. but donation or paying your balance can give you certain benefits. raise troop morale, for example.

For religions, wouldn't it be an option to increase the "dontaions" from the peasents a little bit to counter the taxes? If you have an low amount of gold in a temple you could gain some gold, as donations would be higher then the tax. But if you store huge amounts of gold in a temple the tax would kick in and you would loose more gold then you gain.

This way the burden of keeping all temples supplied will become smaller, as well as removing the option to "hoard" a lot of gold in temples.

Of course this would not solve the problem for guilds :P

but you hoard the gold to expand the temple, no?

Quote from: fodder on September 13, 2011, 11:05:06 AM
i'm not sure why expanding temples can't be done with global treasury..  sure... it would mean priests or whoever don't have to carry a load of gold from 1 side (rich followers) of the continent to another (poor, just starting up) to build it up.

errr... why not? That exactly is the idea. The local carpenters, bricklayers and other workers won't exactly accept an "I have that gold three realms away somewhere".

Quote from: fodder on September 13, 2011, 11:44:19 AM
but you hoard the gold to expand the temple, no?

yes, and you will have to pay for it. Either you keep it on elders/priests or you store it in the temple, taxes are paid.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 12:07:51 PM
errr... why not? That exactly is the idea. The local carpenters, bricklayers and other workers won't exactly accept an "I have that gold three realms away somewhere".

but they accept that line for upkeeps paid from global treasury? albeit at inflated rate? granted hundreds of gold and a few tens are somewhat different.

point is.. what is the function of keeping money in temple?
maintenance
construction
banking for religious purposes (priests go around preaching with gold, etc)
banking for handy money

banking for plain old nobles is the "bad" thing? so find a way to make other bits more interesting?

If you want to prevent temples being used as banks, then tax gold withdrawn from templetreasurys rather than the treasurys themselves. Either by the local lord or the temple itself. If the religion gets to keep 250 of the 500 gold I have stored in a temple when I want to withdraw it I can guarantee that the days of temples being used as banks will be over. Without making funding temples harder...

Quote from: fodder on September 13, 2011, 12:44:21 PM
but they accept that line for upkeeps paid from global treasury? albeit at inflated rate? granted hundreds of gold and a few tens are somewhat different.

Exactly. Travelling every once in a while over a large distance with a huge amount of gold, with the risk of having it stolen, is interesting gameplay.

Travelling around all the time with a few tens of gold is boring !@#$.

That's why upkeep gold can be sent via NPC couriers, merchants, pilgrims, whatever. But the massive amounts required for enlarging a temple can not.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 13, 2011, 07:43:27 AM
The Catholic church was a dirt poor persecuted Jewish Sect until they got some nice Roman imperial backing, with all the wealth and resources that entails. Even at the height of its power, those of the priestly order that relied on peasant tithes for income, where generally as poor and down trodden as their parishioners. You don't hear about fabulously wealth village preachers much.

At higher levels, where the priest could be expected to have the patronage of one of more noble families, then we are talking about wealth generation. While each parish did send back some income to the next chain in the hierarchy, most of the village parishes had enough trouble ensuring that the tithes keep the poor village priest from starvation. Towns would have done relatively better in this regard.

Alot more wealth was gathered by selling positions like Bishop to the highest bidder from noble families, indulgences to wash away the sins of the rich, and the ever popular bequests of land when a noble died. I'm not saying the tithes didn't generate an income mind you, but the income the catholic church earned was never mostly based on it and like most things a great deal of the wealth was build of existing wealth.

By evolution, I meant post roman collapse.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 01:20:46 PM
Exactly. Travelling every once in a while over a large distance with a huge amount of gold, with the risk of having it stolen, is interesting gameplay.

Travelling around all the time with a few tens of gold is boring !@#$.

That's why upkeep gold can be sent via NPC couriers, merchants, pilgrims, whatever. But the massive amounts required for enlarging a temple can not.

I've never found traveling great distances to be of any interest whatsoever, quite the contrary actually. And as long as you don't go in enemy lands (if your realm has any enemies at all), you are pretty much as safe as it goes for that gold of yours that you are transporting. Traveling was always considered a necessary evil, which I did reluctantly in most cases because I had to.

Furthermore, religions were tax havens, yea... but this is also what allowed to stockpile gold in order to build or enlarge temples. In most active religions, if a lord would stockpile a ton of gold for personal reasons, he'd have a high risk of seeing that gold just grabbed from under his nose by the religion leaders for other purposes. How are we going to finance these large temples, now? We are going to have their duke tax the money they are giving themselves, therefore giving them a ridiculously high balance? Much higher than what they actually gave, therefore allowing them to go in other temples to withdraw more gold than they ever actually contributed? All lords will be able to do this, but the scale at which the big cities will be able to do this is way beyond the religions' capacity to pay. It'll simply make them go bankrupt. Religions require much more massive investments than guilds do.

Quote from: Thunthorn on September 13, 2011, 01:01:52 PMIf you wan't to prevent temples being used as banks, then tax gold withdrawn from templetreasurys rather than the treasurys themselves. Either by the local lord or the temple itself. If the religion gets to keep 250 of the 500 gold I have stored in a temple when I want to withdraw it I can guarantee that the days of temples being used as banks will be over. Without making funding temples harder...

And thus completely kill any possibility of religious crusades, which often rely on temple treasuries to fund the crusaders.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 09:03:13 AMa) change the tax amounts - half taxes for guilds, and quarter taxes for temples. I could also add a "tax free" minimum amount, maybe 10-50 gold per size. That would give the temple some amount to cover regular expenses with that is not taxed.

A possible addition to this is a minimum local treasury balance for taking gold out of the temple. For example, if the balance in the local treasury was below, say, 50 gold, then no one could withdraw gold from that temple. In this way, you wouldn't have to worry about some random, anonymous person coming along and emptying the treasury, requiring someone to make a special trip out to restock it. To compensate for the various expenditures of different size temples, make the amount vary based on temple size. Say, 20 gold per size.

Quote from: Indirik on September 13, 2011, 01:58:16 PM
And thus completely kill any possibility of religious crusades, which often rely on temple treasuries to fund the crusaders.

I actually liked the idea you quoted, and have two answers for you:

1) Is banking not the issue? Thus, financing religious crusades avoiding Banks?

