Yeah great catch. So I mentioned this in the README but much of the mechanics were heavily inspired by jhhoward's MicroCity. This is the same way he calculated taxes and I figured to test it out to see how it worked in game. I really liked the flow of how his game played and seems like there are some pros/cons to that inbalance.
Pros:
- Makes residential population more valuable for taxes, which helps early‑game cash flow.
- Encourages zoning residential since it has outsized budget impact.
- Offsets the fact that residential growth can be more constrained by pollution/unemployment.
Cons:
- Skews the economy away from industrial/commercial impact.
- Makes budget feel inconsistent with “total population.”
- Can mask balance issues by injecting extra money, making difficulty tuning harder.
Comments
Yeah great catch. So I mentioned this in the README but much of the mechanics were heavily inspired by jhhoward's MicroCity. This is the same way he calculated taxes and I figured to test it out to see how it worked in game. I really liked the flow of how his game played and seems like there are some pros/cons to that inbalance.
Pros: - Makes residential population more valuable for taxes, which helps early‑game cash flow. - Encourages zoning residential since it has outsized budget impact. - Offsets the fact that residential growth can be more constrained by pollution/unemployment.
Cons: - Skews the economy away from industrial/commercial impact. - Makes budget feel inconsistent with “total population.” - Can mask balance issues by injecting extra money, making difficulty tuning harder.