Suggestion for realistic corruption waste

[Sonic]

I think high corruption in old times is realistic, because then it was hard to control huge empires. But now it is different. I think the "distance to capital" should mean not distance in title, but distance in turns required for typical unit of a time(axeman/swordsman/rifleman/infrantry/motorised infrantry) to reach city. So that means if a city and capital both has airports or if they are connected by railways distance should be one turn. If they are connected by roads - more, if you need to board ship to go there then number of turns in the shortest route through sea will count. If unit will have to trvel through land then sea and land again, all turns required will be summed up. This way everything will be realistic - obviously it would be easier to control cities if you can reach them in one day, not in several months like in ancient times. Also, even without railways/airports in current days people can reach destinations faster because of automobiles. And in game everything would be the same, because when you introduce motorised infrantry, your typical unit speed also gets better

The number of cities effect for corruption would lower through various upgrades like telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and sattelites. This would also be very realistic, since with such upgrades it lowers the time required to spread news and your word through the country. With telegraph it still takes time with TV also since not all TVs get info fast, but after sattelites becomes true it would be pretty easy like in reality, cause everything could reach all country.

I think all those suggestions would make game realistic and would be very good for gameplay, since they wouldn't allow expand too fast but also would allow big empires at the end.

[Dimorier Maximus]

What can I say? Firaxis, are you seeing this? This is the most excellent idea I have seen all day. As tech goes higher, corruption may not go down, but as far as the game is concerned, it should. Also...I agree that roads and such should make corruption lower. You have excellent ideas.

[snuggs]

I too agree with most of it. Although some game-balancing thing is undoubtedly needed to check the plague-like spread of an already dominant empire, corruption at the levels experienced particularly on huge maps just strangles all endeavours more than about 30 tiles from your capital. You have to rush build to get anything done and this is very frustrating, though maybe less historically inaccurate than it seems even for the modern period.

Speaking of which, I'd like 'Forbidden Palace' renamed 'Viceroy's Palace'.

[player1]

I have one simle solution.

FIRAXIS,
Make waste and corruption separate in editor!

After that I would INCREASE corruption, but decrease waste.

That way small emipres could be better at research, while big ones whould have better industry (shields) and military.

[sabrewolf]

hey, this is really a great idea!!!

[statusperfect]

Sonic = BRILLIANT!!!

[zorbop]

in ctp2, happiness was effected by how many movement points it would take to get to the capitol. this idea could be implimented into civ3, for corruption/waste, as sonic said.

one goal of corruption/waste was to make it so someone couldn't take a city, then admediatly use it to build units. unfortunatly, corruption does not go down over time...
i think a time period should effect corruption/waste. maybe for 20 turns corruption/waste would be very high in a newly captured city, and lower to the corruption/waste rate of a normal city after the time limit. the number of foreing nationals in a city should also effect the rate.
"liberated cities" and "defected cities" would probly not be effected by nearly as much corruption/waste in this manor.

one of the easiest ways to do this is to make happiness a major factor in a cities c/w levels, along with a 20 turn rate for captured cities.
the 20 turn limit is also realistic. when Alexander the great conquered Alexandria, it was not a great, productive city admediatly. but within time, it went on to build the lighthouse, the great library, erestothenes figured out the ACURATE circumfrance of the earth there... and the city became one of the best on the planet.

nice ide sonic.

[Adagio]

FIRAXIS!!! Sonic has some brilliant words here, you'd better listen to them...

[phunny_pharmer]

How about Player1? His ideas are equally great!

One more option for you, Sonic: Newspaper. The easiest, and earliest, one of all...

[BigFurryMonster]

Brilliant! It would also make available strategies that specifically target corruption: if you have a big empire, better improve communications or corruption will kill you. If you have a small one, go for other techs instead (hey - this is game balancing...)

[Brambojr]

I really like this idea, it is realistic and spares me the heart ache of so many modern, but useless cities.

One other thing I'd like to add: Another reason corruption is as low as it is in modern times is due to the use of local government, state government and federal. We have federal (Palace, Forbidden Palace). We have local (courthouse, police station). But we have no real intermediate level.

If something on par with the Forbidden Palace (one per #of cities or # of territory squares) was created it add one more layer of realism to the modifying of the corruption problem.

How far to go with the whole state idea? This COULD be a fun idea to toy with (state governor? Continental cities/all cities/STATE CITIES/this city) And if you are looking for realistic civil war? Hmmm . . . .

Logistics is a bit wierd. What does everyone think? Between the two effects you would be able to nullify corruption/waste.

Right now I use a GL to hurrry a Palace in a safe but recently conquered land to help knock out corruption - wish it didn't come to that.

The change of address for a Palace was only effective until 1800 - But it was recommended by Machaevelli (sp?) and I like it

[Odin]

I think that for every 5 cities you could build a state capital. the state boundries are all the points inside your empire that are as far away from a state capital as possible.

GREAT post Sonic!!!

[ToeTruck]

Help me out, here; I really don't understand why people complain so much about corruption and waste. Yea, it's a pain in the rear, but that's why civers get paid the big bucks.

If you modified the rules as sonic suggested, corruption would quickly approach nil once Steam Power was on the scene. Games with a score of 100,000+ would become the norm.

Even with the rules as they are now, really good players get 50,000+ scores. Why make it easier?

Instead, do the work a good leader should do: Build close to your capital. Choose your FP site well. Shoot, jump your palace if you need to. Build lots of Courthouses and Police Stations. Be Democratic, and for god's sake, trade for those luxuries, crank entertainment, and build those Marketplaces!

Don't worry, be happy. The game's not that hard.

- TT

[Goingonit]

Finally, a good suggestion. It goes without saying, of course, that more control of corruption/waste is needed in the editor (control of things like how aditional cities affect the corruption rate, for instance). But it is, of course, unrealistic that better communications don't lead to less corruption.

And it's not that Civ 3 needs to be easier, just harder in more realistic and less aggravating ways.

[Gen.Dragolen]

ToeTruck,

I'm my latest game, I've finished conquering the 2nd AI Civ on my continent, and my capital is at one end, with about 8 cities that have decent production. All other cities are reduced to producing 1 shield, 1 coin and 1 beaker. In a city that I want to produce the FP to reduce corruption, a court house made no difference and a police station increased the production by 1. Considering the cost to rush both improvments was around 240shields x8 coins/shield=1920 gold, any empire in history would have failed miserably with results like that.

Sonics idea of a communications based corruption model, using the unit movement rates is a great and would be easy to impliment. And a slider for the rates would be nice for scenarios.

The Mongol Khans had an effective solution in China to corrupt officials: give their heads to the next official appointed to govern an area. As a game balance technique, it is practically useless after the point where your civilization has conquered the only local competition and is going to dominate the planet.

The effect of courthouses and police stations is badly under estimated in the game. Add in a free press (news papers, television, internet) and what it should do is cause unhappy populations if the government is too corrupt. It could also be a prelude to a civil war, or at least a major hit on your reputation, since so much profit from trade would be lost to bribes and kickbacks.

Another improvment idea could be a small wonder like the FBI/KGB, which would reduce corruption a notch or two in democracies and republics, but have minimal effect on the other goverments. In a Despotism like Iraq, Saddam uses 3 secret police forces to watch the population and each other.... expensive, but effective. They need to have that "Nerve Stapling" option like in SMAC... Let them hate so long as they fear.

What the programmers could impliment are events like corruption scandals that could sap production in a city or two and then take a bite from the Exchequer as well. That would liven things up a little. Nothing like having a leaders international rep trashed for 20 turns when it comes to trading and the like...

D.