2) If the Lord of the region your crusaders draw from is a believer, then you can still do it. He will simply collect the taxes and deposit them in the temple again, for the crusaders to draw on. It would even create some nice possibilities of conflict, with the Lord sending back all, part or none of the money deposited. Corrupt local lords profiting on devout foreigners? Crusaders having things more difficult by avoiding the normal legal banking system? All very good to me. What do you think about it?

Summing it up, you would have no tax in depositing into Temples and Guilds, but you would have one on anything you draw from them. It would solve the Banking issues, not contributing to the temple/guild maintenance ones.
Want to fund a crusade? Be ready to entrust and severely empower the local lords you will depend on. If you do not, you are just circumventing the existing banking limitations unpunished.

Quote from: JPierreD on September 13, 2011, 02:13:06 PM
I actually liked the idea you quoted, and have two answers for you:

1) Is banking not the issue? Thus, financing religious crusades avoiding Banks?

I have no idea what this statement means.

Quote2) If the Lord of the region your crusaders draw from is a believer, then you can still do it. He will simply collect the taxes and deposit them in the temple again, for the crusaders to draw on. It would even create some nice possibilities of conflict, with the Lord sending back all, part or none of the money deposited. Corrupt local lords profiting on devout foreigners? Crusaders having things more difficult by avoiding the normal legal banking system? All very good to me. What do you think about it?

It also does nothing at all to prevent the most egregious problem of guilds/religions as banks, which is the lord being the one doing the banking. The money taxed form the withdraw is then handed to the person doing the sheltering. And in the process you screw over the people taking gold out for perfectly legitimate reasons, by giving them much less of what they are due.

Quote from: Indirik on September 13, 2011, 01:58:16 PM
And thus completely kill any possibility of religious crusades, which often rely on temple treasuries to fund the crusaders.

Or you could make declaring a crusade an ingame action that could be made by the leadership of the religion during which people could withdraw money for free.

Either using temples as banks is a problem and then it should be dealt with in a way that doesn't hurt the economy of the religion, or it is not and we can keep things the way it is...

Quote from: Thunthorn on September 13, 2011, 04:22:26 PM
Either using temples as banks is a problem and then it should be dealt with in a way that doesn't hurt the economy of the religion, or it is not and we can keep things the way it is...

This. I don't see using religions as banks to be a problem, because unlike what we had in Dwilight recently with the family gold being misused, no new wealth is created. It is merely existing wealth being moved in order to prevent its loss, which is something I feel every noble would want. After all, the more gold you have, the more you can use it on. And if the elders decide to take that pretty stockpile of gold and use it for something else, that's the risk you take.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 09:03:13 AM
a) change the tax amounts - half taxes for guilds, and quarter taxes for temples. I could also add a "tax free" minimum amount, maybe 10-50 gold per size. That would give the temple some amount to cover regular expenses with that is not taxed.

b) change the tax type - I could store the amount of gold put into the treasury between tax days, and tax only that, i.e. turn it into an income tax. This would also reduce the lord = massive balance problem a little, but it would reduce income through guildhouses dramatically.

These are both good ideas. A "tax free" amount would be nice. But 10-50 is nothing for even a moderately sized guildhouse or temple. It should be based on the size of the temple. For a level 5, I would say 100-200 is a reasonable sum to have tax-free.

The change to tax on income is also a very good idea. It preserves the ability of religions to stockpile cash, while limits the banking. I believe it should still be at a tax-preferred rate (maybe half or a quarter of the local rate), but it should happen. You could process it either during the transaction or weekly, I don't know which would be easier. But this is an excellent idea.

Quote from: Vellos on September 13, 2011, 04:54:40 PM
These are both good ideas. A "tax free" amount would be nice. But 10-50 is nothing for even a moderately sized guildhouse or temple. It should be based on the size of the temple. For a level 5, I would say 100-200 is a reasonable sum to have tax-free.

The change to tax on income is also a very good idea. It preserves the ability of religions to stockpile cash, while limits the banking. I believe it should still be at a tax-preferred rate (maybe half or a quarter of the local rate), but it should happen. You could process it either during the transaction or weekly, I don't know which would be easier. But this is an excellent idea.

He said 10-50 gold per size. Just so you know.

Quote from: Tom on September 13, 2011, 09:03:13 AM
a) change the tax amounts - half taxes for guilds, and quarter taxes for temples. I could also add a "tax free" minimum amount, maybe 10-50 gold per size. That would give the temple some amount to cover regular expenses with that is not taxed.

b) change the tax type - I could store the amount of gold put into the treasury between tax days, and tax only that, i.e. turn it into an income tax. This would also reduce the lord = massive balance problem a little, but it would reduce income through guildhouses dramatically.

Either one of these would solve most if not all of the problems I see with taxing religions.  My personal preference would be option a), but I think either would work just fine.

Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on September 13, 2011, 05:24:29 PM
He said 10-50 gold per size. Just so you know.

Ah, that makes sense.

Quote from: Bedwyr on September 13, 2011, 07:25:07 PM
Either one of these would solve most if not all of the problems I see with taxing religions.  My personal preference would be option a), but I think either would work just fine.

As I think about it, actually, option a of tax-free reserves still seems really bad, though. It still makes a huge handicap on building big temples, which are already comparatively rare, despite, in Terran's case, practically an entire realm with multiple cities chipping in to finance them. Taxes will make this even harder.

But taxes on transactions will effectively shut down much of the "banking," without restricting static holds on money.

It is difficult to know which transaction to tax, however, and how to adjust balances. If you tax inputs of gold, then the balance absolutely MUST be adjusted as well. That is, if I donate 500 gold, and 25 of it is taxed away, my balance should only raise 475 gold, or else, if I am the lord of that temple's region, I'll just get the 25 (or at least some of it) back, and can boost my balance again. It's marginal, but it'd happen. Heck, if I could have been doing that with Triunism, by now my balance would be a solid 500-700 gold more.

If you tax funds as they are withdrawn, it will not put any inhibition at all on accumulating funds for temple expansions, but will tend to "overstate" what we might call "banking reserves," that is, gold available for withdrawal and shift to another financial entity. This sounds like what Tom wants, so maybe is a good idea: there would be no penalty whatsoever under this system for any donation of gold to the temple, and gold stored in the temple would be tax exempt. However, any withdrawal from the temple would be taxed, thus if there was, say, a crusade, funding from the temple at the "destination" would need to be greater by the margin of the tax rate.

