by The Lamb » Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:31 pm
Greeting Ladies and Gents, I had a few thoughts for port control.
Law of diminishing returns:
A. Best Returns : Your inputs (a) produce the most results (in this cash tax revenue)
B. Diminishing returns : Each added input after (a+b) leads to diminishing returns (in this case tax revenue)
C. Negative returns : Each added input after ((a+b)+c) actually decreases output (in this case tax reserves)
What does this mean in terms of ports? It has to do with total ports controlled.
As a nation, its easy to control one port. It may still be easy to control 2 ports, but the more ports you control the more resources (portions of your tax revenue) it takes to keep the population under control (in the form of guards, social programs, name your expense) as you get further from your power center or circle of influence.
What does this mean? As a baseline, You have three economic layers.
A. Bet Returns - Port 1 = 100% Tax revenue (great for small and single port nations)
- Port 2 = 66% Tax revenue (Still great for small to medium sized nations)
B. Diminishing returns - Port 3 = 33% Tax revenue (Medium to large nations, still show a profit)
- Port 4 = 0% tax revenue (only the largest nations would want to have 4 or more ports, as income only comes from production)
C. Negative Returns - Port 5 and further sees 33% + 33% costs for every extra port after 5. (With so few ports, it should not make sense for any nation to see this amount)
The second part of this is the developers secrets. The cost multiplier, base on ACTIVE members of a country. The fewer people in a country, more the cost to control any given port, the more people in a country the less cost. You start with the base with one port always being 100%, and from there you increase or decrease the % of tax withheld for "upkeep" based on total number of ACTIVE members.
This will allow the best returns diminishing returns and Negative returns to slide with ACTIVE country populations. A country of 1 would never be able to hold 5 ports as the second port alone may cost money just to control, where a country of 50 could more efficiently manage 4 or more ports since they have so many active members and the negative return may start at 6 ports.
Pirates get one profitable port, sorry, still needs to be time frame realistic. This would have a very positive effect on the number of port holding nations and player activity and recruiting.
Feniks was right, at the moment voodoo is all that determines port control, we need more realism this isn't witch doctor glory economics of controlling ports might be what is needed.
Remember...
You can sheer a sheep many times, but only skin it once!