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Actually, the BoC has cashed out, or is in the process of cashing out, all deposits. It simply has been too much to handle for no particular reason, particularly now that it has to hand over ownership of the royals. Just haven't informed the customers yet as I am still settling accounts.

I promise ALL my votes in Eslandola's colonial council will support your position ;) So public as in not secret, but not published. That makes sense to me - thanks for the clarification. Then maybe this time, COR will not declare total war with that as casus belli! ;)

Last turn, without an MRCA, your property income was 920 dbs, which is slightly more than 4 % of your wealth (22354 dbs). If we correct income for a royal decreasing its profits with 400, we get 2,3 %. So even without looking at trade profits, your total wealth would still increase each month, should you go entirely passive. Just saying... ;)

Pardon me for a short OOC commentary, but honestly, I find this a highly interesting social experiment. Depending on one's position, it is either amusing or alarming! / It surprises me that even in a game with fictional money, some of the richest players are (IC/OOC?) so concerned with a tax, and set on suggesting alternatives to schemes that tax all proportionally. (And we are not even talking a progressive tax!) I understand the desire to protect what one has built over a long period, of course, but what about the common good and fairness? Maxim's scheme will heavily favour the richest - it should be clear to all that the richer you are, the less of a share an absolute value will be of your total income. If everyone pays 200 dbs/turn, there is clearly a big difference between making 300 dbs a month, or 3000. That he suggests taking out the poorest players seems a very thin guise for favouring the richest. Of course, it can be argued that such a flat rate will encourage people to build up a very large income to diminish the share the taxes make, but that is like saying to a homeless person that he should simply get a job at wall-street. Elos' position may be somewhat less biased, desiring taxes on activities rather than wealth, although it still favours more passive players of "the old guard" over more active new players with less wealth. It will dis-incentivise investments and incentivise passivity, which I doubt is desirable. And it will favour those who have already made the investments to bring them to their current level of wealth. Of course, there is a logic to only taxing active actions, to make it a choice, but why the resistance to tax income, then, rather than investment? Also, publicly suggesting attacks on foreign powers? That seems like it may end up with some repercussions. (Or are we not to consider the minutes of these meetings public? I do not think that was ever defined) Last, please know that I mean not to reproach anyone for their positions, or manipulate the outcome - I simply find it interesting that some of the dynamics of the real world make its way into a fictional economy. I can't help but wonder if not the outcome of this may end up being the catalyst for a new communist movement in Eslandola? At least I feel some Marxist sentiments stirring within me! All in all, I really enjoy following these discussions! Keep it up!

Rumour has it the KPA has received a relatively detailed report from the exercise... ;)

@Drunknok: Since you are tagging Captain Genaro here, are we to assume that this letter IC was sent in copy to OL authorities, or only to Allcock who it is addressed to?

@Bart The rundown: Garmadon's characters want to raid their way to the funds for paying maintenance. The richest Eslandian players, Maxim and Elos (the 1 %, one might dare to call them) are against taxing wealth (SURPRISE! ), and the rest are discussing whether they should tax (and what) or start a building initiative to generate income for the faction.

Not necessarily. Think of it as something your character does for the nation. He may do it personally, or act through agents, so he doesn't have to be there. Although I would personally encourage everyone to take your character travelling the brick seas to meet other sig figs and see other settlements.

Great idea (although a bit dark! ;) ), and nice execution. The court has reviewed your build, and decided that it is well within the spirit of the minichallenge posed for Mesabi Landing. However, in line with this spirit of improvement, we would like to see you revisit the following feedback: The cobblestone for the road track are sitting on top of the ground rather than being embedded on it. We would like to see some more work done on this part of the build. Examples could be some sort of depression of the stones (sunk amongst other bricks) or perhaps even wheelruts. The settlement has just been hit by a disaster, and we would expect more evidence of this. It could be seaweed lying around, some rubble, or barrels or similar shattered around the build. (preferably without cluttering the build) The angled slots in the walls isn't as effective as intended, and we would like to see this addressed. Solutions may be reworking the wall damage or show it from a different angle. To count towards the studcount for the minichallenge, two of these should be addressed, although we of course encourage looking at all three.

Leave it up to one of the richest players to propose a flat tax rather than a percentage of wealth!

Argh, you hit me right in the third wall there...

Mesabi, we are currently in "MRCA mode", but I am liking what I am seeing so far, and we will get to review this as soon as possible.

We are fixing ;) Apparently, there was a small mess up with the initial licensing or some such thing, but it will be available from next month.

I think this is an epic build, really. Very cool to see a "full" settlement in one build, and while each of your buildings are very good, it is the overall composition that makes this build so excellent. On top of that, this is a perfect example of how a big build can have hidden details everywhere, with no blank spots. Very very good! (A note from a game master: to optimise protection, trade values, etc, I would suggest the nearby settlement to be constructed is considered, for EGS purposes, part of the sereen cay.)

