Note: This applies to vanilla Civ3 and Play th World.
Alexman has created a separate thread covering Conquests/C3C corruption here - AlanH

Well, after spending some time doing some experiments, I think I do.

I used the editor to make a series of maps (one for each size), that had only plains. I modified plains to give two food, 25 shields, and 25 commerce, and I removed all commerce bonuses from roads. I also modified the governments to never have tile penalties and bonuses, so we can see only the effect of corruption in the governments.

Here's what I found:

FIRST SOME GENERAL COMMENTS

1) Corruption can never exceed 95%, no matter what.

2) Corruption calculations do not use Euclidean geometry, nor unit movement points, to get distance. Instead, the distance is based on the shortest path, where each orthogonal move costs 1.0 and each diagonal move costs 1.5, and the total is rounded down to the nearest integer. Another way of writing the distance formula is Distance = floor(max(x,y) + 0.5*min(x,y)), where x and y are the distance in the NW/SE and NE/SW respectively. (Formula discovered by DaviddesJ, rounding discovered by Qitai)

3) Corruption is divided into corruption due to number of cities, and corruption due to distance. These two components are independent.

4) The following corruption calculations yield a percentage. To get the actual corruption/waste, multiply the percentage/100 by the total number of shields/commerce on tiles being worked, and round to the nearest integer (verified by DaviddesJ).

5) Factories, marketplaces, et cetera, multiply the city's shields/commerce after corruption. This means that the number of red (lost) shields/commerce remains unchanged in the city view after you add one of those buildings (but the uncorrupted shields/commerce increase). It does not mean, of course, that you actually reduce the corruption percentage when you build these improvements (but it seems like it does, just because the percentage of red shields/commerce out of the total is visually lower compared to before).

CORRUPTION DUE TO DISTANCE FROM CAPITAL

The corruption due to distance, depends on these parameters:

1) Distance factor, Fd
This is 3.6 times the distance, divided by the map size. The distance here is the minimum between the distance to the capital and the distance to the Forbidden Palace. So for a standard map size (100x100) this factor would be 0.36 for a city 10 tiles away from the capital (when the FP is more than 10 tiles away). For a tiny map (60x60), it would be 0.6. It looks like the capital is taken as a distance 1 tile (not zero) from itself, that's why there is some corruption there. Communism is a special case, because corruption does not depend on distance. For communism replace the distance factor by the value 1.0.

2) Government factor, Fg
The distance factor is multiplied by a factor that depends on government. Here are the values:
Despotism: 1.0
Monarchy: 2/3
Republic: 2/3
Democracy: 4/9
Communism: 0.3

3) Improvement factor, Fi
The above product is multiplied by 0.5 to the power of N, where N is the number of city improvements that reduce corruption (courthouse and police station). If there is a WLTK celebration, increase N by one for shield waste calculation (but not for commerce lost).

4) Connection factor, Ft
This is 0.85 if the city is connected to the capital through roads, harbors, or airports. It is equal to 1.0 if not connected.

CORRUPTION DUE TO NUMBER OF CITIES
(Seriously edited since first posted)

The corruption due to number of cities depends on these parameters:

1) Optimal number of cities, Nopt
This is an integer number that depends on map size, and is found in the editor.

2) OCN (Nopt) multiplier, Fn
This is a factor that multiplies Nopt, and depends on difficulty level, city improvements, government, WLTKD, FP, and the commercial trait.

Specifically:
Fn = d*(1 + g + fp + imp*N + c)/100
where
d : percentage of optimal cities for this difficulty level (found in editor)
fp: zero for no FP, otherwise 0.2 for Communism and 0.1 for other governments
g : 0.1 if Republic or Democracy, 0.2 if in Communism, 0.0 otherwise
N : the number of improvements (including WLTKD for waste) as for distance corruption
imp: 0.1 for Communism, 0.25 otherwise
c : 0.25 for Commercial civs, 0.0 otherwise

3) Rank of the city, Ncity
This is equal to the number of cities that are closer to the capital than this city (including the capital). So Ncity is equal to 0 at the capital, 1 at the closest city to the capital, et cetera.