Actually, this would be awesome. Whatever the "final stop" on the crusade to pick up gold, the lord of THAT REGION would reap significant tax benefits as the crusaders withdrew gold. Using the SA example, if crusaders from Morek accumulated a surplus in SA, then traveled to, say, Eidulb, and withdrew gold there that had been accumulated by Astrumite believers, the Duke of Eidulb would end up receiving a profit as gold shifts from the outlands of Astrum to his personal tax share. If, however, Morekian priests, say, transferred all that crusader gold to Eidulb and deposited it, a portion would be taxed in Morek as it was withdrawn (increasing the overhead of the crusade), and a portion would be taxed in Eidulb as crusaders withdrew it, such that the transfer would move wealth from the general populace of Morek towards lords of central temples in Morek and the Duke of Eidulb.

That is, it would become financially advantageous for dukes to attract religious crusaders to their cities to attack neighbors. The cost for crusaders themselves would increase, thus limiting the possibilities of free banking. But the incentive to do it might become sufficiently concentrated in a few dukes that it could amount to several hundreds of gold.

Can you tell I do finance?

Quote from: Vellos on September 13, 2011, 09:45:35 PM
Ah, that makes sense.

As I think about it, actually, option a of tax-free reserves still seems really bad, though. It still makes a huge handicap on building big temples, which are already comparatively rare, despite, in Terran's case, practically an entire realm with multiple cities chipping in to finance them. Taxes will make this even harder.

Except that increasing the size of a temple is a one-time expense, and you don't need to have it sitting in the region.  The tax-free reserve is for handling maintenance, while raising temple levels still requires some coordination to pull off (as it should).

That's not to say that your other point isn't valid, as it may well be.  I don't have the background to figure out what the other unintended side-effects would be, but expanding temples isn't a problem from where I'm standing, only maintenance.

Quote from: Vellos on September 13, 2011, 09:45:35 PM

But taxes on transactions will effectively shut down much of the "banking," without restricting static holds on money.

Actually... While if everyone is in the same realm, it's easy to transfer gold via the bank to have temples built, the same can't be said for multi-realm religions. To gather the funds to build a new temple, I've often had to travel to multiple temples to withdraw the gold necessary. With this proposed system, I would have had to pay a good chunk (big cities usually have both the best-filled treasuries and highest tax rates) for each withdrawal, and then paid taxes *again* to put the gold in the new treasury to be able to enlarge the temple. You wouldn't just be taxing people who withdraw their monthly credit, you'd be taxing the inter-temple gold transfers with this, meaning double taxes on temple enlargements when one realm finances religious infrastructure in another (such as the heart of a faith supporting its expansion in foreign lands).

And if you do have the ability to send gold via the bank for enlargements, then you may not be paying twice the taxes, but you still may be paying a tenth to a fifth of the cost in taxes for these large capital cities. By taxing treasuries instead of transactions, one at least wouldn't have to pay these high taxes if he plans on using the gold as soon as he deposits it.

Quote from: Chénier on September 13, 2011, 01:40:04 PM
By evolution, I meant post roman collapse.

You mean AFTER they were a well established religion, with their own principality/realm centred around the Vatican and the power to appoint the Holy Roman Emperor? Roman patronage catapulted the Catholic faith on the course that gave it dominance over the west, they never built up from nothing after the fall of the empire, in fact the fall of the empire simply created a central power vacuum that they could step into.

Quote from: Chénier on September 13, 2011, 11:58:30 PM
Actually... While if everyone is in the same realm, it's easy to transfer gold via the bank to have temples built, the same can't be said for multi-realm religions. To gather the funds to build a new temple, I've often had to travel to multiple temples to withdraw the gold necessary. With this proposed system, I would have had to pay a good chunk (big cities usually have both the best-filled treasuries and highest tax rates) for each withdrawal, and then paid taxes *again* to put the gold in the new treasury to be able to enlarge the temple. You wouldn't just be taxing people who withdraw their monthly credit, you'd be taxing the inter-temple gold transfers with this, meaning double taxes on temple enlargements when one realm finances religious infrastructure in another (such as the heart of a faith supporting its expansion in foreign lands).

And if you do have the ability to send gold via the bank for enlargements, then you may not be paying twice the taxes, but you still may be paying a tenth to a fifth of the cost in taxes for these large capital cities. By taxing treasuries instead of transactions, one at least wouldn't have to pay these high taxes if he plans on using the gold as soon as he deposits it.

Note that most of my post discussed taxing withdrawals from treasuries, not deposits. Double-taxation, IMHO, should be avoided. Withdrawals would mean that, yeah, there would be significant taxation if somebody pulls cash out.

But it'd be better than having that pile of gold repeatedly taxed for week on week as you're stockpiling it. A transactional tax is far, far more friendly to expansionist multi-realm faiths than a treasury tax, simply because the treasury tax means regular local support is absolutely vital for maintenance and, even with a "tax-free threshold," foreign support could offer only very, very marginal financial aid as treasuries are taxed down below the threshold needed to expand temples. A transactional tax allows flexibility in timing, basically.

Now, there are too many pages atm for me to really find it quickly, but I have to ask this:

Will there be an option for increased taxes for specific religions?  I mean, yeah, we could put favored religions' gold back in their temples, but that's an unneeded headache for a Lord. :/

Like the Muslims had a jizyah on Jews and Christians, but not on fellow Muslims.

Quote from: Draco Tanos on September 14, 2011, 01:13:54 PM
Now, there are too many pages atm for me to really find it quickly, but I have to ask this:

Will there be an option for increased taxes for specific religions?  I mean, yeah, we could put favored religions' gold back in their temples, but that's an unneeded headache for a Lord. :/

Like the Muslims had a jizyah on Jews and Christians, but not on fellow Muslims.

