Orritey, then! Here's the deal!


I've been playing Morrowind forever... since it came out really... and I've been playing with mods for something like a decade now... but never once have I -produced- one and released it to the public. Why? Because, as a perfectionist and a procrastinator, I could get bogged down for eons trying to get everything to a point where I feel it is 'fit for release'. Well, no more! The truth of the matter is, I've been making mods (albeit not very good ones) for myself for years. I know how to do dialogue. I can design buildings. I can create NPC's and properly clothe them.

What I can't do is script... or make a quest... even if my life depended on it.

That's why I've brought my idea here. Where it can be seen... and where those with an interest in seeing it realized can offer helpful insights and valuable assistance which I would otherwise be without. I don't expect much out of anyone, really. I'm not even certain if there will be anyone other than me interested in this buggering idea. I've seen a couple of people who have tried to make mods involving taxes before. They were not quite up to my standards... or rather... what I -wanted- out of a taxation mod.

So before I waste more of your time blathering on... allow me to introduce to you my project:

________________________________
--- Census and Excise: Dues to Pay ---
________________________________


The Goal: To create a fully functional and 'role-player friendly' Office of Census and Excise... adding an oft-absent aspect of realism to the world of Morrowind. The duties of the Office of Census and Excise are to keep accurate statistics on the population of their jurisdiction, to keep track of and inspect imports and exports to and from their jurisdiction, the confiscation of and processing of illegal contraband, and the collection of taxes as mandated by Imperial Law.


Phase One: --- Developing the Office of Census and Excise ---


In vanilla Morrowind, the Office of Census and Excise is all of two small buildings (one predominantly a warehouse), constructed upon the edge of a dock which becomes entirely empty following the completion of the player's arrival. The function of the Office of Census and Excise is entirely limited to the character generation process and one small quest, in which a tax collector goes missing. After this, it plays almost no role in the game whatsoever. I believe there is a possible quest to deal with the female Census and Excise agent on the upper floor of the warehouse... but otherwise the Office is largely useless.

This must change.

The first phase of my development of this mod will be the expansion of the Office of Census and Excise. One office in a far-flung region of Vvardenfell is not anywhere near sufficient to handle the amount of civilization which exists upon the island. Furthermore, the almost non-existent staff of the Office makes it impossible for them to be taken seriously. Therefore, these issues will be addressed as follows.

1.) The Office of Census and Excise -faction- will be updated... the ranks will be re-evaluated and re-designed... and it's structure brought more in line with player-joined factions. The idea behind this being that, eventually, this mod may support the player actually becoming a member, him/herself.

2.) The Office of Census and Excise shall be expanded. Fully-staffed offices (with later quest potential, assuming there is an interest) will be constructed throughout the major cities of Morrowind (I believe that Mournhold Expanded even places one there, within the city... though I could be mistaken as I have not played that mod in quite some time) in order to better represent the presence of Imperial authority. Ebonheart will be my first targeted 'expansion' site, what with the heavy presence of shipping and the East Empire Trading Company's office there.

3.) The staff of the Census and Excise Office is abysmal! There are literally only -three- members in all of Morrowind! No more! Using the revised 'faction' ranks, a more realistically-staffed organization will be created. Tax Collectors will (hopefully... I'm getting better at creating pathing and the like) travel along their routes, collecting taxes, during certain times of the month. Census officers will travel about through their jurisdiction, taking a headcount of the population. The offices themselves will be staffed with men and women performing the various roles which such a government institution requires. Some of them might even be secretly pilfering the Imperial Coffers...

Once these three things have been accomplished, Phase Two of the development process begins.

Phase two will be heavily focused upon scripting (and possibly quest-making). As that is the part with which I will have the most difficulty... I intend to focus upon the development of the Office and it's personnel first. Phase two will be posted once I have made significant progress or perhaps have completed phase one. If you're interested... stay tuned.

This sounds awesome. ^_^
Mind you, I do have a reputation for being massively pro-imperial, though.