The above parameters are combined to get corruption due to number of cities, Fc, in this way:


Ncity / (2*Fn*Nopt), if Ncity <= Fn*Nopt,
Fc =
Ncity / (Fn*Nopt) - 0.5, if Ncity > Fn*Nopt,


Again, this is different for Communism than it is for the rest of the governments. For communism Fc is 0.1 times the ratio of ALL cities to (Fn*Nopt).

The FP gets a whole new set of cities where the number-of-cities factor starts at zero. So placing a FP never increases corruption at mid-range cities, even though there are now more cities closer to a center of your empire (capital or FP) than there were before). Edit: Qitai discovered that there is a bug (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62851) in the rank calculations for cities closer to the Forbidden Palace than the Capital. In short, for such a city, the rank is given by the number of cities that are closer to the Capital than that city is to the Forbidden Palace. :crazyeye:

So, if you want to write down the formula for corruption, it will be something like this:

Corruption% = 100 * (Fd*Fg*Fi*Ft + Fc)

DONE!

This formula worked for my test cases. It might not be 100% accurate, but it's pretty close. I think most of my discrepancies were rounding errors. But the real value of this analysis is that it gives an insight of how all these parameters affect corruption.

For example, you can see that difficulty level does not affect corruption due to distance.

Also, note that Communism continues to deteriorate as you add cities, up to the limit where all its cities are 95% corrupt!!

You can also see that Monarchy and Republic are exactly the same in terms of distance corruption, but differ in number-of-cities corruption. (Monarchy does not have the commerce bonus, but that's not corruption)

When you are well over the optimal number of cities, you can see that it makes no difference if you add a courthouse to a city at the outskirts of your empire, because the corruption due to number of cities can go over 100%. Even if you somehow manage to reduce the distance corruption to by adding buildings, WLTK, and Democracy, if the corruption due to number of cities is over 100% (i.e. you have 1.5 times the modified optimal number), you will have a maxed out corruption (95%) in that city anyway.

The above formula is implemented in a corruption calculator (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/CorrCalc.zip)

[Edit: updated for PTW]
[Edit: updated for Nor Me's results]
[Edit: updated for DaviddesJ distance formula]
[Edit: updated for DaviddesJ rounding]
[Edit: updated for Qitai distance rounding]
[Edit: updated for Qitai's FP rank bug (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62851) discovery]

Originally posted by alexman

When you are well over the optimal number of cities, you can see that it makes no difference if you add a courthouse to a city at the outskirts of your empire, because the corruption due to number of cities can go over 100%. Even if you somehow manage to reduce the distance corruption to by adding buildings, WLTK, and Democracy, if the corruption due to number of cities is over 100% (i.e. you have twice the optimal number), you will have a maxed out corruption (95%) in that city anyway.


Good to know.

The bit I quoted may be why so many players are frustrated with the current corruption model and why a handful think it is fine and dandy. Players that build large empires and exceed the number of optimal cities have no way to solve the problem. Players that limit the number of cities wonder what the problem is.

The change I want to see is a minimal level of effectiveness for courthouses and police stations. This change could be done in such as way that it has little effect on game balance while reducing the frustration level of players.

Another fix, requires more coding. It is a Civil Engineer specialist that produces one shield immune from corruption. Limit to three Engineers per city. This restriction lets players build a few minor improvements in outlying cities (four shields in a city with 3 Engineers) without giving them enough shields to effectively produce military units.

Thanks again for your thorough analysis.

Excellent analysis.

One thing that I have noticed, anecdotally speaking, is that certain outskirt cities tend to get slightly better as time goes on. I haven't made the time to investigate this with any controlled experiment (I'd rather spend the time playing!) but it's a potential factor that was not covered in your initial efforts.

