Matrix Games Forums

What's an optimal tariff strategy in this game? The thing is, I'm not sure what all of the effects of a tariff might be. And it seems to be pretty complicated, given that we can increase or decrease tariffs to or from any of the other regimes.

Does an export tariff to another regime harm relations with that regime? Does it harm my own private economy, because they can't trade as much? Does an import tariff limit the luxury items my citizens can get? Or do they just import the items from elsewhere?

Or do tariffs affect nothing but the amount of money I get each turn, so I just want to apply as many tariffs as possible and just ignore everything else? Help, please?

So far, I've just been ignoring tariff cards, since I don't know what the effects might be. (Admittedly, after the early game, I've been ignoring most of the stratagem cards I get, since I'm just swamped with them. I suppose I should stop funding them, huh?)

I ignore tariff and put that budget to 0 every time.

Increasign Tarrif did not seem to hurt Relations. Of course it was propably also the only place we could get some stuff fromt, so that may not be a indicator.

Overall I do not think this mechanic is well fleshed out yet.

You can see the amount of trade in 'Trade Report' and the amount of credits generated by import and/or export tariff in 'Treasury cashflow overview'. I think 25% on both is essential if there is heavy trading going on between two regimes as it generates a lot of credits (in my case it was between 100 and 2k credits per turn. I've never gone past 25% so I don't know what happens if you increase tariffs up to 50% and beyond.

Only negative that I know of is the possibility of getting event where Major regime asks for free trade agreement without tariffs.

OK. Thanks, guys.

It just seemed like a rather detailed game mechanic, to set tariffs separately with different regimes, trade into my regime or trade out of my regime, so I figured that there must be a reason for that. But this game is still being developed, so maybe that will be fleshed out later.

I would like to see the economy (and diplomacy) developed a bit more, including tax rates in general. But the game is complicated enough - and certainly fun enough! - already.

Thanks again for the replies.

I usually just slap Tariffs on any unfriendly minors in range. Majors are tough to Tariff, because you need a Trade agreement first and I find most of the time majors do not want to deal with me beyond Open Contact. Which never really made sense to me as tariffs are a purely internal matter. Why would I need a majors permission to impose a Tariff?

If anything, Trade agreements should do the opposite: they should limit Tariffs (perhaps to one of each) instead of permitting them. And then Free Trade would eliminate and ban Tariffs completely. This would make Tariffs far more useful.

According to the manual, without a trade agreement, the only trade that happens with a major is black market trade, and you can't tax it if it's off the books.

IMO its moot since everyone is going to attack you anyway pretty soon regardless if you are going to easily wipe the floor with them. Everything related to diplomacy is in my experience just delaying the inevitable. Tariffs would like expedite this. It's been my experience in my three games. Just hilarious when a major declares was on you (when that time hits in the game, it always hits) when you have divisions on the border and end up taking their capital in two turns.

...If it moves, tax it? [:D]

"Only two things in life are unavoidable:
Death and Taxes.
And I do not feel like killing right now!"

ORIGINAL: Sieppo

IMO its moot since everyone is going to attack you anyway pretty soon regardless

I hope that's not true, since I'd really like the game to be more varied than that. I'm still in my first game, so I guess I'll find out.

But I've got one major regime at 100 relations. A Realpolitikers faction controls them, and we've been helping them maintain their political control. We still don't have the option to ally with them or anything. The game says that I can't even offer a non-aggression pact, for some reason.

Indeed, the main reason I was asking about tariffs is because I didn't want to screw up our relations with this regime. So far, tariffs in and out of their regime hasn't seemed to affect anything except the amount of money I get each turn (and it's a significant amount of money).

A second major regime was friendly, but turned cold. They're a bunch of religious nuts, and I suspect that they turned cold when the Crusader faction took control. (I'd forgotten to check that earlier, or maybe we just didn't have enough recon then.)

We've still got high relations with them, though. And we've been using our spies to help the Humanist faction gain power. (They're currently the least powerful faction, though. So I don't expect this to end well.)

The third major regime I've discovered is militaristic, but Isolationist. So, I expect war with them, but they've been ignoring us, so far. That's fine with me. We've got plenty of minor regimes who don't play nice with others.

I'm not much of a wargamer. The economic and political stuff interest me the most. Of course, I need armed conflict, too. But there's been no shortage of that in my game. We've taken out three different minor regimes who were raiders, and two who were farmers,... for reasons. [:)]

But we've been friendly since the start of the game with another minor farmer regime. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much we can do diplomatically with minor regimes. I could offer to defend them from another major, but no other major can get to them, anyway. Will I have to attack them, eventually? Or do I have options?

Anyway, sorry about the book. But yeah, my question about the consequences of tariffs was not just about the economic consequences, but about the political consequences, too.

I like to have reasons for doing things. And I like those things to have consequences - good and bad, perhaps (to varying degrees, of course) - which go beyond just making me money.

Admittedly, making me money certainly isn't a bad thing. [:D]

ORIGINAL: WCG
But we've been friendly since the start of the game with another minor farmer regime. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much we can do diplomatically with minor regimes. I could offer to defend them from another major, but no other major can get to them, anyway. Will I have to attack them, eventually? Or do I have options?

The beta patches added new stratagems for integrating friendly minors into your regime, but they're only for new games. For now, the best you can do is get some credits from them with a client state relationship.

ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine

The beta patches added new stratagems for integrating friendly minors into your regime

OK, great. Thanks for the info.

I must admit that I wasn't as friendly as I could have been to minors who were in my way to other parts of the planet. Heh, heh. It won't make much difference with this guy. But it's good to know that the game is getting more of those kinds of options.