Currently reading "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith. It's dated, but concepts still apply today. Just reading through the usage of coinage in history, so it's abit dry.

I also realize, I may have used the wrong terminology for the post. I probably should have put Resources for Economics, but commodities is just a piece of the economic pie that we know.

Also, now that I think about it, wouldn't CoE be more of a free trade setting because it's next to impossible trying to tax goods coming and going from your kingdom? How exactly would someone be able to tax one particular set of goods, unless you had PC guards checking each caravan that came into your city?

Anyone have any ideas on how a kingdom will implement a tax on trade goods or if it's even possible?

I guess instead of taking the sale of goods, you can get it at the production level and it could trickle up from there.

I'm reading books on Stoicism, the philosophy. I'm not a perfect stoic, but a lot of my views and mannerisms are stoic by nature. Stoicism can be summarized as a means to cope with challenges as well as taking them head on with dignity.

"The Obstacle is the Way" and "Ego is the Enemy" are good books.

The most effective way of taxing goods is by declared or nominal value, at transportation chokepoints. Such a tax is generally called a tariff, although the specific meaning of tariff nowadays refers explicitly to taxes on trade between sovereign states.

It takes money and labor to enforce a tariff, so they would be more likely to occur at larger scales. Small settlements might not be able to enforce them, but larger settlements such as cities and capitals probably would. Since Counts will be responsible for trade within counties, I would not expect tariffs between settlements within the same county to be common. I would expect to see some tariffs between counties and larger domains, unless duchies or kingdoms reserved the right to impose them to themselves.

Another way to indirectly tax trade in goods is to impose a business license requirement or a fee for renting space in a market area. Both of these are probably within the capability of towns and villages to enforce.

Production-level taxation affects only the producers, and it is a disincentive to both producers and the export market. As such, it is useful if one seeks to prevent the production of certain things. It is probably not so good if a ruler wants to encourage the growth of raw material production or manufacturing in their realm. I think that, in general, rulers in Elyria will seek to incentivize production rather than disincentivize it.

Property tax, especially real property tax (i.e., on land and improvements), will probably be the preferred method of taxation, at least in the early game. It is easy to implement and enforce, and incentivizes the efficient use of real property. I think this will be supplemented by tariffs at the higher domain levels (kingdom and perhaps duchy) to further certain policies, for example that of disincentivizing a hostile neighbor from buying the bulk of the weapons and armor produced in a domain.

That's one of the things I was pulling over is the enforcement of tariffs at the County level, mainly due to the fact it'll have to be a PC to take those tariffs, because how would a NPC gauge the value of goods coming into the trade hub?

But knowing players, sitting at a choke point and taking fees from traveling merchants is, well, boring. So, I figure you'll have to think of creative ways of getting your due (as a noble) from not only the producers but the movers and shakers. Unless of course, you tax the producers and in turn, the producers pass on that cost to the customers. That way the cost of taxes is offset slightly. But that is a good point Poldano, in order to stimulate production in a specific area, lower the tax for that particular good, and almost instinctually, people will fill in that need.

How do you think people will supplement their mercantile roles with outside programs? For example: setting up City specific/Kingdom specific Discord channels strictly for trading in commodities and goods?

Also, @Valycia how will being stoic help you govern your people better? Can you give me a few examples? I like the idea, because you really have to think outside the box of traditional guild roles to rule a kingdom, so I am curious how being stoic will help you.

Whoa there buddy, slow down. Take a breath.

Posted By HuldricFranconian at 9:17 PM - Mon Aug 13 2018

... How do you think people will supplement their mercantile roles with outside programs? For example: setting up City specific/Kingdom specific Discord channels strictly for trading in commodities and goods? ...

I imagine that some people might resort to spamming discord channels about their goods for sale or goods they want. I hope they are not successful.

Another way to use discord is to set up trading companies of multiple players. Those players characters can be agents or factors (i.e. one who acts or transacts business for another) for the company in specific settlements, arranging via discord to ship goods between settlements to meet demand. This has the advantage of not spamming, among others.

Posted By HuldricFranconian at 05:17 AM - Tue Aug 14 2018

That's one of the things I was pulling over is the enforcement of tariffs at the County level, mainly due to the fact it'll have to be a PC to take those tariffs, because how would an NPC gauge the value of goods coming into the trade hub?

NPCs can gauge value, they have to be able to since they're going to actively participate in the economy. Even if they have issue organically determining value in the same way a PC can you can legislate tax values on items - for example, 1 copper a ton for grains, 1 silver per twenty for weapons, 1 gold a gram for spice etc. That way NPC guards will be able to enforce tax law.

But knowing players, sitting at a choke point and taking fees from traveling merchants is, well, boring. So, I figure you'll have to think of creative ways of getting your due (as a noble) from not only the producers but the movers and shakers. Unless of course, you tax the producers and in turn, the producers pass on that cost to the customers. That way the cost of taxes is offset slightly.

As Poldano has said in general production taxes disincentivise production. This can be seen in nations where 'carbon taxation' (which is essentially a production tax) has meant that producers simply move to nations that do not have a carbon tax. Any sane ruler in CoE will not implement production taxes since they will adversely affect his tax base.

How do you think people will supplement their mercantile roles with outside programs? For example: setting up City specific/Kingdom specific Discord channels strictly for trading in commodities and goods?

I know Arkadia (which has much more interventionist economic policies than I would personally approve of) at one point had a program that would allow players to order goods at set financial values. I don't know if that has been abandoned or developed further.

I can see people using similar programs, accountancy programs and spreadsheets to maximise profit (or from a governance point of view keep track of taxation and funds).

Discord channels I think will quickly descend into chaos, much like trade chats in every other MMO.

Also, @Valycia how will being stoic help you govern your people better? Can you give me a few examples? I like the idea because you really have to think outside the box of traditional guild roles to rule a kingdom, so I am curious how being stoic will help you.

Stoicism is about internal virtue. One of the principal elements of stoicism is letting go of the things you can't control and focusing on the things you can. Essentially rather than worry about what people tweet, or what may happen 20 years from now, or what happened 20 years ago stoics focus that energy into things that they can alter now.

Some of the Latin stoics saw success as rulers but realistically stoicism is a moral philosophy that helps with the application of political philosophies. It is possible (and in some political philosophies preferable) to implement the political philosophies of the latin stoics without adopting stoicism as a moral philosophy.