I figure that one of several possibilities is the case:
- Corruption gets better in a city after several turns under your control.
- Corruption is positively affected by increased culture.
- Corruption has no time dependency, and the effects I've seen are a result of connecting cities, losing cities to conquerors, changing governments, or any one of a myriad other factors that I lose track of while playing a game that cause that outskirt city's shield production to rise from 1 to 2 or 3.

Okay, that last one's the most likely. :D But thought I'd check to see if anyone thinks the other two have merit.
--Yelof

Quote:

I figure that one of several possibilities is the case:
- Corruption gets better in a city after several turns under your control.
- Corruption is positively affected by increased culture.
- Corruption has no time dependency, and the effects I've seen are a result of connecting cities, losing cities to conquerors, changing governments, or any one of a myriad other factors that I lose track of while playing a game that cause that outskirt city's shield production to rise from 1 to 2 or 3.

The last one is more correct. The reason many people see a far flung city going from 1 unwasted shield to 2 is most often due to pure city growth. After building a courthouse you look at a city and it produces 1 out of 5 possible shields. Later on (after the city has grown more and land has been developed), you see that it is now producing 2 shields, but out of a possible 10. So it is still 80% waste. I did a corruption study and I built a courthouse in a far flung city (It had 40%+ waste), 100 turns later the city showed the same results as when I had freshly built the courthouse. Also, like Alexman pointed out about the improvements and money/beakers, is that those improvements only multiply the uncorrupted gold or beakers, so it may appear corruption got better after the improvements, but in reality the lost gold/beakers stayed the same. This is not the case with factories, you get more wasted shields with factories, too, but the % of waste stays the same.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Quote:

This is not the case with factories, you get more wasted shields with factories, too, but the % of waste stays the same.

Thanks for that info, Bamspeedy! :goodjob: I wrongly assumed shield improvements work like commerce improvements...

After some additional testing, I revised the formula for corruption due to number of cities, and updated the initial post.

It turns out that the commercial trait is equivalent to increasing the optimal number of cities by one.

It also turns out that after the optimal number of cities, the corruption due to number of cities increases at twice the rate as it does before that.

Over in other boards, I see you mention that factories' improvement is subject to corruption. I have tested this & have cases to show otherwise. i.e. their behaviour is similar to marketplaces & banks: multiplying the productive shields, not the total.

Another note, thanks to Grey Fox for noticing this first, a city with production over 20 (i.e. 21 and above) gets a 2nd shield no matter what. I'm not sure if that's a product accounted for by your formula, but it is behaviour we've witnessed.

As an example for my 2 statements, a distant city with 20 shields total, has 19 wasted & 1 productive. If I optimize my workers and get another shield, I get 19 wasted and 2 productive. If I then add a factory, I get 19 wasted and 3 productive.

This is true, I have many (4-5) distant cities with two Production. The thing is to get the total production above 20. Then you will get 2 Shields (Not always though, chiefpaco reported one case when this was not true).

This can help at times. If you have a 12 Size city that cannot grow (Because you need a Hospital), set as many citizens you can to work mined hills and mountains. This works best when the land is Railroaded, as one grassland tile can support two Citizens.

Happy tweaking!

This is great stuff Alexman, it really clears things up.

Originally posted by chiefpaco
Another note, thanks to Grey Fox for noticing this first, a city with production over 20 (i.e. 21 and above) gets a 2nd shield no matter what. I'm not sure if that's a product accounted for by your formula, but it is behaviour we've witnessed.


Alexman's first comment about corruption is it can never exceed 95%. This is consistent with what you noticed.

I ran some numbers through the corruption due to the number of cities formula and found that the number of optimal cities means exactly that. Once you exceed that number, the production and gold lost in all cities cannot be made up by the new city. Before the optimal number, a new city's production and gold can overcome the empire wide penalties of having 1 more city.

Well he never said "Waste". Waste is NOT the same thing as Corruption.

Waste is loss of shields, and Corruption is loss of Gold.

