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Paths of Civilization

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pbluekan said:
For those of you voting for labour, I only want to ask you how you expect our administration to track it. We have three million people. How on earth are people supposed to track labour properly? It's a veritable gateway to abuse of the system. Both for and against the taxpayer.
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The taxes already were paid in labor all this time.
Our administration has experience in tracking it.
 
[X] [Tax] Food or coin (with labor at an unfavorable rate.)

Write-in option. No one should want to pay in labor, but it is an option.

[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labour as they see fit



[X] [Law] Practicality of enforcement


[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)
 
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After looking at Umi-san's analysis, I think I'm ready to lock in for now. I feel like I've made the correct decision with my vote.

[X] [Law] Balance of interests
[] [Tax] NOPE
[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labor as they see fit
[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)
[X] [Bonus] Upgrade government to Classical Elective Monarchy
 
Glassware said:
I'm fairly sure we already track labor, though, it's just done on a local scale. Our current system is actually based on it with the most obvious issue being not incorporating coin, so I assume it takes into account most of our population.
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Yes, and it has been acknowledged in the update that it just isn't working. People pay others to do their labor tax. They have trouble defining labour for the king. Is it public works? Are the chiefs and clerks and oligarchs all exempt from taxes because they work in the government?

Academia Nut said:
While those in administration theoretically already contributed all of their labour to the crown and thus didn't need to do extra
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This is literally giving the top castes of society freedom from taxes. They are all educated and all work in the government, so none of them have to pay taxes on their income, whatever form that income might be.

This is what labour gets you. Pay in physical goods.
 
fictionfan said:
[X] [Tax] Food or coin (with labor at an unfavorable rate.)
To make sure everyone can pay if need be. Also it nicely formalizes the current practice of paying someone to take over your labor.

[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labour as they see fit

This makes sure that the granaries remain full.

[X] [Law] Practicality of enforcement

Everything else is worse then useless if the laws are inconsistent and irrelulary enforce. That leads to corruption.

[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)

I like hero units.
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We can't do write ins man. Not to mention AN would throw asteroids at us if we tried a "have your cake and eat it" scenario.

In other news, howbout that population explosion. 12 econ per turn.
 
[X] [Law] Balance of interests
[X] [Tax] Labour or coin
[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labour as they see fit
[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)
[X] [Bonus] Upgrade government to Classical Elective Monarchy
 
[X] [Law] Community health
[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labour as they see fit
[X] [Tax] Food or coin

How can a society be seen as healthy when members are sick and hungry?

[X] [Heir] A strong general is needed in these times (Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Excellent Martial)

Get some colony people as king to make sure we know of their views. Department chiefs will make up the shortage in abilities.

[X] [Bonus] Gain at least two tech upgrades (Admin and Social biased, exploding rolls)

Not too sure about this, seems safe.

Also holy shit with that population growth. China route set!
 
I'm kinda baffled by the hate for Corvee labor considering IRL it was used up until the 19th century.

Simply put, if you are stuck doing labornfor taxes, you are effectively an unskilled worker. The mason, the smith, the potter- pretty much any artisan or skilled worker will pay in coin.

So the need for valuing labor is overblown, labor in this instance has the most constant and reliable value of all three options. The only risk with corvee labor is in having too many poor people to justify the work (not an issue) or having too little taxable labor to sustain government projects. And refugees takes care of that.

If Ancient Egypt could use it, I'm pretty sure we can too.
 
[X] [Law] Balance of interests
[X] [Tax] Food or coin
[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labour as they see fit
[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)
[X] [Bonus] Upgrade government to Classical Elective Monarchy

For now I might change it after all the discussions are done.
 
tenchifew said:
The taxes already were paid in labor all this time.
Our administration has experience in tracking it.
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And it was failing.

This is part of why we had to redo the system. Tracking labor doesn't work with that many people in this day and age. Hell, the IRS practically can't look at all 300 million people in the US in the Information Age. What do you expect Iron Age people to do?
 
