If realms could forcibly tax duchies in an effective manner, then realms could devise new tax policies that would involve both a meaningful realm share for the nobility, and the possibility of lords giving extra income to favored knights.
Realms should be able to tax cities as proxies for duchies.
That will provoke dukes to seek "supplemental income:" ducal taxes. As is, ducal taxes are, in my experienced, widely under- or unused. If the realm could tax a city it would provoke the duke to seek vassals who he can tax. This will promote competition for vassals, as a larger duchy could run a lower ducal tax rate and still have the duke acquire the same income.
Such a system should create unrest, however. I'd love to see realms able to tax cities. I'd like to see realms penalized for taxing them at very high rates. Maybe something similar to Too Much Peace, but, instead, Too Many Taxes, which would increase the % of tax revenues that gets "wasted" (read: destroyed) as the tax rates on cities rise. Have no penalty for a substantial margin (maybe 0-10%), then an exponentially expanding penalty afterwards, starting small.
HOWEVER, returning to the topic of the thread:
Does anyone have any evidence suggesting that realms that give more gold to new players are more likely to retain nobles? Do continents with higher average incomes have higher retention (my guess: no)? Do realms that have high "realm shares" of taxes hold new players better?
Our practice of coming up with "solutions" to retention issues without having ever carefully diagnosed the problem is just not good. Until somebody has data suggesting that there may indeed be a meaningful link between gold systems that treat new characters preferentially...
Two additional notes:
1. Nobody replies to my comment about trade practices? Sad day.
2. I somehow doubt that most new characters are new players; it's a careful distinction that should be made, and "realm shares" benefit low-ranking characters, which may not actually be new players. There may be more effective targeting means.