Imperator Rome Economy Guide

[@mason3279]

I just got the game 2 weeks ago when I saw a key on sale, these guides have been super helpful.

[@KonglomeratYT]

Happy they've been helpful!

[@BulletBillWow]

Watching these guides makes me want to play again... think i will start a new campaign. Thanks for the info!

[@KonglomeratYT]

Happy to hear that these have been helpful to you =)

[@gurufabbes1]

Thank you for these. I am giving it another try based on your refreshers here.

[@KonglomeratYT]

Glad they're helpful!

[@AshtonWest-k1j]

most tax money coming from slaves probably is their to reperesent the slave tax which is calculated as property tax, then also sales tax when they where sold, then all the money they probably generate for the holder which is also taxed

[@KonglomeratYT]

Yeah I definitely understand where they were coming from when they made that abstraction. I would definitely also still nitpick and prefer it on the nobles =P

[@AshtonWest-k1j]

@@KonglomeratYT fair.

[@user-hj4ik8lg3r]

Thank you! Great guide

[@KonglomeratYT]

Glad you found it helpful! I have more in the playlist if you need any further assistance.

[@user-hj4ik8lg3r]

@@KonglomeratYT oh I am aware, I saw some already :) Apart from new info, they help me confirm what I got from tutorial and trial and error

[@edmundcowan9131]

All of a sudden all my trade purchase options dried up even though I expanded greatly and had access to all areas Africa Asia and north Europe. Dont know why

[@swiftlet5346]

Might be that the conquered areas aren't producing as much as they used to because they aren't as happy. Happiness affects pop productivity, and I dare to assume said pops aren't integrated. Another possibility is that the areas you conquered got heavily depopulated by the wars you took them in.

[@maddahy]

diplomatic reputation lost via AE

[@gregoryfisher7346]

This is great ,was wondering how the money works .Could do a video on civil war is there an way you can stop it before it breaks out ?

[@KonglomeratYT]

Glad it helped you. I probably do already explain that in another guide. Civil wars are a small thing so they couldn't really be a video. But maybe something going over every form of loyalty. You essentially just bribe whoever it says is going to start it.

[@teagoodstuff734]

how exactly slave output increases resource production?

[@KonglomeratYT]

Slave output as a stat affects taxes and the like. Resource production, "Slaves for surplus" is tracked separately.

[@teagoodstuff734]

@@KonglomeratYT oh man thanks i didn't even know that, thats quiet hidden Information ingame

[@edmundcowan9131]

It’s loosely represents slave producing products for sale. At this level it works. If you are anti historical slave economy well then play something else or read an ancient history book to understand the role of slaves in these economies.

[@edmundcowan9131]

Cost go way up too and this screws finances

[@jonbathurst953]

Just having too much fun w victoria but damn I wish they made a new rome game

[@KonglomeratYT]

Vicky 3 is on my list to try. Vicky 2 was amazing. This game has been some good pop-management in the meantime.

[@jonbathurst953]

@@KonglomeratYT dude I don’t understand the reviews. The game is brilliant. I have tried the other paradox games, while they are good I just keep going back to Victoria. Its like an education on the world. I can never look at anything the same. Can’t wait to see the dlc they will have in store.

[@udon6031]

I think slaves creating tax instead of the nobles makes it more accurate. Because the noble themselves doesn't do much. The taxes the noble pays would be from the work of the slaves they own. This is more accurate than nobles paying taxes, because if you remove the slaves, the noble can't pay tax anymore. If tax was tied to nobles, you could have a bunch of nobles with no slaves sitting around printing money somehow.

[@KonglomeratYT]

Thats definitely logical, but only in a tax system where productivity is measured, like we have today. In the era of the Roman republic it was not possible to measure that at that scale and so they did not have taxes related to it. Citizens were taxed for owning land, voting, attempting to enter a city with a large quantity of goods, and a couple other things. But, generally, whether I owned 1 slave or 100, this statistic would not increase the tax I owed. Rome expanded citizenship to all male residents of Rome specifically to collect more taxes due to its disconnection with slaves. Even slaveless citizens paid taxes. That's where most taxes came from especially since many nobles had tax exemptions. The only way slaves in this time could directly generate tax revenue is in regions that had an auction tax. You would have to pay tax on the auction of the slaves, but that's a 1 time thing and was not too common.

