Is taxing worth it? Tax explained in Stronghold Crusader

Is it better to tax? Or is it better to sell food?
How about fear factor?
Will be covering fear factor a bit more in another video
Discord: / discord

[@MrStrelecek]

I love how I'm learning core game mechanics 20 years after playing this gem

[@belghun43]

same

[@seaweedisvegetable8465]

and some guide at misty river is abandoning his castle to win

[@feynstein1004]

Lol me too. The creators really nailed it with this game. Too bad they couldn't follow it up with something just as good.

[@mateuszmilo4712]

hahhaha same

[@jarlfenrir]

@@feynstein1004 Actually I really liked Crusader 2

[@the_diplomat51]

Never thought I'd see the day where Stronghold guides in YT would finally be a thing 🔥

[@Ugh718]

'Tis a beautiful sight to behold isn't it?Ah the good old days lol

[@parenthesiscolon8706]

There is another strategy where you give half rations and tax as much as popularity allows and since you're giving them half rations you can sell breads wich is much better than giving more rations and getting more tax but negative fear factor is a much better approach as it increases rate of *all* productions. Thank you for this amazingly informative yet not time consuming video.

[@Jefflenious]

Glad you enjoyed! Yeah half rations or even no rations + max fear factor are most of the time the way to go. Taxing on maximum advantage can be good until -8 but on normal advantage they shouldn't be prioritized over other things imo

[@nikoszkariofilisz8300]

With fear factor your army will be much weaker, it doesn't matzer that much offline, but against real players it's a game changer.

[@nocomment6421]

Negative fear Factor kills your Army. But If you are fine with deleting and rebuilding you can just Change the -5 to +5 in Seconds before you get attacked or Attack an enemy.

[@Harrence18]

I am still playing this game for 2021. Still loving it

[@corentinc.948]

I use: 1# half rations, (-4 up to -1; due to food diversity), combined with 2# max ale (+8) 3# max religion (+3) and I switch my fear factor around: (-1 or rarely -2 @ start of game, to a +5 later on). Now, make your own calculations, to know the max amount of taxes I ask. What I build: 1# Stone quarry, as many as I can. 2# Cathedral and Church => low taxes 3# fear factor -1 4# wheat => mill => bakeries 5# granaries 6# inns + I buy the ale 7# start weapon production {x-bow is best}, then making shields with small amount of iron mines.

[@thedisintegrador]

I think there’s value in not having to think about certain things. I prefer more rations and not selling food, because it’s perhaps not as economic, but I don’t have to think about it.

[@krzysztofputerko1943]

I was always wondering, isn't it better to get max positive fear factor instead of maximum negative one? I know that your workers are less efficient with it but since it gives bonus to popularity you can increase taxes(to buy lacking resources) or just give half rations so you don't lack food and can sell some of it. The reason why I feel like the positive one is better is because negative fear factor only gives better productivity for negative popularity bonus. However positive fear factor decreases your productivity, but it gives 2 things, positive popularity bonus AND it strenghtens your units. So isn't it better overall?

[@TheNotSocialClub]

I actually do the opposite because I want to have my gold income automated instead of selling goods every minute. But very good advice though I'll try it!!

[@oregano19]

Finally someone talking about this

[@tacky6657]

Nice video

[@ozcozfozc]

Hi could you cover this topic for Warlords?

[@CubeItself]

sweet video!

[@flyinghead1147]

Best game EVER!

[@belghun43]

I never realizedthat I will be watching those types of videos when I will grow up XD

[@Thomazmllm]

I prefer double rations and taxes só i can concentrate on the siege/fight, because my granary would be full all The time, even when adding more granarys...

