That's true, but considering you could place more useful things where those morale-boosting improvements are, the price you pay for that higher tax rate becomes too unappealing. The fact remains that it's there to keep people from setting the tax rate over %80.

Personally, I'd rather see a steady increase over the entire range of tax rates, that achieves the same basic result; and such seems to be the general consensus here.

Excuse me, but were you not paying attention? 81% does not drop your morale to 0. Well, it does for yours, but that's because you don't have enough morale buildings. You can maintain a tax rate > 80% if you have enough morale. The 80-81 disjunction is not much different from the 39-40, or 49-50, or the disjunction that happens between any other 10 tax rate increments. It just happens to be much bigger.

Excuse me, but did how many replies are you going to make in this topic without reading the original post?

I mentioned exactly how big the morale hit is for going from 80% to 81%.

And it's big enough that it will drop all planets for any civ to 0. Even with all morale wonders and 3 morale resources maxed out, morale still drops to zero on every planet. Accept it.

PS- the morale hit for every evenly divisble by 10% tax increment has been removed in the latest patch. Update your game

The fact remains that it's there to keep people from setting the tax rate over %80.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that it was a good or viable tactic to go beyond 81%; merely that it was actually possible to do so and keep something vaguely resembling a healthy morale.

And it's big enough that it will drop all planets for any civ to 0. Even with all morale wonders and 3 morale resources maxed out, morale still drops to zero on every planet. Accept it.

Do you need me to send you a save game of a game of mine where I could hit 81% and still have 67% happiness? Maybe I'll throw up a screenshot when I get home.

Well you can always ramp up the taxes to 100% for 2 turns get some quick cashflow then back them down to the 60% happy with ya range once more. Do this a couple of times in a row and you've got enough money to buy any size ship with full features and still be positive cashflow. ( This is without any trade cash assistance). I used this method last nite and built up a good fleet of Huge Ships with Psionic Beams fully loaded. They were big bulky and slow ( which is more believable for that style of ship anyhow.) Though a huge ship with the fastest drive is nice on occassion..

I think the tax rate cap makes perfect sense people can tolerate things up to a point, if you push even a little past that point people get pissed. Also like someone said you can only shrink things so much but they probably should be a bit higher like 160% maybe I don't know. However ignuss stop flaming Marcathonas all he did was make a valid point there is no need for you to be such a prat he isn't a fanboi.

And 100% taxes is stupid and unrealistic.

Its called Communism. 100% tax rate would represent the government providing the services that normally people would use their money for, including food, entertainment, houses, vehicles, and luxuries; everything.

Besides that, I think people can get used to anything. I *would* like to see more political options, however.

Edit: omg, I'm a thread necromancer Haha, I should have kept reading instead of having the overpowering desire to respond to that one post... especially considering that's *exactly* what happened last time. Well, my opinions are more expressed in this recent post, so I'll leave it as is if nobody minds.

And 100% taxes is stupid and unrealistic.

Actually, that's called Communism. I don't think its unfathomable that some sort of world-wide communal system of living couldn't be possible in this futuristic setting... they take 100% of what you make but then provide you with all the things you'd spend money on; free entertainment, free shopping (perhaps with a limit on what you can "spend", i.e. everyone has the same allowance), free food, etc. Its only unrealistic when you're stuck in the capitalistic mindframe.

I would like to see more government options with meaningful changes to gameplay, rather than just "improved" governments that are researched... as things stand there's no real reason one would ever stay as an imperium with the progressive bonuses of the other government types, especially since even as an imperium there's that 81% hardcap.

I agree with the original poster, the hardcaps are unnecessary and seem like an "easy" way to prevent the player from getting 100%. Now I'm not necessarily against hardcaps like that existing in the game, but I do feel like it should be according to your government, not universally applied.

Like somebody said, a lot of the fun in this game is learning what you can do and cannot do.
Fun is trying to raise taxes very high (say 90%), with dollarsigns in your eyes, thinking about how easy it is to get lots of money, when in a few turns planets start to revolt! And you shamefully put the tax rate at a much lower value.

That's nicer than just see the morale jump to 1% (in my game), thinking 'oh, I'm not suppost to do that..'

However, I can understand from a development point of view that you can't have 'nice' game behaviour for every cap.

It think it was in Ceasar III (I liked that game) that you could hold festivals or something to increase morale. Something like that maybe would be nice for Galciv. 'oops, I screwed up again with the people... well, let's have a party for everyone! (out of your tax bc..)'

100% stupid and unrealistic? Damn, how do you make screenshots in this game?!
I have achieved 100% several times, with the total approval of about 70-80%. Trust me, it's not impossible. Hard, yes. Impractical, yes. Ultimately unuseful, yes. But not impossible.
Hell, in the last few games alone, 81% taxes would produce about 20% approval. Just by accident.