That seems to be undetermined, but unlikely.

before, i was sending many complaints on how current religious situation has become unfun, and when I hear that new burden will be imposed to religion, i can only think of religious fall, in all realms but theocracies.


personally i simply cannot accept that level 3 temple, with top fof 7500 followers, having exactly 7500 followers produces -10 gold per week, temples that did not reach their peak not to mention. how that can be balance? and additional taxing looks as nightmare...

i daresay, if some temples have become banks, the reason can be that religious people are forced into these financial issues so much that only people interested in financial stuff can actually run religions. how elders could be expected to develop spiritual agenda if they are pushed by game mechanics to run around temple treasuries all the time?

ordinary guilds are different stories, as they are anyhow reliant on lord's good will. the fun with religion can come from the fact that lords want to be diplomatic to prevailing religions in his region, rather than act as their master.

form first time i read about religion in wiki, i remember what was stated - religion game is the most intersting when religion overcome borders of realm structures, and singular realms. with many financial burdens on religions, that, the most interesting part of game is suffocated.

if there is issue of too much use of religion treasuries, here is on humble proposal:

- sacking of temples to be allowed without actual destroying or even damaging temples. Sacking to be allowed to each and every noble, no matter whether he is realm member, ally, neutral or enemy (similar to adventurer's arrests). that is potential for fun!

Quote from: Draco Tanos on September 14, 2011, 01:13:54 PM
Will there be an option for increased taxes for specific religions?

Not at this time.

This is also the major source of all this confusion. You guys have the Catholic Church in the middle ages in mind when you talk about Religions, but BM doesn't model that. It models various religions, none of them utterly dominant.

Sometime in the far future, we will support state religions and then we can talk about tax exemptions, different tax rates, etc. again.

Quote from: Tom on September 14, 2011, 04:54:19 PM
Sometime in the far future, we will support state religions and then we can talk about tax exemptions, different tax rates, etc. again.

This is great news, at least!   :D

Quote from: Stue (DC) on September 14, 2011, 04:48:54 PM
before, i was sending many complaints on how current religious situation has become unfun, and when I hear that new burden will be imposed to religion, i can only think of religious fall, in all realms but theocracies.


personally i simply cannot accept that level 3 temple, with top fof 7500 followers, having exactly 7500 followers produces -10 gold per week, temples that did not reach their peak not to mention. how that can be balance? and additional taxing looks as nightmare...

i daresay, if some temples have become banks, the reason can be that religious people are forced into these financial issues so much that only people interested in financial stuff can actually run religions. how elders could be expected to develop spiritual agenda if they are pushed by game mechanics to run around temple treasuries all the time?

ordinary guilds are different stories, as they are anyhow reliant on lord's good will. the fun with religion can come from the fact that lords want to be diplomatic to prevailing religions in his region, rather than act as their master.

form first time i read about religion in wiki, i remember what was stated - religion game is the most intersting when religion overcome borders of realm structures, and singular realms. with many financial burdens on religions, that, the most interesting part of game is suffocated.

if there is issue of too much use of religion treasuries, here is on humble proposal:

- sacking of temples to be allowed without actual destroying or even damaging temples. Sacking to be allowed to each and every noble, no matter whether he is realm member, ally, neutral or enemy (similar to adventurer's arrests). that is potential for fun!

Temples are used as banks for one main reason, they are tax free. Thus a Elder can stash their gold in a temple and avoid their realms property tax and wealth tax.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 15, 2011, 04:30:39 AM
Temples are used as banks for one main reason, they are tax free. Thus a Elder can stash their gold in a temple and avoid their realms property tax and wealth tax.

Which was necessary or else they'd never get the gold for all these silly temples.

Mind you, the more time passes, the more I realize these temples are nothing but a vanity, and that you don't really need to have 100% followers in your capital with a lvl 12 temple.

Indeed, you hardly need any followers at all. A lvl 3 temple in the most conveniant region for the nobles, usually the capital, is all one needs.

Quote from: Chénier on September 15, 2011, 04:36:22 AM
Which was necessary or else they'd never get the gold for all these silly temples.

Mind you, the more time passes, the more I realize these temples are nothing but a vanity, and that you don't really need to have 100% followers in your capital with a lvl 12 temple.

Indeed, you hardly need any followers at all. A lvl 3 temple in the most conveniant region for the nobles, usually the capital, is all one needs.

You only just worked this out? Unless you plan to use followers to generate power through threats, RTO's and the like, all you need is a temple for conversions. You do hit upon the real problem of taxing Temples though, it is hard to distinguish between gold stored for real religious reasons like temple building, and gold stored away as a tax haven.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 15, 2011, 04:30:39 AM
Temples are used as banks for one main reason, they are tax free. Thus a Elder can stash their gold in a temple and avoid their realms property tax and wealth tax.

Honestly, I'm a little unsure as to why this is a bad thing. Why shouldn't people be able to store gold away if they want? How does it hurt the game?

Just honestly curious here.

Quote from: Perth on September 15, 2011, 07:13:49 AM
Honestly, I'm a little unsure as to why this is a bad thing. Why shouldn't people be able to store gold away if they want? How does it hurt the game?

Just honestly curious here.

Can't really answer that, I play in realms with no property or wealth tax, so I can just keep my gold in my back pocket.

honestly... if it's a gold sink that can't be taken back out as gold, and if the stuff in the sink can be used to do religion related stuff (building, feasts, processions, relic expeditions, whatever), then people won't be using it as banks.

in short, probably every few levels should offer some exotic benefits.. (that is.. people pay a bit for the benefit, rather than just gratis)

people can pay gold to pray in a temple (really old temples from before religion) for morale boost or something, so why can't they do the same with player temples?

Instead of making temples less useful, why not giving them more power? The chance to promote donations from the local peasantry, which would help the temple finance but directly affect the Lord's tax income, creating some tension, for example. Instead of a money drain, the temple becomes an economic weapon, as long as you can maintain the politic state of tension manageable.

So, say your religion has 100% followers, you might be able to snatch away say 10% of the Lord's taxes. If you have just 10% followers, you can get something like 1% of the Lord's taxes. Some Lords won't mind (they would actually prefer it rather than having to deposit manually every time), but some Lords will, and then hilarity ensures!  :P

That's actually an interesting idea.  Certainly creates a dynamic between religious and secular authorities.

more carrot less stick basically...

Religions require the patronage of lords and ladies.  That's just how it is.  Taxing temples is a good thing, because it serves to reward regions which have a healthy and active temple with a cut of the temple's proceeds.  It makes lords and ladies co-owners in a little enterprise. 

This is equally beneficial for religions as well, as it makes housing a temple (or guild, for that matter) a slightly more attractive proposition than it otherwise would have been, while tempering some of the "tax shelter" anger.

Quote from: Solari on September 15, 2011, 05:17:23 PM
Religions require the patronage of lords and ladies.  That's just how it is.  Taxing temples is a good thing, because it serves to reward regions which have a healthy and active temple with a cut of the temple's proceeds.  It makes lords and ladies co-owners in a little enterprise. 

