Gold and Tax

Gold is yours, not a city’s

Gold belongs to you rather than to a city. Every city’s tax flows into one treasury and every wage comes out of it.

Your hourly net is this: the tax idle citizens pay, less worker and scholar wages, less army upkeep. Positive and you are saving; negative and you are burning through it.

The Economy screen opens the book of the city you are in: its tax, its wages, its army upkeep and what it adds to the treasury. Under the tax line a bar shows how much of the tax goes to wages and the army, and how much the city keeps. The Gold in hand and the hourly net of all your cities together stand at the head of the same screen, beside this city's net, and are always on the top bar. The same screen holds the card titled The people's state: the people's Needs, how much of the tax is collected, whether there is revolt, Indifference, whether the people are restless enough to leave, and the citizens and growth. At the bottom, the Store table gives each good one row: how much is in store, what is made an hour, and the workers at its deposit.

The founding purse

A new player does not begin with an empty treasury: some Gold comes with your first city.

The reason is this: most of a newly founded city's citizens go to the deposits on the first morning, and a worker pays no tax and draws a wage on top — so the city earns almost nothing on the day it is founded. That purse is there to keep your first scholars and buy your first technologies. It is given once; by the time it is spent the city stands on its own.

Who pays tax?

Only idle citizens. The moment you send someone to work or to study, the tax they were paying stops and a wage starts.

So a worker’s real cost is his wage plus the tax you gave up. A scholar costs more still.

The tax an idle citizen pays is not fixed. If the people are not content (Needs and Revolt) or have not seen you for a long time (Indifference), a share of the tax is not collected; wages and military upkeep stay as they are.

What an army costs

Every unit costs upkeep every hour, and what a soldier costs depends on where he is standing: normal at home, twice as much on campaign, three times while holding an enemy city. Whichever screen you read, the upkeep it shows is the figure the treasury pays: the world's speed and any research that makes the army cheaper are already in it.

Archers you send up onto the wall's battlements are at home, but they cost more than the army at home: their upkeep is paid times a multiplier, war or no war. Manning the battlements makes the defence hit harder and drains the treasury a little faster every hour; Walls and Siege gives the multiplier.

Gold also buys ships and carts

Gold is not only spent on wages and upkeep: a transport ship and a load cart cost Gold as well, taken from the treasury the moment you give the order. If the treasury cannot cover it, the whole order is refused. Ships also cost a little upkeep every hour on top of that, but a small fleet is kept free: the first ships you own cost nothing to keep, and only the ships beyond them are paid for. A cart has no upkeep at all; its Gold goes once, as a price. Your first few carriers ask no Gold, so that a new city can put ships in its harbour too; the Gold starts with the ones after them.

If I run out of Gold

The unpaid walk off

Your treasury never goes below zero. But at every interval a small share of the people you are not paying leave their posts and become ordinary citizens. Each of them now pays tax and draws no wage, so every desertion helps from both sides. The moment the books balance, it stops. The first desertion comes one interval after the treasury runs dry, and even a small group loses at least one person each interval, so going broke always ends.

Nobody dies: a deserter stays in the city, and your population is unchanged. Nor do you have to wait — taking someone off a job yourself has the same effect at once, and then you choose which job goes.

Pro: all cities in two tables

If you are a Pro member the Economy screen opens on All cities: the Gold and goods of every city of yours stand in two tables, one city under another. The top shows three boxes: the Gold in your treasury, the hourly net of all your cities together and the tax collected from all your citizens. In the Gold table each row gives the city's tax, wages, military upkeep and net; a bar shows how much of the tax goes to wages and the army and how much stays with the city. For a city whose costs are more than its tax there is no bar, and costs exceed the tax is written in its place. In the Goods table each good of each city has the amount in the warehouse on top and the output an hour under it; a good nobody digs has a dash under it, and a good that is dug but not made says stopped: the warehouse is full, or pirates hold that deposit. The bar on the right shows how full the warehouse is; every city's warehouse is its own, and goods are not shared between cities by themselves.

Cities that need your eye go to the top of both tables, and the Needs your eye box above them names the reason: a city is spending more than its tax, its warehouse is full and its output has stopped, or pirates hold a deposit; and first of all, if the treasury is empty and paid citizens are idle. Apart from those, the city you are in comes first. Pressing a city's row or name selects that city and the Economy screen turns to This city, as described above; you can go back to All cities whenever you like, and your browser remembers the view you chose last. Without Pro the Economy screen is always the page of the city you are in; the switch is there for you too, but All cities takes you to the Pro page. Every figure in the tables is the one on that city's own page, and the military upkeep is the figure the treasury is charged; Pro only shows them together and gives you no edge in play.