[X] [Tax] Food or coin

If need be we can make some government jobs that are always hiring.

[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labour as they see fit



[X] [Law] Practicality of enforcement


[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)
 
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Karugus said:
I'm kinda baffled by the hate for Corvee labor considering IRL it was used up until the 19th century.

Simply put, if you are stuck doing labornfor taxes, you are effectively an unskilled worker. The mason, the smith, the potter- pretty much any artisan or skilled worker will pay in coin.

So the need for valuing labor is overblown, labor in this instance has the most constant and reliable value of all three options. The only risk with corvee labor is in having too many poor people to justify the work (not an issue) or having too little taxable labor to sustain government projects. And refugees takes care of that.

If Ancient Egypt could use it, I'm pretty sure we can too.
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My problem with taxing labor is that is seems to shaft the farmers, in that they would have to farm and do unskilled labor. Most of our farmers don't use coin, and if they can't give food as tax then they are forced into doing crappy labor.
 
Karugus said:
I'm kinda baffled by the hate for Corvee labor considering IRL it was used up until the 19th century.

Simply put, if you are stuck doing labornfor taxes, you are effectively an unskilled worker. The mason, the smith, the potter- pretty much any artisan or skilled worker will pay in coin.

So the need for valuing labor is overblown, labor in this instance has the most constant and reliable value of all three options. The only risk with corvee labor is in having too many poor people to justify the work (not an issue) or having too little taxable labor to sustain government projects. And refugees takes care of that.

If Ancient Egypt could use it, I'm pretty sure we can too.
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Because their government model doesn't care about health of their free workers, we do. I'm sure you have heard of tales when the constructions are done the workers aren't paid and very sick from the shit food and lack of acceptable sleeping place. Some are even dead.
 
Somebodynobody10 said:
Solution: standardized minimum size for granaries. Add to laws.
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Still allows for a big pile of farms to have a shared minimum sized granary for the sake of "efficiency", meaning they each only have to store a tiny bit of food and can sell all their output to enrich themselves.

Even without that, creating a minimum size rule that is fitting for all of our territory, from the breadbaskets to the mining focused areas, is pretty hard.
 
Raichu1972 said:
Paying people who can't do anything else is all well and good, but how would you have farmers pay in labor?

They make up 90% of our population, and most of them likely don't live close enough to an area that need an aqueduct or library built.

If they can't pay in food, and we don't really have enough coin to properly spread it for everyone to use, then how will farmers pay their taxes?
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Trails, building granaries, putting them on a cart to go to some megaproject or other large-scale investment, we have options.

It does make us more vulnerable to monetary supply problems. This in turn will encourage us to move to something closer to fiat currency, which long-term does actually make the system run more efficiently... but that's definitely not safe in the short-term, we don't have the necessary anti-counterfeit technology yet.
In the short-medium term, we've got a lot of Gold and Silver from our own mines, we're not heavily dependent on trade for them so we're in a reasonably safe position there.

Raichu1972 said:
Most of our farmers don't use coin
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Do you have evidence of this? Last I heard it spread to basically everywhere in our kingdom. I'm sure that not all farmers use it, but AFAIK most of them pay their food tax and then sell the excess for coin.
 
Money-mouth time

[X] [Law] Flexibility
[X] [Tax] Food, labour, or coin
[X] [Food] When granaries are full, those with excess should be able to distribute the fruits of their labour as they see fit
[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)
[X] [Bonus] Upgrade government to Classical Elective Monarchy
fictionfan said:
Write-in option. No one should want to pay in labor.
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No write ins. Besides, that option already exists, it is what I am choosing ;)

Raichu1972 said:
My problem with taxing labor is that is seems to shaft the farmers, in that they would have to farm and do unskilled labor. Most of our farmers don't use coin, and if they can't give food as tax then they are forced into doing crappy labor.
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...except we aren't taxing labour?