Originally posted by Grey Fox
Well he never said "Waste". Waste is NOT the same thing as Corruption.


Yes you're right.

This does imply that the 95% rule applies to waste too.

Excellent post.

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Terrific work, alexman.

I agree both 100%, and Wholeheartedly, with BillChin. As he has suggested before, having a Specialist that generates a sheild rather that a beaker or tax gold, but with a limit per city of say 3 or so, would alleviate many players frustration due to the endless fields of 1 shield cities on foreign contintents. And it could work without upsetting the Puritans (ie Firaxis's) applecart re: limiting the players advantage over the AI (which ultimately, is what defeating ICS and players tactics is all about). Still, I'd go a little further and beg them to lighten up true corruption (money loss, not shields or waste) as well. At least a little bit. Of course, in a sense this is already done- you can use Taxmen. This, for me, is just additional evidence that the Shield specialist is a Needed Addition to the game.

Good idea, naming it the Civil Engineer, BillChin!! But, prehaps another name more apropos would be Geologist. After all, geologists help locate and find mineral resources, ie shields. Another possibility might just be "Miner".

But, getting back OT regarding coruption (OPPS, Excuse me, WASTE), there is still one thing about it I definitely KNOW: It is so frustrating, the way it is done, that it is, for me (and I bet MANY other people), the single most irratating, depressing, plain loss of fun feature, in the game.

Here's hoping Firaxis introduces Shield specialists to help reduce Waste. Here's hoping they at least mitigate corruption a little, but I'd be happy to at least get the former.

And heres hoping eyrei doesn't blast this thread with demands that corruptiion AND waste be INCREASED. After all, it is good for you. (hehe eyrei, please be gentle ...)


AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! AIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!


Splat.

Wow, awesome analysis alexman!

Thanks a million times over for your efforts in doing this analysis, Alexman.

In a later post from your original you state that Commercial trait effectively increases the optimal cities by one. To clarify for my thick brain do you mean that it simply allows those civs to build one additional city before the killer corruption for exceeding the optimal value is triggered...or do you mean that in the calculation one is added to the value created for the number of city style corruption?

Thanks again...

this is quite helpful i must admit although there still a few unanswered questions about this very complicated topic of corruption.

Originally posted by majorlee
Thanks a million times over for your efforts in doing this analysis, Alexman.

In a later post from your original you state that Commercial trait effectively increases the optimal cities by one. To clarify for my thick brain do you mean that it simply allows those civs to build one additional city before the killer corruption for exceeding the optimal value is triggered...or do you mean that in the calculation one is added to the value created for the number of city style corruption?

Thanks again...

I think it's up there in the original post. He stated that it Nopt +=1 for commercial civs. But I'm not alexman, so I can only try to interperet what's there too.

Alexman, if Republic and Monarchy have the same corruption why is one labelled "problematic" and the other "nuisance"?

I think the study is a very good one. It gives me a better idea of what new strategies I should try. Though personally, I feel that having a road connected to the capital ought to reduce the corruption of a city alot more than 15%. Actually, I would figure that if you're city had airports and seaports that corruption should be even lower, as there is more contact with the main empire. At least that way, it would encourage development while still allowing people to expand their empires.

majorlee: as chiefpaco said, the commercial trait is equivalent to increasing the optimal number of cities by one, after modification for difficulty level. (So the commercial trait is a bit more valuable at higher difficulty levels)

Mr. Adeoye: What aspects of corruption are still not clear to you?

CivAI: In my original tests, governments with corruption labeled "problematic" and "nuisance" were identical. Since then, I have seen cases (namely a study by Aeson) where corruption in Monarchy and Republic differ, albeit only by a couple percent. It's possible that I have missed something. The formula is not 100% accurate - it's only meant as a way to see the ways in which various parameters affect corruption. Still, I have yet to see a case where the formula is off by more than a couple percent.

To All: Thanks for all your positive comments.

