Fix for corruption?

[Zachriel]

Fix for corruption:

First, let me say that I like corruption as a game concept. Unfortunately, Firaxis went a little overboard. I think it would be easy to fix, though.

1. Corruption should primarily effect money, not shields. Most city improvements are local in nature and do not require control from the Capital. Towns should certainly still be able to build their own temples and marketplaces. If this change were made, then the game would become instantly more balanced.

2. You should be able to move your Forbidden Palace, just like the Palace.

3. Introduce a second small wonder, such as Colonial Palace, which works much like the Forbidden Palace.

[Hippi]

I agree

[Libertarian]

Good ideas. Best of luck in your pursuit to be heard.

[Dr Spin]

I understand that corruption is a pain in the ass, but that's kinda the point, no?

I think the purpose of corruption is to limit the power of HUGE empires, so they are not quite so overbearing as they were in the past games (i.e. getting techs at a rate of 2 turns each).

If you have a large and rich enough empire, you may 'buy' the happiness improvenments you need.

Besides, I like the idea that taking a huge developed size 19 city on the other side of the planet will actually cost me money to maintain.

[Soapyfrog]

To move your forbidden palace, couldn't you sell it then rebuild it somewhere else?

I have never attempted this so maybe it isn't possible...

[Fredric Drum]

Originally posted by Dr Spin
I understand that corruption is a pain in the ass, but that's kinda the point, no?

I think the purpose of corruption is to limit the power of HUGE empires, so they are not quite so overbearing as they were in the past games (i.e. getting techs at a rate of 2 turns each).

If you have a large and rich enough empire, you may 'buy' the happiness improvenments you need.

Besides, I like the idea that taking a huge developed size 19 city on the other side of the planet will actually cost me money to maintain.

Regarding the 2 turns/tech: There's a limit of 4 turns/tech, so that's no argument.

I agree that there should be corruption... but losing 19 out of 20 shields to corruption, or 7 out of 8 or 29 out of 30 is plain good old silly. Once you're over a certain limit, you lose all but one shield to corruption, no matter what.

But it's easy to fix. Just enter the editor and edit some more buildings to reduce corruption, like marketplace, bank or whatever you like.


Fred

[Brutal]

I think they should have some type of cap on it. So if you have a courthouse, temple, market, etc the town should be at least 50% productive. It has gotten so bad that I just war on other continents and raze the towns push the aggressor till he gives up all his knowledge to have peace again.

[Gdiguy]

actually, i agree completely... corruption should impact the money/science you collect from the cities, not how quickly you can build a factory there...

[Trifna]

More isn't always better. More palaces to artificially fix the thing isn't gonna make it with more sense. I think that if it's too high to be able to represent what it is supposed to represent, then it should be tweakened to aproach more the concept from which it emerges. There are many ways in reality to counter the problems that a huge territory implies. Repression, ridding off of the one that cause the problem (silence them, assimilate them, etc.), propaganda and surely others.

[The Eliminator]

Corruption is cool under everything except for democracy. When you are a demo, there is no way that your cities on nearby islands should waste 99%, and that is with palace/forbidden nearby.

Like really, is Hawaii that corrupt cuz its so far from Washington? Get real.

[Libertarian]

More corruption than is in Washington itself can hardly be imagined.

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by Fredric Drum
I agree that there should be corruption... but losing 19 out of 20 shields to corruption, or 7 out of 8 or 29 out of 30 is plain good old silly. Once you're over a certain limit, you lose all but one shield to corruption, no matter what.

But it's easy to fix. Just enter the editor and edit some more buildings to reduce corruption, like marketplace, bank or whatever you like.
Fred

No, it's not to fix. The main corruption problems are 1) the distance factor and 2) the double of corruption when reaching the modern times by research.

If you play with a huge map (i.e. a map of terra) then there all cities with distance more than ~35 fields from the palace have 1 shield only independent what you build or set / modify in editor. All other shields are gone by corruption.
This means, is't impossible to play a huge map i.e. with America or a European race and settle then also in South America or Australia or far east.
And such the game makes boring very soon, as it makes no longer any sense to play such.

