Thoughts on Corruption?

[Steve Clark]

I think this ought to be the final word on the subject, since Soren was the one that wrote the AI....

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis


The way corruption works is one of the biggest changes from Civ2, so I am not surprised that people are having difficulties adjusting. Under this new system, you _cannot_ control ever city in the world and expect them to still function. Thus, it takes a slightly different approach than Civ2 (or Civ1 or SMAC) required. Simply put, more cities is not always better.

There are two factors affecting corruption levels: distance from capitol (like Civ2) and number of cities (unlike Civ2).

You can fight the distance factor by:

- moving your capitol to a more optimal location
- building a Courthouse in the city
- building a Forbidden Palace near your corrupt cities
- switching to a less-corrupt government type
- being connected to your capitol via road/harbor/airport
- putting your city in "We Love the King Day" (works for shields only...)

You can fight the number of cities factor by:

- lowering the difficulty level
- building a Courthouse in the city
- building a Forbidden Palace in any city
- playing a civilization with the Commercial bonus
- switching to a less-corrupt government type
- putting your city in "We Love the King Day" (works for shields only...)

and finally...

- emphasize building a few great cities instead of a bunch of puny ones

and also...

- think about razing cities when you capture them (although be careful... you might create an enemy for the rest of the game...)

Hope that helps.

[CygnusZ]

Well, everyone was wondering how ICS was going to be stopped

In any event, remember that courthouses reduce curroption by half (I think it's half), which means that even a totally curropt city can still produce half of what it's supposed to.

Corruption does suck, and it seems to be the nature of the land grab that making a few quality cities is not always the best stratedgy.

Look at some of the screenshots of games Firaxis has played. Their civilizations tend to be concentrated and small, co-exisiting with neighbors. I'm guessing they did it that way because of corruption.

I'm playing Chieftan, and have a sprawling contient of city and I'm planning to win Culture victory (I already have 50,000 cp). In the Democracy the curroption hurts, but not too bad and the court houses help a lot.

Corruption may suck, but recognize it as a logical detriment to over-expansion. Maybe we need to figure out the critical mass of "expansionist" civs Vs. regular ones.

Hope this helps.

[inca911]

Burn them to the Ground!

Day 2 of Civ3 finds this new player slightly less disoriented but with lots of additional questions. Corruption is certainly issue #1!

A new game started at lunch pursues a different pathway than the highly corrupt game one that was abandoned (it was too much like the conquer and move on games of old). In this new games, if a captured city is not in an optimal position, it is *razed* instead of given a governor. The number of cities is a critical factor in the corruption equation so it seems logical the you better make the ones you have/keep exceptional. The fact that city razing is an option in Civ3 leads me to believe that you *should* raze certain cities instead of occupying them. So far, this has apparantly helped a little bit since unproductive cities don't appear to drag down the entire civ. It certainly takes some getting used to!

Also, does anyone who has advanced later in the game have a list of the government types that allow rushbuying? Apparantly, you can't rushbuy anything in Despotism which shuts down one way I always got a head start on the AI. After one hour at lunch, I'm still slow to Monarchy (just got Polytheism) but I'm using the superior firepower of vet Archers on solid terrain to lay waste to the pathetic Indians. Delhi is now mine and Civ3 get a thumbs up from me until I encounter some more significant issues later on....

[LarryM]

Originally posted by Jared


I'm not sure what you're pointing to when you say simply "Commerce."

Are you referring to the fact that Commercial civs have less corruption, or are you saying that even if you lose shields to corruption, you are gaining commerce?

If you are saying the latter, then I'd point out that you seem to lose approximately the same percentage of the gold produced by commerce as you lose shields in production, so in building cities for commerce, the same problem applies.

If you're saying the former, then I agree with you. But I don't think I want to have to play a commercial civ just to beat the corruption problem. There HAS to be another way I just haven't found yet.

I meant the former. And yes, you are right, I don't want to be limited to commercial civs either.

I applaud the purpose behind the increased corruption - make it hard to conquer the world - but I think they went too far. I expect/ hope that corruption will be toned down a bit in a patch. If not, I guess some editing of the corruption levels in the various governments will be in order.

[Invictus]

Always ask yourself whether you need a city or whether a colony will do. Don't build/conquer cities far from home just to get resources.

[CygnusZ]

Monarchy, Democracy and Republic allow the use of gold to finish city improvements and units.

[Cougz]

I actually like the corruption factor, it's realistic. The largest empire in ancient times would have to have been the Romans, and they faced unending problems with corruption. And heres the bite, they weren't ALL that large.

It makes it tough early on, but it seems the best plan is to start between 10 and 20 cities as fast as you can and then build them up, later on you can look at expanding either by settlers or conquest.

Good job!