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also forget NF'ing clergy...its useless. the only NF's I did was a mix over time of craftsmen, bureaucrats, clerks, and capitalists. officers a bit in the beginning to get the leadership up.
NFing Clergy is useless!?!?! you have to be way behind in tech? I play multiplayer so I'm aware that your strategy is very noncompetitive. It might work fine when playing against the AI as Russia (who has a lot of leeway) but it's far from the most ideal strategy.

Rich taxes shouldn't matter for clergy, so whatever you need to set it at to balance the budget. Since all you need for poor pops to promote to clergy is for them to be meeting their life needs I'm not sure you really need low tariffs either. I've been playing with maximum tariffs with no problem, although I do have the southern Chinese states sphered, so that is a pretty big supply of agricultural products they have for their needs within my own sphere.

Rich taxes on high unless you are trying to give capitalists more money. The tariffs might be a little voodoo on my part. Watching the pop promotion I've not seen tariffs have an effect. But, it should follow that lowering tariffs or switching to subsidies would reduce the cost of needs for your pops allowing them to meet their needs easier. I know that tariffs have an effect on capitalists getting money for investment and factory profitability.


Edit:
1% Bureaucrats of your national culture is ideal for promotion and I believe it relates to NF promotion only but I'm not sure. Nonaccepted culture bureacrats don't matter.
I've heard that sphering China can crash the world economy and I've seen the world economy crash but I can't say for sure whether sphering China caused it nor why it would cause it.

Maybe someone could clarify these issues further
 
Also whats the deal with placing China in your sphere? I've seen people say its a great idea and prob just as many saying it will wreck your economy.

I think competing with all those Chinese artisans can hurt your own artisans, however my Russia has industrialised itself so that's fine for me (except for my artisans not being able to compete with my factories, and being too slow to demote). But the only reason I actually sphere some of the substates was to prevent them from interfering in my wars with China since they refused to give me Vladivostock and the surrounding regions.
 
Also whats the deal with placing China in your sphere? I've seen people say its a great idea and prob just as many saying it will wreck your economy.

Allow me to help you with this problem. It's complicated.

First off, China has a huge population. Even with the substates in AHD, China and her substates are all, individually, more populous than most countries in the planet. Their economies are all big. I mean in terms of cash flow and production. Even with all of the penalties uncivs have to production, they produce tons of stuff.

Now, if China had no artisans, that would make them just like any other unciv, just with 500x the RGO production (which is always good). But the problem is that China has a huge population and has tons of artisans. The percentage isn't big, but the sheer number is: 1% of 100,000 will be 1,000. 1% of 100,000,000 is 100,000. That's a lot of manufactured goods production coming from a country with no factories.

So who cares, right? Artisans suck and factories are awesome. Not so fast! In AHD, with early technologies, artisans are competitive with factories. So what happens is if you sphere China, your factories and small population ends up competing on even footing with China's huge artisan population and RGO output. This is different than when you sphere, say, Korea or Johore or Egypt. They have so little artisan output that they become a captive market for your factories, helping your factories sell their stuff and providing raw materials. With China, your factories are working against huge artisan output. You aren't selling to China; China is selling to you. The volume of their output makes your economy the dance to their tune.

But this really only applies in the early game. Once you have tier 3 industrial and commercial techs, those artisans are very inefficient compared to your factories, so you start killing off the artisans. Also, China's artisans can only produce what they have techs for, so you factories can plug niches in the market that China's artisans are unable to fill. This makes sphereing China worthwhile because your factories are not really threatened by artisan output AND you can sell all kinds of goods to Chinese POPs while grabbing the RGO output.

Personally, in AHD, I prefer conquering parts of China to putting substates in my sphere. Annexing silk and tropical wood production becomes vital for the mid-game when those resources are in short supply. Conquest increases the output of the selected RGOs substantially, and prevents my factories from losing access to vital goods. It also has the nice side effect of giving those POPs lucrative jobs that makes them happier under my colonial rule than they were under Chinese rule. Happy and well paid colonial POPs buy more crap from my own factories than unhappy unciv POPs with low wages because of crap RGO output techs. :)
 
Thanks Secret Master that makes sense.

About the silk and tropical wood production is this why I can never seem to find any luxury clothes, to much competition for silk?
 
Thanks for the China explanation. I'm starting as Russia, and it's about 1845 ... I've got some factories ... and the 341 Capitalists in the entire Russian Empire are building all workshops all over.

But despite that, I think I'm going to try and sphere China ASAP, and see what it does.

In the meantime, how do you get reforms passed (and not just with Russia)? Besides gamey cheating and declaring wars agianst minors, I can't get Mil or Con to the level required for some changes. This is the part of the game that drives me nuts.
 
Literacy will drive up Con eventually, along with a number of inventions that fire off the culture techs. If you can manage it then luxury goods will really boost Con. Infamy also drives up Con, though obviously you may not want to go over the limit. I found it quite hard to get reforms passed as Russia, illiterate pops are held in check by clergy for a long time and the country is too big for events to give you the kind of push that can get reforms passed early if you are a small nation.
 
-poor taxes low

You need to keep all tax levels at high to prevent getting aristocrat instead of clergy. The poor will become aristocracy if they have their luxury needs satisfied.
 
Thanks Secret Master that makes sense.

About the silk and tropical wood production is this why I can never seem to find any luxury clothes, to much competition for silk?

