Forbidden Palace - catch 22

[Yossarian]

Originally posted by Jared
Also, what construction do you force with the leader? My experience has been that even having a courthouse in the corrupt city helps only very marginally.

Forbidden Palace.

BTW great thread title

[Robert]

Ray K,
you're not worth my reply if you can't even read what I'm writing.
have fun playing the game !
I'm sorry that it's too hard for you !

[Tim Ward]

Isn't it a little early to be calling corruption problems a bug? It could just be because you're all rubbish you know. When I first started playing CivII I would /always/ start running out of gold and my cities would always start revolting late ancient or early renaissance.

I wasn't doing anything wrong in particular and, has everyone who can traverse acient and renaissance without ****ing up totally will attest, it isn't a bug or an inbalance.

I was just rubbish. It's probably the same here. No offence.

[Faboba]

Whine whine whine!

This isn't a BUG! It's a challenge ffs!

You just can't cheat your way round this and so are procliaming it an error. If it's too much for you, you can change the corruption rates per gov in the editor ( according to the screen shot ) so......

[Spatzimaus]

Originally posted by Jared
Not to sound like an idiot...but what's the easiest way to develop your first leader?

Also, what construction do you force with the leader? My experience has been that even having a courthouse in the corrupt city helps only very marginally.

For the first one: fight a lot. I know, it sounds dumb, but with a 1 in 16 chance of Elite units creating a Leader, you need to go through five or six enemy cities before you'll get one. I've gone through entire games only getting two or three Leaders. Note that Barracks start you off at Veteran, which will improve your odds drastically of getting Leaders fast.

Yossarian nailed the second one: build the Forbidden Palace. Suddenly, almost zero corruption in that city and it helps the nearby ones too. I didn't even think they COULD rush anything other than Wonders.

[Faboba]

Also you're cities experience higher corruption if they are unhappy. Increase the luxury rate, build some temples, trade for luxuries whatever. But make your citizens happier and corruption and waste will decrease.

[SerapisIV]

Being that I don't have the game yet (due in the mail yesterday ), but don't like the sounds of this problem and would like to enjoy large games... Here's a couple questions for those with the game:

1. Can someone check the editor for possible changes that can be made?

2. If you have spies, can you inspect a similar border-type AI city and see if they are undergoing the same problem as the player's border cities, or is this info unavailable?

3. Is it possible to raise or lower the corruption rating of different gov't types in the editor?

4. Are there ANY kind of corruption controls in the editor?

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Spatzimaus
Yossarian nailed the second one: build the Forbidden Palace. Suddenly, almost zero corruption in that city and it helps the nearby ones too. I didn't even think they COULD rush anything other than Wonders.

Can the player still rebuild/move the capital or rebuild/move the Forbidden Palace?

[HawaiiFive-O]

Serapis, I think the problems some players are having are due to their playing styles.

I'm one of those "peaceful builder" types, and corruption, while troubling, is not the major problem they are making it out to be.

I've got about 20 cities in a Democracy on a large map, and none of them have corruption over 25%. I've had to move my palace to a more central location. I have yet to build the Forbidden Palace. I think having a lot cultural buildings helps with corruption, as those are the first things I build.

Warmongering is much more difficult in Civ3. While that may frustrate some players, it fits my style to a tee.

[albiedamned]

Corruption is not a bug, it is a feature. Everyone that is whining about it in this thread needs to quit complaining and learn some new techniques. Just because you were a good Civ2 player does not mean you will be good at Civ3 your first game.

Build roads everywhere. Connect all your luxuries to your road network and trade your excess for other luxury types. Obviously improve your government type. Build your culture. Keep your citizens happy. Build courthouses and the Forbidden Palace. All these things help with corruption, but none of them is a "silver bullet" that completely solves your corruption problem. I think people want to just build a courthouse and assume the problem will be solved. Well it's not that simple and that is by design, not a bug.

I am running a Republic around 1300AD (I'm about to enter the Industrial Age) on Warlord (level 2). Corruption is a problem for me, but not nearly as devestating as others are experiencing. I generate about 600 total commerce and lose about 100 to corruption. Most of that is in my outlying cities that I captured from another civ. I'm working on the Forbidden Palace in one of those cities now. I have trade agreements bringing in luxuries in addition to the ones already in my territory, and I have temples and libraries everywhere and cathedrals almost everywhere. My most distant cities have courthouses.

So bottom line: it is possible to deal with the corruption, but you have to put some effort into it instead of just whining that it's a bug.

[mattcj]

Ding!! Ok... so when's round 5 of the Cyber Shy - Ray K fight? This is the best fight I've seen since the Tyson - Holyfield ear biting incident. Man, you guys are hysterical . Keep up the entertaining posts.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by albiedamned
Corruption is not a bug, it is a feature. Everyone that is whining about it in this thread needs to quit complaining and learn some new techniques. Just because you were a good Civ2 player does not mean you will be good at Civ3 your first game.

Very true. I'm with you so far.

Build roads everywhere.

check.

