Gaea management strategy

I've been talking to Waterspout for a while about more actively managing the Gaea palace, and I've been keeping an eye on the cashflow related to governing Gaea for the past few weeks. We are losing about 7k/week from upkeep on the palace and Explorers' Hall after our tax proceeds from the shops/stalls on the island. (an oddity as an aside: we pay over 10k in taxes on the EH but then get our 1k or so back as proceeds.) I'd like to work to be tax revenue neutral and to start making money from dockside trades from the palace.

Tax revenue can be raised either through increasing the tax rate, or working to broaden the tax base. I think both should be on the table, but most of the gains should be through growth. I'd like to reach out to the merchants on the island and see what we can do for them. Essentially, this means posting the link to this forum section in the news of the various baazars, and watching for when merchants are online to ask them what if any dialoge they want with us. (I'm thinking I'll hearty anyone who wants it and leave anyone who doesn't want to be bothered be.)

Before we make an effort to get folks looking here, we should either make the events section require login or we should move the discussion related to the blockade to a section that does. Currently people don't need to be logged in to see discussion of our defensive readiness.

Vari wrote:I've been talking to Waterspout for a while about more actively managing the Gaea palace, and I've been keeping an eye on the cashflow related to governing Gaea for the past few weeks. We are losing about 7k/week from upkeep on the palace and Explorers' Hall after our tax proceeds from the shops/stalls on the island. (an oddity as an aside: we pay over 10k in taxes on the EH but then get our 1k or so back as proceeds.) I'd like to work to be tax revenue neutral and to start making money from dockside trades from the palace.

Tax revenue can be raised either through increasing the tax rate, or working to broaden the tax base. I think both should be on the table, but most of the gains should be through growth. I'd like to reach out to the merchants on the island and see what we can do for them. Essentially, this means posting the link to this forum section in the news of the various baazars, and watching for when merchants are online to ask them what if any dialoge they want with us. (I'm thinking I'll hearty anyone who wants it and leave anyone who doesn't want to be bothered be.)

I agree, we should not be losing money on Gaea, it should be paying for it's upkeep. Raising taxes to support EH is reasonable.

What shopkeepers asked me for, when I talked to them, was that basic commodes be available. I would run a MB from Spring to Gaea, pretty regularly, and sell to shops that had buy offers up, that would turn me a profit on the run. I would not sell commodes at a price lower than i paid, +1, at least.

Another strategy to broaden the base, may be to do more vikings, and other expos. As this is the seal for this month, it would be a good time to popularize these. Vikings in particular are a great type of voyage for new officers, and allows many pirates to get experience gunning, who otherwise might not get the opportunity. Getting more expos running out of Gaea, would be a great asset to the island, and shopkeepers.

Vari wrote:Before we make an effort to get folks looking here, we should either make the events section require login or we should move the discussion related to the blockade to a section that does. Currently people don't need to be logged in to see discussion of our defensive readiness.

I moved these threads to blockade committee. These discussions might be best in FO Mess, then archived in Blockade.