Hi bayesian_monk, welcome to Caesar III Heaven.

campaign playthrough without exporting ... Has anyone ever attempted or completed such challenge?

Zarquan proposed several Caesar 3 challenges. "no exports" was one of them.

I think that the only time I played without exports was when I played without any trade. valentia no trade was fairly easy--I had some trouble because it was the first time I played at Very Hard difficulty. No export Lugdunum (Career) (actually without any trade) was quite difficult.

the tax multiplier on small casas is 2

At Very Hard difficulty, the tax multiplier is multiplied by 3/4 and rounded down to an integer, so the tax multiplier of small casas is 1.

What exactly influences city mood?

I find Sentiment (mood) - some numbers to be very useful.

Hi Brugle

I have learned a lot from your topics and completed cities.
Thanks for the indicated threads, I am looking at those. No rescue gift seems to make things much harder.

Also, reading the discussion in the threads, the no 300 pop glitch in julius is a big help.

[This message has been edited by bayesian_monk (edited 01-27-2021 @ 10:29 PM).]

the no 300 pop glitch in julius is a big help

Some players prefer an easier game, and that's fine. I'd rather play Caesar III. At the moment I'm using Julius but without the gameplay changes and without building on pause.

When it comes to Very Hard mode no-export runs, I've often wondered what the best approach for early money is: masses of low-taxed people with huge unemployment or a more refined populace taxed at a reasonable rate. There are quiet a few factors:

Assuming everyone is fed for +1 city mood, unemployment is <5% for another +1 and wages are set to 8 above Rome for +4 mood, you can tax for 25% for -6 mood. At hovel level, it's a modest income, but still not enough to eclipse wages, but for Small Insulae, it's big money.

On the flip side, again assuming everyone is fed for +1 mood but unemployment is over 26% for a -3 mood and wages again 8 above Rome's for +4 mood, you could tax for 11% for -2 mood. You could potentially tax for 14% (-3 mood) if you want to spam festivals, I'm unsure if the income numbers are in your favour there though. The advantage of this approach is that you can then have an absurd number of people because unemployment doesn't matter once it's above 26% so long as you keep these people fed. Unlike Small Insulae, you don't need to care about merging them into 2*2 or not (and the increased pottery consumption that this implies).

If anyone's crunched the numbers or has a good rule of thumb here, I'd love to hear it, but I myself have not come to a conclusion either way.

[This message has been edited by DDR Jake (edited 02-02-2021 @ 05:58 AM).]

If you're willing to hold unemployment to under 5%, why have more? I'd rather tax at 25% than at 11%. Patricians are often possible (no trade Valentia)--if not then make-work jobs (no trade Lugdunum).

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 02-02-2021 @ 07:49 AM).]

I wrote

Tents just wont do it, having even one means your tax collector will get ganked if taxes are 25%.

This is not true. You can keep a 2x2 tent for work without too much trouble. (A 1x1 is enough for this though.) I had to do it to win Carthago. Trium explains it in the sentiment thread Burgle indicated. Tents are still expensive in a lot of manners.

DDR Jake. Love your videos.

Assuming everyone is fed for +1 city mood, unemployment is <5% for another +1 and wages are set to 8 above Rome for +4 mood, you can tax for 25% for -6 mood. At hovel level, it's a modest income, but still not enough to eclipse wages, but for Small Insulae, it's big money.

This is how I have been playing so far. From what I could observe having like 1000 people in Small Insulae while paying 30+8 in wages will net you 1000-1500dn/year. Still can't do it with Small Casas.

One detail, from the thread "Sentiment (mood) - some numbers", indicated by Burgle, Trium3 writes
Unemployment
------------
Rate Effect
0%-4% +1
5%-10% Neutral
11%-17% -1
18%-25% -2
over 26% -3
No worse than -3 is encountered - even at 100%.

When you say <5% unemployment you mean <4%? Which one is correct? (Edit: NVM, my confusion, its the same)

On the flip side, again assuming everyone is fed for +1 mood but unemployment is over 26% for a -3 mood and wages again 8 above Rome's for +4 mood, you could tax for 11% for -2 mood. You could potentially tax for 14%

At First I thought although it is a nice idea, a city like you describe would be strictly worse than a city of small insulae. What I mean is that if you were to go to the trouble of giving Pottery to only a few chosen, you could just give it to 1000 people and go the "standard" Small Insulae route.

On second thought maybe this structure (few rich, lots of poor) could become necessary if you could only import finished goods, specially Pottery. I'm thinking about something like getting 15000 population from very limited Pottery supply.

I will try to investigate the following questions:

How much lower tax income from small casas is from wage spending. Is it possible to turn a profit? Under which circumstances?

Edit: Quick test showed that Small Casas taxes at 25% will break even with 32dn wages. (1025 pop city, 0% unemployment, "early demographics", 1524dn exactly both in wage spending and tax income).

I don't know if you can make profit from Small Insulae while importing finished Pottery. Will test it also.

About unemployment, I have been using a faraway reservoir and fountains to soak up unemployment cheaply and without labor access. Thus unemployment isnt giving me trouble. This feels like an exploit though.

[This message has been edited by bayesian_monk (edited 02-04-2021 @ 05:25 PM).]

Quoted from bayesian_monk:

Tents just wont do it, having even one means your tax collector will get ganked if taxes are 25%.

This is not true. You can keep a 2x2 tent for work without too much trouble.

As is discussed by Trium in reply #24 of Crime.

Quoted from bayesian_monk:

When you say <5% unemployment you mean <4%? Which one is correct?

< 5%, as both DDR Jake and Trium say.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 02-04-2021 @ 06:34 AM).]

Yeah I made some confusion with <, <= here.