Connect all your luxuries to your road network and trade your excess for other luxury types.

check.

Obviously improve your government type.

check.

Build your culture.

Hard to do when your border city is getting only one shield per turn. If the culture of your surrounding cities affects this, then that means I'll have to wait an 20+ turns between building cities (the est. time to build a temple in an adjoining city). That's definitely a major slowdown from Civ1 and Civ2.

Keep your citizens happy.

Build courthouses and the Forbidden Palace.

LOL! Notice the "catch-22" portion of this thread's header. I'd LOVE to build those improvements.

All these things help with corruption, but none of them is a "silver bullet" that completely solves your corruption problem. I think people want to just build a courthouse and assume the problem will be solved. Well it's not that simple and that is by design, not a bug.

Well, for starters, unless you are one of the designers you have no clue whether it is by design or a bug. You may be defending something that crept into the game at the last minute. All I know is that the corruption is much worse in Civ3 than Civ2. That's a fact, whether you want to call it 'whining' or not. I'd like to know if this was intentionally designed into the game, or if it is just unintentionally a lot worse on the smaller maps.

Secondly, other posters have stated that the corruption bug is worse on smaller maps. I'm getting killed on a tiny map with just 7-8 cities, luxuries, theRepublic and building wonders in my capital. I'd build a courthouse or a temple in the new cities, but they only get one shield per turn no matter how many squares they work.

I am running a Republic around 1300AD (I'm about to enter the Industrial Age) on Warlord (level 2). Corruption is a problem for me, but not nearly as devestating as others are experiencing. I generate about 600 total commerce and lose about 100 to corruption. Most of that is in my outlying cities that I captured from another civ. I'm working on the Forbidden Palace in one of those cities now. I have trade agreements bringing in luxuries in addition to the ones already in my territory, and I have temples and libraries everywhere and cathedrals almost everywhere. My most distant cities have courthouses.

So bottom line: it is possible to deal with the corruption, but you have to put some effort into it instead of just whining that it's a bug.

Good for you. Now do it on a Tiny map where you aren't given the luxury of 10-15 good cities as a production base before corruption kicks in.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by mattcj
Ding!! Ok... so when's round 5 of the Cyber Shy - Ray K fight? This is the best fight I've seen since the Tyson - Holyfield ear biting incident. Man, you guys are hysterical . Keep up the entertaining posts.

glad I could help

Maybe we should start a thread going into detail on strategies for MOO3.

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by Ray K
Good for you. Now do it on a Tiny map where you aren't given the luxury of 10-15 good cities as a production base before corruption kicks in.

I am playing on a standard map with 8 civs (the default settings). I was only able to build a base of 5 or so cities before I a) ran into big time corruption problems, and b) ran into other civs. So I stopped my initial expansion and consolidated. The corruption problem eased up considerably as I expanded my culture and happiness. My next expansion occurred not through founding new cities, but by conquering a few cities and assimilating a few others. The conquered cities started out with big corruption problems, but they eased up as the resistors disappeared and my nearby original cities expanded their influence. The cities I got by assimilation never had much of a corruption problem to begin with.

I don't claim to understand the inner workings of the game, so I can't give you a formula for everything that affects corruption. All I can say is that the game I am playing proves it is possible to deal with corruption.

And for the last time, it is not a bug! As a software developer myself, I can tell you that a bug is when something either crashes or doesn't work as it is supposed to. This is not a bug, it is a feature. It may be that you don't like this feature, but just because you don't like it doesn't make it a bug. Personally, I consider it a new challenge and I look forward to continuing to experiment with new techniques for dealing with it. When was the last time we had to come up with new techniques in Civ2?

[Tnylr]

For those that aren't having a problem with corruption, just wait until reach the maximum number of cities that your goverment can support (modified by map size and 'Commercial' trait.) For Democracy on a Standard map, that number is <30. I have my Palace and Forbidden Palace keeping about 20 cities working and the remaining 10 are pretty useless. These useless cities have courthouses, 'Love the King', are connected by railroad to both Palaces, are size 10+, and have ~100 culture. So I don't think there's anything else I can do (still have to try Communism actually.)

If this is a feature, then the game is designed so that you can only get production and science out of 1/4 of the world. Anything else you own is just population. Bug/Feature aside this is a big blow on my desire to rule the entire world- which is how I like playing the game. It's not about a strategy to 'win' the game, it's about the fun of building my people into a world spanning advanced culture.


Someone asked about the editor:
You can change relative level of corruption for each government- from 'minimal' (Democracy) to 'catastrophic' (Anarchy.) That seems to be it for goverment tweaks.

The only way I see to improve things using the editor is to give more Small Wonders the 'Reduces Corruption' flag that the Forbidden Palace has or see if you can give additional improvements the "Center of Empire" flag that the Palace has, without breaking something. You could give move buildings the Courthouse 'reduces corruption' flag, but courthouses really aren't that helpful.

*edit Also, I don't know what the civ bonus "Commercial" does- it supposedly helps corruption. In my example about, I am not a commerical culture.