Game mechanics

[Nelphine]

Even during my mono life beastmen era (I didn't build spearmen then), I got to max taxes in a few dozen turns, and never changed. Basically, always before I got a second city to pop 4. And unless a city can reach population, 15? Or more, you don't need oracles.

I suppose this is where my concept that pop 10 cities are more than useable might come in.

I basically care about cities for their buildings, so lower populations are acceptable if it let's me build two cities - building 2 amp towers is worth more than an extra 15 population (and its usually no more than extra 2-5 population anyway).

However, if max taxes are the norm, then that answers my question.

[Seravy]

(mono Life has Just Cause so you had 1 fewer rebels - which is a LOT in small early game cities that would only get one or two. Try High Men with only Sorcery books...)

[Nelphine]

Right, that's one reason why I ask. Admittedly, I would never play high men.

[zhantul]

I keep taxes second or third from highest most games. I switch to highest around the time I research my first very, rare spells. When playing life or death, I do max taxes early on. Skeletons and undead troops keep unrest down. Just cause works fine too. My main race is usually lizardmen or halfling with those.

As draconian, I keep taxes at mid-level. Troops are expensive and require all the production I can muster. I play a bit too perfectionistic as those. I only start troop production with mithril or adamantium. Even then, I go for stacks, rather than garrisons.

[zitro1987]

3rd highest is my norm, but I generally bump it to 2nd highest when I start building large armies later in game. I don't think I ever did highest, unless playing cult-leader.

[GermanJoey]

Retorts, race, and books of course make a big difference, but I'll describe my general case. In the mid game and beyond, I'll generally be at max tax rate. However, in the early game, I'll micro-optimize every turn to reduce unrest in order to maximize production. Generally that means I'll start from the second-to-highest and then lower it as my capital grows, perhaps mixing in some spearmen to raise it again. Eventually, I'll get my "food cities" online that can a.) spam spearmen for 8-unit garrisons in every city and b.) set all their workers to farmers, at which point I'll be able to optimally maintain max tax rate (or second-to-highest, whichever brings in more income) until the game is over.

[Catwalk]

Max taxes are indeed the correct play Nelphine. I made a sister to see how much difference it makes, it demonstrates that producing spearmen for sake of raising taxes is a very good deal. This only works up until 8 units, narrowly. For very large cities you may want to lower taxes eventually.

[Nelphine]

Tldr: astrologer vs cult leader seems to be in a good spot; cult leader is early game focused and rewards strategies based on cities. Astrologer is late game focused and rewards strategies based on nodes.

Did some math; assuming 1 chaos book and omniscient, I compared the advantages of astrologer against cult leader. (I was assuming max power for the nodes, but that only matters for the power gain from omniscient; the difference between max and poor is less than 3 mana per turn for an arcanus node, which is negligible compared to the benefits of either cult leader or astrologer; I'll show the difference in my 1412 comparison). I assumed 8 tiles average for an arcanus node, and 14 for a myrran node.

In 1406, astrologer with 6 arcanus nodes gives slightly more power than cult leader with 20 cities with heavenly light and shrines.

In 1409, astrologer with 10 arcanus nodes and 2 myrran nodes gives the same power as cult leader with 21 cities, all with heavenly light, sheubes, Parthenon's, and cathedrals.

In 1412, astrologer with all 30 nodes gives the same power as cult leader with 69 cities all with heavenly light, shrine, Parthenon and cathedral. (Note: with poor node power instead of max, this would drop to ~63 cities)

Obviously, how many nodes you control may not be that high (although that's roughly the timeline I aim for with my barbarian games; my cities are usually much slower though, only around 25-30 in 1412), but it seems clear to me, that purely on power, astrologer is far better than cult leader. Of course the unrest reduction is extremely important too. I'd say up to 1412, the unrest reduction probably balances the additional gain in power from astrologer.

But, after 1412, I don't think you'll be able to keep getting enough cities - you will effectively cap your cult leader bonus while astrologer keeps growing.

Of course, considering I think games are over by 1415 if you are playing a strong strategy, I think this is balanced. The first 3-5 years you might not have any nodes; the last 3-5 years, astrologer will be the clear winner. (If we rebalance the game so that games typically take until 1420-1425, I think astrologer will need to be looked at.)

Edit: by 1412 astrologer is giving almost 4 times as much as the bonus mana spellweaver. Given that the main attraction of spellweaver is the overland bonus, with extra mana as icing, I think that's fine.

[Catwalk]

This thread shows weapon immunity giving 7 shields, in-game help shows it giving 8 shields. Which is correct?

[Seravy]

8, it was increased recently.