That brings the following question, would you rather have the select few financially healthy religions remain and become struggling faiths while all the other religions of the game are disbanded and/or forced into unofficial status, or would you rather play in a game that has more than one or two struggling religions per continent? Because this change will be a coup de grace for struggling faiths, and will make all other religions that aren't actively supported by many rich dukes join the club of the struggling faiths.

Quote from: Solari on September 15, 2011, 05:17:23 PM
This is equally beneficial for religions as well, as it makes housing a temple (or guild, for that matter) a slightly more attractive proposition than it otherwise would have been, while tempering some of the "tax shelter" anger.

Uhhh... how? More temples = more financial burder for the religion. So it might encourage lords to build temples where there is not enough peasants to justify it and where priests are unable to go preach to rentabilize it. It was already as easy as it could be to have temples built, all you had to do is send a bit of gold to the lord and he was willing to build the temple in 99% of the cases as it was in his interests that his serfs not follow another religion.

solari meant making housing temple/guild more attractive for the lord.

the big problem with that a lord can't just let someone slap up a guild/temple in the region. he has to be the one who builds it, that means joining religion/guild. which basically means if he wants a whole bunch of them, he'll join the lot of them.

not a problem for guilds. but you can't just go around skipping religions.

Quote from: Chénier on September 15, 2011, 05:53:00 PM
That brings the following question, would you rather have the select few financially healthy religions remain and become struggling faiths while all the other religions of the game are disbanded and/or forced into unofficial status, or would you rather play in a game that has more than one or two struggling religions per continent? Because this change will be a coup de grace for struggling faiths, and will make all other religions that aren't actively supported by many rich dukes join the club of the struggling faiths.

Hell mother!@#$ing yes. Separate the chaff from the wheat.

Quote from: Solari on September 15, 2011, 05:17:23 PMThat's just how it is.  Taxing temples is a good thing, because it serves to reward regions which have a healthy and active temple with a cut of the temple's proceeds.  It makes lords and ladies co-owners in a little enterprise. 

That's if you define "healthy and active" as "a place where lots of people try to store gold". From what I can tell, people store gold where it is convenient for them. That usually means the region in which they are lord, or the temple in the capital, or whatever city they frequent. Not some out of the way badlands who's lord is constantly asking you to store your excess gold in his region.

QuoteThis is equally beneficial for religions as well, as it makes housing a temple (or guild, for that matter) a slightly more attractive proposition than it otherwise would have been, while tempering some of the "tax shelter" anger.

Given the cost of a temple, the fact that the lord will almost certainly be the one tasked with making sure it doesn't fall apart, and the long-term nature of any possible returns, I'm not necessarily so sure I agree with this. Unless you're the lord of the capital, or some other region that happens to hold some extreme significance to the religion (such as Caiyun for Sangus Astroism), or maybe even an elder who happens to be a lord, then I really don't see this as being any possible form of "money maker" for a lord.

Quote from: Chénier on September 15, 2011, 05:53:00 PMThat brings the following question, would you rather have the select few financially healthy religions remain and become struggling faiths while all the other religions of the game are disbanded?

Personally, I've always felt that we've had too many religions in the game. (And no, this is not a snarky comment, I'm serious.) IMO, in order to get true multi-realm religions going, that have the power to actually influence politics on anything other than a local, single realm nature, we need fewer religions overall. Too many localized, fringe religions end up just taking up space that could be more effectively used by a bigger religion with more ambition.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some kind of taboo for (many) religions to influence politics.

Many players think that the key to spreading across multiple realms is to be apolitical. IMO that's the wrong position to take. You need to attract high ranking realm members that will use their political power to help spread your faith. This requires the kind of player that is willing to give the religion the importance in their character's life that it should have. Too many players fear that religion will challenge their power, when they should be using it to help gain more power.

Quote from: Indirik on September 16, 2011, 01:19:24 AM
Many players think that the key to spreading across multiple realms is to be apolitical. IMO that's the wrong position to take. You need to attract high ranking realm members that will use their political power to help spread your faith. This requires the kind of player that is willing to give the religion the importance in their character's life that it should have. Too many players fear that religion will challenge their power, when they should be using it to help gain more power.

We played the political game with the Order - it ends up being like a unloved Realm.   Other Realms dont like it when you influence their politics, they get angry, and burn your temples to the ground, destroy your buildings, and generally attack your priests, while the Realm hosting you either can sit idly by and watch, OR try to defend you and get beat up by everyone because the rest of the Realms like to join in on the beat down to keep out TMP.

Priests and Temples don't have enough influence to play political games UNLESS they are already appointed to regions and your host Realm is incredibly strong.   Generally playing political games with a faith is the best way to ensure you DON'T have a faith.   It's a lot easier to piss off a Realm than convince even a few of their Lords that you might be useful.

It's far easier to play nice with a few Realms, be apolitical, and build up your inter-realm player base that way.    Then those realms fight and you end up with your own faith fighting each other for land.   

Outside of SA Ive yet to see a faith that actually holds much power for very long - generally because pushing political goals gets you owned as a Faith very very quickly.    Everytime a region changes hands theres a good chance you'll lose the temples there - and if you'll be playing with fire taking it back if your own Realm isn't 100% your faith.

Quote from: Phellan on September 16, 2011, 03:09:59 AM

We played the political game with the Order - it ends up being like a unloved Realm.   Other Realms dont like it when you influence their politics, they get angry, and burn your temples to the ground, destroy your buildings, and generally attack your priests, while the Realm hosting you either can sit idly by and watch, OR try to defend you and get beat up by everyone because the rest of the Realms like to join in on the beat down to keep out TMP.

Priests and Temples don't have enough influence to play political games UNLESS they are already appointed to regions and your host Realm is incredibly strong.   Generally playing political games with a faith is the best way to ensure you DON'T have a faith.   It's a lot easier to piss off a Realm than convince even a few of their Lords that you might be useful.

It's far easier to play nice with a few Realms, be apolitical, and build up your inter-realm player base that way.    Then those realms fight and you end up with your own faith fighting each other for land.   

Outside of SA Ive yet to see a faith that actually holds much power for very long - generally because pushing political goals gets you owned as a Faith very very quickly.    Everytime a region changes hands theres a good chance you'll lose the temples there - and if you'll be playing with fire taking it back if your own Realm isn't 100% your faith.