I've always known! Good to hear it helps as intended. We will keep our eyes out for the any further imbalances. And this is also something we are aware of. But again, we can't do everything at once ;)

A small addendum to the rules on fort upkeep: Due to the special status of Bastion as the capital of the Sea Rats, who have no old world capital to retreat to, the three large forts of Bastion will henceforth be upkeep free.

A small addendum to the rules on fort upkeep: Due to the special status of Bastion as the capital of the Sea Rats, who have no old world capital to retreat to, the three large forts of Bastion will henceforth be upkeep free.

*PARTAY* Yep - so with black flag ships only sailing to hideouts, sea rats could in fact, for free, operate whatever fleet you can build up with your free class 2's as a starting point without ever licensing a single property or owning a single settlement - sounds very piratey to me! (Although we do need to look at the MRCA, but as we said, we are working on it )

Nope - you have 100 dbs of free upkeep, which translates almost to a class 5 ship (at 105 dbs per turn) Edit: Additionally, Sea Rats pay NO upkeep on Black Flagged ships.

To me this is a different problem - It should be possible to work your way up from the free class two you have from the beginning. A single moc'ed capture would in fact probably put you well in your way, either by using that, or selling the prize to finance more warships. However, as someone running the tMRCA and a class 2 privateer, I can say that there are so few lone ships sailing around at low class it is absolutely impossible to achieve anything there. So what is next on my list is to look at tMRCA income and balance to encourage more smaller and lone vessels to make it easier to make a capture. How? By making it relatively unprofitable to sail out big fleets/make single merchants more profitable. I have a prototype that I will discuss with court. As I said, we have reworked the tMRCA once, but our new trade calculations have missed the mark entirely. Profits are too high, and there is no incentive to sail as a single ship. To me, a few pirates banding up with class two vessels or similar should have plenty of opportunity to make captures amongst player ships. And I will do what I can to achieve this. I am fairly certain the rest of the court is on board, but things take time. And as I said, forts are made more expensive to make it feasible to make raids going forward. Building a fort should be a strategic decision, not a default. ALL: We are looking into the sea rat fort situation, and will probably announce an adjustment soon.

In court, we try to adjust the game to do away with imbalances. We do this to make sure the game is balanced for all. We do not try to do away with pirates or anyone else. (Rather the opposite, in fact. Piracy has been top of our list in recent months, and still is, and was one of the main reasons the original tMRCA was revised, even if we haven't yet succeeded entirely) Personally, I fail to see how rules that discourage more forts are anything but a cause for celebration for pirates, who will now have a world with much fewer forts to raid. We do our best, and we are not perfect. Hence we will not hit the mark exactly each time first time. On top of trying to balance the game, we also try to run it. We have all volunteered, and we do not expect anything in return, except at modicum of respect. Sometimes, it would be nice if people would trust our decisions just a little bit - many people are involved in these changes, and we have actually discussed pro's and con's. This does not mean we are immune to feedback, but some of the comments here are not exactly encouraging, some even outright unpleasant. ___________ As I have said before, I have been one of the champions of the inflation measures, and I stand by our recent decision. There might be need of re-balancing some things, now or later, and we will look at it. We could also have led things stand, but when everyone and his mom have 5000 + in their account, there is no point to the money. In case of war, the amount of money will only amplify the troop numbers, which makes no difference. Additionally, you will need someone to be at war with... We agree in court that money should be relevant, and to make them so, we need to limit them. We want to make them relevant as we believe it makes the game more interesting. As in reality, the real issue is probably much more about the distribution of money than the amount - for there is no discussion that the "top 50%" are far too rich in this game, and that being too rich is the end result of the original rules. When you have played for a while and build up a significant portfolio of ships and properties, you hardly ever need to think about it again. We have done much to make piracy more profitably, but are hindered to some degree by the MRCA which did not effectively manage to split fleets up, and is far too profitable still. This we are also looking at. But everything takes time. And yes, we are changing things up quite considerably, but look at the account numbers. I have hardly done anything in a year to increase funds (and have laughably few merchant ships) and have more than 8000 - and I am probably not even in top 10. So, what we are saying from court is: We are actually trying to balance things out, and will reconsider rules, old and new, if we find they lead to imbalance. And please... Have a little faith in us :)

On the other hand, Oleon is the richest faction and have the highest income. And as you say, it is all the same. The courts mission is to make money in-game at least somewhat relevant again. It may be a problem for the sea rats, who have historically been making less money, but hopefully more expensive forts (and hence less) with more profitable raiding, and some of the new adjustments we have in terms of piracy will help balance this out, but we haven't yet seen the full effects of this. The court needs to stay relevant! Protect our "jobs"! ;) But to your question, probably never.

@Maxim I Both Maestro and yourself have around 20.000 sitting in your accounts. I think you will be ok.

Where is Uncle when you need him? :O (We will look into it) As in when we have implemented the new rules under construction, but yes, you are right. :)

This is old hat :) What is in a settlement account can be spent by the settlement controller (mayor), but any negative balance will have to be covered, as you say.