[@Muftisyedinayatullah55]

I have, played this game a lot, I know all the things of it

[@qazi9184]

This game could be so easier if I only knew this things back in 2003/2004. 😂

[@Santouryu3]

I want generous bribery from the tax collectors of 2022 tbvh... #FreeMuneh

[@kimijee96]

Just produce ale and spam churches people dont need food if they drunk

[@ahmadnooryuhdi7514]

Hello boomer voice actor

[@ahmadnooryuhdi7514]

@brodertruck8878 maybe, the voice is used for many channel which featuring wojak and boomer character, check that out

[@poryg5350]

I don't like this video to be honest. You said yourself that your peasants consume about 40 food every month, which is 160 gold worth of food. It's easy to run the math then. Essentially: normal rations are -80 gold per month due to eaten food. Double rations are -160 gold per month due to eaten food. Mean taxes are profit of 120 gold per month. 180 gold per month if you play on full player advantage. But without it... Double rations and mean taxes however still incur a net loss of 40 gold! Not as bad as normal rations' 80 gold, but... I don't like this video, because you omitted one side. NO RATIONS. No rations are brutto gain of 80 or 160 gold due to sold bread. You may have to bribe, in which the investments vary from 0, 60, 80 or 100 gold. No rations and 100 gold bribe makes us net gain of 60 gold compared to double rations (and 40 compared to double rations and mean taxes) and if we compare it to normal rations, we have a net loss 20 gold. However, on normal rations we lose 80 gold due to eating food, so on no rations and generous bribe the net loss is still 4x smaller! Conclusion: Double rations are NOT worth it. And in fact not even normal rations! The most profitable way is no rations and sell everything. If I sum it up: Normal rations - 80 investment, 0 gain. Double rations - 160 investment, up to 120 gain. No rations - up to 100 investment, 80/160 gain. With 8 ale you gain 120 gold on mean taxes, but lose 80 gold on normal rations. Net profit... 40 gold. You gain 80 gold on no rations and lose none. Net gain 80 gold. Also, just as a heads up... Using more food types to obtain more popularity won't justify half rations. Because you will weaken your bread eco, which is the strongest eco in the game and no amount of taxes can beat eco.

[@Jefflenious]

Only on maximum player advantage taxing can be prioritized over saving food, even then the difference is really small

[@Meatlord69]

Holy shit i didnt know that the advantage has anything to do with taxes.. interesting!

[@tomaszk.6065]

Wow, I never noticed that player advantage affects taxes. On a small note, "low taxes" actually cost 3 popularity, because "no taxes" are +1 and not 0. Cool channel btw, keep up the good work!

[@feynstein1004]

Eh I don't think we need to factor in opportunity cost here.

[@bipstymcbipste5641]

I didn't even know player advantage was a thing in that game

[@alekto101]

@@bipstymcbipste5641 same same

[@aether3697]

"No taxes is one thing but... *_What about a small gift?_*

[@the_diplomat51]

Go on...

[@difaulhaqq5304]

"these taxes are unjust"

[@tahagi7006]

"You spoiled us my Lord"

[@fadhilyudistira8819]

"I, uh... I mean, we demand lower taxes now... or fairly soon at least"

[@UmarFarooq-yp7nd]

With You Paying Me This Much I Would Be Soon Able To Afford A Chair..

[@ariamojahed9076]

That is exactly what Wolf does due to fear factor, ale and church (and cathedral in certain castle designs) which makes a lot of sense now!

[@StinCrucing]

Damn.. wasn't aware difficulty level affects tax income, that explains something that always bothering me, ai seemingly getting more gold at the end of the match even with similar population/and or resources gathered

[@FirstnameLastname-py3bc]

No AI got more gold than me! I always destroyed their economy and sold so so so much of everything that... Lol But yeah it explains a lot

[@Teglamen]

neither did I know about that

[@FirstnameLastname-py3bc]

@@Teglamen who knew?

[@ashiok]

Important consideration though: Negative fear factor penalizes your troop's combat efficiency by 5% per increment of fear factor. So, if you are playing economically or not engaged under pressure, fear factor is worth it. But if you're on par with another player's economy, or surpassing it, then fear factor is somewhat detrimental at least insofar as you're constantly skirmishing.

[@99jean88]

"What's better: Taxes or selling food." Why not both?