I'll be keeping an eye on this...
(Finally, those obstinate Dunmer will pay their dues to the Emperor, like a proper citizen!)

Well! I'm glad I've gotten at least one person's opinion!


As of this moment, I've restructured the Office of Census and Excise as follows:


'Clerk'
'Supervisory Clerk'
'Census Agent'
'Tax Collector'
'Tax Agent'
'Customs Agent'
'Customs Supervisor'
'Auditor'
'Director'
'Regional Director'

Now, this isn't the final iteration... I just wanted to see what kinds of 'job titles' I wanted within the hierarchy of the Office. I'll keep playing around with it as I continue to work on the project... taking into account any advice you fine folks out there might provide.

In other news: Seyda Neen's Census and Excise Office is being expanded to include a basemant!

This basemant will be made up of four rooms:

The Archives: A number of shelves and wooden boxes make up the entirety of this room's contents... save for a clerk or two. Records of past tax transactions, historical census information, customs reports, and other various documents will fill these boxes and shelves. Each Census and Excise Office will have one of these rooms. There may or may not be quest significance, depending upon whether or not the Census and Excise faction becomes joinable.

Middle Office: This is a medium-sized office with a table, chair, and two opposite chairs for visitors. Bookshelves, containers, and anything other furnishings will be added to taste. The most important thing in this room will be the Customs Supervisor for Seyda Neen. He will be a quest-giver type character, should the 'faction join' option work out.

The other two rooms will be smaller offices, one which is shared between the clerks who work in the record room... and another which can be used as the player's if he becomes a member of the Census and Excise office.


Anyways, I'm going to get back to work. Once I'm finished here, I have to find some available space in Ebonheart.

Thanks to anyone who answered in the polls... and double-thanks to Gaius Atrius for the supportive reply! ^_^

Joining the Census and Excise would be great for those who love to roleplay and perfect for any character that isnt into adventuring. There could be some corruption in the C&E, like taxmen demanding way over the amount and pocketing the rest. You could either ignore it, join in or put a stop to it.

This is almost exactly how I feel about it, too! Which makes me happy.

The idea of making a faction whose primary quest line is more bureaucratic and legal than 'go here, kill that, collect reward' really appeals to me. Plus, I'm a role-player... so my level 45 'Auditor' would have a blast traveling to Vivec, hunting down 'Joe Blow Dunmer-guy', and politely inform him that the Imperial Office of Census and Excise is auditing him. Oh! And then when he declines... the Imperial Guards on either side of me will kindly inform him that we're not really -asking-.

That'd be fun... yessiree.


For now, though!


--- Current Progress ---


The Seyda Neen Office is coming along nicely. I haven't really changed anything on the upper floor of the place. All I did was add a second doorway at the end of the hall which led to the bedroll and the kegs and that in the little room with the cobwebs and baskets and whatever. That doorway leads to stairs... which lead down into the basemant, which is where the real additions to Seyda Neen are being made. I'm just working on getting the floor-plan done, at the moment... then I'm going to clutter it up a bit with furniture and the like. Decorations will be the last thing I do before I create a couple of NPC's to 'live' in the place and move on to Ebonheart. I don't foresee this taking too godawfully long.

I'll just keep posting updates on my progress as I go. Might even get a couple screenshots up once there's something to see!

Blanket tax on you all the time.

Base tax on how much property you owe, etc. Strongholds...

It would be kind of impossible to tax an adventurer since they have no fixed place of residence, and by the time you have a stronghold, you're powerful enough to just incinerate any taxmen who storll in.

I think it's a really good concept. I believe the C&E already has a rank system, though, but I suppose conflicts can be minimized with care. I'm not a big fan of basemants in low-lying coastal areas. It's much more likely if expansion is necessary, it would be done laterally, not down due to flooding and not up due to storms.

I'm looking forward to watching this develop.

