Farm and Tax [iPad]

This game came from two simple questions. Why there are different kinds of tax? How tax influence the life of individuals?

I do not have answers, so I made a game, as an experiment, try to simulate it. In this game, I put a few farmers in the middle of nowhere. They will cultivate and farm their lands, start their family, and build wealth. When they are rich, they will take breaks, rent their lands to others, or buy goods to improve their lives. They would even choose becoming a craftsman if there are strong demands in their neighborhood. When life gets more difficult, they will move to a new area for better opportunities. If they lost everything and become hopeless, they will become rebels, robbing money from your government.

You, the player, is the leader of your people. You can decide how to collect tax, recruit guards and workers, and build different large infrastructures.

At any time, you can pause your game and view the life of any person. You can see how your tax policies and decisions affect their lives. Here are some examples: Tom was a farmer who had a little land and saving. After you ordered him working on infrastructures for several years, he might run out of saving, had to sell his farm and work on other's farms. Joe was a young adult who just got independent. His father did not give him any farm. Joe could not find a job or a land to cultivate. But because your tax is low, everyone around him had some extra money to spend. Joe might decide to spend a few years learning craftsmanship as an apprentice. After he graduated, Joe served his community with his skills and lived a wealthy life. Jimmy bought and cultivated a lot of farms when you had a low farm tax. When you increased the farm tax later, he could not afford the tax and chose to sell them at a much lower price to his neighbors.

To me, this game is interesting because every number you change (or not change) has impacts on someone's life, opens some new options, or closes some doors.

The game will be over if all your people died, your goverment run out of money, or the leader died without an heir. You have to start a new game when the game is over. You can try carefully adjusting your tax, keep everything in balance, and build a kingdom that last thousands of years. Or you can be creative with your policies, do all kinds of experiments on this simulated land. The decision is yours.

I wish you have a fun time playing this game.