Hi everyone. excellent work alexman. How did come up with this formula? Must have been a lot of work. Anyway, I checked it in my current game and it consistently gives me more corruption than there actually is. Here's an example:

I'm republic, marla's huge map (size 254x204, I took 254 for my calculations), optimal number of ciites =32, the difficulty factor (deity) is 0.69 so my final Nopt=22. I have a forbidden Palace in the middle of the United States and my capital is far in Europe. Let's look at the 8'th farthest city (from the forb palace). The city is connected and its actual distance is 6 tiles south-east and 3 tiles south-west. This gives a distance of sqrt(6^2+3^2)=6.71 (right?). I've sold everything in the city (and the city is not in WLTKD). So, your formula says the corruption should be
0.85( 3.6*6.71*(2/3)/254 + 8/(22*2) )= 20.8%

So, out of 28 shields and 54 commerce from terrain, I should lose 6 shields and 11 commerce. However, I only lose 5 shields and 9 commerce.

Now if I leave a courthouse in the city. The fomula gives 18.1% of corruption. So, I should be losing 5 shields and 10 commerce. However, I'm only losing 4 shields and 7 commerce (in other words, the formula is off by 3 commerce).

So, I did the same calculation for 17 cities and in almost every case, the formula is off, but never by much. So the formula works well but (if my calculations correspond to what you had in mind) is not perfect (yes I know you said that). So I thought eh, why not try to improve it. Here's where it gets interesting.

Basically, your formula says that for a fixed map, fixed government, for cities with no improvement, cities not in WLTKD, connected to the network and having a rank less than Nopt, you should get
A*distance+B*rank
corruption, where A=0.85*3.6*(2/3)/254 and B=0.85/44 (in my case). What I tried was to input my 17 sets of data and try to find constants A and B which would work better. To my great surprise, no pair of constants work! In other words, if I take any numbers A, B between 0 and 3, take A*dist+B*rank as the corruption formula and calculate the difference between the predicted corruptions and the actual ones, there is always a difference (over all the cities, with waste and corruption, I get a total over 19).

I'm not sure if I'm clear (or helpful) but it seems like there is another term in the formula (time maybe?). I have no idea. Anyway, I'll definitely work on this a lot more after my exam... Sorry for not giving an answer and criticizing like this. Overall, the formula works quite well, it's off in about half the cases and even when it is off, it's usually by one or two (shields or commerce) so that's very good. I just wish we had the perfect formula.

I'm not sure, but is it possible that because you are playing on a non-standard size map (not a true square) that the map size factor would be different? Just a thought, might account for a slight difference.

Ohhhh, nice postings....
But for me (well I am rather new here) this is a little bit too "technical"....
So perhaps can someone tell me the clues I should make out of this postings.....
Since Civ1 I am a expansonistic expansonist, so I have really lots of problems with corruption/waste.....
And when does it make sense to build courthouse/police station????

THX
RedSlayer

Originally posted by chiefpaco
Over in other boards, I see you mention that factories' improvement is subject to corruption. I have tested this & have cases to show otherwise. i.e. their behaviour is similar to marketplaces & banks: multiplying the productive shields, not the total.

Another note, thanks to Grey Fox for noticing this first, a city with production over 20 (i.e. 21 and above) gets a 2nd shield no matter what. I'm not sure if that's a product accounted for by your formula, but it is behaviour we've witnessed.

As an example for my 2 statements, a distant city with 20 shields total, has 19 wasted & 1 productive. If I optimize my workers and get another shield, I get 19 wasted and 2 productive. If I then add a factory, I get 19 wasted and 3 productive.
But this actually means that the factory is subject to corruption. Look at it this way: You produce 20 shields with 90% corruption, leaving 2 productive shields. If you build a factory, you get 3 productive shields, which is still 90% of the 30 you would produce with zero corruption. If the factory had not been subject to corruption, then you would've got a productive shield bonus of 10 shields after building the factory (50% of the non-corrupted production).