Not Quite a Situation Update:



Since I'm busy working on the layout of both the Ebonheart branch of the Census and Excise Office as well as the one in Seyda Neen... I've decided to take a break from the action and ask you guys for your opinion. Here's the deal.


I just re-installed Morrowind again last night. For the last couple of weeks, I've been trying my best to get Morrowind to load with all the mods I wanted... but it just wasn't having any of it. When I tried to determine what the problem was... well... it decided that it didn't want to load. Even -without- mods. So... I blew away my entire directory and reinstalled. Now I'm working with nothing but Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon, and a couple of texture replacers (Vurt and SWG for my skies and landscape, mostly) and Better Books active. That's it.

Beyond that, I've never used many '[City Name Here] Expanded' mods. Mournhold and Ald Redaynia(sp) would be the exceptions.

Neither of those two places are getting a Census and Excise office.

However: Ebonheart, Balmora, Caldera, Ald Ruhn, and Vivec (whose office will be shared with 'temple' tax collectors)... these places all very likely will.

In the spirit of making this mod accessable to the largest majority, if you are interested in my mod and have another mod which alters any of these places... or if you have a place which, due to a mod, has become large enough to -warrant- having a Census and Excise office there... please, post me a link here.

(Anyone able to tell me where exactly the screenshots I take end up? Either in the CS or in game... I'd like to have some available for once there's more to show. Thanks!)

--- [edit] ---

@ Elaura: You bring up a valid point... one which I normally agree with... when it comes to basemants.

The problem here is two-fold. First, I have the issue of other mods which 'alter' or 'expand' the layout of Seyda Neen. Adding a basemant to the building (one which isn't terribly deep either) seemed like a more user-friendly means of keeping conflicts to a minimum. Especially since I have no idea of what mods put what where.

The second issue is (and it plays into the first, as well), without doing a great deal of creative landscaping and building rennovation... Seyda Neen is a bit constrained for space. When I consider that other mods put a good deal of things -in- that space... I find myself beginning to worry about how to expand the offices outwards without creating navigation issues, landscape incompatibilities, and the Nine only know what else.

I do understand where you come from, though. I found myself cringing at the idea, as well, at first. I merely couldn't come up with a more agreeable solution. There is already a 'lower' level down there. Not quite what you'd call a basemant. Still, if a better solution can be found, I wouldn't write off the possibility of doing away with the 'clerical dungeon' and instead expanding the upper-level office-space.

We shall see! I just wanted to make sure I addressed your concerns on that part.

As for the ranking structure... all I've done so far is rename the ranks. I took a second look, and it turned out that the original faction's setup wasn't very different from a player-joined faction at all. I may play around with the requirements a bit... but right now, the player still can't join it... so I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

--- [end edit] ---

Have you thought about opening up a brand new C&E office elsewhere? It seems to me there would be several regional offices. This would eliminate the worry of conflicts with other mods and give you a whole lot more space. I truly doubt Seyda Neen is a particularly important location to the Empire, since the whole premise of dropping off the PC there is that your place in the grand plan is to be kept secret. It seems more important simply because that's where you start out, but so many people have changed the character setup and start location, I think you'd be okay putting the headquarters in Ebonheart, Pelagiad, or any other Imperial town.

No wonder Dagoth Ur was keen to drive those tax grubbing Imperials out of the land - its bad enough having CTD's in Morrowind and now you want to introduce tax?

It's an interesting concept but not one I would enjoy playing

All the best with getting it off the ground though

Aha! So there we have the miscommunication then!


Seyda Neen is, in the grand scheme of things, relatively unimportant to the Empire's tax efforts. It's a podunk little wart on the Southern side of an otherwise hideous island. But... it -does- already have a Census and Excise office there. As well as a warehouse. Which means that it really ought to have some staff, a records room... that sort of thing. Seyda Neen is a -far- cry from the Headquarters of the Census and Excise office. It's just a small office, which the player gets to know through the vanilla chargen, that I feet needs to be brought in line with my vision for the rest of the Census and Excise offices I will be constructing.

