I lowered corruption

[VetteroX]

There is no argument anyone can make to tell me corruption is not too high in Civ 3, I dont care if they are a casual player or Sid himself. Now if you havnt played on monarch or emperor you don't understand just how awful it is. Im tired of waiting for a patch, so I took matters into my own hands.

I used the editor, and made police stations lower corruption. I saw no option to set how much you can lower corruption, only a checkbox that says "lower corruption." The police station helped... in a city about 10 squares from the capital I was losing 10 shields and 25 trade, after the police station was built, I got back 2 shields and 6 trade. It became less effective the further away cities got.

I then made barracks lower corruption. Seems logical to me. Your army is loyal , I think they are loyal enough to help lower crime. Again helped a little. Im thinking maybe making airports and harbors lower corruption, in the thought that gov represntatives can get to the cities more easily to help stop corruption. Some may say this is going overboard, but if you see how little each building does to lower corruption ( after a certain distance you will lose 99% of everything no matter what) I think they would agree its ok. So, if corruption is driving you crazy, open the editor and try this out.

[GodSpawn]

I think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Hopefully, after the patch is released, it won't be necessary (Firaxis have indicated that they are "looking at corruption" for the patch).

[FourStarG]

Hey man, hook me up.
corruption is driven me bonkers

[Dienstag]

I'm not too keen on it taking 80 turns (less if I do some intense forestry...) to build a courthouse that doesn't have any effect on the all-but-one shields I'm losing to corruption, even in Democracy.

When the russians declared war on me I thought it was a good move to take their strategic island city commanding access to a great inland sea.... But it took hundreds and thousands of years to build the cultural improvement (to get the whale within city radius), and the walls, costal fortress, and harbor that every island fortress should have...which were all then quickly destroyed be the French who's entire strategy seemed to be "Shore-bombard Everybody Back to the Stone Age" with about 50 frigates, even in the modern age (good thing they didn't have access to oil....) Oh, and then the Indians took that city when everybody ganged up on me.

So anyway, yeah, I'm sick of this whole corruption business...patch please!

[dexters]

I see both sides of the story here.

The corruption levels forces you to concentrate on your core empire, that is, unlike Civ1 or Civ 2, in Civ3, there is a theoretical limit to your empire's reach, beyond which cities will be pretty much window dressing.

This is good because in Civ 2, the style of play was vastly different. you build up your cities and forget about them. The game was all about moving out, taking new land, and you end up with is massive sprawling empire where you spend more time dealing with your NEW territory and you sort of forget about where you started. Corruption forces you to concentrate on a few big cities as the BACKBONE of your empire, as it should be in real life.
The Americans don't have ten New Yorks, they have one New York that is that financial center of the American civilization.

On the flipside, when you're playing on maps 180 and above, it becomes overwhelmingly difficult to pursue any significant strategic objectives with corruption breathing down your neck. Even the increased optimum city limit doesn't help. A powerful empire can bankroll a few cities. I've done it. When i built a new city that was strategically important to me, I spent money doing rush jobs. But that only works for a few cities where you absolutely must spend the money. When you're on a continent and find there is unclaimed oil halfway up the continent, it is unfair to force you to go all the way up there to secure the area by building cities only to be punished by massive corruption.

The solution, whatever it is, should be balanced so that it keeps both emphasis in check. I want corruption lowered, but i don't want to go back to the Civ 2 type of play either.

[mathgoulet]

With a high level of corruption like we have in Civ3, countries like USA with Washington as capital get troubles building a granary in San Francisco.

[Peterk]

Nah, San Francisco would have a Forbidden Palace.

[d_dudy]

Originally posted by Peterk
Nah, San Francisco would have a Forbidden Palace.

wouldn't surprise me if san fran had a gay bar called that

[Raleigh]

I'm on a democracy, and a city only 10 boxes away from the capital also suffers from tremondous corruption!

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Raleigh
I'm on a democracy, and a city only 10 boxes away from the capital also suffers from tremondous corruption!

On a normal map, the critical distance from your capital is around 15 squares away (until you have the second Palace ). Without the Forbidden Palace ( which has the same effects of the regular ), even courthouses won't change that in distant cities far away than 15 squares. The combo Factory+ a plant can give an additional shield only, but by then generally you have built the FP.

[BigRich]

*snip*

On the flipside, when you're playing on maps 180 and above, it becomes overwhelmingly difficult to pursue any significant strategic objectives with corruption breathing down your neck. Even the increased optimum city limit doesn't help. A powerful empire can bankroll a few cities. I've done it. When i built a new city that was strategically important to me, I spent money doing rush jobs. But that only works for a few cities where you absolutely must spend the money. When you're on a continent and find there is unclaimed oil halfway up the continent, it is unfair to force you to go all the way up there to secure the area by building cities only to be punished by massive corruption.

The solution, whatever it is, should be balanced so that it keeps both emphasis in check. I want corruption lowered, but i don't want to go back to the Civ 2 type of play either. [/QUOTE]

Hi,

Bearing in mind that I havn't actually played the game, wouldn't this be an ideal situation to use a colony as a temporary fix? Probably a pain to guard the colony / supply route to the colony though.

just my thoughts, just curious

Rich.

