Politician Archive
Thread: City Structure Maintenance Costs
First, I would ask that someone post here the weekly maintenance costs for all city structures. Please include the weekly City Hall maintenance costs at City Levels I thru V. FYI, City Hall fee at Outpost (L I) is 35,000 cr/wk. If you trained Fiscal Policy I and registered your Level II "Village", you are now paying 60,000 + 5,000 cr/wk.
The numbers I have seen for cloning center maintenance, bank maintenance, and shuttleport maintenance are just unbelieveable. I haven't seen anything on the maintenance required for decorations such as gardens or fountains, but I understand they are equally high.
Plinka, if you read this: There is no way that a city can support these maintenance costs. Even with citizen tax maxed at 2K cr/wk, and a 25% property tax, cities simply will not be able to afford these things without players making huge contributions to the city treasury. At the current rates, there is no way that city services will ever be self-supporting.
Many mayors are (mistakenly, IMO) counting on vendor sales taxes to make up the difference. From what I've seen, the demographic seems to be pointing to the fact that merchants are going to be staying away from cities with sales taxes in droves, just to stay competitive. Cities just don't offer anything to artisans and crafters that is worth the cost.
Merchants are, by definition, capitalists. We are not going to subsidize a city and it's infrastructure out of the goodness of our hearts. The combat classes gain much from cities with all the services. Among these are shuttleports, cloning centers, med centers, cantinas, mission terminals and skill trainers. Merchants gain very little. Shuttleport access is nice, but you can actually get to someone's vendor more quickly if they simply set up shop just outside the no-build zone of a starport-equipped Dev city.
The experimentation and assembly bonuses are just not attractive enough to move artisans and their operations into the city. Thus, vendor sales tax income to the city is going to be minimal. What will probably happen is that artisans will declare residency in a city with these bonuses, create their schematics there, and then do their manufacturing and sales elsewhere (where they don't have to pay property and sales taxes).
As the system is set up now, what Mayors are essentially doing by instituting sales taxes is requiring Merchants to subsidize the city and all it's services at the expense of their business and their customers. And that just isn't going to happen. TANSTAAFL, folks...There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch 
Any thoughts on this, politicians?
Speaking as a politican/Mayor and master merchant, I actually like the system as it is. (Although a rumored 1,000/week for a street-lamp seems a bit much!)
These ammenities are not cheap for a reason. I disagree with the initial caps that nullified the hard work of a lot of people, but fees like these will ensure thatcities with a real interest inorganization and growth will be able to while the posers will not be able to sustain acity or metropolis. This lends itself to large-scale team play, andpolitician probably isn't for the very casual player - unless they have a lot of support. Granted, we started with 550,000 in the city treasury, but that was part of the planning. Now let's look at why I don't think our city will have any trouble paying these fees.
So far, the few vendors we've dropped (we haven't moved our whole retail operation yet, waiting on shuttleport) haven't caused any un-necessary anguish. We have a simple 5% sales tax in place, so for the city to earn 100,000 cr in maintenance, the vendors only need to sell 2,000,000 cr worth of goods. When customers notice this, it's merely a curiosity. 5% is really nothing to them. (There will always be those that take great offense to a merchant doing so much as breathing in the presence of their precious, coveted credits, but I'm discounting the opinions of those rare few for now.) With a city population of 44 already, just keeping resources and goods flowing for the residents is already nearly there. (Holy COW do you realise what Player Cities has done to the Furniture market?? 
) Decay fits into this as well, as more and more goods are going to need replaced on a somewhat regular basis. Sure, it's slow-going now, but in several weeks when all the new toys are old and people get back to some serious fighting and dieing, the marketplace will take another step toward stability as old things wear out and new ones need to be purchased.
As for turning merchants off...hardly. This is where playing the Politician class comes into effect. Do you really want to be a politician? Do you want to take the time to negotiate with some very high end Merchants by offering them perhaps a house, a prime location (next to the future shuttleport), guarantees of limiting competitive vendors, or other things for relocating to your city? The very good merchants will do this, because associating with a destination (like your city with a soon to be shuttleport) will grant a tremendous advantage over being just another vendor among hundreds outside of Coronet or Bestine. Play the politician, attract commerce, work the angles. This is how to ensure the success of your city, regardless of the fees.
yes.. cities need to be expensive.. 
our city is donation base.. we have fix 2k/week income tax and 1% sale.. that will cover our expenses a bit.. but we need more players.. (we have 250k in the treasury to start)
city maint is 25k times level of city +10k (that is base)
plus any other stuff you add
Here is the best source I have seen. But it is not 100% accurate. I think they changed some things from test center to live. I know mission terminals are 1500 not 1000.
