Was FP Corruption Bug fixed?

[Fishman2]

Having tried V1.12 with a previous game and with a new game I regret to conclude that the FP / corruption issue is not fixed to my satisfaction.


My findings:-

Pre patch - adding FP increases the corruption to main core cities around the palace.
FP does however provide a half reasonable 2nd core.
FP WORTH HAVING.

Post patch - adding FP doesn't noticably increase corruption to main core but FP 2nd core is crap.

Yes perhaps 1 extra usable shield in the cities near to the FP - frankly not worth the effort of building the FP.
FP NOT WORTH HAVING.

REALLY, REALLY, DISAPOINTED......

[Alex]

Posted by Jesse Smith at CivFanatics:

Save Games - You can continue your save games. However, the problem is the save includes the corruptionandwaste for each city so when you load it thats where it continues the calculation. As your progress through turns the calculation will take affect.


It should be noted that Forbidden Palaces are not supposed to 'eliminate' corruption in the home city. They just 'reduce corruption' and act 'like a 2nd palace'. A city that has a Forbidden Palace will not be corrupt-free. However, combinations of good trade ways, city placement, government choice, local military forces, and other buildings can reduce your corruption to a minimal amount.

Also, this 'minimal corruption' is amplified when playing on higher difficulty levels.

Either we were doing great "combinations" before or the FP was originally broken in Civ3 and PTW.

[Harovan]

Seems this effect is intended for AI's sake (who almost never builds a good FP) and there's no need to demand a change. Corruption has been lowered by increasing the OCN values. Additionally, there are new ways to fight corruption by using specialists, the effect of which has been vastly improved. Scientists and taxmen have increased output, civil engineers provide corruption-free shields and police officers reduce corruption in cities where it's necessary. Irrigation is the key in completely corrupt cities. Maximize food, and with the big surplus feed corruption-free specialists. There's a big difference between 1 shield + 1 commerce, and, say, 5 shields, 4 taxes and 6 science, made by irrigation-fed specialists.

[Sarxis]

What does he mean by 'good tradeways'? And larger garrisons reduce corruption?

And maybe it really was broken in CIVanilla/PTW. Or at least overpowered?

[Kuciwalker]

Still, it's broken. It doesn't act like a "second palace".

[ducki]

Maybe he meant to say "secondary", not "second".

That would suggest not being equal.

I have to say I'm disappointed. I miss the old FP, and if it was broken all along, it seems a bit late to "fix" it.

If it wasn't broken, but has been adjusted to help fix corruption, it doesn't seem like a "good" fix.

Either way, I rarely _depended_ on the second core, but it sure will be missed.

[dexters]

I haven't tested if they changed this, but ore v.1.12 officers almost always add at most 1 corrupt shield and 1 corrupt commerce back into non-corruption when used. This is in a moderately corrupt city. In really corrupt cities, they have no effect. We'd almost always be better off using other specialists (taxman, civil engineer), giving either 2 tax or 2 shields in any city you use them. I feel officers need to be tweaked to make them more useful. There should be a diminishing returns algorithm where officers are more powerful on really corrupt cities and gets decreasingly so closer to your capital.

I personally prefer to have a second core, but the argument that this was changed for the AI's sake is a convincing argument. Still, I find corruption to be higher.

I loaded up my PTW game and the differences were starling. In v 1,12 c3c I'm running 20% plus of corruption to total income (not including wall street and foreign trade income) under democracy.

[Kuciwalker]

Why not just fix the AI so it knows how to place the FP

[dexters]

LOL. love your avatar Skywaler. tank v spear eh?


Fixing the AI? We'd be lucky if they fix any number of stuff in Alexman's wishlist of things to be fixed and better palace placement isn't on the list. But yes, preferably a smarter AI is better.

[Xorbon]

If this was a democracy I'd vote in favour of returning to PTW corruption. It seems to be a little late in the game's development to be playing around with the corruption system. Maybe they should wait for Civ 4 when they can completely overhaul the system.

[Kuciwalker]

LOL. love your avatar Skywaler. tank v spear eh?

Thanks

[Cerbykins]

If they want to wipe out my FP advantage, then I want the AI to take responsiblity for wrecking my trade deals, and a few of it's other cheap little tricks. Having someone declare war and cut off my seaway is NOT my fault. Any human would understand and GLADLY accept compensation. Instead of which, my trading is ruined for all of history (in THAT game anyway ) and the AI reaps the reward???

Oh well, guess I won't be making it to Sid level after all...
I'll still get further than I'm at now...just not ALL the way
And the most bizarre thing of all this...in only a few weeks I've gone from FP-dependent, to it not even being on the build list (small lie, I'm giving it to a small island this time around...but otherwise, it's (edit - SEEMINGLY ) worthless!

Actually, THERE'S an idea - time to play more 80% water archipelago maps

I'm probably OT by now

[dexters]

I'm hoping someone from Firaxis (Mike?) who is I'm sure on their holidays right now can spend maybe 5 minutes to explain the rationale for the way FP works right now.

It seems like they went way over their head trying to fix the RCP exploit with C3C and now, everyone is stuck with a fix to the initial fix that appears to be hated ( or at least disliked) by a large part of the community.

Nathan makes strong points in favour of a second core, and on the other hand, I can see how a weaker FP can remove the human advantage of good FP placement.

Speaking frankly however, part of the fun with Civ games is having large empires and the FP's second core plays a large part in this. If FP is weakened, will large empires be even worth having other than to shoot for a domination victory where a few core cities carry the entire civ?

On top of this, I don't think they've modified the 'police officer's' corruption fighting powers. Yeah, nice that we get 1 shield and 1 commerce in moderately corrupt cities. Try using them in really corrupt cities (1 good shield cities) and you won't get anything-- but these are where police officers are most needed, not the cores. Totally counterintuitive, and very underwehlming and useless as a specialist.

P.S. - Was the Secret police HQ working after switching out of communism fixed?

[Wittlich]

Originally posted by dexters
P.S. - Was the Secret police HQ working after switching out of communism fixed?

Ah, no. The Secret Police headqaurters (SPH) can ONLY be built when you are a Communist Government. AND the SPH is only active if you are a communist government.


So if you build the SPH and then swich to another government (can you say democracy? ) the SPH will not work nor have any effect on your civ.

[dexters]

oh. never even built it yet. I had heard, i believe this was in the bugs thread, that when you are in communism and build the SPH and then switch out of it, the SPH effect remains in the unpatched version.