Both of these have the same goal, produce as much gold as possible. To me it seems like these could be bunched together into a singel omen, maybe nerf their values a bit. With two different omens doing the same thing but using different sources, you will need to check which of your two income sources are the greatest and then pick the correct omen, something you don't need to do with any other omen.
Why is there a tax omen and a commerce omen?
- Thread starter Denkt
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Because the gods will it.
You should always be checking what would be best for your situation before picking any omen, this is no different. Sometimes trade will generate more money, sometimes taxes.
You should always be checking what would be best for your situation before picking any omen, this is no different. Sometimes trade will generate more money, sometimes taxes.
But that is not an argument against what Im saying. If you want better research there is an omen for that, more Manpower, simply pick the omen. More gold, I need to check my income because I have two omens that do the same thing but one must be better than the other.
Two omens that do the exact same thing but use two different sources simply add Another layer that need to be checked.
They don't do the same thing because they affect trade, which is not the same as taxes. They do the same thing because they affect money. Would an army upkeep omen be the same thing as a trade omen since it also affects money? Are all omens the same since they affect the player's ability to win the game?
You need to understand the level of abstraction.
Edit: As an aside trade tends to slow down under heavier taxation, so there's an inverse relationship that can't be abstracted into "moar money"
They clearly have the same goal and it is the only case with two omens have the exact same goal and the only thing it does is to forcing the player to check which of tax and trade income most valuable. There is no strategy added behind this choice, it simply force the player to check more stuff.
There's absolutely strategy. I can prioritize trade development and use the trade omen, or I can prioritize taxation and use the tax omen. "The exact same goal" is a nonsensical standard since everything in the game has the same goal technically, it's just a matter of where you slice the abstraction. Economic development choices are undeniably strategic.
Commerce and taxation are fundamentally different, and income from them is also fundamentally different. Taxes depress commercial activity, more commercial activity leads to more tax revenue. The distinction between the two is even greater, particularly in this time period, where private parties who profited from private commerce performed governmental functions on a regular basis.
We are talking about a game here in which Commerce income and tax income both produce gold.
If you produce 50 tax income and 10 Commerce income you will be better of picking the tax omen but if the values was the opposite you would be better off picking the Commerce omen. Taxes and Commerce income dont affect each other as far as I know. Tax income is produced by slaves and tribesmen while Commerce income is produced from Active trade routes.
If you produce 50 tax income and 10 Commerce income you will be better of picking the tax omen but if the values was the opposite you would be better off picking the Commerce omen. Taxes and Commerce income dont affect each other as far as I know. Tax income is produced by slaves and tribesmen while Commerce income is produced from Active trade routes.
Pops produce gold. Should all omens affecting pops be abstracted into the "increase income" button? More powerful armies mean you need fewer soldiers to do the same things, which saves money and increases gold. Should that be abstracted into an "increase income" button? Omens that help military performance generally help you conquer things and have the pops in those places work for you, producing gold. Should those be abstracted into an "increase income" button? While we're at it, increasing income is just there to help you build an empire, why not just have a "build empire and win game" omen?
They do produce the same thing but not in the same way. Their relevance is the same as having more than one way to generate gold in the first place I would argue 
First of all omens are active for a duration so your assessment would not necessarily be what would make you more money immediately.
Second the situation may be more complex than you think. Here’s a few things to complicate it:
1: Commerce comes from trade. It is dependent on you having a high number of trade routes open over time (preferably foreign trade routes), these might be broken by war declarations, annexations, etc.
It is further modified on a local level by your citizens. Choosing this omen means to some extent you expect citizens to keep being happy (and therefore productive). Are your citizens in the trading provinces of your own culture? If not they’ll be affected by AE.
2: Tax comes only from slave and tribesmen pops. It’s therefore dependent on these pops remaining happy over time for being efficient. It would also suffer greatly from hostile sieges stealing your pops or unhappiness.
Are your tax producing pops of your own culture? If so they’ll be mostly unaffected by AE, if not then conquering new lands will lower the tax and make this omen less worthwhile to take.
