A Couple of Basic Questions

[lancer]

G'day,

Now that I'm playing the expansion I'm finding I'm having to pay attention to a few thing that I brushed over before in order to get my Empire cranking.

1: If you have a racial bonus of, say, research +25% and a similar government bonus of research +10% do the two stack or does only the higher apply?

2: How does 'compliance' work, eg. as in the percentage of your colony that are bonafide taxpayers. Manual indicates that it is somehow tied to population and government choice. Is anyone able to provide some more definitive answers?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Lancer

[fabio80mi]

Greetings!
I'm not playing right now (at work..) but if i recall bonus do stack =)
 

[elliotg]

1. Research bonuses multiply each other: govt bonus x race bonus x research location bonuses
2. Happier populations are more tax compliant. Lowering the tax rate will increase compliance. But anything that makes the colony citizens happier will increase compliance

[Aures]

If anyone is interested in the theory behind the interaction between tax rate and compliance they might want to check out details of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve. The Laffer curve is way too simplistic (as I have seen forcefully pointed out by replacing the nice smooth curve Laffer proposed by something that looks like a very tangled piece of string) but it is a good introduction to the idea that there is a tax rate where maximum revenue can be extracted, beyond that rate total revenue decreases as the number of people paying tax drops.

[lancer]

G'day,

Thanks for the reply. Still unclear how it works.

elliotg
1. Research bonuses multiply each other: govt bonus x race bonus x research location bonuses

So if I have a govt bonus of +10%, a race bonus of +20% and a location bonus of 30% I end up with

0.10 * 0.20 * 0.30 = 0.006 = 0.6% ???

You might have to spell it out for me as pre-Xmas festivities have fried my brain.

Cheers,
Lancer

[coolhc]

So if I have a govt bonus of +10%, a race bonus of +20% and a location bonus of 30% I end up with

0.10 * 0.20 * 0.30 = 0.006 = 0.6% ???

No, the correct formula would be:
1.1 * 1.2 * 1.3 = 1.716 i.e. 71.6% increase

[lancer]

G'day,

Got it.

Thanks.

Also thanks Aures for the link to the compliance article. Interesting.

What I find even more intruiging is how Elliot decided to incorporate a taxation/compliance model into the game.

If I sat down to write a list of all the things I'd like in a 4x space-going strategy game, that I was about to design and produce, figuring out algorithms for who is and isn't paying their taxes probably wouldn't be at the top. Might not even be at the bottom.

Perhaps it wasn't as methodical as this and more of a holistic, bottle of wine, process. Do what feels right.

Either way it's the little embellishments like these that really add to the depth and enjoyment when playing the game.

Job well done.

Cheers,
Lancer