Probably means you didn't set things up right BEFORE pushing political goals. For a religion to work well in the political arena, you have to make sure you have strong noble support, so either have the support of a VERY dominant realm, or ensure you have support from powerful nobles within the realm you are trying to influence. If in response to your attempts to influence politics people are burning down your temples, you probably jumped the gun.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 16, 2011, 03:14:10 AM
Probably means you didn't set things up right BEFORE pushing political goals. For a religion to work well in the political arena, you have to make sure you have strong noble support, so either have the support of a VERY dominant realm, or ensure you have support from powerful nobles within the realm you are trying to influence. If in response to your attempts to influence politics people are burning down your temples, you probably jumped the gun.

Actually we've not played the political game in 3-4 years, and we STILL have people burn down our temples because they remember when we successfully did it with Nighthelm at our back.   

Quote from: Perth on September 15, 2011, 07:13:49 AM
Honestly, I'm a little unsure as to why this is a bad thing. Why shouldn't people be able to store gold away if they want? How does it hurt the game?

Just honestly curious here.

Yeah me too. Can anyone point to a non-hypothetical situation where this has been a problem. Banking seems like a fun idea. Why not let people hoard cash?

Quote from: Phellan on September 16, 2011, 03:42:03 AM

Actually we've not played the political game in 3-4 years, and we STILL have people burn down our temples because they remember when we successfully did it with Nighthelm at our back.

So what is the problem? The religion was successful in influencing politics, situation changed and the religion was unable to successfully chance to suit. Sounds perfectly fine to me.

Quote from: De-Legro on September 16, 2011, 04:21:21 AM
So what is the problem? The religion was successful in influencing politics, situation changed and the religion was unable to successfully chance to suit. Sounds perfectly fine to me.

Heh, mostly that religion is LESS influential than most people make it out to be.     IE:  If you don't have a few dukes on your side. . . you're nothing.

That said, it DOES make me proud that people STILL act out against the Order for the mere fact that we once actually had some basic power outside of the one Realm we were centralized in.

That said, if you don't have a Realm or two on your side, you're nothing, even if you hold sway with their entire peasant population (which, really - SHOULD not happen.   Nobles are powerful yes, but even they feared the masses.)

Which, if we use the Vatican as an example is REALLY not at all how it worked.    The Anglicans only got away with it because they were VERY far away - failing that real nations were bullied around by faiths and religions for the mere threat of religious repercussions, or not being of the right "faith".

No Faith I've ever seen (except maybe SA, who really is an abnomally) has any kind of power even relating to the level of the Anglican, Orthodox, or Catholic Church, Islam, or Hindu faith in being able to alter how entire nations function.

Reallly, unless you have a Realm or a few dukes . . . any faith at best is an annoyance if you don't like it, generally just the sound of a gnat.

Quote from: Phellan on September 16, 2011, 05:07:47 AM
Heh, mostly that religion is LESS influential than most people make it out to be.     IE:  If you don't have a few dukes on your side. . . you're nothing.

Which is, basically the same as saying if you don't have a Realm on your side, you're nothing.

Which, if we use the Vatican as an example is REALLY not at all how it worked.    The Anglicans only got away with it because they were VERY far away - failing that real nations were bullied around by faiths and religions for the mere threat of religious repercussions, or not being of the right "faith".

No Faith I've ever seen (except maybe SA, who really is an abnomally) has any kind of power even relating to the level of the Anglican, Orthodox, or Catholic Church, Islam, or Hindu faith in being able to alter how entire nations function.

Reallly, unless you have a Realm or a few dukes . . . any faith at best is an annoyance if you don't like it, generally just the sound of a gnat.

Yes but as Tom said in that other thread, Religions in BM are not supposed to correlate to the dominant religions of our world. Had at any time the powerful nobility of ALL catholic realms decided to leave it, then what power would it really have had? A religions power in the game is meant to be tied to the power of the faithful nobles, so yes for a religion to influence politics it is probably going to need the support of Dukes and/or rulers.

Also with respect to the Vatican, it certainly was not all powerful all the time, the Avignon Papacy was pretty much under the control of the french crown before  Gregory XI returned to Rome. Throughout history the Papacies control over secular matters waxed and waned and was challenged by European monarchs.  Pope Boniface VIII was even arrested by the French Crown to be put on trial for sodomy, simony, sorcery, and heresy.

Quote from: Shane "Shenron" O'neil on September 16, 2011, 04:10:39 AM
Yeah me too. Can anyone point to a non-hypothetical situation where this has been a problem. Banking seems like a fun idea. Why not let people hoard cash?

I'd like this answered as well.

Quote from: Indirik on September 15, 2011, 07:43:50 PM
Personally, I've always felt that we've had too many religions in the game. (And no, this is not a snarky comment, I'm serious.) IMO, in order to get true multi-realm religions going, that have the power to actually influence politics on anything other than a local, single realm nature, we need fewer religions overall. Too many localized, fringe religions end up just taking up space that could be more effectively used by a bigger religion with more ambition.

I'm not convinced the absence of small religinos will spurt the growth of large religions. Not at all.

Take Eretzism and Enweil, for example. Not too long ago, the faith died because all the priests had left/paused, turning all of Enweil pagan. Qyrvagg priests were in the meanwhile converting regions, though, and using RTOs (regardless of Eretzism or not). Will Enweil adopt Qyrvaggism because Eretzism died? Obviously not, they just had someone found the faith again.

I believe that the less faiths you have, the more atheist realms you will have, where all preaching is forbidden.

Because, after all, financial success has absolutely nothing to do with a religion being interesting or not. And it's easier to finance a single-realm religion than a multi-realm one, especially if they are going to be taxed. The strongest faiths will remain while others die out, but that doesn't mean they'll be stronger themselves. I predict they will be weaker, and their strength will only come from the lack of religions being able to label them as evil. Which, in itself, isn't that much considering it's not a requirement for arrests.

when you say the order.. you mean the one in AT?

Quote from: fodder on September 16, 2011, 07:36:33 AM
when you say the order.. you mean the one in AT?

Order of Elders on FEI I believe.

Quote from: Chénier on September 16, 2011, 07:29:47 AM
I'm not convinced the absence of small religinos will spurt the growth of large religions. Not at all.

