C3C Corruption: Whoa!!!

alexman · November 11, 2003, 16:34

I just got my copy of Conquests, and finished some tests to see if anything related to corruption has changed. Did it ever!

The police specialist reduces corruption by 1 shield and 1 commerce, before multiplication from city improvements. This can be worth as much as 3 commerce and 3 shields if you have the right city improvements in your city.
FP rank bug is fixed. Cities closer to the FP than to the Palace no longer use the Palace's set of cities to determine OCN corruption.
There is now a penalty instead of a bonus for RCP. They 'fixed' RCP by giving equidistant cities the worst rank, instead of the best, as was the case in PTW. So now you get penalized for building two or more cities the same distance from the Palace or FP. Note that distances are still rounded down, so a city at distance 4 is considered the same distance as a city at 4.5, and they would get penalized for their RCP positioning.
The FP increases the rank of all your cities. More specifically, when you build a FP far from your capital, all cities near your capital have their corruption increased because their rank is increased to 2(r-1), where r is their old rank without the FP. So building a FP may or may not increase your overall corruption, because you get a whole new ring of cities where the rank starts from 1, but the rank within each ring goes up by increments of 2 instead of increments of 1. Building a FP (and SPHQ) in Communism always increases your corruption.

Let us pray for a patch now...

[Edit: 2r-1 to 2(r-1)]

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 16:45

Oh my. That isn't good at all.

There are two things that definitely need to go:

#1 is obviously your last point.

#2 is the RCP "fix." The problem here is that I get the feeling they did what they did because other fixes (such as ranking based on founding order) are more difficult/time consuming.

-Arrian

UnOrthOdOx · November 11, 2003, 16:45

That explains a few things...

Interesting. Just don't build a FP, huh?

Harovan · November 11, 2003, 16:51

Ah, the corruption report from the #1 authority, the corruption nazi himself.

As much as I (passionate corruption hater) appreciate, that the overall corruption was toned down and with policemen there's another way to fight it, I'm pretty much speechless about the RCP penalty. If that's the fix, it's definitely the wrong one. Mind you it will not only hit the RCP fans hard, but even the OCP fans, since that's basically a variation of RCP with distance five. The FP thing also looks pretty foul... me don't like.

Looks as if I will stick with PtW till that's fixed. Thanks for the good work, alex.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 16:57

Blah, I echo SR's comments. As someone who likes 4/4.5 spacing, I often have 3 or 4 cities at that distance... meaning they're all going to be rank 3 or 4. That sucks. I assume the AI is often getting shafted too, so I guess it's even at least.

But the FP thing is just blatantly wrong.

-Arrian

Stuie · November 11, 2003, 16:59

Guess I'll change that FP build in the game I'm playing....

Nice work as always, alexman!

Dis · November 11, 2003, 17:11

I'm not familiar with some of these acronyms.

RCP?

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:15

Ring City Placement. It was a method of exploiting the way corruption was calculated pre-Conquests. Someone else can provide a more complete explanation, I'm sure. Breakaway Games set out to fix that and have ended up doing providing a cure that is worse than the disease.

-Arrian

Harovan · November 11, 2003, 17:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
The problem here is that I get the feeling they did what they did because other fixes (such as ranking based on founding order) are more difficult/time consuming.

No.

In terms of programming time, it doesn't matter at all, since the information (distance from P/FP) has to be gathered nevertheless, it's only slightly differently interpreted. The cities carry information about the foundation turn anyway (as shown in the city screen) and if that's not enough, it would be easy doing to add a build counter; even a global one, thats the charm of a TBS, nothing can be done exactly at the same time.

In terms of runtime... the rank of a city needs to be recalculated how often? Every time when a city is built, abandoned, captured or razed. That's not that often, like on every unit movement, and wouldn't slow down the game at all.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:21

Quote:

all cities near your capital have their corruption increased because their rank is increased to 2r-1, where r is their old rank without the FP.

Ok, so let me see if I understand this right:

If I have cities built around my palace at: 3, 4, 4.5, 5...

And then I build the FP elsewhere...

They become: 5, 7, 8, 9 ??

Meanwhile, the FP "core" works properly?

What about when you build the FP close to your palace?

I'm confused.

-Arrian

Harovan · November 11, 2003, 17:27

Arrian: r is not the distance, it's the rank. Your nearest city (r=1) remains at rank 1, the second (r=2) gets rank 3, the third (r=3) gets rank 5 and so on. The cities closer to the FP get rank 2, 4, 6, ...

alexman · November 11, 2003, 17:27

Did I say 2r-1? Sorry, I meant 2(r-1).

So cities at 3, 4, 4.5, 5 get assigned ranks 1, 3, 3, 4
Build your FP far away.
Ranks become 0 (yes, the same as the capital), 4, 4, 6.
The FP core works the same way.

When you build your FP close to your palace, things are worse in general (because of overlap), but the corruption of some of your cities might decrease because of distance corruption.

Sorry if that was confusing...

asleepathewheel · November 11, 2003, 17:27

uhhhhh.

hmmm

I don't like these changes. I build in rings naturally for defense, not corruption benefits, I shouldn't be punished for that.

is FP useless now? Is that what that means?

sigh

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:33

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
Did I say 2r-1? Sorry, I meant 2(r-1).

So cities at 3, 4, 4.5, 5 get assigned ranks 1, 3, 3, 4
Build your FP far away.
Ranks become 0 (yes, the same as the capital), 4, 4, 6.
The FP core works the same way.