In the early game, yeah. The UK and France are probably eating up all the silk and there's none left for you. However, depending on Japan's status, silk is a variable resource (Japan civilizes faster).

Tropical wood is always in short supply, but both luxury furniture and clothes will eventually be overproduced like anything else.

Thanks for the China explanation. I'm starting as Russia, and it's about 1845 ... I've got some factories ... and the 341 Capitalists in the entire Russian Empire are building all workshops all over.

But despite that, I think I'm going to try and sphere China ASAP, and see what it does.

In the meantime, how do you get reforms passed (and not just with Russia)? Besides gamey cheating and declaring wars agianst minors, I can't get Mil or Con to the level required for some changes. This is the part of the game that drives me nuts.

I always take MIL in all events to drive it up. Also I research Ideological Thought ASAP to get plurality up, which boosts CON. In AHD, I get POPs demanding reforms all the time, and manipulate them so as to pass the reforms I want in the UH.
 
You need to keep all tax levels at high to prevent getting aristocrat instead of clergy. The poor will become aristocracy if they have their luxury needs satisfied.

Didn't realize this before but you're right. You would up to 2% aristocrats but having 2% aristocrats is not terrible, it will increase your RGO effeciency. After 2% aristocrats they will stop promoting to aristocrats. I think it is still better to have low poor taxes if you are trying to promote clergy because in the long run you will get more promotion. It really does increase your promotion speed by 10-20%.
 
NFing Clergy is useless!?!?! you have to be way behind in tech? I play multiplayer so I'm aware that your strategy is very noncompetitive. It might work fine when playing against the AI as Russia (who has a lot of leeway) but it's far from the most ideal strategy.

maybe some clergy from 1836-1840 but thats it...really not needed. craftsmen, clerks, capitalists, and bureaucrats are far better to help your industry and govt run better
 
Didn't realize this before but you're right. You would up to 2% aristocrats but having 2% aristocrats is not terrible, it will increase your RGO effeciency. After 2% aristocrats they will stop promoting to aristocrats. I think it is still better to have low poor taxes if you are trying to promote clergy because in the long run you will get more promotion. It really does increase your promotion speed by 10-20%.
Not as Russia, but with a similar, sane tax policy I ended up with 10%+ aristocracy (and 15-20% bureaucracy, 20-25% soldiers mostly located in overseas colonies and states) by the endgame.
Also my craftsmen were more numerous overseas than in the homeland, which was rather depopulated except for farmers, labourers and aristocrats.
 
maybe some clergy from 1836-1840 but thats it...really not needed. craftsmen, clerks, capitalists, and bureaucrats are far better to help your industry and govt run better

Nf on clergy until I had 3% in every state in combination with state capitalism = 1st in the world by ~1870. I only took central asia and a few swedish provinces.

http://www7.pic-upload.de/22.04.12/7d5854we3nd.jpg
http://www7.pic-upload.de/22.04.12/ac14ts7rkxdw.jpg

After I was done with clergy I started focusing on colonisation and clerks. In my opinion the best way to go.
 
Nf on clergy until I had 3% in every state in combination with state capitalism = 1st in the world by ~1870. I only took central asia and a few swedish provinces.

http://www7.pic-upload.de/22.04.12/7d5854we3nd.jpg
http://www7.pic-upload.de/22.04.12/ac14ts7rkxdw.jpg

After I was done with clergy I started focusing on colonisation and clerks. In my opinion the best way to go.

Wow I guess my strategy was a bit wrong...your Russia looks awesome! In my game 1873 I only had a higher prestige than you...everything else you were higher in. Also I only had 16% literacy with 13.9 research points.
 
Hi, i played russia a lot and im not sure what i think about tarffis, but i kinda starting to like it. it gives tons of money, you produce almost all the raw goods you needs and can take up sphere of what you need. it seems i can keep a gigantic army and navy. Also i play mostly multiplayer.

so my question what do you guys think with 100% tarffis? Solid industri, solid domestic economic and totaly screw the rest of the world that needs your goods as monster russia.

this is in early, and early mid game.
 
Not as Russia, but with a similar, sane tax policy I ended up with 10%+ aristocracy (and 15-20% bureaucracy, 20-25% soldiers mostly located in overseas colonies and states) by the endgame.
Also my craftsmen were more numerous overseas than in the homeland, which was rather depopulated except for farmers, labourers and aristocrats.

Are you playing AHD with the newest beta? Because in AHD with the newest beta you shouldn't be able to get so much aristocrats unless you NF them.
 
Regarding comments that sphering China is a major blow to Russia ... well, it's 1850, I just Sphered China, and my income shot up 3,000K. Didn't effect my RGOs ... and I've industrialized too already .... so not sure what the problem is ....

I'll continue to play and see what happens.
 
Regarding comments that sphering China is a major blow to Russia ... well, it's 1850, I just Sphered China, and my income shot up 3,000K. Didn't effect my RGOs ... and I've industrialized too already .... so not sure what the problem is ....

I'll continue to play and see what happens.

Interesting. Just how industrialized are you, exactly? And where are you sitting with commercial techs?
 
Not much at all really, as it's only 1852 now. For Industry, I have Machine Parts as my most "advanced." Otherwise, I'm still all first row in everything except for culture, as I'm working hard to get Education, research, and plurality.