[@modcube6352]

The most cruel lord🤣

[@lexlex44]

@@modcube6352 Or efficient, you can tax enough to make a profit, and enough to not make people go broke, and you can also sell enough to make a profit, but not enough to make them starve.

[@whoawhoa4062]

Hey, so there's a mechanic that involves the strength of an AI correlating to the strength of their lord. Example: The lord of the rat is 50% weaker than your own lord (I think less hp rather than less damage), while the wolf's lord is 50% stronger than your own lord with what I assume is a gradient of strength varying from only a tad weaker to a tad stronger than your own lord is. I found this out by sending my lord out with my starting rushing units in some scenarios to ensure I manage to kill the enemy lord. A few times It ended up as just lord vs lord and I both won and lost fights that seemed even on the surface of it. I wonder if this also applies to anything else, like does the wolf have stronger fighting units as a baseline? To counter out the negative fear factor buildings he makes. Just something I think would be cool for you to look into so see in what small ways the AI might be cheating a little.

[@feynstein1004]

Lol I tried this sometimes too

[@TjoaWeiHan]

My Lord always goes for the kill. Assert Dominance.

[@dhavalpatil1515]

I wasn't aware difficulty level affects tax income.

[@AwakenedAvocado]

I wasn't even aware there is a difficulty level

[@Rengor1997]

While you can always buy the weapons, fear factor at -5 is kinda insane with their production, as you get 2 weapons per trip instead of 1, a boost of 100%. I can't recall off the top of my head whether this is worth using your iron production for weapon production to turn in profit (again, assuming -5 fear factor for both), it's been a long time since I played, so that's worth researching. I think an interesting discussion is +5 fear factor vs -5 for overall game. Personally I think the economy boost of -5 is too big to ignore, even if it lowers the fighting effectiveness. My question is: could you potentially demolish every bit of fear factor before combat really begins to go back to 100% fighting strength or does that take time to update? And does "fighting effectiveness" only affect damage or both damage and health? Because if it's the former then we run into the same reason Colin is amazing in Advance Wars 2 - his units hit weaker, but they aren't any less durable while costing 20% less, meaning you get more of them.

[@typeunknown1540]

Yes, you can demolish all bad fear factor buildings and replace them with good fear factor buildings before attacking. And fear factor only affects attack damage, it doesn't affect unit health.

[@Rengor1997]

@@typeunknown1540 ok yeah negative fear factor is the way to go

[@Jefflenious]

Next video will be about fear factor, Both fear factors are insane at their job and yeah you can switch whenever you want

[@altaruss2838]

-5FF does not double weapon production, most buildings have production cycles averaging at 1.5 per delivery (1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2...). Fear factor only affects damage, so it affects f.e. assassins a lot, while pikemen are pretty much unaffected. +5FF is worth it as it's tied to your population rather than army, so you can first amass army, then cripple your population (-24 taxes, no rations, stop inns, etc.) which will make you loads of gold as well, then when you're at relatively low population, you can get +5FF pretty much for free.

[@feynstein1004]

Definitely not worth it. Ale is so much more efficient. I give my peasants no rations and then use ale coverage to offset the -8 popularity. Even with a population of 100, you only need 2 breweries and about 3/4 inns to keep the people happy. Imagine how many mills and bakeries you'd need to feed all those people.

[@feynstein1004]

Wow, I never knew player advantage affected taxes. What I did notice was that as your population increases, you get a lower amount from each peasant. Although, I suspect this has to do with rounding errors. Since you can only get a whole number of gold coins, if the number comes out in decimal, the game automatically rounds it up.

[@thomassleziak1222]

I have hundreds of hours on stronghold, I come back every few years and play the whole campaign, and I never used and played with taxes :D I just completely ignored it everytime.

[@Jefflenious]

It's a big deal on Stronghold 1, but on Crusader it's much easier to just produce resources and sell!

[@ryangainey94]

Interesting that this is verifying what I more or less figured out on my own already. The only real downside to having evil fear factor is combat effectiveness of troops at -25% and noting that Bad Things cost more than Good Things. The boost in production is more than enough to offset these downsides.