Just that distance point isn't able to correct with the editor.

[codemast01]

This means, is't impossible to play a huge map i.e. with America or a European race and settle then also in South America or Australia or far east.
And such the game makes boring very soon, as it makes no longer any sense to play such.

I completely agree. If any new city you make or take over will only produce one shield, then there is no motivation expand or to fight other civs; both of which are main aspect of an Civ game.

I think the purpose of corruption is to limit the power of HUGE empires, so they are not quite so overbearing as they were in the past games

You are right on the purpose of corruption. However in CivIII, instead of limiting the power of huge empire, it makes it ussless to have a huge empire. Maintaining a huge, efficient empire should be expensive but possible. Otherwise there is no reason to expand once you reach your palace's effective border. No reason to expand = no reason to keep playing

[Fistleaf]

There is high corruption because it is not supposed to be easy to conquer the world. No nation in the real world has ever conquered the world and thus no nation in the real world experiences such high corruption. Even the mighty Greek, Roman, Mongol empires occupy at the most 20% of the world's land area. Now compare that to your Civ empire. What percentage of the Civ world's land area does your civ occupy?
Also if your civ is the same size as real-life democratic America, you would find that corruption is not that bad (especially with a Forbidden Palace built).

[lawren8]

What I'd like to see (in a patch) is to allow airports and harbors
to reduce corruption by reducing the effective distance
to the capitol. The way in a modern era, buidling airports in
the capitola nd in remote cites would make corruption manageable

[habadacus]

I started a thread on this some time ago, because I thought it ruined the game for me. I discovered a simple fix that has been working fine for me as I'm slogging through Marla's Huge earth map. All you have to do is go into the editor, edit the rules for the difficulty level you want to play, and bump up the % of optimal cities to what you want it to be. If optimal cities are 25 on a certain size map, and you make the % of optimal cities 1000%, you can have 250 cities in your empire before this rediculous kind of corruption even starts. With a high percentage I found it eases in slowly also, instead of *bang* all cities make 1 shield. Also, in my experience, no city improvements combat this type of corruption, before I made this tweak I added banks and barracks as corruption fighters, but they did nothing. Some corruption I think is good for the game balance, you will still have corruption in far flung cities, but this CAN be reduced by courthouses, etc. In my games I flag banks as reducing corruption also. Hope this helps.

[Marko Polo]

Originally posted by habadacus
I started a thread on this some time ago, because I thought it ruined the game for me. I discovered a simple fix that has been working fine for me as I'm slogging through Marla's Huge earth map. All you have to do is go into the editor, edit the rules for the difficulty level you want to play, and bump up the % of optimal cities to what you want it to be. If optimal cities are 25 on a certain size map, and you make the % of optimal cities 1000%, you can have 250 cities in your empire before this rediculous kind of corruption even starts. With a high percentage I found it eases in slowly also, instead of *bang* all cities make 1 shield. Also, in my experience, no city improvements combat this type of corruption, before I made this tweak I added banks and barracks as corruption fighters, but they did nothing. Some corruption I think is good for the game balance, you will still have corruption in far flung cities, but this CAN be reduced by courthouses, etc. In my games I flag banks as reducing corruption also. Hope this helps.

I also have tweaked those "optimal cities for corruption" by multiplying them by ten for each map size. That way I do have a corruption problem but now I can do something about it (by building courthouses and police stations). I haven't given any other buildings "reduce corruption" feature as those two buildings are good enough for me.

I do this because I strongly believe that this your amount of cities > "optimal amount of cities" corruption feature must be broken. Build one more city and suddenly a lot of cities start producing one shield and one commerce and rushbuilding corruption reduction buildings doesn't help really help. Unrealistic and certainly not fun. I also hate the ridiculous idea of razing all conquered cities just to counter this corruption bug (design flaw if you want). Just my opinion.

[Prlwofsky]

The optimum cities rule is maybe not a design flaw but the limit is definitely too low. But if you set the number too high, you can never (or very late) build the forbidden palace and that would be a shame as well wouldn't it . I multiplied optimum cities by three for each mapsize and got very nice results with it .. you can really expand now but still build the forbidden palace after a time.