Hi folks,
Found the corruption analysis to be quite interesting and
informative. Unfortunately, as it stands, corruption as
it currently works in Civ 3 is one of the things that
I really don't like about the game as the implementation
doesn't make much sense. If Firaxis really wanted to
model corruption then I think they should have looked
at what causes it in the real world and try a variant.

My thinking is corruption is often caused by the inability of
people to get services from the government. In this
regard, you can model corruption like pollution but the
main source of corruption is a large population w/ inadequate
civic improvements. The thing that is interesting about
this is that it allows for the possibility of a city despite
being near the capital to be highly corrupt if you built
nothing but a temple and church. A large population
has demands for entertainment (colusseum), education
(library/university), financial services (bank/marketplace),
jobs (manufacturing plant/factories), and law enforcement
(police station/courthouse). What you could do is have each
of these improvements also have an impact on lowering
corruption/waste just like the mass transit and recycling
plants lower pollution. U could also couple their effectiveness
to government type - ie, despotism could have a penalty that
subtracts from their ability to control waste/corruption whereas
democracy allows 100% of their ability. In this fashion, you
have to build more civic improvements for that city to remain
viable as it continues to grow. A small town may be ok w/
a library but a major metropolis needs a university.

What do you guys think?

Originally posted by royk4


My thinking is corruption is often caused by the inability of
people to get services from the government

That's an interesting approach. I am living in Bangkok, Thailand, and I find that the US government services here are much superior to the ones in the USA. Why? Well, it could be that there are more goverment employees here, in ratio to the US citizens that need help, than there are proportionally in the USA. Or maybe the government employees inside the USA don't give a ****. Maybe both. It's certainly not as simple as it is modeled in CIV3.

Originally posted by TheNiceOne

But this actually means that the factory is subject to corruption. Look at it this way: You produce 20 shields with 90% corruption, leaving 2 productive shields. If you build a factory, you get 3 productive shields, which is still 90% of the 30 you would produce with zero corruption. If the factory had not been subject to corruption, then you would've got a productive shield bonus of 10 shields after building the factory (50% of the non-corrupted production).

Funny how the math works out there. However, factories modify "productive" (the blue ones) shields only.

Factories increase production by 50%. So, in this case, 2 shields *150% (1.5) = 3.

Case II:
I have a city with 12 wasted shields & 58 "productive" shields. It has a factory & hydro plant. Waste % as a whole is 12/(12+58) = 17.1%

If I sell the factory (& thereby eliminating the hydro effect), I still get 12 wasted shields but now just 29 productive ones. Waste % as a whole is 12/(12+29) = 29.3%

By this example, the fact that 12 wasted shields remained shows that factories affect productive (blue) shields only. It also illustrates alexman's other resolution, that waste % will decrease by adding improvements that multiply your productive output.

I've been playing Civ3 for awhile, but corruption in my current game has me considering using the editor for the first time ever.

My current game is: Regent, Huge, Pangea, 16 civs, and I'm playing as China. I'm currently a Monarchy in the early Middle Ages (my Great Library is about to stop producing).

I've taken out a few other civs and my empire has already grown well over the 32 city optimal limit. This has caused max corruption in cities that would still be productive based on their distance. I realize that there are several things I could do with these 'excess' cities, but there a still a couple of other civs I would like to eventually conquer! <grin>

In short, I seem to have run into the corruption limit imposed by the 'optimal # of cities' before I got anywhere near the corruption limit caused by distance. I proved this (to myself) when I saw a formerly productive city become useless after I took a few cities.

My questions are:
1) What are the pros/cons to using the editor to increase the 'optimal # of cities'?
2) Besides corruption, what else is impacted by this number?
3) What is the 'safe' upper limit for this number? (and Why?)
4) Anything a first-time user of editor needs to know?

Thanks for any help with this and especially thanks to the original author of this thread. I've found the information in this thread extremely helpful.