-Minituarization has no effect after 125

I currently have 130% miniaturization in a 1.31 game and have exactly that much space on my hulls.

-81% tax rate causes all colonies to have 0% morale (approximately a 170% morale hit compared to 80% tax)

Not true ( except for the approx 170% morale hit which is actually 179% ). It usually will but in 1.2; I could if I had enough morale resources have a viable economy above 80% tax rate -- It was even possible to have a 100% tax rate if I was willing to live with lower populations on planets -- I could even get to 100% morale with 100% tax rate. I believe this is still possible with 1.31 but haven't got far enough in my game to see.

Why don't players do it? -- simple, when one can do this, one is normally stretching the game out for points -- so one wants population and the morale hit for going above 80% tax isn't worth it.

Liked the post by Starlost about kicking taxes up to 100% for a couple turns to get some quick extra cash. Never thought of that one, I'll keep it in mind though, never know when it might come in handy. Philosophically like the idea of getting the malcontently inclined into an underground economy and out of the mainstream, lol.

I haven't checked out 1.31 yet but in 1.2 the population stopped affecting morale after 26B.
The population hard cap on population is 100B per planet.
There is a population at which population growth stops for planets based on their PQ. But population can be transported in up to the population supported by farms.

Oh on the tax rate issue, I believe Brad has posted that he wanted players to be using a 49% tax rate max. So I am expecting big changes in how tax rate, population, and morale interact in DA.

Hard caps are just necessary evils in programs, wish they'ld have had one that would have prevented one of my games from becoming unplayable.

*sigh*

Another necrothread. Do note that the first several posts are from MAY before replying, people.

Actually, that's called Communism. I don't think its unfathomable that some sort of world-wide communal system of living couldn't be possible in this futuristic setting... they take 100% of what you make but then provide you with all the things you'd spend money on; free entertainment, free shopping (perhaps with a limit on what you can "spend", i.e. everyone has the same allowance), free food, etc. Its only unrealistic when you're stuck in the capitalistic mindframe.

Excellent point. I always wonder why we assume all other alien species in the game would think the same as humans. A race like the Borg, or any hive like society, would do what was best for the society without any regard to their personal needs. We do have slavery in the game and slaves don't make any money, so why not a society of aliens where their sole motivation is to do whatever they can for the collective society? That would in effect be represented by 100% tax, where the government provides for all their needs, and that is all they desire. Yes humans would likely revolt if they had the means to resist the military, but the Borg or an insect like hive society would have no motivation to do so, since their personal needs are irrelivant to the needs of their society.

Let's put it simply...

In the 'hive society' example there would be no taxes.

End of story.

Every person in the community would work for the government (because noone would have money, and therefore there would be no private corporations) and not be paid; they would have nothing to give back to the government, because the government would never give it to them. On the flipside, nothing would be bought or sold on an active market. There would be no revenue anywhere, and money would nominally be a non-issue.

The only thing people would get is food, shelter, and probably some median form of entertainment.

But things aren't actually that way in-game...

This is why there is a 'cap' at 80% taxes; any more than that and the economy would break down (without government intervention). The consumer would have very little to spend (regardless of the current cost of living), and therefore they would be extremely displeased that their efforts are for naught and they would be generally destitute given the level of technology; these fancy and advanced techs would not be widely available, and certainly never cheap. Again, the government would have to provide. Because GalCiv is extremely economy-centric, it's necessary to keep the illusion of the free market in place, along with the pros and cons of your taxerates on a society.

I always assume that the people are used to the 33% rate the game starts with, and this is why morale falls as you raise it. You're changing their lifestyle.

I agree with a previous poster about miniaturization, the cap is fine, but the fact that Yor never fully get their advantage's worth seems cheap. Being machines, they should have the greatest miniaturization of all the races. Though there should be an option to duplicate this with a cusom race.

In the 'hive society' example there would be no taxes.

I know there would be no "actual" taxes because there would be not individual income, but what I meant was that it would be the same as 100% tax because everything goes to the state, the only thing the individual gets is what food and shelter the state decides to give them. It would be like slavery, the slave owns nothing and receives no income, the master if you will, gets all the benefits of their work. The state would own everything so all wealth would reside with the state. So I meant the only way to represent in the game that the state retains all the wealth is to make the taxes 100% to indicate that the individual owns nothing.

I have no idea how a society could function when the government is sponging 80% of its subject's earnings.

Come live here in Sweden (or any other Nordic country).
Works just fine.
Everyone has mandatory health care, education and insurances.
Of course,,no one likes handing "the man" lots of sough,,so inventing ways of avoiding that is like a national sport here too

It is possible to go to 100% tax rate and still have morale left. In one gigantic map, I had so many morale resources that I was able to go to 100% tax rate and still have 35% morale left. At 81%, it only dropped to 97%.