This is about how people can pay. The options say "or", not "and"
 
[X] [Law] Community health
[X] [Tax] Food or coin
[X] [Food] Food should not be traded outside the kingdom, except perhaps in times of crisis
[X] [Heir] Let the wise lead us (Poor Martial, Mediocre Admin and Diplo, Heroic Mystic)
[X] [Bonus] Gain at least two tech upgrades (Admin and Social biased, exploding rolls)
 
Academia Nut said:
The question was where those compromises should be made. What would be the overall guiding principles of these councils and consultations?

Choose a philosophy
[] [Law] Honour the gods
[] [Law] Maintain stability
[] [Law] Balance of interests
[] [Law] Community health
[] [Law] Flexibility
[] [Law] Practicality of enforcement
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Was random-reading old parts of the thread (was trying to figure out approximately what year the quest started (4000-6000ish BCE? When did we start?) and how old the People's civilization is (... I think around 800 or 900 years? How old is the Ymaryn civilization anyway?), and came across this old thing, that was back when the People got Copper Age Law;
Academia Nut said:
The People defined themselves around the care they had for the land and for each other, with the scope of who was a person defined broadly. The People were few in the world, but what mattered most was not who your parents were or where you were born, or even what language you spoke, but that you followed the rules for harmony with yourself, your neighbours, the spirits, and the world around you. Through great effort and disturbance to people who had never really been asked these questions before, the chiefs and shamans had actually written every rule and tradition down, sorted out what they felt was appropriate to keep and what should probably not continue on, actually wrote down what the rules were for everyone, and then made sure to distribute out written copies of what all of the rules were and placed in places where everyone could see them. It would still be up to the chiefs and shamans to interpret the edge cases, but now everyone who could read would know exactly what the laws were.
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And I just thought that was sort of touching, you know. Idealistic, believing in justice, valuing harmony.

That... sort of sounds like Community health or Balance of interests. They've (generally...) always tried for an ideal of harmony. And I see them as having more emphasis on spirituality rather than outright worship of gods. (Though maybe "Honour the gods" doesn't literally/necessarily means worshipping the gods a lot, but rather the focus on spirituality? Hm... Dunno.) And given how often the Stability stat goes up and down in the quest... I don't know if having the Law be guided by Stability would be the best -- because the players and People seem willing to try lots of things and risk moderate upheaval or change, for the sake of improvement -- nor if it would be the most accurate because, as said before, it feels like the People had always tried to be guided by ideals, spirituality, and harmony. (... And a fanatical dedication to farming and forestry, apparently. Seriously, these people love their farming and their trees. ... It's actually really neat, I like it.)
 
notgreat said:
Trails, building granaries, putting them on a cart to go to some megaproject or other large-scale investment, we have options.

It does make us more vulnerable to monetary supply problems. This in turn will encourage us to move to something closer to fiat currency, which long-term does actually make the system run more efficiently... but that's definitely not safe in the short-term, we don't have the necessary anti-counterfeit technology yet.
In the short-medium term, we've got a lot of Gold and Silver from our own mines, we're not heavily dependent on trade for them so we're in a reasonably safe position there.


Do you have evidence of this? Last I heard it spread to basically everywhere in our kingdom. I'm sure that not all farmers use it, but AFAIK most of them pay their food tax and then sell the excess for coin.
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From the update:

. Corruption was of course endemic, and many called for all taxes to be switched over to be based purely on currency to simplify things to the greatest extent. While this was obviously quite popular with the urban populations and the wealthy farmers, for the vast majority of the People paying taxes in food or labour was still well favoured. There was the obvious compromise of allowing multiple forms of payment to be valid for paying taxes, but that would increase the complexity of implementing the process successfully.

The rich farmers have more than enough excess wealth to pay in coins, but most people prefer paying in food instead.

I can also imagine that a lot of our people would not like having to constantly cart around form place to place in order to find work when they could just be at their farm instead.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Killer_Whale on Jul 24, 2017 at 3:32 AM, finished with 83584 posts and 50 votes.
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