Money matters ============= How to make money? ------------------ 1. Taxes Your income from taxes depends on following factors: - Tax rate You can increase your revenues by raising taxes. Unfortunately, with higher taxes the morale sinks and this influences the population's willingness to pay taxes. Thus, you won't get the maximum by setting the tax rate to 100%. ;-) - Size of working population The more people work the more people pay taxes... - Proportion of professions Provided that all sciences have the same level, the ratio of revenues are following: peasant : fisher : worker : merchant 1 : 1 : 2 : 4 So it is very important how many people have more profitable jobs. - Morale As mentioned above, the morale affects the willingness to tax-paying. So every rise in the morale means automatically more money. But if you want you can also spoil the higher morale back to its initial level by raising the tax rate, and so increasing the revenue. - Level of science The development of science influences the profitability of the professions, and so the tax-incomes as well. The connections should be self-evident, but I might be mistaken, so here is the list: agriculture -> peasants sailing -> fishermen industry -> workers trade -> merchants Well, would you have guessed it? 2. Productive properties Every mill, mine, mint, and other productive property produces basically 20 gold net revenue in every turn. If the level of industry is higher than 1.0 the income is modified proportionally. 3. Interest You get automatically 4% interest for your money after each turn. 4. Selling properties If things are very bad you might be forced to sell your properties. Selling Property price Loss Remark -------------------------------------------------------------- fort 70 (90%) only as building material church 10 (90%) only as building material univers. 250 (50%) not very good for other purposes mill 180 (10%) a trader makes profit out of you ship 180 (10%) a trader makes profit out of you army 75 (50%) a part of the weapons How to spend money? ------------------- 1. Costs The maintenance of your buildings and the upkeeping of your fleet and army cost you some money. In addition, should you at any time have debts you also have to pay 12% interest. These are the maintenance and upkeeping costs for each turn: fort 30 gold church 3 gold university 25 gold ship 20 gold army 30 gold 2. Investments After every turn the balance of revenues and costs is added to your treasury. (Your treasurer can predict the prospective changes if you press "t" in the main screen.) If you manage your economy well, you will have some surplus money for investments. You can even spend more money than you actually possess, but never forget that you will have to pay for your debts not only with your money (interests) but also with the morale (unpaid soldiers start to pillage, etc). What are your possibilities? a. Material investments (and their benefits) - Forts: 700 gold Every fort adds 30% bonus to the defending force. - Churches: 100 gold Every church makes 20 people happier (doubles their morale!) in the area where it is loacted. This way you get a morale-bonus up to 100% but you cannot exceed this bonus however many churches you have. - Universities: 500 gold Universities have two effects: 1.) Every university gives you 1% chance (in every turn) that a scientist makes a new invention. 2.) Universities make your investments on science more efficient. If you have a university for every 50 people, this gives you 100% bonus (this means: every gold spent on science counts as 2 golds). Note: There is no limit to this benefit, so more than 100% is also possible! - Mills, mines, mints...: 200 gold Productive properties provide (20 gold) * (sc. level of industry) net revenue in every turn. - Army: 150 gold Sooner or later you will need an army to build up your hegemony or to defend yourself from other empires. Soldiers are also useful in supressing revolts in occupied territories. - Navy: 200 gold Ships have multiple effects: = They are your naval army. Besides, they enable you to transport your land forces to remote places. (You will need a ship for every soldier.) = They offer jobs to your fishermen, and through them some extra food to the population (The length of your coast is also an important factor.) = They let you make trade with not-neighbouring countries, which increases the proportion of merchants in the population, and so indirectly also your revenues. (Not the absolute number of ships is important but the proportion to other empires.) b. Developing the level of sciences You can develop your science level by spending money on it. You can choose how much money you spend on each branch of science, but there are two important restrictions you should be aware of: - The higher your momentary level, the more expensive it gets to achieve further development. (The invention of a spear is cheaper than that of a nuclear-powered submarine.) - The maximum amount of money you can usefully spend on a branch of science is limited. (You cannot invent the nuclear-powered submarine immediately after the spear, no matter how much gold you own.) The efficiency of your money spent on science is influenced by the number of universities. c. Gathering information (spying) If you need some information about your competitors, you have spies at your service. Simply pay the price and your problem is solved... The price of spying depends on three factors: - The size of the target-country. - Your diplomatic relation to that country. - Whether you need "general" or "full" data.