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unmerged(28147)

General
Apr 21, 2004
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In my experimentation and trials and tribulations with this game I have found this basic strategy to be the most helpful/useful.

Military expansion, up to you, personally I don't do it. Taking that into account I bump Defense Spending, Army and Navy Maintenance to minimal. Set Education to whatever you like and if you feel it necessary, which I do, set crime to something, some will say don't raise it, I however do raise it. I set my poor tax at 55% or so, and middle and upper class taxes to 49.22%. I also max my tariffs. After doing this hopefully your country will be making at least some profit which will allow you to build a cash reserve to further improve your economy.
 
Jack99,

I would concurr that your strategy is a good starting place.
I would suggest that your first scentence should be:
"Military expansion, don't do it until you are ready "

Nothing wrong with a few military escapades, just be prepared, and don't go callling for the biggest bully in the playground until you are ready

Heretic
 
I've found that an 'all or nothing' method works best with tariffs. Either drop all your taxes to 0 and tariffs to full, or no tariffs at all. Otherwise your pops' cash reserves get annihilated... At the beginning of the game, having poor taxes at almost 100% doesn't hurt at all, you just have to develop your rich taxes to a point at which you can drop the poor taxes to about 33% and still make a profit. Then you can look back fondly at the good old days of the exploitation of the poor :rolleyes:
 
I go for early expansionist. Reason being the AI is usually weakest at this stage and any new soldiers will need at least some time.

As a major power, I attack heavy industry nations.

As a minor nation like Annam I go for prestige 1st than the later become major power I start attacking countries with heavy industries.

Tax and tariffs set to around max(75% there) there as long as the majority do not revolt.

I notice that even at 0% tax the reactionaries will still increase and eventually I try my best to put 1 single soldier each on each of my occupied territory but alot died in their service the new colonies in Africa. Only when sometimes deserted than no choice but overall still okay.

Cheers
 
w/ 1.03b and a colonial empire, 50% tax on the low class combined w/ 100% tarriffs in the beggining looks like it will raise MIL of your colonial population... never a good thing :)
 
Lotus Lo said:
w/ 1.03b and a colonial empire, 50% tax on the low class combined w/ 100% tarriffs in the beggining looks like it will raise MIL of your colonial population... never a good thing :)

I use 1.03c now and for that one that said to lower taxes to 0% and max tariffs, that doesn't work in .03c.
 
Heretic said:
Jack99,

too true, too true, but you will always find people not up to date on their patches.
Like me for example (must remeber to try & give 1.03c oriented advice)

Heretic

It's okay, at least I wasn't clueless and went to try it and then came back here screaming and ranting about it not working.
 
I just like conquering Africa.
 
Lotus Lo said:
woops, i meant 1.03c :)

Ok, I wasn't referring to your tax strategy though. someone else said to knock all taxes down to 0 and bump tariffs up to max. Apparently in .03b this works like a charm but they fixed it in 3c.
 
oh, ok... i guess i was just correcting a mistake :)

yes, because tariff money came from the sky. so you let the pops keep all the money, and buy all tariffed goods that you then tax, which comes from the sky :)

but gone now, since pops actually pay the tariff now
 
But the end result is about the same whether you tax them at 50% or set tariffs to 100%. You take half their money. What you said you are doing, setting taxes to 50% and tariffs to 100% is taking 75% of the money from the pops (they pay half of what they make in direct taxes, and half of what's left goes to pay indirect taxes, which are as high as the price of the goods they buy). After a while, they tend to get slightly annoyed at their crummy levels of need satisfaction.

The advantage of setting tariffs to 100% instead of taxes to 50% is that pops get very significant militance reductions from the low taxes.
 
ok, yes now in 1.03c. but i think what i said above applied to 1.03b.

now, while econ techs are down, tariff seems to be the wiser option to rely upon. but when econ techs get better, it is more efficient to tax instead of tariff
 
Set taxes to 0 and tariffs to 100%. In my 1.03b game as the Netherlands I had 49% on all 3 classes and 0 tariffs, but when I converted to 1.03c I made MORE money with tariffs at 100% and taxes at 0%.