You can have many other things affecting these, both temporary and permanent. For some countries commerce might always be the better choice. But it’s not necessarily always an easy choice, and it may turn out the other one would’ve been better in retrospect
First of all omens are active for a duration so your assessment would not necessarily be what would make you more money immediately.
Second the situation may be more complex than you think. Here’s a few things to complicate it:
1: Commerce comes from trade. It is dependent on you having a high number of trade routes open over time (preferably foreign trade routes), these might be broken by war declarations, annexations, etc.
It is further modified on a local level by your citizens. Choosing this omen means to some extent you expect citizens to keep being happy (and therefore productive). Are your citizens in the trading provinces of your own culture? If not they’ll be affected by AE.
2: Tax comes only from slave and tribesmen pops. It’s therefore dependent on these pops remaining happy over time for being efficient. It would also suffer greatly from hostile sieges stealing your pops or unhappiness.
Are your tax producing pops of your own culture? If so they’ll be mostly unaffected by AE, if not then conquering new lands will lower the tax and make this omen less worthwhile to take.
You can have many other things affecting these, both temporary and permanent. For some countries commerce might always be the better choice. But it’s not necessarily always an easy choice, and it may turn out the other one would’ve been better in retrospect
Wrong, slaves and tribesmen produce taxes and Citizen increase Commerce income. Freemen don't produce any gold at all, Citizen don't produce gold, they increase Commerce income in their city.
Never said that, tax income, research and Manpower are three different things each have their own omen that increase it.
Again there is a difference between temporarily more powerful armies and more tax income. Main difference in my opinion is that tax income is passive so as long as you have some tax income you will get something out of the omen. More powerful armies require more Active play to use. Yes one way is to have less units and thus reduce upkeep cost but that is not Always what you want to do and often if you pick more discipline you probably want to use it in a war which likely mean you do not want to reduce your army size.
Yes conquest will get you more income but this is an indirect thing while Commerce and tax omen directly is about producing more gold. Yes the argument that this gold can then be used to build up a larger force to conquer the enemies would work here but again it start to become about indirect things and it start missing what this thread was about in the first Place.
Again I never said anything like that and it is missing the Point.
This also say that omen duration increase may be as much as an advantage as a liability as you can not change your omen as far as I know.
If not already in it would be nice to see if trade routes are going to be broken because of a war and if possible how much lost income that would represent as it could potentially be important.
They do produce the same thing but not in the same way. Their relevance is the same as having more than one way to generate gold in the first place I would argue
First of all omens are active for a duration so your assessment would not necessarily be what would make you more money immediately.
Second the situation may be more complex than you think. Here’s a few things to complicate it:
1: Commerce comes from trade. It is dependent on you having a high number of trade routes open over time (preferably foreign trade routes), these might be broken by war declarations, annexations, etc.
It is further modified on a local level by your citizens. Choosing this omen means to some extent you expect citizens to keep being happy (and therefore productive). Are your citizens in the trading provinces of your own culture? If not they’ll be affected by AE.
2: Tax comes only from slave and tribesmen pops. It’s therefore dependent on these pops remaining happy over time for being efficient. It would also suffer greatly from hostile sieges stealing your pops or unhappiness.
Are your tax producing pops of your own culture? If so they’ll be mostly unaffected by AE, if not then conquering new lands will lower the tax and make this omen less worthwhile to take.
You can have many other things affecting these, both temporary and permanent. For some countries commerce might always be the better choice. But it’s not necessarily always an easy choice, and it may turn out the other one would’ve been better in retrospect
So there is some value in converting even slaves to your culture/religion. Very Interesting
On the same note, negative omens affecting tax collection and commerce would've been interesting.
Well was not many romans forced into slavery because of things such as debt? So it is not completely unrealistic to have pops of your Culture being slaves.
Omens can not fail but I suspect you can mod in negative effects to the omen and maybe if your omen Power can become negative maybe the omens turn negative.