The actual 'Regional Office' for Vvardenfell is going to be in Ebonheart. If I can find a good place for it. Le sigh...

As for the basemant... I think I'll take another look at the upper floor of the office. Maybe I can procure enough space for the records room, so that I can just put a couple of offices in a small basemant for the clerks to work out of. Nobody cares if they get flooded, anyways! ^__^

I know quite well about wrestling with issues of town-mod compatibility...
I wound up making my Balmora house-mod Agent's Solitude "interior-only" for just that reason.
If it were up to me... I'd say to "build upward".

It would probably be alright to simply add a second-floor area to the office, and further connect it to the warehouse.
This could provide you with more office space, and would keep any exterior changes up off the ground, where they won't have conflicts.
Speaking of conflicts, please make sure that it doesn't conflict with Necessities of Morrowind.
(That mod affects the office, and is very popular... I should know, I use it myself.)

Regardless, extending the cellar/basemant would also be a good idea.

I have NoM 3.0 on my computer... but I haven't actually played with it active yet (because, as I said, I couldn't actually get the game to START. It kept giving me some 'expression error' about cdc Companion Teleport Script blah blah)

What does NoM change within the office? I'll do my best to refrain from breaking it in any way.

As for building upwards... that's an option I hadn't even begun to consider yet. I think I may just look into that. Thanks for the idea!

I see. Sorry, I wasn't paying close enough attention. I think I get it now and your ideas are great! A records room is an excellent Idea. Let's see, in all the small-town government buildings I've been in, the records are kept in a small, dusty room with no windows . . . usually in the basemant or the attic, because all but the most current records are kept on hand. I would say you could just add a door to such a place in the wall behind the chargen table and the shelves by the fireplace. I don't know of any mods which alter that particular spot. Alternatively, older records might be stored in a nearby cave; this method has been used for thousands of years here on earth and if it hadn't been, we wouldn't have much written archaeological finds on medium less substantial than stone or clay.

I think Living Cities of Vvardenfell adds a basemant coming off of the downstairs room with the bedroll. It's in the right-hand wall as you step through the existing door. It also adds some living quarters to the warehouse, but I don't recall what NoM does to the Office other than changing the Bedroll and Barrels in the downstairs.

After reading this... I just had an idea for one of the Seyda Neen quests!

Records are often lost throughout history. It's a fact of life. We try our best to keep important government and personal documents somewhere where they won't get lost... and then a fire burns the whole place to the ground. In this case, however... the records are in the dusty basemant of the Census and Excise Office. One freak rainstorm... and that basemant could be under four feet of water!

Homan... I can see it all now...

Anyways, I'm going to get back to work on finalizing the Seyda Neen office. I've narrowed Ebonheart down to about five possible locations. I'll make another post once I've decided where to put it!

I think this is a great idea!

I voted 'random' for how much tax you pay. It's impossible to work out at the best of times in real life :unsure: , and who knows how much money the Emperor needs at any one time.

What happens if you haven't got enough gold to pay? Do you have to hand over/sell some of your belongings to meet the bill? What happens if you still don't have enough?

Do you think adventurers would escape the need to pay tax? I think not! I'm sure the Empire would find a way of taxing potentially high-earning adventurers. They wouldn't let a little thing like not owning a home stand in their way. If you don't have a home, you have to register with your 'local' tax office - which you could change if you go adventuring on the other side of the island. Then, when tax is due, you have to go to the tax office and pay it. If you don't, or are late, you become liable for fines or other punishment. Run up a big enough bill and they will come after you! When you register, you get papers listing your designated tax office and when you last paid your tax. You have to show this to a tax collector if you meet one on your travels to prove you are up to date with your tax. Possibly you could get false papers from someone, but how good a forgery are they? Would you be found out?

I love the idea of doing bureaucratic quests as a member of C&E. Finding lost files, answering letters of complaint, taking censuses, collecting contraband for shipping to the mainland, levying duties... heh!

