Has anybody found a use for the Courthouse?

[Frito]

I don't think that temple, cathedral, aqeduct, and granarys matter to currupion. If you have courthouse, factory, marketplace, bank, and library you should have a fine city...unless the city is on the other side of the world...

[Rasbelin]

In Civ II the courthouse could really become usefull, but now it's more like one of those buildings that are not a must-have. Apparently the current corruption mode sucks so much that the courthouse is therefore is a secondary enchancement. Looks like the guys at Firaxis really have to reconstruct the corruption scheme. I haven't built a courthouse in all of my cities, because its current cost-income ballance is bad or at least not the best possible. But this is of course just my opinion.

[Jack_www]

I have one idea on how to make corruption better in Civ3, please tell me what you think of it. In history their are many examples of large spralling empires that had lots of corruption. One reason for this was the fact that it took long peroids of time to travel to the most distance parts of the empire and communication also took a long time as well. Thus having high corruption levels in the early game I think is a good idea since it reflects history. Of course today one can travel anywere in the world in one day. Also ccommunictaion with anyone on the earth is instanous now. Thus as a result I think that with the discovery of certain techs that corruption levels should be decreased for the reasons I have just stated. One example is when you discover radio that the corruption levels in all your cities be decreased by increasing the range of your capital city has on decreasinf corruption in all your cities.

[Lugh]

25% is SOOO stinky!! I don't mind that corruption seems to be more rampant in this game than in civ2, I don't mind changing strategies (I quite enjoy it actually), but when the tool we have for offsetting this corruption doesn't work for sh*t, what do we do?

The problem is worst in new little cities. I don't mind less $ and science and production in big cities that can make do, but taking 50 turns (what's that usually, 500-2,000 years?) just to install a barracks and spearman in my new province is simply annoying. Courthouses are supposed to help, dammit!

Maybe they should be adjusted: reduce corruption by 50%, or else make it a flat value. Ie. it could give a fledgling town 3 units of production/commerce free of corruption, and the corruption would kick in afterwards. OR, (getting creative here) make it scalable like unit support for monarchies: 3 corruption-free units of production and commerce for towns, 6 for cities, and 9 for metropolises. This itself could scale by government: 2/size level for despotism, 3 for monarchy/republic, and 4 for democracy/communism. This way you could still PLAY THE GAME with your little new towns, without ruling out corruption as an overall game consideration.

Okay, rant's over. Thanks for listening, I'll be here all week.

[Dis]

they worked for me

they knocked off a few coins of corruption. that is enough to pay for itself and more.

[star mouse]

According to the CIV3 site, one way of reducing corruption in distant cities is to connect it to the capital via a trade route. Don't know if it works tho.

Also, number of cities affects corruption. This is probably a method to combat ICS.

Here's how I would do corruption:

* Code of Laws
Courthouse improvement that reduces corruption by 25%

* Corporation + 10 courthouses
Gives access to Supreme Court small wonder that doubles the effectiveness of all courthouses (reduce corruption by 50%) and also acts like a 1/4-strength Forbidden palace for reducing corruption in nearby cities

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
Reduces the corruption a courthouse doesn't affect by another 25% (so corruption with courthouse + police station is 75% * 75% = 56%, not 50%). Also halves the effect the city contributes to the number-of-cities effect of corruption.

* 10 police stations
Gives access to the Police Central small wonder (or FBI if you will), which doubles effectiveness of all police stations.

Note that Courthouse + Supreme Court + Police Station + Police Central does not eliminate corruption, but only reduces it by 75%.

EDIT: Corrected typos.

[Dale]

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
Reduces the corruption a courthouse doesn't affect by another 25% (so corruption with courthouse + police station is 75% * 75% = 56%, not 50%). Also halves the effect the city contributes to the number-of-cities effect of corruption.

Or, if playing the Australians:

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
INCREASES the corruption affect by 25%, thus simulating dodgy drug raids, Police brutality, Police "protection" scams.

[Lord Cannager]

duh

duuuuhhhhhhhhhh its makes citys less vunerable to propaganda and it does reduce corruption(doesn't it?)

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by Lugh
25% is SOOO stinky!! I don't mind that corruption seems to be more rampant in this game than in civ2, I don't mind changing strategies (I quite enjoy it actually), but when the tool we have for offsetting this corruption doesn't work for sh*t, what do we do?