Take Eretzism and Enweil, for example. Not too long ago, the faith died because all the priests had left/paused, turning all of Enweil pagan. Qyrvagg priests were in the meanwhile converting regions, though, and using RTOs (regardless of Eretzism or not). Will Enweil adopt Qyrvaggism because Eretzism died? Obviously not, they just had someone found the faith again.

I believe that the less faiths you have, the more atheist realms you will have, where all preaching is forbidden.

Because, after all, financial success has absolutely nothing to do with a religion being interesting or not. And it's easier to finance a single-realm religion than a multi-realm one, especially if they are going to be taxed. The strongest faiths will remain while others die out, but that doesn't mean they'll be stronger themselves. I predict they will be weaker, and their strength will only come from the lack of religions being able to label them as evil. Which, in itself, isn't that much considering it's not a requirement for arrests.

Obviously actions and history are going to make a difference to specific religions and their growth. Would Enweil be refounding their faith had Qyrvaggism not started their policy of RTO's? Or had the faith not had such a strong association with Riombara?

Quote from: De-Legro on September 16, 2011, 07:43:37 AM
Obviously actions and history are going to make a difference to specific religions and their growth. Would Enweil be refounding their faith had Qyrvaggism not started their policy of RTO's? Or had the faith not had such a strong association with Riombara?

I'm not sure if they would have founded it again were it not for qyrvaggism, Riombara or not. They might have been content with atheist, but as with most people, they would not have tolerated any faith from an unfriendly realm showing up. Likely, not any faith at all except a select few trusted ones from friendly people and places.

Quote from: Chénier on September 16, 2011, 07:59:15 AM
I'm not sure if they would have founded it again were it not for qyrvaggism, Riombara or not. They might have been content with atheist, but as with most people, they would not have tolerated any faith from an unfriendly realm showing up. Likely, not any faith at all except a select few trusted ones from friendly people and places.

Which makes sense, to grow a religion still needs to work and win over the local nobility, just if we reduce the amount of pointless religions (not necessarily small ones mind you) there could be greater scope in which to operate in this way. 

Quote from: De-Legro on September 16, 2011, 08:07:19 AM
Which makes sense, to grow a religion still needs to work and win over the local nobility, just if we reduce the amount of pointless religions (not necessarily small ones mind you) there could be greater scope in which to operate in this way.

What's the immersion level of the religion game when the faiths that survive aren't the most interesting, but the rare few who have either the most dukes founding them are are intentionally remaining small to prevent infrastructure costs from going up?

It speaks much of the religion game if almost everyone ends up being "pagan" and people revert back to informal religions.

Quote from: Phellan on September 16, 2011, 03:09:59 AMWe played the political game with the Order - it ends up being like a unloved Realm.   Other Realms dont like it when you influence their politics, they get angry, and burn your temples to the ground, destroy your buildings, and generally attack your priests, while the Realm hosting you either can sit idly by and watch, OR try to defend you and get beat up by everyone because the rest of the Realms like to join in on the beat down to keep out TMP.

Not knowing the exact situation you were in, it sounds like maybe you played it different than I think it would need to be done. Rather than have the religion exerting the pressure on the realms, you need to have highly placed realm members pushing for you.

If you push hard, people will push back. That's just like one realm pushing on another. You'll meet resistance. But if you want to expand and become influential across more than your parent realm, you will have to push and play the game. I don't think playing Gandhi will get you very far.

Quote from: Chénier on September 16, 2011, 07:29:47 AMTake Eretzism and Enweil, for example. Not too long ago, the faith died because all the priests had left/paused, turning all of Enweil pagan. Qyrvagg priests were in the meanwhile converting regions, though, and using RTOs (regardless of Eretzism or not). Will Enweil adopt Qyrvaggism because Eretzism died? Obviously not, they just had someone found the faith again.

So when one unoriginal, state-sponsored religion died, it got replaced with a duplicate of itself. So the status quo stayed the same, as if it had never died in the first place.

What we need are fewer religions overall. Not more religions replaced by carbon copies of their failed prior incarnations.

Quote from: Indirik on September 16, 2011, 03:34:06 PM
So when one unoriginal, state-sponsored religion died, it got replaced with a duplicate of itself. So the status quo stayed the same, as if it had never died in the first place.

What we need are fewer religions overall. Not more religions replaced by carbon copies of their failed prior incarnations.

The problem is that state-religions (in the sense of religions that worship the state, not the only religion of a state) are the financially most viable ones. And they make very poor RP, leading to a bad-quality religion game. The way I see it is that /interesting/ religions, rich and complex, depend on slowly getting adepts because of its quality, among the nobility, not only because the leader is the Duke, or such. Taxing religions will kill a good amount of these religions, leaving the state-religions intact.

Quote from: JPierreD on September 16, 2011, 04:01:14 PM
The problem is that state-religions (in the sense of religions that worship the state, not the only religion of a state) are the financially most viable ones. And they make very poor RP, leading to a bad-quality religion game. The way I see it is that /interesting/ religions, rich and complex, depend on slowly getting adepts because of its quality, among the nobility, not only because the leader is the Duke, or such. Taxing religions will kill a good amount of these religions, leaving the state-religions intact.

Precisely what I have been saying, in a less explicit way.

You want religions to seek out support from the wealthy? Sure. You want religious to need support from the wealthy? Don't expect these religions to be anything more than political tools of no RP value and interest.

Quote from: Chénier on September 16, 2011, 05:53:52 PM
Precisely what I have been saying, in a less explicit way.

You want religions to seek out support from the wealthy? Sure. You want religious to need support from the wealthy? Don't expect these religions to be anything more than political tools of no RP value and interest.

Very much agree.

The more dependent religions are on political support, the more emphasis there will be on national religions and the less marginal reward for people whose interests lie elsewhere.

Quote from: Vellos on September 16, 2011, 06:59:01 PM
Very much agree.

The more dependent religions are on political support, the more emphasis there will be on national religions and the less marginal reward for people whose interests lie elsewhere.

I can't even begin to imagine how the Cult would have turned out if it had been taxed... Probably never would have gotten the influence it did, and therefore would never have caused all the conflicts it did.