Blurgh.. Taxes. Its a good idea, although, I'm no fan of the Imperials myself. Wait, you say that we could steal from the tax coffers?

I think I'll have a new way to supply my stronghold's resources.. Heheh.. Anyway, I think you should make the taxes random. Although, I think the tax rate should be higher or lower depending on the city you are in. Also, make the Census and Excise office a faction. One last thing, make it so that you can rid the armed thieves of the C&E out of Vvardenfel, I just love removing Imperial presence out my game, although I will make deals with them if I have to.

I'm glad to see you're enthusiastic about the idea!

I'm actually rather pleased to see that a good deal of folks are enthusiastic about the idea! It is my hope that, if I can manage to get enough people interested, maybe one of them will know how to write a script... or make a quest... and then I can offer them up some of my bajillion ideas, and maybe they can make something playable out of it. So far, though, the thing that has me feeling the most inspired is all the helpful remarks from you folks. It makes it much easier to keep slogging through the less-than-perfect process that is design.

I haven't quite narrowed down the position of the office in Ebonheart yet. I keep looking at the place... and really, no matter how I set up the office's exterior... I don't like it. I don't like the way it looks pressed up against the walls... I don't like it when I try to make it a part of the fortress walls themselves... I definitely didn't like it as a 'free-standing' building outside the city proper. There's just something that rubs me the wrong way about that whole city, though. I can't quite put my finger on it...

Anyways! That's my little -mini update- for now.

I've got to get back to moving this building around in a disapproving way.

sounds like a great idea

I'd suggest just post topics as you go asking how to write a particular script. When someone helps out with the script, be sure to include their name in your readme. That's what I've been doing with PE. Morovir helped me with a few scripts, for example.

How 'bout if you don't pay taxes:

Guards won't come to your aid when you get attacked (they already don't for NPCs - maybe that could be changed);
therefore bandits/cutthroats/whatever are randomly spawned in the city and make an attempt on you since it's not strictly illegal;
Cost of travelling via Silt Riders increased, as the Empire refuses to subsidize transportation services for defaulting tax payers;
Small disposition decrease across the board + high disposition decrease for guards.

Adventurers that have wealth that exceeds a certain threshold are taxed progressively and on the other hand, receive additional benefits, such as:
Free Silt Rider services;
Personal protection by guards upon request (maybe only guards weaker than the normal ones, say level 9, who will follow you);
Slightly higher disposition across the board;
FABULOUS PRIZES!!!

you know what I mean?

So, I was busy plodding along, finalizing the layout of the Seyda Neen Census and Excise Office's Basemant, when suddenly I noticed that there are seams in the floor. They're not particularly big or anything, really... they're just like cracks which you can see through into the gray-white null space area... and they make me angry. No matter what I try, I can't seem to do away with them. Everything -looks- like it lines up right. I've been using a snap to grid setting of 32 for ages.


Alluvasudden I'm getting this problem again?

It's a pain... and one more time-consuming problem to deal with... but I'll get it sorted soon enough.

Anyways, the layout has been decided upon. There is going to be one main room with shelves and the like where files are stored... and then two offices for the filing clerks behind that room. A potential quest will involve the entire area getting flooded, what with being so close to the shore and all. It should be a very believable setup.

That's my situation update for this afternoon. I'll be in and out while I work to see what people have to say!


--- [ EDIT ] ---


Resolved this problem easily enough. Now the basemant is looking pretty good.


For those of you who have been reading this and wondering how I intend to handle things like people not paying their taxes... I fully intend to perhaps add another question to my Poll, or perhaps just pose it to you folks straight out... when the time comes. I want to make this mod as enjoyable and as -believable- as is possible.

That means that, ultimately, if you don't pay your taxes for long enough... you're going to get arrested.

Getting arrested is a whole lot more entertaining if you have Antares' mods, too! So go check those out.


--- Other Things Worthy of Note ---


Tax Collectors! Yes, I mentioned those before... but some of you anti-Imperials out there may have made note of them. They will collect money. They will travel with armed escorts (following the Seyda Neen collector's murder mystery scene).

