Node maintenance costs per citizen

superhero6785

I was thinking about balance of Nodes and whether it will always be beneficial to have more citizens. Obviously more citizens means more tax revenue and more "workers" for your Node goals. But more citizens usually means more costs to the city as well. In real life it means more upkeep on roads, more spending requirements on public needs, etc. A densely populated city has a lot of revenue but it also has a lot of costs.

I'd love to see a weekly maintenance cost associated to weekly active citizens ("active" being important to account for people who quit or take extended breaks and don't contribute). This means players living in a large Node with many citizens won't be able to simply benefit from the Node without contributing "their fair share". In fact, they may even be a drain on the Node's resources.

I feel this would allow smaller Nodes to stand a better chance if they consist of fewer citizens but each citizen is individually a "more contributing" member of the Node. It becomes less of a numbers game and more about the "average effectiveness" of your citizenry. People may even move to a smaller, more remote Node if "life in the big city" isn't working out in their best interest. This would lead to a natural "self balancing" of the Nodes instead of everyone piling into the largest Metropolis and never leaving.

Bullvinne

So far the node systems seems interesting, but if I find that mayors are constantly abusing the tax system, or I have to micro-manage what node I am a citizen of because of too high taxes makes me move constantly, I can see going and playing a simpler game.

I don't want a real life simulator game, there is the SIMS for that kind of stuff.

I don't mind tax systems in MMO's, heck I have been in MMOs where your guild could have a mandatory tax to keep their coffers full, but it was usually a small amount that wasn't egregious. I don't want to have to throw a digital "Boston Tea Party" because of in-game taxes.

superhero6785

I'm not really referring to taxes being too high, and everything is relative because all Nodes will have upkeep, so it's not like there won't be any taxes in some Nodes. I'm talking about maintenance costs or upkeep of the Node. Some minimum amount of "gold sink" per citizen registered with the Node. This could be a gold cost that must be paid from the Node's coffers, but it could also be stone, ore, wood, etc. that has to be deposited or else you'll lose various benefits you were getting from buildings - as they fall into disrepair. As far as mayors abusing systems, that's why they have elections because regardless of whether or not there is an upkeep cost, Mayors can still set taxes absurdly high. It's not meant to be a micro-managing issue on the citizen's part but more so a checks & balances on larger Nodes to prevent the "infinite benefit" of having more citizens. Without some cost to maintain a population, there's no reason why more isn't always better.

Warth

superhero6785 wrote: »

I was thinking about balance of Nodes and whether it will always be beneficial to have more citizens. Obviously more citizens means more tax revenue and more "workers" for your Node goals. But more citizens usually means more costs to the city as well. In real life it means more upkeep on roads, more spending requirements on public needs, etc. A densely populated city has a lot of revenue but it also has a lot of costs.

I'd love to see a weekly maintenance cost associated to weekly active citizens ("active" being important to account for people who quit or take extended breaks and don't contribute). This means players living in a large Node with many citizens won't be able to simply benefit from the Node without contributing "their fair share". In fact, they may even be a drain on the Node's resources.

I feel this would allow smaller Nodes to stand a better chance if they consist of fewer citizens but each citizen is individually a "more contributing" member of the Node. It becomes less of a numbers game and more about the "average effectiveness" of your citizenry. People may even move to a smaller, more remote Node if "life in the big city" isn't working out in their best interest. This would lead to a natural "self balancing" of the Nodes instead of everyone piling into the largest Metropolis and never leaving.

Scaling upwards would be good, but there needs to be a minimum.
Having 900 Citizen should require Base Metro Upkeep per Citizen x 900
Having 600 Citizen should require Base Metro Upkeep per Citizen x 600
Having 500 Citizen should require Base Metro Upkeep per Citizen x 500
but having 300 Citizen should require Base Metro Upkeep per Citizen x 500

A scaling system shouldnt protect a node from exodus. If the government drives out the players below the baseline, then they should struggle to manage the upkeep.

So an uncapped linear scaling with a bottom line set rather highly to begin with.

PherPhur

I seen this title and thought it said "node maintenance cost per kitten", with your profile icon of a cat.

I should probably go to bed.

BaSkA_9x2

If I had to guess, Node upkeep/maintenance will have a same base value for every node level, and then go up from there, by whichever reasons they see fit.

Regarding how to scale the node upkeep, it's still unclear how many citizens a Node will be able to have, if a mayor will be able to prioritize building instanced/real housing instead of, I don't know, building crafting stations, etc., because number of housing is directly proportional to the number of citizens.

Too many mechanics and uncertainties at this point, all I hope is that it's complex enough but not RTS levels of tiresome.

superhero6785

ChipsAhoy007 wrote: »

I seen this title and thought it said "node maintenance cost per kitten", with your profile icon of a cat.

I should probably go to bed.

LOL

tautau

I don't think that there should be an automatic 'cost' for node population any more than there should be an automatic 'tax' per node citizen. If the tax rate is set by the mayor, from 0% to 'very high %', then the expenditures should also be set by the mayor.

We know that the mayor can only make expenditures for the node. They range from NPC guards, defenses for the protection of the node during sieges, building new service buildings such as temples and libraries, and building new apartments for new citizens.

What the OP seems to imply is that we also ought to have expenditures for road maintenance, NPCs standing at the entrances and sweeping the streets - all of which would be paid for by a mandatory tax. I ask: what would this add to the game? Not much, if anything. IF we want node management to become a detailed accounting task...what is the point of that? If that were fun, wouldn't we see a lot of 'Accounting Games' on the market?

Dygz

I'm pretty sure the devs will not share a calcualtion per citizen.
Might also vary depending what the person is doing - like what type of housing the citizen has.

But, you might be describing...taxes?
Citizens pay taxes, yes.
The mayors allocate those funds.
Taxes could potentially be deemed too high sometimes.

tautau

Very true - there will always be some people who think that any taxes are too high, they want the benefits of society (guards, buildings, defenses...) for free. We see that in the world today.

I think that a good mayor will communicate to the citizens of the node the reasons for the taxes. Some of it will be natural - the citizens will see the new apartments, the new marketplace, the new crafting stations, the temple and the guards.

A really good mayor will be posting on the Tavern's BB their short and long term visions for the node: "I think our crafters would benefit if we were economically powerful! I propose a 5% tax increase so we can upgrade our caravansary and build a sawmill. Let me know if this is a good or bad idea. Your comments welcome! ~~ Mayor Samwise of Frogbutt node"