Is the Corruption Level to High?

[Akaoz]

A lot of people seem to have some problems with the level of corruption in Civ3, myself included. But I have also seen many a post defending it. So who is the majority?

-Alech

PS: Never made a Poll before, hope I get it right...

[Alex 14]

From my past Civ experiance, building heaps of courthouses and using a democracy should minimize corruption.

[Akaoz]

It’s not that easy anymore. Courthouses don’t do much and Democracy is laden with corruption.

-Alech

[Moral Hazard]

I don't think corruption is too high for any variable but distance from the capital. I think that should be lowered with out a doubt. (Colonizing is virtually impossible)

[VetteroX]

Corruption is WAY too high. Maybe a city should be able to get to 6 with zero or very low currution... like small place, low crime. Then when it gets past 6, the corruption will be really bad if you dont have a courthouse or capital nearby. The problem is with the corruption as bad as it is, building large empires is very difficult, you need to rush buy a courthouse which STILL doesnt help too much, and costs like 640 gold, gold which you have a hard time getting because the corruption is so bad.

[morb]

I have a problem with it. the courhouses don't even make a dent in corruption at all. In Civ2 they would at least return a few pennies into the coffers after being built instead of being an extra item to spend upkeep on. They are useless. What bugs me the most is shield waste. That level of waste is just absurd.

Even the forbidden palace doesn't make up for this.

[Cougz]

Originally posted by VetteroX
Maybe a city should be able to get to 6 with zero or very low currution... like small place, low crime.

Terrific idea , when a place is small, there isn't much going on, corruption should not be so full on. Perhaps it should follow an algorithym where it goes up with city size, distance from capital, versus down if certain improvements are built.

[Pyrodrew]

Reaching corruption is like walking up to a cliff... once you take the step past that line you're history! BAM 99% corruption & NOTHING you can do about it. As others have mentioned, Courthouses, ForbiddenPalace, & Democracy do nothing compared to the extreme power Distance Corruption has. And the smaller the map the worse it gets... makes me want to try a 255x255 map.

I hate seeing land I know I can NEVER have simply because the distance is too far from my capital. And relocating the capital not only takes shields (which at 1shield/turn takes a LOOOONG time), but means I must LOSE all my 1st cities I built if ocean seperates the 2 areas.

What bugs me the most is shield waste. That level of waste is just absurd.

Agreed! I wouldn't mind as much if the cities were robbing me blind of science & gold, but with the waste sooo bad it makes too distant cities *worthless*.

Don't get me wrong, I love most other aspects about the game but this area definitely needs to be fixed.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I agree, corruption is crippling, but I'd rather have some way to fight it than change the distance formula. Maybe a different building or a specialist? Hmm...I kinda like the specialist idea, now that I think about it. Maybe each citizen you make a corruption specialist (cop? constable?) reduces corruption by x%?

[civmonger]

In the first game i played -to the end- the biggest problem i had was when i est cities on the second continent on my huge map. I was in a democracy but only one shield was available to build anything, talk about a drain on my money! I was surrounded by culturally superior civs cause it was two of my rivals home continent so I had to rush culture buildings. At least I was at peace with them. It would be nice if major corruption didnt start until a city was say 7 and there were more city improvements to curb corruption like a prison or a small wonder like Supreme Court or Internal Affairs. Just a thought.

[mrbilll]

1. how about a maximum cap on corruption? No matter how far flung your empire, they're either yours, in which case they're supposed to be on your side- or they're conquests, which means you BEAT them, and they're now under your heel. Even if it were capped at say, 80% corruption max (improving with better governments), you'd always get SOMETHING out of a city, even though they're still stealing you blind.

2. As has been said already, more options to CONTROL corruption. Past a certain point, you're hosed. this is not a challenge, it is a flaw. If I had to work harder to control corruption, I'd do it. Larger garrisons, police stations, culture bringing corruption down- I liked the idea of a "constable" specialist. As it is, the only things that matter are distance from Capitol and number of cities. As corruption stoppers, Courthouses and the Forbidden Palace are pathetic.

***ATTENTION FIRAXIS, AND APOLYTON HARDLINERS***

We are not newbies who can't handle complexity, and we are not just lazily trying to play Civ II over again. We're trying to point out a genuine gameplay issue that must be addressed if Civ III is going to have the legs that Civ ii had.

[Earthling7]

Corruption is a fact of life. Get used to it.

I am playing the Americans. I discovered a medium sized continent, as far away from America as possible. It was uninhabited. I sent my ships loaded with settlers and workers and founded 6-7 cities. Corruption was a major headache, but if you think about it, the capital being on the other side of the world, it makes sense.

I rush built courthouses, which helped a tiny bit, but then I built a harbour in one city, having connected them with roads. This, allowing them to receive the luxuries my old country did, helped in getting corruption down a bit, and now I'm building the Forbiddeen Palace. It's going to work out fine.

Just learn to play the game!

[mrbilll]

Don't care how you slice it, near 100% corruption is ridiculous, unless you have anarchy or rebellion. Even in societies where corruption is rampant, such as modern day Russia, they manage to get SOME things done.

By Civ III logic, places like Scotland and California would lose 90% of their productivity to corruption, simply because of the distance to their respective capitols. Since we have courts, laws and police, this is obviously not the case. Sure, CivIII is an abstraction of real civilization, but there should at least be a logical comparison between the two.

Reread my post. My suggestions are perfectly reasonable, and they could be optional, too, to keep the masochists happy. relearn the ropes- fine. Figure out new ways to deal with challenges- great. All I'm saying is give us more options, instead of shoehorning us in to one or two highly restricted strategies.

[Yaga]

Corruption and such

Some ideas from a post on another thread, which are similar to those posted above:

-- Settlers are, one would think, can-do people selected from your citizens at the core of your empire who're looking to go far a field and stake a new claim. They, and their first or second generation decendants, will bend over backwards to found their new settlement, and while they may be looking to gain some profit from it (gold corruption) they're looking to build and improve their settlement (shield production) and impress the folks at home (science production) but will have little time to devote to intelectual persuits as they're working the land so hard. This mentality should be reflected in the game; high fiscal *corruption*, medium to low science *production* and low sheild *corruption.* Considering that Mobilization limits what you can and cannot build in your cities and modifies your shield production, there should be some way to affect similar effects for those cities not contiguous with the borders centered around your palace.

-- A Minor Wonder, call it "Manifest Destiny," or somesuch, which reduces corruption for "town" sized cities overall.

-- Some way to cull resources from your core empire to your far flung colonies. After all, you're probably getting something in return, and there should be a way to invest in them beyond sending over workers.

-- A cheap improvement, like a "Town Sherriff's Office" which reduces corruption significantly, but vanishes a la City Walls or becomes less effective after the town reaches a certain size (3? 4?)

-- "Expansionist" Civs should have lower corruption-over-distance algorithms then non-Expansionist Civs. I'm surprised this isn't already part of the game.

-- An Industial Age improvement which is more effective in reducing corruption than the Courthouse, just as Cathedrals are improved Temples.

-- Police Stations should also have an effect on reducing corruption.
--

[old dog]

In general, I think it works well as it is. Corruuption certainly makes expansion more interesting and more real feeling.

I suppose a slight tweak is possible, though, in one area: The Forbidden City works well, but it seems odd that a civ has this option in only one direction. Maybe the tweak is to allow other forbidden cities or something similar (very high cost) so that, once you have expansion to the far east, expansion to the far west is not a losing proposition.

As the game stands, the British Empire is impossible.

I would be sorry, though, if the extreme corruption were made at all easy to eliminate.