They will be prime targets for all you kiddos who play bandits... Anti-Imperials... thieves... and other such ruffian scum!

Fun fun! Enjoy!

Very interesting idea, makes the game a bit more imersive.
As for an office in Ebonheart, why not directly to the left of the Six Fishes(while facing its building) putting a door with a building right before those steps there on the wall?

How about instead of just having to pay taxes, you can go on missions instead. So basically you do service to the emperor as payment. Or perhaps you could give weapons and armor as a due, instead of just gold.

As for how stuff is collected, I would think some regions would pay higher taxes then others. There is no easy way to say what an adventurer makes. Perhaps have a lower rate for actually going directly to the office and paying, but if a tax collecter catches you "out in the field" so to say, they take a percentage of what you have on you. Killing a collector should cause more heavily armed escorts to happen in that area.
Another interesting thought, perhaps there is a chance that if attacked, the person will run for help and if they make it far enough away from you or into a city, they report you. Would add an interesting aspect of: should I really target these people and risk someone getting away to report me? Especially if there is a chance that the collector could be carrying a divine intervention scroll.(heh)
Another thing is that I think that mabe there are certain areas that collectors avoid for whatever reason. Another interesting thought which is probably a little too indepth, why not have an entire town rebel against taxes and therefore the empire? but perhaps thats for another mod.
Also perhaps once you get to a certain rank in the Guard, you pay reduced or no taxes. Perhaps you could also not have to pay taxes if you fulfill the prophecy or become someone of suitable rank, like the head of a house or something.

I think property taxes should definitely be levied after the player builds a stronghold. There might be a simple way to make a patch to include mod-added homes. I think IndyBank absolutely screams for property taxes.

Your ideas are definitely interesting ones, and I greatly enjoy seeing all of the suggestions people keep submitting!

I fully intend to come back to these ideas once the first phase is completed, read through the ideas offered up by you folks, and pick the ones I like best for inclusion into the overall functionality of this mod. So keep 'em coming, guys!




IndyBank has a lot of things I like about it... and a lot of things I don't. I haven't gotten to play around with it more than a short while... (because after that, my mods began mysteriously conflicting with everything and I ended up completely re-installing Morrowind to get myself back to a blank slate) but I definitely like the -idea- of it. I kinda wish someone would take another stab at a morrowind banking system. One which was actively updated, based on the imput from the community.

I don't think the IndyBank mod has been updated in ages, has it?

Oh! And as for property taxes and the like upon completion of strongholds... I really like that idea. I don't think it's the first time it's been brought up, either. But that's definitely going on the list of really smart ideas.

Other tax ideas may include: 'Guild Taxes' paid by players who become the leader of any of the Imperially accepted guilds (Fighters... Mages... Woodworkers? lol. Whatever) in order for them to remain 'licensed'? Tax 'credits' for certain services provided to the Empire (a la becoming Nereverine/Hortator)?

I donno. There's a lot to work with, there. Once I get to that point, and find someone to help me out with the scripting part of things, we'll see how much we can cram into this 'little' mod.


--- Evening Update ---


So far... so good! Seyda Neen's basemant offices are now completely laid out (and sans-seams, thank the Nine).

Now I'm busy cluttering them up and making them feel 'occupied'. The final stage will be the creation of characters Jrord the Dim and Audrielle DeMurre... the clerks for this office... and the documents which I shall be placing -in- the office.

A quick survey!

Would you rather me put -realistic- documents into the records rooms... things like mock-up tax reports, census data, etc... or should I take a cue from Bethesda and make most of the documents things like [This appears to be an officially-stamped tax report dated 4th of Morning Star, 3E 427] kind of deal?

I'm more than willing to take the extra time and make some 'real' documents up.

It's all a matter of whether you guys would -appreciate- me taking that time. If nobody really cares... I'm content to do it the easy way, too.