Slitherine

I was trying to wrap my head around the finances of my current play through and I think the Administrative Burden feature could really use some more transparency in how it operates. I also really think the game could do with a finances ledger that breaks down where costs are coming from. I read a suggestion that I could check the Faction.bsf file for the Faction_AdminBurden script to see how it works but I don't really think this is reasonable to expect out of an end user. The game manual isn't really sufficient in my opinion and just gives a very surface level description of this mechanic.
So far, from what I can tell, it operates as follows: I have a dynamic expense that changes per turn based on the number of regions in my faction, the number of structures in my faction and the level of my faction's government along with an added cost based on my total treasury that is weighed in brackets of 5,000 currency. So if I have 3,000 currency, I am penalized 10% of my total treasury; 6,000 I am penalized 20%; 14,000 I am penalized 30%, etc.
Having said that, I'm still lost in how the number of regions, structures and government level impacts this admin cost. How much does it cost to expand by one region? It looks like there's a discount applied to provinces/having ten regions? How much does it cost to go up a government level? To build a structure?

I love the depth this game applies to managing a growing empire but I need to know where these penalties are coming from and it doesn't seem very intuitive or clear to me how it's all being calculated. Seeing this broken down in a ledger that breaks down costs by region like Regions (Overview) and Regions (Population) do for infrastructure, culture and population would really help clarify what's going on, even if it's for nothing else but to assure me that I'm not making some glaring mistake with how I'm managing things.

Something like this would also be great to see in Kingdoms.

First 10 regions are "free". Regions in a formed province have half value. Multiply the with the coefficient depending on difficulty level.

First 2 buildings in a region are free. Multiply the level of the building, and add that value of all buildings together. Multiply the with the coefficient depending on difficulty level.

Money you already mentioned. Each bracket will be taxed successively, so with 18.000 money and brackets of 5000, 10000, 15000, 25000 and tax of 10 -> We get: 13.000 @ 10%, 8.000 @ 20%, 3.000 @ 30%

Add all three above together, multiply Civilisation level coefficient, depends on difficulty setting.

Then multiply the total from above by possible nationwide effects (ruler administrative skill, events, decissions).


TL;DR version: Form provinces when you can. Don't take piss-poor regions if you already have 10 regions or more. Don't build unnecessary buildings. Don't stockpile money in huge amounts. Especially in larger empires, use the admin decissions smartly (not immediatly when you can, but for example when you are about to start a war of conquest (as your region total will rise, and many/most of the newly conquered won't be in provinces, and they all have the recently conquered malus so they will hurt the economy of you whole empire).

Swuul wrote: ↑Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:24 am First 10 regions are "free". Regions in a formed province have half value. Multiply the with the coefficient depending on difficulty level.

First 2 buildings in a region are free. Multiply the level of the building, and add that value of all buildings together. Multiply the with the coefficient depending on difficulty level.

Money you already mentioned. Each bracket will be taxed successively, so with 18.000 money and brackets of 5000, 10000, 15000, 25000 and tax of 10 -> We get: 13.000 @ 10%, 8.000 @ 20%, 3.000 @ 30%

Add all three above together, multiply Civilisation level coefficient, depends on difficulty setting.

Then multiply the total from above by possible nationwide effects (ruler administrative skill, events, decissions).


TL;DR version: Form provinces when you can. Don't take piss-poor regions if you already have 10 regions or more. Don't build unnecessary buildings. Don't stockpile money in huge amounts. Especially in larger empires, use the admin decissions smartly (not immediatly when you can, but for example when you are about to start a war of conquest (as your region total will rise, and many/most of the newly conquered won't be in provinces, and they all have the recently conquered malus so they will hurt the economy of you whole empire).

Thank you!
The section I bolded was very helpful, that answers the majority of the mystery for me of where the rest of the admin burden was coming from. I'm playing as Lugii and have connected the Baltic to the Black Sea and yeah, I've taken my time but many of the newly conquered provinces are quite poor, so it'll probably be a while of instability before it balances out. I've also been going very aggressive on food and infrastructure buildings to develop them quickly so it seems I really just need to focus on money now for a while.

Having said, this just adds further to the point, having the information you just gave me displayed in a ledger panel would be such a great QoL feature for the game if there's still room for development of it.