[@TheDarkAngel7777]

Regarding slaves generating tax revenue, the abstraction is that slave owners can generate a lot of wealth using slaves and that is what is taxed. So the more slaves around the more taxable economic activity is happening. It’s not a tax on the non existent income slaves make for themselves.

[@KonglomeratYT]

I play a lot of strategy games that simulate geopolitics where you get a lot more control than Imperator gives you over taxes. So my perception carries over from there. If it is an abstraction, then I feel it would be better placed on nobles; as nobles would be the ones paying the taxes, and it would be the activity of nobles (IE, bringing goods into a town, or purchasing slaves off auctions) that would generate the taxable activities. Even citizens to a much much lesser extent in this time period.

[@lucadefranco3420]

⁠​⁠@@KonglomeratYTOne noble with 20 slaves would be paying more tax than 10 nobles with one slave each, though. The slaves are producing the things the states are taxing.

[@KonglomeratYT]

With taxes at the time it doesn't not matter how much is produced. It only matters where it is brought, and when. Citizens and nobles produced things too that were taxed upon entrance to a city, and every city taxed differently. Not to mention, merchants would be the single most taxed profession under that system, and they crossed many cultures with many different methods of workforce allocation. It is a gamified system that makes no sense. Trying to make sense of it may help save a headache, but it will not make it suddenly correct. There's many gamified systems in this game that make no sense, but exist for the sake of simplification. This is one of them. I will reiterate that I feel it is best abstracted onto nobles. Nobles control the slaves that produce, the merchants that sell, the caravans that move, and every part of the supply chain. They are the most logical ones for the abstraction.

[@lucadefranco3420]

@@KonglomeratYT That’s what an abstraction is. It is exactly so they don’t have to simulate every noble/merchant being taxed a different amount. A player couldn’t keep track of that and the simulation would be too complex for what the game is. If things are taxed when they enter a city, a good analog of that is taxing how much is produced, if you assume a steady ratio between how much is produced and how much of that is entering a city. Each Pop doesn’t represent a single person, right? It’s an abstraction, as are many other things in this and every other strategy game.

[@edmundcowan9131]

Make it sound easy. Due To poor level of characters the need to support the families deaths etc make impossible max research.

[@KonglomeratYT]

I max research rate every single game without trying. So long as you don't pick barbarian it is easy. All the players in my multiplayer series accomplish the same and they know far less about the game.

[@grayfox6930]

" imperator Rome doesn't really have a modern economy like today" *goes on to explain modern America*

[@KonglomeratYT]

I started explaining the finance tab after that sentence...

[@WhoElseLikesPortal]

how dat make u feel white boy

[@edmundcowan9131]

Good game but too busy with having to do the same Actions on the economy are repetitive and often appear not rational.

[@hyperthulean8649]

slaves produce taxes because they're property of nobles/citizens. thats how i justify it. freemen produce less because they're far poorer. slaves are like industrial equipment. whos gonna pay more in taxes today, aerospace manufacturer or donut shop?

[@KonglomeratYT]

Slaves generating money in BC times is something I would always roll my eyes at (at least a little bit) because they only money they ever generate (directly) for the state is at the time of sale via a slave tax. There is no income tax in the Republic. The lion's share of a slave's productivity that gets taxed would be by merchants, or farmers (like you said) when they enter a city with the goods that have been produced. Freemen would (directly) produce way more tax revenue than slaves (realistically) because they would get taxed nonstop for moving goods, transfers, and sales. This is assuming they didn't work for a citizen. If they did work for a citizen, they were commonly under a contract whose terms were equivalent to agreed-upon slavery at the time. Slaves are not "industrial equipment" in this time period. Slaves are *everything* in this time period. "Citizens" and "Nobles" were essentially the same thing. In the Republic, citizenship meant Roman status. In Greece (at this time), it meant wealth acquisition (Macedon forced any greeks it conquered into plutocracies). Either way, you were likely rich if you were a citizen in any of these nations. As for your analogy, if we're going by the tax systems of the time of Imperator, then it would be the donut shop. Donut shops move goods regularly that would have to constantly be sourced and taxed. Aerospace barely moves any product, and requires specialized labor, and labor is not taxed in this time period.

[@hyperthulean8649]

@@KonglomeratYT yeah it isn't exactly a great justification, its just what i thought the devs were thinking. if they were thinking about it, that is. i'd rather the slaves solely produce resources and have a bit more in depth resource counter than just "Oh now you make 2 of this!".

[@KonglomeratYT]

Yeah it's gaminess as-is lol. I expect nothing less.