Originally posted by BohW_RedSlayer
Ohhhh, nice postings....
But for me (well I am rather new here) this is a little bit too "technical"....
So perhaps can someone tell me the clues I should make out of this postings.....
Since Civ1 I am a expansonistic expansonist, so I have really lots of problems with corruption/waste.....
And when does it make sense to build courthouse/police station????

THX
RedSlayer

My interpretation is that you must limit the number of cities to deal with corruption. Playing on smaller maps helps as the optimal number of cities increases little as map size increases. Once you have double the "optimal" number of cities for a map size, nothing helps cities on the outer rim. Change your style of play and plan on a lot of Spaceship victories and you'll experience less corruption. An alternative is to use the editor to change the optimal number.

It is useful to build courthouses in cities that are relatively far from the capital, but still one of the closer cities to the capital or Forbidden Palace. If there are many cities that are closer (the optimal number in the editor), the courthouse and police station do not help. The courthouse and police station reduce the distance factor in the formula, but not the number of cities factor. If a player has a few cities, with some far from the capital, the courthouse and police station help a great deal.

There is a new patch due this Friday (4/19) so maybe Firaxis tweaks the formula a bit or adds some more ways to deal with the problem. I certainly hope so, because the current formula creates a problem with no solution after an empire exceeds double the optimal number of cities.

For the follow up that got posted while I was writing this, I think many players have set the optimal number to 999 without any ill effects. Distance is still a factor, but number of cities ceases to be one. One downside is that it makes ICS strategies favored by Aeson, overwhelmingly powerful. (ICS = Infinite City Sleaze, packing in as many cities as possible in the smallest possible area)

I have heard that staying in We Love The King Day for multiple turns will also help corruption. For example, if you keep your city in WLTKD for 50 straight turns will corruption be less on the 50th turn than it was on the first? Has anyone tested this?

Of course, all of this will have to be redone on Friday with 1.21f on the streets and its changes.

Plume, try using (254+204) / 2 as your factor instead of of 254. I don't know if this will work but using 229 should predict less corruption.

Originally posted by Sebastian
Plume, try using (254+204) / 2 as your factor instead of of 254. I don't know if this will work but using 229 should predict less corruption.

Sebastian, very impressive intuition. I didn't mention it in the initial post, but that's in fact what I used for the corruption calculation program. I found that for a 100x50 map it was very accurate.

Originally posted by IDSmoker
My questions are:
1) What are the pros/cons to using the editor to increase the 'optimal # of cities'?
2) Besides corruption, what else is impacted by this number?
3) What is the 'safe' upper limit for this number? (and Why?)
4) Anything a first-time user of editor needs to know?


1. The pros are that the absurd corruption goes away! You can then build or have more cities than you otherwise would, and you don't have to pull your hair out wondering why it's imnpossible to get anything done.

The cons are that the number of cities you must have before beign allowed to build the Forbidden Palace is hard-coded to be half the optimal-cities value, so if you think you're swift by setting it to 999, you're going to have to build 500 cities before you can get that small wonder. On the other hand, if you leave the value low, then build it when you can, and raise the value later, other civs might not have the opportunity to build it.

An additional note: Other civs don't go above the limit, in my experience. If you raise the limit, they will start expanding too. This means they will fill up their territory and come looking for yours. If you have a low limit, then it degenerates into an agonizingly slow race for space.

4. Don't screw it up!

Actually, just don't overdo it; don't go changing everything there is to change. Make a change, then see what it does. A lot of the values you'll find in there were carefully balanced. If you feel the modern units are woefully underpowered, simply multiplying them by some factor is not the answer. Keep in mind how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of a much more powerful enemy. No, I don't expect knights to withstand a cavalry charge all that often, but it does happen occasionally.


Alexman:

WOW! You're the man!

The rest of you mokes:

(I hope moke is not a really foul word, like "fanny" is...)

