Aristocrats

[havoc873]

Is it just me or are aristocrats hardly worth the effort to maintain within the borders of your nation?

I know they give a pop-sized production bonus on certain RGO's (fish, grain, cattle and something else), but I don't find this bonus significant enough to keep them around. As far as I am aware, all rich POPs gain their income according to the following formula;
base_income = 4.0 * poor_base_income * ( pop_size / 100,000 )
and
income = base_income + export_income

So is the assumption true that if your nation has a large population of aristocrats that it influences (slows down the rate) the income accumulation of your capitalists? It seems that if I play a European nation without aristocrats (Germany, France, Russia and Austria are the only ones I tried this with) and a healthy amount of capitalist, my economy seems to develop at a faster rate than usual. Also, the early game cash gain of taxing them to death is quite nice.

 

[unmerged(210804)]

Aristocrats are almost entirely worthless. They give a tiny bonus to RGOs and research, but otherwise, they don't do anything except accumulate tons of money that could be more efficiently spent by the industrial elite : RGOs are not very profitable, the research bonus is more sensible when given by Clerks, and most importantly, Aristocrats do not spend money on anything that directly benefits you, contrarily to what Capitalists do, you don't benefit from it except if you have very high tarriffs and you can't get this money back without taxing them to 100%. Because the end revenue of each pop is affected by the total population,aristocrats are effectively a dead weight on your economy.

Your growth will be quicker and healthier without aristocrats because the total export revenue affected to the higher class will not be divided between capitalists and aristocrats but will be entirely devoted to the capitalists who will accumulate faster and thus create more railways and factories.

The final word is : aristocrats are worthless. The only problem you may encounter when demoting them is that this might affect your officers and capitalists, also higher class POPs, who will be affected by a 100% taxation on the rich.

 

[havoc873]

As I suspected. Thanks for the information.