Quote from: Chénier on September 16, 2011, 07:29:47 AM
Take Eretzism and Enweil, for example. Not too long ago, the faith died because all the priests had left/paused, turning all of Enweil pagan. Qyrvagg priests were in the meanwhile converting regions, though, and using RTOs (regardless of Eretzism or not). Will Enweil adopt Qyrvaggism because Eretzism died? Obviously not, they just had someone found the faith again.

the current lot doing rto isn't Qyrvaggism? and strangely enough, the Qyrvaggism priest floating around preaching in riombara is from fronen (who got chucked out of rio quite a while back during the invasion)

---
i think the problem with religion is.. quite simply immersion problem. how many players actually dig a religion enough to be able to make the character believe in enough? especially if a player is atheist or agnostic? when i played elder in "the order", that is the odd ball religion in AT with basically no name, i can't say i understand the religion. so what's left? politics.

i think religion being a rp thing can only go so far..

Not to undercut this very profound, interesting and VERY geeked out discussion...

but as I see it the aspect that is missing in the church, tax, region lord dynamic is man power/region benefit.

I am no code wizard but what if the region lord were able to set the tax... however the church FOLLOWERS aka the nobility could have an option much like civil work only under the banner of the church.  The more nobles who use hours towards that, the lower the church is taxed.  This would then help to keep the people happy and allow the region lord to run a higher over all tax rate. 

Quote from: fodder on September 16, 2011, 08:06:30 PM
i think the problem with religion is.. quite simply immersion problem. how many players actually dig a religion enough to be able to make the character believe in enough? especially if a player is atheist or agnostic? when i played elder in "the order", that is the odd ball religion in AT with basically no name, i can't say i understand the religion. so what's left? politics.

i think religion being a rp thing can only go so far..

I am on the idea that a religion needs to be at some level a handicap, not only an advantage (politic, economic, or whatever). There should be some stuff that the character believes in that may not be exactly good or relevant for his interests, but it is the /divine truth/, a religious value. It's part of what makes religions interesting, RP-wise, to me. If religions are otherwise just the in-game mechanics and absolutely nothing else, then the religion game is quite poor indeed.

It is hard to work on such kind of religion if the economic costs accumulate, and they stand between the players' tolerable efforts and the religion. To me more "handicapping" religions mean more RP conflicting values, and thus more conflicts for IC reasons. Those kind of religions are rarely in excess.

Quote from: Phellan on September 16, 2011, 03:09:59 AM

We played the political game with the Order - it ends up being like a unloved Realm.   Other Realms dont like it when you influence their politics, they get angry, and burn your temples to the ground, destroy your buildings, and generally attack your priests, while the Realm hosting you either can sit idly by and watch, OR try to defend you and get beat up by everyone because the rest of the Realms like to join in on the beat down to keep out TMP.

Priests and Temples don't have enough influence to play political games UNLESS they are already appointed to regions and your host Realm is incredibly strong.   Generally playing political games with a faith is the best way to ensure you DON'T have a faith.   It's a lot easier to piss off a Realm than convince even a few of their Lords that you might be useful.

It's far easier to play nice with a few Realms, be apolitical, and build up your inter-realm player base that way.    Then those realms fight and you end up with your own faith fighting each other for land.   

Outside of SA Ive yet to see a faith that actually holds much power for very long - generally because pushing political goals gets you owned as a Faith very very quickly.    Everytime a region changes hands theres a good chance you'll lose the temples there - and if you'll be playing with fire taking it back if your own Realm isn't 100% your faith.

this is very close to my experience with religion.

crippling religions by making them financially and generally dependant on region lords all around, deprives religions of any real chance to play significant role, be it political or apolitical.

on those hypotetical situation when one overly strong realm would commit to support religion leads to one and one only way of playing it, and that is through theocracy.

no mundane powers would ever have interest to spend so much money and efforts to give power... to someone else, that simply counters logic. if religions cannot be powerful on their own, they will not be powerful at all, and will be just negligible decorstibe attachements now and than.

of, course, hypothetically, some religion would spread over continent by being so helpful to each and every region lord who host them, by helping regions by all means, transferring messages etc. but who would bother? who would make effort knowing that he will never be able to become indenpendant power. that is hopeless in my opinion.

Quote from: Shane "Shenron" O'neil on September 16, 2011, 04:10:39 AM
Yeah me too. Can anyone point to a non-hypothetical situation where this has been a problem. Banking seems like a fun idea. Why not let people hoard cash?

agreed.

in terms of gameplay i cannot see why saving large amounts of money is detrimental, some limitiation exist anyhow, so it is not possible to save too much without effort and investments.

for fun, if there are some slow and boring times, many will find their goal in saving money for troubles. that can enable some spectacular events once troubles start, which are not possible without lot of money - very large initial army recruitment, building of strong walls or militia, all that giving some sense to many weeks of money collection.

saving funds for hard times gives more timeline depth to the game, is it not one of unique game features...

if obstacles are to be implemented, than player-run obstacles would be much funnier - possibility for infils/any nobles to steal temple money, possibility to detect secret guildhouses etc.

i believe it can be detected by mere observing that wide-spread game mechanics hardships directly slow down all events, be it estate penalties, be it heave maintenance/taxing costs.

Quote from: JPierreD on September 16, 2011, 09:05:25 PM
It is hard to work on such kind of religion if the economic costs accumulate, and they stand between the players' tolerable efforts and the religion. To me more "handicapping" religions mean more RP conflicting values, and thus more conflicts for IC reasons. Those kind of religions are rarely in excess.

The Church of Sartan on the Far East. At least when I was high priest there, we had a strong code of honour which certainly handicaps you.

Quote from: Galvez on September 20, 2011, 09:36:44 AM
The Church of Sartan on the Far East. At least when I was high priest there, we had a strong code of honour which certainly handicaps you.

Point being? Nobody said there never was any religions with any handicaps. Try human sacrifices, for a handicap! And it lasted quite some time, too, and became quite powerful.

Quote from: Chénier on September 20, 2011, 05:42:57 PM
Nobody said there never was any religions with any handicaps.

JPierreD kinda did. I'll give you that the BC went farther than most.

Quote from: vonGenf on September 20, 2011, 05:46:14 PM
JPierreD kinda did. I'll give you that the BC went farther than most.

Not in the paragraph he quoted, at least. He just said that they were rare, and will become even more difficult if financial burdens increase.

Exactly. Where did I ever said there were none?

Chill out, no one's out to get you.  The Church of Sartan is apparently an example of an handicapping religion. There are others - apparently not as many as you'd like.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with anyone else here.