Demands

Periodically, the Claws or the Pirates will demand something from your colony, rarely on the same day.

The Claw send a tax ship every few days during Spring, Summer, and Fall. Their arrival is not consistent and you may have short or long spans before their arrival. You will get a minimum of a three day warning before they arrive to collect any taxes accrued and owed. The Claw will not collect taxes during the cold winter and their last tax ship will arrive on or before the last day of Autumn. They will return in the first few days of Spring to collect your entire Winter tax bill.

Pirates approach for a ransom demand more infrequently throughout the year. You are not warned about their arrival, but you can click on the Dock to see what ships and in which order will arrive over the next three days - revealing if you will be facing any upcoming pirate demands.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are new game setting that change the frequency of ship arrivals and other factors. Your experiences may vary if you chose settings outside of the default.

Taxes

Taxes accrue every single evening based on a variety factors including a population tax, industry tax, and supply ship charges. Your end of day report will list your current tax bill along with any changes due to your actions.

As your colony grows, The Claw effectively will increase your taxes and increase the taxes you will owe on supply shipments. You can only refuse a few shipments before The Claw will force you to pay with cannonballs instead.

You may not avoid all taxes, but you can choose to pay on a spectrum of partial payment to overpayment. Partial payments may grant you some temporary relief but can incur bombardment from The Claw if your diplomatic relations fall too low. If you are bombarded, you will have your tax debt forgiven, but you will have to pay the costs to rebuild your lost structures.

If you at least successfully pay your taxes, The Claw will reward you. How much of a reward you receive is based on what payment threshold you reach. There are three tiers with increasing rewards both in quantity and rarity. For example, if you're in need of more machinery parts, the 2nd tier will usually reward you significantly more than at Tier 1. You can also sometimes find blueprints available to complete research, but you cannot rely on these rewards to complete all of your research. The Claw are generous only to the point of keeping you working.

The Tier 1 reward is for paying 100% of your taxes, Tier 2 is for paying 125% of your taxes, and Tier 3 is for paying 175% of your taxes. You cannot pay more than this.

The Claw do not have a vested interest in seeing you progress and want your Whiskers doing hard labor. This is reflected in the goods they accept for payment. With the exception of gold bullion, they accept only "raw" products like ores, logs, fish and berries. Sell what you must to stay alive but iron ore and cotton are usually good options to pay the tax bill.

Whisker Cheese: Rebellious Whiskers can avoid some taxes by just letting the timer run out on the tax ship or hiding all of their buildings underground to avoid bombardment. The Claw may become wise to these tactics so use at your own discretion.

Pirates

Pirates make a single demand that is usually less than your usual tax bill. It will grow with each visit just as your colony grows in size.

You can partially pay the pirate demands but anything less than full payment will result in cannonballs being fired at your colony. You can see the number of cannonballs you will receive above the payment button. Each one will equate to a randomly destroyed building that they can reach with their cannons. Destroyed buildings will need to be repaired at the full cost of their construction.

Aside from gold, Pirates demand materials that The Claw does not trade in. This can be particularly helpful in paying both demands back to back. The Pirates also only demand a small selection of materials, so it is best to learn their demands and stockpile accordingly. Remember, gold is their favorite and gold bullion will satiate their demands quickly.

Smuggler

The Smuggler does not make any demands of you but can help you pay your pending tax bills or pirate demands. Accepting a wide variety if Whisker manufactured goods from meals to clothing, you can sell surplus material in exchange for gold bullion. Gold bullion is accepted by both the Pirates and The Claw at the highest exchange rate. Be aware that the Smuggler is still profiting off you in demanding more in exchange than the gold bullion will sell to the others. Most of these items cannot otherwise be sold, so this is the only way you can receive trade value for them.

You must sell a minimum of goods to reach each gold bullion, often hundreds of coins in value each. Be aware that you can "overpay" for the next bullion, so be careful not to give the Smuggler free goods. Each Smuggler will have a maximum number of gold bullion to sell; although, you are unlikely to buy them all for quite awhile.

The Smuggler will show up a few times per season, but like The Claw, will not visit during the Winter. If you're really lucky, they will arrive right before the tax ship or pirates. Like the Pirates, you can check for their arrival at the Dock.

Coins

This is the currency used during trades with The Claw, Pirates, and Smuggler. They represent the value of the goods for which you are parting. You may not keep surplus coins, so only exchange the goods you need to sell.

The value of goods is currently the same between traders, but it does not mean everyone will accept those goods. In-game tool tips about resources will reveal their tax value, but not the value for others. For example, Cut Stone is moderately valuable when sold to the Smuggler but will show as "no tax value" via the in game tool tip.

Additionally, when the game prompts you about taxes owed and the amount in storage, it will only be summarizing the tax value of goods in storage. You may have far more "value" when factoring what you could sell to the Smuggler.