[@beardsntools]

fear factor makes religion more useful too, it's seriously much better than on no fear factor, so you can do both ale and religion, these two on their max are +19 should cover, no rations, average taxes and fear factor. You save all of your food, so plenty of bread to sell. Or alternatively you dont bother with religion and go with half rations and you can do low taxes, still not bad.

[@Teglamen]

Saladin's economy is higly based around producing and selling those products (6-10 bakery for example+ fletchers etc. )

[@jfwjfw5558]

i got another question, do fire arrow increase your archers dmg or are their only porpuse to light up pitch?

[@Jefflenious]

They add no damage, only used to light up fire pitches

[@paulandreig.sahagun34]

Do they lit to Buildings that are near your towers with Flame archers?

[@Jefflenious]

@@paulandreig.sahagun34 They can't set buildings on fire by themselves, the building has to be right next to some burning fire pit

[@heroiccombatengineer6018]

I only used and switched taxes to listen to all the different dialogues of the peasants lmao, It feels like you make much more if you're selling goods

[@piotrm5635]

0:05 its better to sell stone and iron 🤣

[@UmarFarooq-yp7nd]

Morning Your Lordship..🤞

[@Bedo656]

Make castle designs videos :D

[@thibs2837]

I had the same conclusion as you. And during missions where you can't sell food, go double rations and higher taxes (in stronghold 1 for instance)

[@modcube6352]

I never thought -5 fear factor will make the peasant work faster😂, i thought its only showing that you are a cruel lord 😅

[@qwert314oderwat]

I usually go with no rations (-8) booze for everyone (+8) cathedral (+2) low taxes (-2) and sell all food. in lategame fearfactor (+5) church (+1), -low taxes (-2)- high taxes (-8)

[@qwert314oderwat]

In Sh1 I also did generous bribe and low taxes in turn in a few occasions. Advantageous though a bit annoying if you do it right, but if you forget about it when you are bribing your population you're screwed

[@NIGHTBLOOM1]

Stronghold in 2021? Its nice to find this!

[@Noobtato_Channel]

2:20 this is the question I always ask to myself but too lazy to figure it out, now I have the answer, thank you for that :)

[@Jefflenious]

I didn't know the answer until I actually looked for it myself (For making this video)

[@Borderose]

Damn. So tax and scare the shit out of the peasants but give them Jesus to go with all the food and all the booze they could ever want? Sounds like a solid presidential strategy.

[@kornelthunderbolt9962]

or, simply place some iron mines and let the peasant bug grow to its fullest potential. who needs apple farms with that bug when you can sell tons of iron every 2 minutes for tens of thousands of gold.

[@mammoh]

I never knew that

[@h3m1v33]

+8 ale, +3 religion, -5 fear factor leaves you at +6. you cant even max out taxes at that point. on top of having a much weaker army. crossbows not being able to oneshot slaves, etc. negative fear factor isnt good. just go for +8 ale, +3 religion, +5 fear factor. sure everyone is less productive, but you can get -8 tax and reduce your rations to -8. all you need to care about is to have your ale which is super easy, then you can never loose popularity, your army gets a mighty dmg boost on top. since you dont consume food you can spam houses and production facilities left right and center. this is important, cause taxes dont care about your max population you can have, but the actual amount of people you got. so everyone with a job + up to 24 at the keep, while you can ignore any food requirements. with that extra production you easily get ahead of the negative fear factor version on top of having ridiculous amounts of tax money from such high populations. all i do in the later stages is spam the big water tank thingies (idk the english name). in order to actually spend that crazy income somewhat efficiently i vacate those buildings so i can build 100-200 units (using a leftclick macro otherwise i would probably injure my hand and break my mouse while playing this game), then i activate them again, so i can do stuff, while the workers build up again. otherwise i have 24max for units and need to be on top 24/7, while neglecting everything else basically.

[@difaulhaqq5304]

So, another question Does the Apothecary really heal units? And how fast one heals?

