Tax Collective not recommended

R ragnarokOP

OP 11/05/2008 · 06:52 AM #1

You used up 1 turn(s) Credit +36,549 Food -5,099 Goods -255 Bonus + 1,828

housing: 20

E.9139 Similare C.1 51,000 25,500 5000 0 850 0 Terran Metal

Plunder:

Performing this action will grant you:-

Credits 26,475,000

Some time ago, there was some discussion about the possibility of going "tax collective" so I decided to experiment on the viability of such a path. So I made a collective empire on ultra and started the experiment.

I got a 850 land barren and upped loyalty to 5000, did some research on the ships, and plundered all infrastructure and population on all other planets so that they wouldn`t interfere with the figures. I also made sure I had no ships in my fleet.

Conclusion: in order to barely break even, a collective needs to have the food price at 7 to survive (let alone build a reserve) if they do not make any of their own food. It is quite obvious that the collective is better off plundering the planet or using it to make their own food. As a matter of fact, if food was not even a FACTOR in the costs, it would take over 726 turns to get the same amount in cash (discounting the bonus of course). And this is tax income with 5000 loyalty, which takes 1000 turns and a certain amount of cash to achieve. In terms of time and cash, using the planet to produce food or outright going for the plunder is MUCH more cost effective.

I`m sure most of the "vets" already knew this, but this is meant for those of you who fantasize about tax collective actually being a viable path. It is not, and it doesn`t compare to tax Terran at all in the least. Agriculture collective is superior even to plunder collective because if you have a super high housing level it will take you a super long time to be able to fully collect on the full plunder income. I sometimes wonder if even 5 in housing isn`t ultimately a waste in research levels.

Just thought I`d share this info with the community. :)

R Ragnarok

13/05/2008 · 07:33 AM #33

*Agrees with DM*

TPE that might be true on RT server, but in all the days I`ve ever played on normal server I`ve maybe found like 2 or 3 C2s over 10,000 land. But maybe that`s because I don`t exit DP every 6 hours every time I see a target. ^_^

Mr Perfect, if food prices are over 6 I believe you make better income than a terran with the same number of research levels (whether they be in agriculture or commercial). Now I`m aware that food sometimes goes to like 2 or 3 on RT, but the lowest I`ve ever seen it on turn based servers is 5 or 6 on a consistant level. Even when prices are bad the income is still good. In any case, your income isn`t any more consistant than with plunder because you aren`t going to make much if you only capture planets under 100 land. Then you might get lucky and find a high land cluster, which with high housing levels and a lot of land may take you anywhere between 2 - 5 days worth of waiting to maximize your potential. All the while you run the risk of losing your prize. And the base PR right before you plunder can be absurd sometimes.

And being high on the rich list means you have every capability of playing with the big boys and hassling them from high up whenever you want (like deiloche on fast for instance, or sharkrider/myself whenever either of us are bored). Most collectives can`t maintain sky high PR levels more than a few days due to low resources and low income.

D DrunkenMasters

13/05/2008 · 04:27 AM #32

Collective UW on RT was my priority, you can`t do that plundering

M MrPerfect

13/05/2008 · 02:43 AM #31

also survival is the main thing collective should be worried about not the rich List that means absolutly nothing 2 me.. Rapeing and plundering everyones Jewls and keeping my homeplanet are the main Prioritys

M MrPerfect

13/05/2008 · 02:41 AM #30

Nice Dm. .. u can go either way farming is also a good route but for me its 2 shakey with the food market riseing and falling all the time u never know so i stuck to plundering plus there is nothing better than plundering someones 20k plus c2`s which took them so long to make and only takes about a split second for me to crush into gold

T ThEpAkIsTaNIeMpIrE

13/05/2008 · 02:37 AM #29

Rag what are you saying??? A collective with about 122 lvl housing, can make 600 million off a plunder 5000k land and trust me, i found 6 5000k c2s in like a day, many newbs make these crab and it benifits collective alot, i was looking for 20k as maru that time, but the point is you can.

D DrunkenMasters

13/05/2008 · 01:28 AM #28

I had 1.7 tril, 120k land 122 agri infra coll

R Ragnarok

13/05/2008 · 12:05 AM #27

But how many more billions would you have made if you went agriculture? Last time I checked, no collective ever made the rich list going the plunder route.

M MrPerfect

12/05/2008 · 10:18 PM #26

research Houseing to the fullest forget about loyalty for collective if ur thinking that then u shouldnt be a colective u should go guard or something of that nature. Collective is a decent race and by far my fav to play inthis game but a collective`s forte is plundering and Making food so stick to there strenghts and you`ll be allright playing with them. I made Billions off single Plunderes :O

S Sol

12/05/2008 · 02:49 PM #25

I have an account on ultra but im using that one for testing purposes nothing else so its probably dead anyway.

D Deiloche

12/05/2008 · 09:48 AM #24

Yes, mara, he does. Sol is a good moderator for GC and I wouldn`t want the job. However, he should not make moronic remarks like that when he doesn`t know what he is talking about. Collective is a strong race. It`s a bit tougher in ways than others, sure, but easier in others too. Saying that it is "not recommended" is just completely moronic. Him doing more than me despite experience has absolutely NOTHING to do with the remark, mara. Sol probably does more around here than you do too, nowadays. Who cares?

S starseeker

12/05/2008 · 08:44 AM #23

I play Collective on Normal. Quite interesting. Collective is definitely worth a try.

I Ishamael

12/05/2008 · 06:39 AM #22

does sol play on any other servers aside from rt?

B bipbippy

12/05/2008 · 05:51 AM #21

I happen to like playing the collective race... at least when I don`t have a paid account :P

In case anyone cares :)

R Ragnarok

12/05/2008 · 04:24 AM #20

Eh, Dr. Evil, i wasn`t talking about race modifiers. I was thinking the formula by which tax income was derived.

And of course I know that, but some people are like "well sure you get half the income from tax but you get DOUBLE THE POPULATION". They don`t realize that double the population also means double the food consumption. =/

M Maraudian

12/05/2008 · 03:26 AM #19

* idly notes that sol does shidderloads more than deiloche even though he doesnt have as much experience.

D Deiloche

12/05/2008 · 02:32 AM #18

*Idly notes that Sol is a moron if he thinks that Collectives should not be a recommended race*

S StormofBladeZ

12/05/2008 · 02:29 AM #17

you actually waisted your time on this?
ide be saying no Sh* sherlock.
we`ve already explained to the newbies how pointless it is. and any plunder collective which maxes pop to plunder would know how crabpy income through tax is already.
Or everyone can just take a look at the race stats in the manual

D Deiloche

12/05/2008 · 01:47 AM #16

*grins* Of course it isn`t really viable. Just a vague possibility, if one really wanted to make collectives excessively challenging, heh.

P Perseus

11/05/2008 · 11:13 PM #15

and newbs go wth is rtfm?

D DrEvil

11/05/2008 · 10:16 PM #14

old timers wld say rtfm

http://gc.gamestotal.com/i.cfm?p=manual&file=race
all the modifiers are there

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