I agree with everyone else who has posted. Things need to be expensive. You are going to have to make some tough decisions. Only the strongest will survive.
My tax structure is currently set up 500 income, 5% structure 2% sales. We should run a surplus till I add a city specialization or some gardens. I don't know what figures you are seeing but 25k for shuttleport and 10k for cloning center are cheap. I was expecting over 100k for each.
I'm not a politician...I'm a businessman. I and my clients are the people you seem to think are going to move into your city and support it with sales taxes.
I can't speak for all, but none of my clients is going to move into any city with a sales tax, and certainly no city without a shuttleport. I have one client who sells composite for 350K/set, and has over 100 sets on order. However, he's not the only armorsmith on the server who can make it. His competitors can keep their shop 800 meters outside a Dev city where it can not only be reached faster, but doesn't have to explain to customers about that extra 18K they are paying to support a city.
You may very well get "knick knack" vendors who sell single stacks of stims or some clothes to set up in your city. You may even have guildies who will sacrifice market share and profits just out of a sense of obligation. But the financial models of cities as it stands means that your visions of having the artisan class support all of the "cool" stuff in your city are not going to be realized, imho.
Your city just does not offer anything to high-volume, high-end merchants to attract them. On the contrary, there are several very good reasons for merchants NOT to move into cities.
My biggest problem as a mayor on one of the new EU servers is that there's alot more money on the old servers (messed up economies and all) to put into these so-called moneysinks than on the new ones 
I fear the next upgrade to level 3, I hate telling people we can't have this and that decoration/building because we can't afford it yet.
Taxes aren't very high (1k weekly + 25% property tax, no sales tax) but I can't demand much more from my citizens atm, most of them are struggling to get money for training or grinding materials.
Sure it will be better in the future when our characters get further, but it's a rough start
Couldn't help but reply to this post. Your analysis of cities and their economics couldn't be more wrong.
First, Sales Tax is not the only tax. There is Citizen Tax, Housing Tax, Shuttle Fees and Cloning fees. Taxes and fees are shared by everyone, including visitors, not just vendors.
Second, who says Sales Tax needs to be set at 5% - it can be 1%, making your 350,000 armor sale addjust 3500 cred to the purchase price. This is not unreasonable considering what a full-fledged city can offer.
Third, what does a city offer? How about 50 - 100+ citizens all purchasing from the stores located in their city? How about those same citizens telling others about the merchants located in their city? How about convenient Shuttle access? Who needs to run 800m to your store when they can catch a shuttle to mine and run 90m after that? (and if you live here, no Shuttle needed) Oh, and don't worry about any nasty critters popping up near our stores or making some treacherous run to get here. Doesn't happen in a player city but it sure does 800m outside of town!
Hey, and when you're in my city, why don't you check out all these other vendors? Why don't you run some missions while you're here? Or adventure one the Points of Interest our city was built near? Or get some training? You can clone here too. And when you die? Well, go heal up in our cantina and medical center and maybe purchase some new Stims from one of our fine vendors?
And if you like it enough, put up a house and stay.
None of that includes the actual gaming experience of living in a city (not on the outskirts of some other city) and helping a city grow. How many Master WS, AS, etc. would love to call a city their own and brand their goods from an actual city, not just X meters outside of NPC city Y?
Sorry, but Player Cities take the commercial aspect of the game to a new, fun and yes, profitable, level. Good vendors are going to have a hard time keep their wares in stock, not worrying about getting customers.
Degasai wrote:
I can't speak for all, but none of my clients is going to move into any city with a sales tax, and certainly no city without a shuttleport. I have one client who sells composite for 350K/set, and has over 100 sets on order. However, he's not the only armorsmith on the server who can make it. His competitors can keep their shop 800 meters outside a Dev city where it can not only be reached faster, but doesn't have to explain to customers about that extra 18K they are paying to support a city.
Well, I don't really need to refute Degasai's entire post, because TiredofRunning did it better than I could. But I've got to include this. Even if the 350k set of composite is reduced in price to offset the taxes, the vendor 90 meters from the shuttleport will sell 5 sets while the guy 800m out may sell one. All other things being equal, shoppers go for convenience every time. In fact, a vast majority of shoppers actually pay for convenience.
Beware your arrogant tone also, Degasai. Presuming to speak for your customers is a dangerous mistake. The customer is fickle, and will better deal you in a heartbeat.
well, 80k / week for a mediccenter isnt cheap if my doc can heal me the same with a medic droid outside!