[@Jefflenious]

If you have UCP installed yes it does And it's like one unit at a time, not that fast but you can always place down more of them for increased healing

[@asdasd-no4lk]

@@Jefflenious how it heals and if its aura around the building is it good to place it behind the tower to heal archers on it ?

[@Jefflenious]

@@asdasd-no4lk The worker comes and heals units individually, and he constantly returns to his hut to refill his supplies or whatever, so yeah putting your troops next to his hut does make his job a bit easier

[@lordsnia2152]

@@Jefflenious i actually used it. brought back my horse archers from a siege at Calif and they were very low. built two Apothecary and boom after a while they were ready to attack again

[@lexlex44]

Lol, for a moment I thought you were talking about healing health, not disease ! Would have been a cool idea for the healer to do both.

[@kristiankopera]

there also another posible strategy. give them no foo "no rations" thats -8 popularity. but give them beer + 8 popularity. give them church and you are now on +3 popularity . you can now sell all your bread and thats clear profit :D

[@mrfivegold]

I don't make bread. Bread is alot of buildings that can easily be set aflame.

[@andrewgnatyuk]

I would raither pay to people if it needed and make -5 fear factor, taxes is not the best move from my perspective

[@kekaisaranottoman8431]

i will use Negative Fear Factor, but i can't see my People Suffer and saying the bad thing about me and the Castle.

[@byusky8117]

well sometimes i go with low to average taxes with half ration so i can still gain coins slowly while maximizing the food trade income dont forget to keep the ale coverage +8 doe

[@sparklingwatamelon]

I just came here to see how vast my knowledge of this game after 17 years of playing this game.

[@Furko08]

Just produce so much bread that your food stocks max out at double rations and sell a bunch ez

[@cool06alt]

Literally Pro-supply macroeconomic theory essentially. No taxes all the way!

[@Jackty89]

Me overproducing food 4x ration + enough ale to drown my population and taxing :D

[@chilloutmiketheoriginal]

Why am I watching stronghold crusader economics when i almost failed math in high school

[@FMTheNik]

переведите))) что в итоге?

[@GI_D204]

Beer +8 -> no food but produce bread -> sell bread = Money Money Money. ;)

[@eggymonstah]

lovely video as usual, although im now curios to listen to your real voice

[@Andromeda_GALaxy48]

i always used this strategy more food= high taxes

[@jack86]

Me: combine selling food and tax. Never give food (-8), but keep maintain the ale bonus (+8) by build one inn in every 3 new house build and make them 'working' Tax (-8), and mantain religion poin at least +8 (+11 if possible) by building a church and a cathedral, and one chappel for every one new build house. Tax only feel significant if you have large population. And if you want some good things effect but decrease the workers' lazyness, just put the good things out of their reach, e.g. on empty island, or just surround it with walls, so worker dont waste their time wandering around.

[@OverseerMoti]

Keeping the good things enclosed will cause the workers to stay put in front of their workshops before working another batch of product. This cuts time loss caused by them going back and forth between the good things and their workshops. Curiously enough, sometimes the workers would visit wells after work if you built those.

[@jack86]

@@OverseerMoti unfortunately, one worker will not always visit the nearest good thing.

[@ilhamleo6348]

Why there is chiken but no chiken coop and chiken meat

[@verstixia]

used taxes on mission 77 vs 3 emirs

[@r3dn1ght23]

Nice

[@karimdaniyalov707]

man really explained food economy in USSR

[@RoboMuskVsLizardZuckerberg]

Should we give our peasant gold?

[@an_orange8911]

I do double rations and increase the taxes, in this way I won't constantly have to come back to the market to sell the food. Also, if your granary gets full and you dont sell, then you are wasting food which you could have sold. Taxes is way to go!

[@nikoszkariofilisz8300]

I think if you go up to 300 population, you get a lot more gold from taxes, -8 taxes is more than enough, you can feed the 300 population with bread very easy, you can even sell some bread. I always make a long stockpile, 1 side is for Baking breads, the other is for Crossbows. Then you have Tax, Bread, and Crossbows for income, not to mention the stone and iron. Bread+ale is just broken.