Maybe they should be adjusted: reduce corruption by 50%, or else make it a flat value. Ie. it could give a fledgling town 3 units of production/commerce free of

Okay, rant's over. Thanks for listening, I'll be here all week.

25% is plenty of a reduction if the corruption would be limited to what the city can produce. 50% is far too much of a reduction, there would be no pressure to avoid getting to big or a tendency for your empire to collapse if it were that effective.

Think about it this way, say your city has a corruption level of 100% so you only get 1 shield and gold as opposed to, say 24 shields and 32 gold without corruption. If you were to build a courthouse you would get 6 shields and 8 gold for only the cost of 1 gold maintenance and an initial investment to build. This is SOOO worth it! Understand?? In fact, you can't afford not to have it unless hte city is just being used to hold resources or something like that. Also note, that in my model the cities that have 1 shield no matter what you do would have corruption levels like 150% and up or something.

[Rust]

Supreme Court? Police Central?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

How about an inprovement for Radio Advance

Now guys, before you throw rotten tomatoes at me, PLEASE remeber that I don't have the game, and so am just guessing at a solution.
The Radio advance no longer has an associated improvement/wonder (it used to have airport!!)
My idea was to have an improvement called "Media outlet" which could massively reduce distance corruption, create happiness, and give a bonus to resisting foreign propaganda!
Alternatively, you could have a minor wonder called "Mass Media" which could have the same effect (Or you could have it be an additional minor wonder, requiring 5 media outlets, that increases the effect of all media outlets).
On a side note, I'd also like to have a minor wonder, restricted to Communist and Fascist governments called "War Rallies". It requires 5 media outlets to build and reduces war weariness!!
Anyway, what do you think?

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

LOL
Excellent Point Dale, by the way!!!
It would be so much funnier if it weren't so TRUE!!!!!
Perhaps it should only apply to building police stations in cities called Sydney or Newcastle etc.?

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

[BigBopper]

How about a special worker (like the entertainer, science guy, etc)
that would reduce corruption by say 10% Call him whatever, IRS agent, Internal Affairs, etc.
I've often taken a good sized enemy city and found it worthless, thus just had to pillage it. Thats B.S., improvements in comunication should also reduce the corruption affect. Firaxis already started this by having a trade route reduce corruption. Next having a railroad, and harbor, and a airport should reduce the affect, and let your empire get larger.

[Venger]

Originally posted by star mouse
Here's how I would do corruption:

* Code of Laws
Courthouse improvement that reduces corruption by 25%

* Corporation + 10 courthouses
Gives access to Supreme Court small wonder that doubles the effectiveness of all courthouses (reduce corruption by 50%) and also acts like a 1/4-strength Forbidden palace for reducing corruption in nearby cities

VERY SMART THINKING.

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
Reduces the corruption a courthouse doesn't affect by another 25% (so corruption with courthouse + police station is 75% * 75% = 56%, not 50%). Also halves the effect the city contributes to the number-of-cities effect of corruption.

* 10 police stations
Gives access to the Police Central small wonder (or FBI if you will), which doubles effectiveness of all police stations.

Another smart move. FBI though, Police Central sounds sorta gay...

Well thought out. You know, a limited public beta of people on Apolyton could have made Civ3 a KNOCKOUT if it'd been done and some of these type of smart changes been looked at...

Venger

[Tim Ward]

Re: How about an inprovement for Radio Advance

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker

Alternatively, you could have a minor wonder called "Mass Media" which could have the same effect (Or you could have it be an additional minor wonder, requiring 5 media outlets, that increases the effect of all media outlets).

This is an excellent idea, although I don't really like 'media out-lets' (just WTF are they supposed to represent?). Just have a mass media small wonder available with radio. Additionally, distance from capital government takes no account of local government. Some guy on this forum said a few weeks back that if the corporation rates are representative of real life, then Seattle would be a wasteland. Well, maybe that would be true if America was run entirely from Washington. Well, it isn't. American has one of the most devolved governments in the world.

The British empire didn't run all it's colonies from London, either. It installed High Commisioners to run things locally. There ought to be some representation of this that makes oversea's colonies possible. Like, a local government improvement that's limited to one per five cities, or something.

It's not that the corruption rates are to high, it's that there's no way to tackle the problem with Civ2 enchancements.