Public Order and Taxes
Public order (abbreviated as PO, in English "public order") is one of those indicators that you might not even think about as a newcomer, but as soon as it drops into the negative, you'll immediately realize that you're stuck. PO tells you how satisfied the subjects in your castle are, and that satisfaction directly affects how much resources your castle produces and how much you collect in taxes. Simply put: the happier the people, the richer the castle. And since taxes and military buildings eat away at satisfaction, the whole art lies in finding a balance between "squeezing the maximum out of the castle" and "not turning the subjects into a pissed-off herd that refuses to work properly." We'll go through how PO works, what brings it down and what raises it, how to reasonably adjust the tax slider, and why it's better to keep PO comfortably in the positive rather than just above zero.
What public order actually does
Think of PO as the mood of the entire castle. You can see the value at the top of the castle bar, and it is calculated from what you build in the castle and how you set the taxes. When PO is in the positive, the subjects are satisfied, and your production (wood, stone, food) and tax income are running at full capacity. When PO drops into the negative, people start to strike, and your resource production decreases by a certain percentage. It doesn't stop at zero, and the castle won't die, but you'll notice the shortfall in your stockpiles and that your resources are rising slower than you would expect from the farms and mills you have set up.
It's important to understand that you build PO from two sides. On one side, it is reduced by things you need for the functioning and defense of the castle, mainly taxes and military buildings (barracks, towers, walls). On the other side, it is raised by decorations and ornamental buildings. The goal is for the positive side to always outweigh the negative side and to leave you with a decent reserve. You're not playing to have PO exactly at zero; you're playing to keep it comfortably above zero.
What lowers PO and what raises it
The biggest drain on public order is taxes. The higher you pull the slider, the more satisfaction it costs you, so taxes are the lever you adjust most often. Right behind them are military and defensive buildings. Each barracks, tower, gate, or piece of fortification slightly reduces that mood because soldiers and walls simply please the subjects less than a nice fountain. This is a necessary evil; you need defense, so you have to compensate for these losses with something.
PO is raised by decorations and ornamental buildings. Build statues, trees, flower beds, pavements, anything decorative that you come across. Each such piece adds a bit of satisfaction, but they differ from each other like night and day, so pay attention to the positive value of each decoration, not just how it looks. Large event decorations and seasonal pieces (Christmas, from rankings, from various events) contribute significantly more to PO than an ordinary little tree, so save those and prioritize building them. It's worth having enough decorations with a large positive value scattered around the castle to cover both taxes and military buildings while still leaving a reserve. Ornamental decorations with a high bonus to PO are more valuable in the long run than a few extra resources.
How to reasonably set taxes
You adjust taxes using the slider in the castle menu, and they are your main source of coins from the subjects as well as the biggest drain on PO at the same time. Here’s a simple rule: set taxes as high as your PO allows you to stay in the positive with a reserve. If your castle is filled with decorations and PO gives you a nice cushion, feel free to pull the slider up and collect more gold. If PO is low or in the negative, lower the taxes until satisfaction returns to the positive.
The most common mistake beginners make is leaving the slider firmly at maximum and wondering why production is lagging. The second mistake is the opposite, having taxes almost lowered out of fear, which causes you to miss out on a lot of gold that you could comfortably handle. Find that level where you have PO in a solid positive and taxes as high as possible while maintaining that reserve. You want that reserve so you can build up defense or add a few more barracks at any time without immediately dropping into the negative and having to rush to fix production.
Also, remember that you can set taxes differently on various castles. The main castle, where your main production is located, can be taxed differently than a distant castle that mainly serves as a military base. Go through the castles individually and adjust the taxes for each according to its current PO.
Practical strategy for keeping PO in the positive
The procedure that works is simple. First, set up your defense and military buildings as you really need them; this is your basic negative for PO. Then, place enough decorations in the castle to cover this negative and still leave you with a cushion. Only then should you raise taxes as high as that cushion allows, and watch if PO stays in the positive.
Whenever you add a new barracks, tower, or piece of wall, check PO. If it drops too low, either add decorations or temporarily lower taxes. Before you acquire a large defensive building, check if you have any decorations in stock to balance it out, so you’re not caught off guard.
Treat decorations with a high bonus to PO as treasures. When you get a choice of rewards from an event, it’s often more advantageous to take a quality decoration than a handful of resources because that decoration will raise satisfaction (and thus production and the possibility of higher taxes) in the long term. And don’t forget that you don’t just check PO once. Whenever you change something in the castle, take a look to see if your balance is still intact.
Back to Systemy.