[@farrasvati_N]

I played since 2008s and just realized this math on taxes, normally i just increase popularity and max the taxes without counting how worth is that like this. Thank you mr wolf, great vid and math

[@dhavalpatil1515]

How do taxes work in historical campaigns? I always use taxes in them rather than selling bread.

[@Jefflenious]

I think it's the same as "No advantage" I'm not sure though

[@dhavalpatil1515]

@@Jefflenious ok

[@Alexandermedo1]

Here is what I usually do : About 5 or 6 wheat farms 2 mills 10 bakeries Normal rations 1 cathedral 2 churches 4 chapels 1 hops farm 4 breweries 6 inns -12 taxes popularity

[@Nimarioos]

I prefer high taxes as I hate microing storage, I just make good bread production increase rations and setup taxes then I simply focus on military

[@mee091000]

I can't believe I forgot about getting that easy +3 Religion bonus. Makes the start of the game much easier if you can afford it.

[@f2p-bbs169]

i mean i think it's better to use taxes on high pop , just cuz it's too hard to maintain selling food while having late game fights . my opinion is , on high pop , taxes are better , on low pop , selling food is better

[@lyxsyx8354]

Basically what I do every game.. add in the surplus from the resources you get but never need. you'd be able to supply a continuous stream of HA's

[@__-yu8vi]

"Is taxing worth it, or it's better to sell food?" - the British, manufacturing another disaster in one of its colonies

[@RoyDJ1069]

I never know that gold advantage also affects your taxing. cool vid!

[@novictim]

I only just learnt about the advantage and tax relationship!

[@Flutteragon]

I didn't know about diff affects tax income and that fear factor affects only on bread makers :O

[@Jefflenious]

It's not just bread, but bread scales really well with fear factor

[@Flutteragon]

@@Jefflenious Oh, will you make a video with fear factor and how much bonus it gives to every building? :3

[@Jefflenious]

@@Flutteragon Yeah it's coming, in 2 days probably

[@Som3P3rs0n]

what about doing both?

[@BalkanianNinja]

If bro was a teacher, he would be that teacher that you would listen to

[@hisato1998]

Hey i have a question when you speak about something can you put the text in the video ??

[@Jefflenious]

If you're having a hard time following through you can use youtube's subtitles (The CC icon next to settings in the video) But I'll also try to to get better at editing!

[@hisato1998]

@@Jefflenious Thx mate i dont have best english skills and your content need time to think to understand what you are saying :)

[@alonymelony8047]

me,selling food and taxing till the popularity is close to 50: both,both is good.

[@bucket_69420]

I just subcribed before like 20 minutes or less then I saw that you posted a new video, nice

[@ayatcha7928]

Yes

[@xxlCortez]

I think Strongholds beyond 2 made tax more useful.

[@seddam]

You should talk by yourself man! Keep it up.

[@fadhilyudistira8819]

I mainly use taxes so I can play like a proper government.

[@thenotsotalented9383]

Religion and positive fear factor with no food is the way to go

[@Aatell764]

"You've got to be joking!" The scribe.

[@Chebka_]

Nice

[@علیرضابهرامینژاد-خ8غ]

Wow

[@kubasielski4025]

Hey, hey! I just wanted to bring this idea to table (I don't know if it's the best but works pretty nice for me): go for full bread production, +8 bonus from ale consumption and +3 bonus from church and cathedral. Then stay on normal rations and tax people with -8 modifier to popularity and sell excess bread. U can also tax people with -12 modifier to popularity and use religion bonus to minimise popularity trend to -1. Then u adjust taxes from time to time to avoid fall of ur popularity below 50.

[@thebadman6169]

Would be better to decrease rations than ever go over -8 taxes, they are only good if you somehow are already not feeding your people or doing some kind of population exploit. Of course it will require bit more micromanagament so if you are not importing wheat then it should be okay to go with higher rations and leak some gold to not get distracted.

[@bartoszbaroszek6640]

That's The kind of video i would never imagine to be made