Is the Corruption Level to High?

[Zurai001]

Originally posted by accela


I agree that colonies suffered corruption to some degree, but they were still productive. In the current system, it is completely impossible for Britain to colonize the Americas and get anything worthwhile out of it. In history however, the colonies were expensive, but they were also productive.

They were productive, yes, but not neccesarily for the British Empire. A LOT of what the colonies produced never left their soil. Because of the distance to Britain, there would be months that would go by without seeing anyone official. THat created a vacuum that led to a lot of corruption.

[Sevorak]

Zurai001,

A lot of what any city produces never leaves its soil, just because it either can't or shouldn't. But I disagree about them not being productive for the British empire - English mercantilism from 1600-1700 or so (don't remember exactly) depended on, as one of its legs, transfer of goods from the Thirteen Colonies to Britain. Most historians will tell you that this was significantly profitable.

Just a historical note - I don't feel strongly about the corruption either way. Would be nice to see a courthouse actually do something though.

-Sev

[Grifman]

Well, given the severe limitations due to corruption, the only real option seems to be to raze captured cities and replace them with newly founded cities. I'm playing on a large map, and corruption is killing me after taking over the Romans. I can see corruption affecting money generation, but shields is too much. I can't build anything, they're hardly worth owning as they are now. I can get more out of a new city than I can out of a conquered one.

Grifman

[Yaga]

bump

[Trachmyr]

Like I've suggested in other threads, I think the best soultion to the corruption/waste problem is to put a Maximum Cap on corruption based upon it's government type (which should be a seperate field in the editor)... say 90% for anarchy, 80% for despotism, 70% for communism/monarchy, 60% for republic, 50% for democracy provided the city is "connected". Also, allow police stations to reduce corruption as courthouses do.

[Fugi the Great]

Corruption is way too high, just like pollution was way too high in CTP2. It now seems quite pointless to liberate your enemy's citys and win by conquest, since adding those cities actually makes the problem worse. Democracies are supposed to have "minimal" corruption, I guess I didn't know that "minimal" meant 95% corruption. Communism is supposed to have "communal" or equal everywhere, but here too I don't see it.

[Bakunine]

Originally posted by player3
Look, I'm not saying that the corruption system as it stands isn't frustrating at times. But the way I understand it is that Firaxis wanted to give some incentive to more peaceful means of playing the game (after all, it IS called 'civilzation' and not 'barbarism.')

Well they suggest that to deal with curruption when we go in long military campaigns we just raze city after city!

See the last faq in www.civ3.com.

[Malthis]

control corruption through police stations

Corruption stinks.... but unlike most who want a flat reduction in corruption levels, I say kill two birds with one stone. Police Stations are useless, unless you're at war and unless you're a republic/democracy (even then they are weak solutions). Now, when I go Democratic, it's cause I don't want war anyway, and If I am Communist and go to War, what use are the Police Stations? ZERO.
This is a glaring misrepresentation of what Police Stations actually do (In real life) which is reduce crime, aka Corruption. Don't get me wrong, I like that it combats war weariness (even though I fail to see the real life connection), but to solve the imbalance in corruption levels that everyone is mentioning, let's whip Police Stations into what they should be, AN EXTENSION OF COURTHOUSES

[Akaoz]

*bump*

[player1]

I have an idea.
Lets Police Stations in Communism, Monarchy & Despotism reduce corruption (but not in Dem./Rep.)

This thing could make those governments more balanced compared to MIGHTY DEMOCRACY.

[Daetrin]

Originally posted by player3
Look, I'm not saying that the corruption system as it stands isn't frustrating at times. But the way I understand it is that Firaxis wanted to give some incentive to more peaceful means of playing the game (after all, it IS called 'civilzation' and not 'barbarism.') It has a three-fold purpose 1) make world-wide conquests a less attractive option 2) effectively limit the number of cities you can control to keep micromanagment in check 3) model the historical difficulty in managing a far-flung empire. I would not object to a reduction in corruption levels, but I also reject the notion that the system as it stands make the game unplayable (which is flat untrue)

Great in theory, however this level of corruption is keeping me from even _peacefully_ expanding. I have an empire that goes from the west coast to the east coast of the continent I'm on. Cities that I founded myself in the north east corner have 99% corruption. My capital is in the center of the continent, i'm in Democracy, the cities are connected and have courthouses and are in we love the king mode. It just doesn't make any sense. America could never have been formed under these conditions.

[Daetrin]

Originally posted by Zurai001


They were productive, yes, but not neccesarily for the British Empire. A LOT of what the colonies produced never left their soil. Because of the distance to Britain, there would be months that would go by without seeing anyone official. THat created a vacuum that led to a lot of corruption.

First, that explains the corruption level in my empire when i was in the early industrial age. How about now when my entire continent is crisscrossed by railroads and i've got airports all over the place?

Secondly, if the commerce and production never left the soil of my "corrupt" cities, then why do I still need to pay maintenance on the city improvements there? London certainly never shipped chests of gold over to the American colonies to pay upkeep for the things that were built here. The reason most of the stuff produced in America stayed in America was because it was being used for support and of and further development of the infrastructure.

Certainly getting rid of the shields makes no sense, the colonists were perfectly able to develop their own infrastructure with their own production. Getting rid of the commerce only makes sense if some percentage of the ammount lost to waste is applied to the upkeep that i need to pay for the city.

[player3]

I've had games where city's were far enough away to have 80% corruption, even with courthouses, democracy, and optimally-placed capitals. In those outlying cities, I found that the best use for them is NOT to build infrastructure, but rather use them as a 'breeding ground' for workers to build infrastructure and speed the growth of other cities. The nice thing about the corruption model in civ3 is that it doesn't affect food production, no matter how far away you are. So you can keep cranking out those workers (rush-build if you have to; they're cheap) and use those corrupt cities to boost your population.

The point is; civ3's corruption model does NOT cripple the game. It merely deters world conquest and forces the player to build infrastructure. The way civ2 was modeled, it was almost pointless to build infrastructure because you could build power through conquest much more easily. Civ3 changes that through corruption penalties.

[mathgoulet]

the solution...?

I've heard that firaxis will look at the corruption problem in incoming patches...

But up to now, the solution is to build a medium empire with courthouses and Forbidden palace. When your border cities are at 99% corrupted, stop expanding and build colonies to get resources. If you conquer a foreign city outside your palace radius, burn them to the ground . Of course, you can only use a republic/democratic government.

The corruption is a problem when you try to build a gigantic empire. You try to conquer as much as land you can, trying to limit the expansion of AI civs (which are expanding like crazy). Well that's it!

[player1]

I think that corruption & waste levels for distant cities with WE LOVE THE KING DAY, are OK.
Corruption is still high, but you can extract enought prodution from it (since WLTKD lowers only waste)

SO I PROPOSE:
Let's waste corruption be reduced, so cities without WLTKD have waste same as now they have with WLTKD.
Also new WLTKD should reduce both corruption (new effect) & production (lower then now effect).