MAKING MONEY: CITIES

        There are four factors that are involved in making money from cities (food quantity, population level, tax rate and bank). Each is of varying relevance and the correct approach to each is required to reap the maximum benefit from your cities. But first you must remember the twofold goal of money management:

1. To make as much money as you can in as short a period of time as possible. This allows you to buy more units to get more cities and resources and make even more money.
2. To sustain your cash flow for as long as necessary. Cities, even those that have been reduced to less than 1000 population are a steady flow of income. However, it is better to keep your cities at high population levels if you expect the game to last a long time (when you expect the game to last past the Turn 10, that is a long time).

        As the kind of game that lasts less than 10 Turns is the more common kind experienced by the better players, I shall first look at how to make as much money in as short a period of time as possible without regard for sustaining cash flow. I'll do this by examining the relevance of each factor and then putting a plan into effect which takes all factors into account.

1. Food Quantity:
           The quantity of food in a city must be taken into consideration as it has a great bearing on whether a city makes you money or costs you money! Specifically, all is fine and dandy if the amount of food required by a city leaves it with 0 or greater units of food. When it all gets a bit ugly is when a city requires more food than is available. Then the city starves and will cost you money and population. These costs are assessed as follows: -1$ per 200 population (assessed INSTEAD of any gains from tax), -10% population (in ADDITION to any loses/gains from tax). The offshoot of this is that you could, in one turn, cost yourself as much money as  you made in the previous three (with a high tax rate, you might have expected to make $6-8. Instead, you lose $4-6! That is effectively a $10-14 loss per city! Thank god you can't send a city ghost in this way......) and destroy your ability to make much more (it is quite common for the population of a city to fall under 1000 under these conditions). For exacting information on farms (the producers of food), how much they cost and an assessment of when you should and shouldn't buy them see the page on Farms and Roads. The most important things to remember with respect to making money are that buying farms to feed your cities costs you a lot of money (relative to the money you are making from taxes) and that if your population drops below 1000 you don't have to feed the population in that city at all (they consume no food)!
2. Population Level:
           The population level of a city is of vital importance in determining exactly what you can do with a city. This is because the exact population has a bearing on how much food is required by the city, how much money you get in taxes (and indeed, how heavily it can be taxed before you exert a form of overtaxing) and how much money is returned from banks. Essentially, the higher the population of the city, the greater the returns you can expect from it. However, because starting city populations are only from 1000-1300, you may find that you need to invest a few turns to get cities of a size large enough to give a consistently spectacular return.
3. Tax Rate:
           The tax rate you apply to a city directly determines how much money you will get back in the following turn (given no unforeseen disasters). That is, the higher your tax rate, the more cash you get back. The calculation for exactly how much is as follows:
                                              {Population (after modification)/125 x Tax Rate}rounded off = $return
           Unfortunately, tax also has a direct impact on population levels. At 55% tax, there is no change to population levels. However, as you go above this, population levels will drop more and more as they get pissed of with the burden. As you go below 55% tax, the population will flock to you in increasing numbers allowing you to make more money for the tax in future turns. Also of vital importance is the effects of causing the population to drop below 1000. If you do this, then no matter how heavily you are taxing the city, you can only make a maximum of $3! Lastly, if you leave the tax rate above 60% for more than one turn, the population can get  truly ungrateful and refuse to pay taxes at all (note that in previous versions that they would get truly pissed and the population would decrease by an additional amount. Thank your lucky stars that doesn't happen any more!) in addition to the normal loss of population. F.Y.I., a chart of growth rate vs. tax rate follows (useful if you insist on creating your own tax regime).

   Tax Rate	Growth Rate	Tax Rate	Growth Rate	Tax Rate	Growth Rate
   0	20	32-35	5	68-71	-4
   1-3	13	36-39	4	72-75	-5
   4-7	12	40-43	3	76-79	-6
   8-11	11	44-47	2	80-83	-7
   12-15	10	48-51	1	84-87	-8
   16-19	9	52-55	0	88-91	-9
   20-23	8	56-59	-1	92-95	-10
   24-27	7	60-63	-2	96-99	-11
   28-31	6	64-67	-3	100	-12

4. Bank:
           Banks are expensive things ($40) and require a substantial long term investment to bear fruit. Specifically, you only make $2 per 1000 population. Obviously, this is not something to put in every city! Even putting it in a new metropolis may be a bit of a waste of your money (5000 population = $10/turn = 4 turns just to get your money back!). The one good thing about a bank is that it doesn't cause bad things to happen when you have one in a city. So if you should happen to capture one from the enemy, smile :)

        Now that we know everything there is to know about the various factors that influence the wealth you can make from a city, lets put together a comprehensive plan that will see you through the start, middle and end phases of the game.

The Starting (or Expansion) Phase

        The main thing to remember during this initial stage of the game is that you need cash immediately. Preferably more than anybody else! To achieve this, your initial plan should include the purchase of as few farms and banks as possible (these are very long term investments), the highest tax returns possible and maintenance of appropriate population levels.  The only exception to this general rule is the long term investment in one or more Metropoles (the reasons for which are covered under Building Universities). So essentially, we can forget about banks and work with what farms are already in existence.