[SirSebastian]

In a Republic, I had an empire that stretched pretty far to the east, and had ocean to the west of my capital. So, even in Republic, the easternmost city ("Constantinople") had almost no production. So I bought a courthouse, and waited 30 turns for the Forbidden Palace. So, I am reducing corruption from both sides, and the cities in the middle are doing just fine. This is on Regent. I see no problem whatsoever with the corruption model in the game. Heck, I've even had success with Privateers... maybe I'm just too forgiving? =P

[Raleigh]

Playing Prince, I have a city on a nearby continent in a DEMOCRACY. It has 18 commerce 9 corruption before the courthouse. The turn the courthouse was built? 9 corruption. What the heck?!

Not to be argumentative, but IMHO the corruption model is totally screwed up.

[dexters]

Originally posted by BigRich
Hi,

Bearing in mind that I havn't actually played the game, wouldn't this be an ideal situation to use a colony as a temporary fix? Probably a pain to guard the colony / supply route to the colony though.

just my thoughts, just curious

Rich.

Yea, it is a solution. The problem is that colonies are vulnerable in many ways

a) it could get attacked and you'd loose it
b) your supply line (the roads) may be cut --it could get difficult to patrol the route especially if you have resources that are far away
c) if an enemy builds a city right next to your colony where it is inside their culture, you loose the colony.

Colonies need to be modified a bit so that the ownership part is a little more secure. But you're right Rich, it is an option.

[Fintilgin]

Well, one very simple `solution' I've tried out is simply making the Forbidden Palace much cheaper to build. I think it only costs about the same as a temple. It still takes a while to build, but doing this helps to negate the `Catch-22' problem of wanting to build the FP but not being able to because of only producing 1 shield a turn. (I don't consider forest farming a reasnoble or realistic alternative. The micromanagement! Arg! )

Of course you still have corruption, but with courthouses and stuff, it makes it much more managable, and more importantly, fun. This will probably be the only mod I make until I see what Firaxis does with their first patch. Hopefully their solution will just be greatly upping the power of the courthouse, or something like that.

Joe

[Venger]

I think it's a great idea to have many buildings lower corruption...

I look at it like this. If I roust a size 8 city halfway around the world, sure, the people aren't gonna do diçk for me - so I have to build up the infrastructure. It forces you to build infrastructure in order to placate remote cities. It makes just a $hitload of sense.

Think of remote colonial cities like Hong Kong. Far away, but a massive investment in infrastructure pays off to make it a valuable part of your empire. Until you sign it back over to the Red Chinese...

In fact, it may work well enough that you could leave existing corruption rates alone...won't know till I try it though...

So, what buildings should lower corruption?

Granary - nope.
Barracks - makes sense, controls local populace for law and order.
Temple - absolutely. People of faith more likely to obey the law.
Courthouse - duh. Maybe lower the cost to make it more obtainable.
Library - naw.
Marketplace - close, but naw.
Harbor - no.
Cathedral - yes.
Bank - no.
University - yes. Well educated people likely to believe in law and order.
Walls - no. Could be argued though...
Coastal Fortress - no.

Probably leaving some out, but you get the idea. Reducing corruption via the creation of a vibrant city infrastructure makes sense and I believe solves what Firaxis was trying to avoid - the democratic blitz where a democracy could take a size 24 city and have everyone content. Even past pacification, corruption forces the construction of an infrastructure for more than just happinesses sake.

I'm anxious to see how many buildings that lower corruption it takes to make a remote city usable...

Venger

[Ray K]

Originally posted by VetteroX
I used the editor, and made police stations lower corruption. I saw no option to set how much you can lower corruption, only a checkbox that says "lower corruption." The police station helped... in a city about 10 squares from the capital I was losing 10 shields and 25 trade, after the police station was built, I got back 2 shields and 6 trade. It became less effective the further away cities got.

I did the same thing with Police Stations and saw no such improvement.

Building a courthouse or a "new" Police station would reduce corruption, but then building the second improvement would make no further difference.

In other words, the "reduce corruption" feature seemed to only work once for a city and couldn't be stacked by putting it into multiple improvements. I tested this quite a bit trying to figure out a way to make it work, so your post surprised me.

I can't explain this discrepancy, just thought I'd point it out.

[VetteroX]

Thats odd... I double checked too. I build a courthouse, then a poliece staion, and it lowered more, not by much, but still something. Odd.

[Venger]

Why not open a saved game, note some cities with high corruption but many improvements, and then edit the .bic file, then reload the game and see if those cities have lower corruption with the modified building attributes?

Venger

[Cougz]

Theres a section in the editor where you can change the number of cities you can build on the different sized maps before they hit really bad corruption. If i remember correctly the huge map tops out at 32 cities. Try doubling that to get a slightly easier time of it corruption wise.

One draw back, your opponents really go wild, they spread like fire in an open oil tank, so you'll need to pump those settlers out.