When your empire really gets big it starts to hurt but thats ok, nobody said managing a world spanning empire should be easy ... but you are no longer hampered in expanding beyond your first area.

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by Prlwofsky
The optimum cities rule is maybe not a design flaw but the limit is definitely too low. But if you set the number too high, you can never (or very late) build the forbidden palace and that would be a shame as well wouldn't it

not true, you can set the city amout hig and still build the FP when made 8 cities.

The mainproblem is, that all settings you can made (or buildings) don't effect the corruption-by-distance-factor well. So on huge maps no single and easy solution is possible. Tried within the past 2 weeks all alternates.

But I made a complete solution to the corruption problem, and I think its well balanced and works

Download this Civ3-Corruption-Solution-10.zip

[Quokka]

I would like to see something more done to combat the corruption in the game too. I was thinking that there should be an improvement called Provincial or Regional Capital, that should become available after the Forbidden Palace is built. The Regional Capitals should be expensive, cost 30 and have a smaller radius of effect than either of the palaces, something like 1/2. If you also linked the number of Capitals available to the number of cities, ie one for every 8 (or 10) cities, then with some careful planning you would be able to control corruption a whole lot better.
To me only two admin centers is ridiculous, especially on the larger maps. The Romans and all other Empires had regional admin so why limit it to two here. This way islands would be able to become productive and if you invade a continent after the Forbidden Palace is built then the new continent with time and money could still become something other than a total drain on the treasury. At the moment the only reason that I keep any cities that I conquer on islands or continents other than the one I started on is to deny the territory to the AI. Razing all of those cities would just incite all the other AI Civs that I am not attacking to start another settler rush and then I would have to do it all over again.
I like the idea of corruption and think that it should be difficult to combat but I think that there needs to be more effective ways in which to do it. The reduces corruption flag is just not powerful enough, and as the palace effects don't span water, cities close to your palaces are affected much worse than they should be according to distance. If the effect was graded according to improvements in the city that would work better. No effect without harbor, 1/2 effect with harbor and full effect with airport. These would model an islands remoteness and governing difficulty but eventually as travel and communication improved the difficulties would lessen and so too would the corruption. Some of the Techs should also have inherent corruption fighting properties. Printing Press, for such a powerful discovery as it was, is nearly totally useless except to get to Democracy. Printing Press and Radio are two techs that are prime to have a corruption reducing effect, nobody wants their name smeared in the papers or on the air, plus the increase in distribution of information and rise in education that each of these bring are natural corruption fighters.
And lastly corruption under Democracy is way too high. None of the Developed Democracies on the planet today have any of their cities running at nearly 100% corruption of either production or income let alone both.

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by Quokka
I would like to see something more done to combat the corruption in the game too. I was thinking that there should be an improvement called Provincial or Regional Capital, that should become available after the Forbidden Palace is built. The Regional Capitals should be expensive, cost 30 and have a smaller radius of effect than either of the palaces, something like 1/2. [...]

Download my solution. I created (together with some other modifications I made) 5 additional FPs as Regional Palaces, with different requirements, but I set their culture to 0 and the building costs low but the maintenance highter (same I did for the police).
It will not work if you increase the building costs similar to the Forbidden Palast, not even if you take the same (tested all ways within the past 2 weeks to find a way how to play with huge maps without space racing).

As you normal will build they additional FPs more far away from the next Palace, as you later in the game have settlements over the world, then the FP already is up to 200 turns building time (if a turn = 5 years, that's 1000 years!!!!!) by distance factor.
To drop the corruption-by-distance factor you have to combine several points. Otherwise you always get 95% of all shields wasted, independent if you build court and police or make other changes in the settings.

The idea of corruption is fine, but HOW they integrate it, a big bug is.