When you build your FP close to your palace, things are worse in general (because of overlap), but the corruption of some of your cities might decrease because of distance corruption.

Sorry if that was confusing...

Oh, right, gotcha.

Second, thanks SR, I was confusing myself... this whole thing was a bit of a shock and I put virtual pen to paper before I'd thought things through (trusting that you guys would set me straight

).

-Arrian

WarpStorm · November 11, 2003, 17:41

I think they should get rid of the concept of ranks totally. They don't correspond to anything natural.

Theseus · November 11, 2003, 17:41

THESEUS' ALL NEW "PROGRESSIVE CITY PLACEMENT" SCHEME

Build capitol.
Build one city each at 2/2.5, 3/3.5,4/4.5 etc.
Cities following #2 should be equidistant from it and the capitol.
Build FP in city #2 (2/2.5)
Move Palace.

alexman · November 11, 2003, 17:46

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
I think they should get rid of the concept of ranks totally. They don't correspond to anything natural.

It is the reason why ICS is not as dominant in Civ3 as in earlier versions of Civ. Turn-based moves don't correspond to anything natural either!

Theseus, are you trying to confuse us even more?

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:48

Ok, I think I finally get it.

This thing doesn't do a heckuva lot to the close-in core cities. But a city that is ranked, say, 10 gets boosted to 18!!! 2*(10-1). So the core cities take a slight hit, but you do get a new group of core cities. Meanwhile, however, the so-so cities get killed.

-Arrian

dexters · November 11, 2003, 17:50

I have noticed the increased corruption in my last game. It makes any empire of any considerable size unworkable on the fringers

I actually think this works against the AI more than the human, since AI loves to rely on domesticically produced defense units. If their distant cities aren't as productive as before, they probably will tend to have fewer defenders.

shirleyrocks · November 11, 2003, 17:53

So, generally speaking, is the Forbidden Palace not worth building anymore?

Dominae · November 11, 2003, 17:54

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
They 'fixed' RCP by giving equidistant cities the worst rank, instead of the best, as was the case in PTW. So now you get penalized for building two or more cities the same distance from the Palace or FP.

Yes, this is a weird fix. It annoys me because yet again knowing about Corruption forces unnatural city placement schemes. On the bright side, I like this much better than RCP.

Quote:

More specifically, when you build a FP far from your capital, all cities near your capital have their corruption increased because their rank is increased to 2(r-1), where r is their old rank without the FP.

I see no problem here. At least, with my interests in mind. Good FP placement is a trick only open to the human player; the AI usually puts its FP very close to the Palace. So what this "problem" amounts to is a reduced effect of the FP. Given the numerous ways to combat Corruption in Conquests, I hardly think this is a big deal.

Quote:

Building a FP (and SPHQ) in Communism always increases your corruption.

Now this I can agree is bad.

Quote:

Let us pray for a patch now...

Other than the Communism thing, I see nothing on this list that is patch-worthy. Learn not to place your cities in rings and not to rely on the FP, and all should be well. Other than (again) the Communism problem, all these points make the AI stronger relative to the human player.

Dominae

P.S: Thanks for doing this analysis, alexman!

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:54

The AI in PTW also used to build its FP close in, which Alexman notes is really bad in Conquests. So if the AI is still doing that... it's really getting screwed.

Which may help explain the "X" factor I couldn't put my finger on in my game we're talking about in the other thread.

-Arrian

Dominae · November 11, 2003, 17:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
The AI in PTW also used to build its FP close in, which Alexman notes is really bad in Conquests. So if the AI is still doing that... it's really getting screwed.

From alexman's analysis (if I understand it correctly), placing the FP far away results in bad Corruption due to the rank problem. Placing the FP close the Palace (as the AI does) should not result in anything too drastic.

Dominae

Catt · November 11, 2003, 17:58

Patch! Patch! Patch!

(said patch should also include the gpt bug fix)

Catt

Mazarin · November 11, 2003, 17:58

This will result in a new era: HCP (HelixCityPlacement)!

If they were unable to fix the corruption bugs properly, they should've waited and done that with one of the patches.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:58

Quote:

I see no problem here. At least, with my interests in mind. Good FP placement is a trick only open to the human player; the AI usually puts its FP very close to the Palace. So what this "problem" amounts to is a reduced effect of the FP. Given the numerous ways to combat Corruption in Conquests, I hardly think this is a big deal.

I'd hardly call it a "trick." But we have different perspectives on the matter.

I for one really, really, really hope this is changed.

-Arrian

alexman · November 11, 2003, 18:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae

From alexman's analysis (if I understand it correctly), placing the FP far away results in bad Corruption due to the rank problem. Placing the FP close the Palace (as the AI does) should not result in anything too drastic.

No, placing it close to the palace is bad as well. The rank of all cities is doubled eityher way, but with a overlapping core you have higher ranks than with no overlap.

I just mentioned 'far away' because that's the case where the total corruption for a city is guaranteed to increase. With overlap, some of the old palace core cities might get lower overall corruption because of distance, but the rest of your empire will suffer big time.

Theseus · November 11, 2003, 18:02

I think this is horrible.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 18:03

Translation: the AI is still screwed. Perhaps more so.

-Arrian

Dominae · November 11, 2003, 18:06

Then I officially change my position to "this is horrible".

Dominae