Thirst of Night Homes, Taxes and Population Guide

Thirst of Night Homes, Taxes and Population Guide by cdog

NOTE – If you don’t want to read all this, if you don’t need to “understand”, no problem, just smile and build 5-6 Homes, set Taxes to 50%* (and probably don’t build a NightClub).

(* found in Downtown/Production)

If you do want to understand, if you want to make your own decisions based on that understanding, then read on (before or after building at least 5 Homes and setting Taxes to 50%, your choice)…

…I see that increasing homes increases Population Cap. How does normal Population grow in relation to this? Your Population cap is determined by your Homes. More Homes = higher “Population Limit” (which means both more Income and, eventually, more max Troops). Your actual, current Population is determined by your Tax Rate; higher taxes = less population, lower taxes = more population.

Go to Downtown/Production. In the bottom area, see the grey arrows? “Tax Rate -> Morale -> [Population stats]“. Tax Rate affects Morale which affects actual, current Population.

Note your current Population (top line of stats, in box at lower right) compared to Pop Limit (bottom line). Also note your Platinum income (top area, far right column), which is probably somewhere in triple-digits if you’ve built some Homes and upgraded them. (If not, that’s something to do early!*)

Change your Tax Rate – let’s move it DOWN, to 0%. Morale goes to 100%. Look at Population – it’s now equal to your Population Limit (bottom line)! With zero Taxes, your actual Pop = Pop Limit. We have maximized population!

But look at our Platinum income… zero Taxes = zero Income! (Not good…)

Well, we’ll solve THAT! Move that Tax Rate UP, to 100%! Morale drops to 0%, and so Population drops to 0% – we’ve chased away all our Population! And our Platinum Income is… still zero. As far as Tax Income, 100% of no population is… nothing.

But we now see how all that relates.

Maximum Pop is based on your Homes. Current population is based on Max Pop x Morale. Morale is a direct trade-off vs. Tax Rate, 1:1 . Tax Rate + Morale = 100.

So if you decrease Taxes by 1%, you gain 1% of Morale, and the higher Morale raises 1% of your actual Population (based off your Maximum Population, which is determined by your Homes). If you raise Tax Rate by 1%, you drop your Morale (aka your actual Population) by 1%.

When you build or upgrade a Home, your actual Pop increases by that Max Pop increase x your Morale %.

o Tax up = current Pop down.
o Tax down = current Pop up.
o More Homes/upgrades = higher base Pop to play with, = more Income (and, later, more Troops).

(* It’s advised that you build (at least?) 5-6 Homes almost first thing (after Resources & setting first Research), upgraded to Level 3 early for a good early income to support future Research costs. No additional homes should be needed after this, only upgrades to the existing ones. See Newbie Guides for further discussion of this.)

I knew you were going to ask that!

We want to maximize Income, so maximize Taxes x (actual) Population, which is Taxes x Morale.

The maximum is the middle of both: 50%. (50×50 is greater than 49×51 or 51×49, and it just gets smaller the further you go from 50×50.)

Well… yes and no.

When you change Tax Rate up or down, Population change happens immediately. And you can run out of Idle Population when trying to build troops! So… you sometimes will need to set Taxes to 0%, maximize Population, queue up a LOT of troops, and then reset Taxes back to 50%.

This costs you almost nothing, and the troops show up while Tax Income stays nice and high.

Urgh… I was worried you’d ask about that… okay…

Currently*, the Nightclub appears to be… of questionable value. (The game may change this – there is enough debate about the NC that it could, but it’s probably not a very high priority at the moment. Any new game-world may implement new changes.)

(* As of early December, 2011)

As it stands, the NC adds 2% to Morale per Level. (At Level 2, it adds 4%, etc.)

So at Level 1, you can raise Taxes to 51%, let Morale be 51%, and have a very little more Income* and a very little more Max Population.

(* It’s pretty clear that you don NOT build an NC for the Income. At high Levels, your income might be in the 10’s of thousands/hour, when you need 100’s of thousands for research. Even maxed to Level 10, that’s only 10% (see Taxes with NC’s, at bottom), and that’s a drop in the bucket, and meanwhile you’ve spent a LOT of time Upgrading the NC and a LOT of Steel that could be going toward troops.)

The NC costs much more than a Home per Level, in both Resources and Time to build. If you have 5 Homes, then one more Home adds 20% to both Population and Income (when equal in level to the other homes). This is as much as the NC will add at Level 10, and NC’s cost MUCH more than a Home to build. (If you have more than 5 Homes, then it ~might~, at high levels, be worth it. If you want 7 homes, then a Level 9 NC + 6 Homes = 6+18%= 108% – so, yes, an advantage, but not until it’s Level 9!)

At highest levels, the NC would actually make you more money – but at high levels, Platinum is not as important! As Machiavelli said, “Troops will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no troops”! At high levels, you want the Pop for Troops – your Research will be funded through raiding, and at that point your Population-based Platinum income will be largely irrelevant. And at Low levels, Homes are cheap and faster than the NC, and you’ll have plenty of Platinum.

And meanwhile, you’ve been making more money because you built that extra Home – 17-20% more* all this time, and without the cost of upgrading the NC to high Levels.

* (If you build 6 homes, that’s 20% more than 5; if 7, that’s 16.7777% more than 6.)

So… with the current rules (Dec of 2011), unless you want more than 7 or 8 homes*, it appears best NOT to build a NightClub. Build an extra Home in its place, grab the cash and population, call it win. If you want exactly 7 Homes, and are willing to play the long game, then maybe build the NC – if you want faster results, don’t.

(* Common wisdom does not recommend a lot of homes, usually just 5-6. But if you disregard that, then the more Homes above 7 that you build, the lower level an NC will help – with 8 homes, an AC only needs to be Level 7 to be better than a 9th Home**, etc.)

(** The Math: 8 Homes + 1 more Home is a 12.5% boost. A Level 6 NC is a 12% boost, a Level 7 is 14%, etc.)

(If you do go with a NightClub, Taxes should be set at 50% + {half of NC bonus}. (Again, 51×51 is greater than 50×52 or 52×50, etc. etc.) If you’ve already built one, you could use your Raze (Items/General/-> Last Page) on it and replace it with a Home, but it’s advised to use the Raze on a BloodWorks once your armies are huge and using far more Blood than you can provide anyway. See Resouce docs for a discussion of that tactic.)