        As your goal is maximum profit, there are two different tax regimes you should have in place. One for cities that have no farms and one for cities that have at least one farm. The reason for this is simple. You want to avoid starvation at all costs! To avoid starvation and still make the maximum profit, the plan is to tax your cities without farms in such a way as to bring their population level into the 900-990 population range at the last moment (this is when the management lab shows that it will be starving next turn). After some pretty bloody rigorous research, I have come up with a table that shows exactly which tax values you should use for each city for each starting population level and food values from 3- to 0-. Also, once you reach a population of 990, you can then set the tax rate of the city to 55% (0 growth), make $3 a turn and forget about it. Follow this plan with all cities that have no farms and you should get the optimum return (note, the reason why buying farms is not an option. It takes too long a time to improve your earning per city to the point where you actually show a better profit. In the meantime, you could have used all that cash to capture more cities and win wars!). Generally speaking, this table is applicable to any city without a farm you might get at any stage of the game. Anyhow, here it is.

* In this special case, you use the higher tax rate of 75% only if you used the tax rate of 38% in the previous turn. Otherwise you would overtax!

        Now that we have that all set out, what do we do with the cities that do have farms? How do we use those to maximum effect at the start of the game? Well, it is almost the same way you would treat a farmless city as you have almost the same goal. The only difference here is that you can sustain your profits for longer if you do it right! Generally speaking, you still want to tax the buggery out of your cities on every two turns (beginning with the first). However, on every other turn, you can let up a bit and allow the populations to spring back a bit more (thus sustaining your growth that little bit extra). Fortunately, this makes for a somewhat simpler equation than the chart above. Put any city that is not going to be overtaxed or drop below 1000 population on 100% taxes. Of the cities that remain, put any city that will not be overtaxed or drop below 1000 population on 88% taxes. Continue in this manner with 75% and 63% taxes. This will allow you to squeeze the most money out of your cities with the least amount of population loss (I tested this quite heavily, so you better believe it). After you have done this, you will have a number of cities that are either too small to be taxed heavily or have already been taxed the previous turn. First put all these cities at 45%. Any city which does not then give a return of $4 should then be set to 34%. Any of these cities which do not give a return of $3 should then be set to 38% (all of which will then have a return of $3). Now your cities will make the maximum return at the maximum speed (with a modest concession made to sustainability)!

The Middle (or Combat) Phase

        During the Combat Phase of the game, you are looking to make enough cash to sustain any attacks you might be making. Most of your farmless cities should now be sitting on a population level of 990 and can safely be forgotten about. Keep running the same taxation system as shown above on any farmless cities that do not have this population level. The only exception to this is any enemy cities without farms that you manage to capture. You will need a different plan for these (especially if your opponent has intentionally let them go into starvation with a high population to screw you over when you inevitably take them!). Suffice to say, you have the same goal as before, but if you have a population and food value combination that is not shown in the chart above, then you may have to get a bit drastic to cut your loses (eg. If you can drop a city is starving/will starve next turn to 990 population next turn by raising taxes, then you should do so! Far better than wasting cash in the middle of combat to buy a farm).

        As for cities with farms, your plan should be to apply the tax system for the starting phase to as many cities as you require (preferably the ones with the highest  populations) to fuel your war machine and collect technology. If you have as much technology as you need, all your expansion units are bought and you don't foresee the need for more combat units next turn, you may choose to invest your taxes in future returns. As you can see in the Growth Rate vs Tax Rate chart above, a tax rate of 0% will give you a remarkable Growth rate of 20%. This is 7% better than even a Tax rate of 1%!. You can take advantage of this by placing as many cities as you want (preferably the ones that you would only have gotten $3 out of anyhow) on the 0% tax rate and leaving them there until you need them (usually next turn if you are playing the game right!). Of course, if you do leave them on 0% tax rate for more than 1 turn, it will take more than 1 turn to make a good return of your investment. As such, you may wish to merely use an alternating system whereby you have each city on 0% taxes one turn and 100% the next. You make a bit less profit to begin with, but you will eventually start making a better return (due to the average population increase of 5% per turn). Especially if you later go back to the heavy tax system later (as you have more to work with).

The End (or Clean-up) Phase

        As far as taxes in the end phase goes, the main thing to take into consideration is that you have the whole thing won now (even though it isn't actually over). If you have an end phase, you should be bigger by far than everyone else still in the game and have no concerns about their ability to stop you from killing them. If you aren't, then it ain't the end phase! You are still in the Combat Phase and should see the plan there! In any case, considering you are now in the End phase, do what you like! Usually, I will put all my cities on 45% or 55% (occasionally I may get a bit excited and actually pay for farms just because I can). The important thing is, you want to have the cash there every turn so that you can put the big grind on your opponents and smash them back into whatever little holes they are crawling out of. The way I figure it, it is boring enough collecting all those darn resources without having to waste time on taxes (you are overkilling them already. Why try and overkill them twice?).

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