[zorbop]

all these regonal offices are a good idea, but with one shield per turn the'd take to long to build. the anti-corruption things should be built in your capital, like a senate office or something

for ne1 who's played ctp2 you'd know they don't have corruption, but it lowers happiness if your farther from the capital. its calculated by movment points.
the more movement points it takes to get from the city to the capital, the more corruption. Hence, roads would lower coruption.
of course, harbors and airports would reduce movement points.
i would like to see that in a patch

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by zorbop
all these regonal offices are a good idea, but with one shield per turn the'd take to long to build. the anti-corruption things should be built in your capital, like a senate office or something

general you're right, but such solution isn't possible now. But I set the costs to 5, and so you can build it within 20 turns, and suchis ok, I think.

[eyes]

I think their should be an extra building type such as 'provincial government' or 'regional government' or 'county council' or something. Basically for every n cities you can build another one. Next make it so you can build your forbidden palace when you have i 'regional governemnts'

This way you start off with you palace, build say 8 cities then build a regional government on your frontier. And continue to expand. After another 8 cities you can build another regional government. Regional governments should act like forbidden palaces execept instead of being small wonders they are just buildings so can be sold if you decide you wish to relocate it. Also they would have a sphere of influence half the size of fp's and do slightly less to reduce corruption.

Eventually when you have say five or six regional governemts you can build a forbidden palace.

Using this method you could expand accross the globe, slowed by the production time for regional governement and instead of ending up with your forbidden palace right next to your palace you will have a large empire by the time you buld it and so it wont be right next to your palace, elimnating the need to ever move it or your palace.

the number of cites (n) per regional gov. and number of regional gov.'s (i) per forbbiden palace would depend upon world size.

What do you think?

Anyone know if this could be done with the editor?

[Venger]

This is the best fix for corruption. Just hit the button...

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by eyes
I think their should be an extra building type such as 'provincial government' or 'regional government' or 'county council' or something.

That isn't possible.

Eventually when you have say five or six regional governemts you can build a forbidden palace.

Makes no sense. What a FP gives, except reducing the corrultion? 2 culture points only, that's all.

the number of cites (n) per regional gov. and number of regional gov.'s (i) per forbbiden palace would depend upon world size.

Would be als a solution. But impossible now.

Anyone know if this could be done with the editor?

No. Such you can't make by editor.
I tested 2 weeks what is possible and what the results are and the balance.
The best possible result I found I published yesterday in my mod. Read the explanations there what I changed and why.

here:
http://1st-euro.net/SMAC/Civ3/Civ3-C...olution-10.zip

[Vercingettyrex]

On a wide tangential train of thought.

I really like the culture thing. I was wondering shouldn't there be a law thing which works in a similar way. ie Certain buildings generate Law. These extend the frontiers of efficiency over time. Its a slow process. Citys far from the capital are at the frontier. Its lawless. They build courthouses, police stations. As a result corruption becomes less overtime.

Culture still determines the political borders of the state. But law determines the internal borders of the state.

The buildings would be courthouse, policestation, barracks and palace + some wonders. Using this model cities still far away from either forbidden palace or palace would have corruption but over time this would drop to a lower extent if some buildings were constructed.

[Ironikinit]

The best fix for corruption is to keep your civ to a reasonable size. You're not supposed to be able to "expand across the globe", that's the whole idea.

[eyes]

If the whole point is to stop you from expanding accross the globe it's a stupid point.

I'm a veteran of first civ on the amiga then on the pc then civ 2 and as far as I'm concerned the best bit of the game is gradually conquering the planet.

The way the other civs fill up land in this is great and could make for some excellent wars, but there's no point as it is because of corruption.

Dreifels:

The point of only being allowed to build a fp once you had several regional governments would be that it would have a larger effect and double up with the smalller effect of regional govs. You could have to main sphere's - one from the palace and one from the fp and for every say five or six cities you could also have a regional gov providing a small sphere of corruption reduction - either within the spheres of influence of you palace and fp or outside, perhaps on seperate islands.

Why can it not be done in the editor? If it really can't they should make patch to seriously reduce corruption.

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
The best fix for corruption is to keep your civ to a reasonable size. You're not supposed to be able to "expand across the globe", that's the whole idea.

stupid, sorry.