I can't believe you would suggest that the current "optimal number of cities" is anything but a massive boondoggle! What am I supposed to do with all those idiots that attack me? Let them, for fear of absorbing them? Sorry, but CONQUEST IS AN OPTION! if it wasn't, then we should call the game something else; something unflattering.

Maybe some wacko thought it was ok to raze every enemy city you come across, but I DON'T! I take the things, I get stronger for it (eventually), and I keep the schmucks from just plopping another city down, negating all I worked for. Why bother playing if you can't save the enemy's people from themselves? Why should my enlightened leadership be forced into certain avenues because some body else wanted me to slaughter billions of innocent digital citizens, instead of just installing my governor and leading them to greatness?

I like turn-based games because I get a chance to see what I'm doing. But that doesn't mean I like to spend 50000000 turns researching enough techs to get me to space! I can appreciate the minimum required research time (and I upped it a little to 6 turns) and the maximum allowed research time (I left that alone), but that doesn't mean I want hundreds of turns consisting of <enter> <enter> <enter> <enter> all in a row. I'm playing a game so I can do something.

If you want to reduce my micromanagement workload, which I would definitely appreciate, the solution isn't a better auto-governor. I don't really trust the things. (Of course, MOO3 will force you to use them, so they'd better be good!) The solution is to reduce the amount of crap I have to build.

I just worked my way through a SMACX binge, and each time I finished the game, I still had stuff to build in even my oldest cities. The build queue is helpful, and maybe some day I'll try the auto-governors again (they're supposed to be really good inthe new patch, right?), but I think there's just too much crap to build.

Let's treat structures more like units. When you get a new unit, it obsoletes an older one (often). So as you are able to build newer structures that do the same thing, they should obsolete older structures. I shouldn't have to build a marketplace, then a bank, then a stock market, then a.... anyway, you get the gist of it.

Now before you whine and say "But banks cost too much to be a first option!", the answer is simple(ish): make the cost flexible. Small cities will pay less for that stock market than a large one. The stock market will still cost more then the market place, but it won't be 10 times as much. It'll be a gentler progression, like units are, except bigger cities will have to spend a little more industry to build them (even though they will generally be building them faster because of their higher production values).

And that ties directly into doing away with the "ideal number of cities" fallacy. (How, I have no idea, but I had to cover that sidetrack SOMEHOW!)

So anyway, we do away with this ridiculous limit, because it makes no sense. No need for a geologist, and certainly no need to put a limit of the number of them either!

I have to admit, if it wasn't for the email I had gotten about 1.21, I may never have played Civ3 again. I am the person who plays Civ3 to rule the world with an iron fist. I'm there to conquer everybody else, on the biggest map possible. Corruption made this near impossible, and it made it so tedious as to be boring. I guess I'll have to see how much of a difference this all makes.

</Cryolithic>

From the chat transcript posted on Apolyton by Spiffor
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47932

(theGreyFox) Question: How much does, and how does Courthouses and Police stations affect corruption? Different between Waste and Corruption?
(Soren_Johnson_Firaxis) greyfox: it is the same effect for both waste and corruption... they basically cut the difference in half and add 1/4 of the optimal # of cities (which would be 4 on a normal map)

(theGreyFox) Question: Each of the buildings add 1/4 to the Optimum number?
(Soren_Johnson_Firaxis) greyfox: yes.. the FP and being Commercial has a similar effect (not sure about their values)

(theGreyFox) Firaxis: Oh, I thought you meant that Courthouses & Policestations Added 1/4 of the optimum... silly me...
(Soren_Johnson_Firaxis) greyfox: no that is what I meant (i think)... if a city has no courthouse or police station, the optimum cities value is 16. If it has both, the optimum value becomes 24.

(Aeson) For only that city right Soren?
(Soren_Johnson_Firaxis) aeson: right

(panag6) but courthouses also affect nearby city's , right ?
(Soren_Johnson_Firaxis) panag: courthouses only effect the city they are in
(panag6) and policestations ?
(Soren_Johnson_Firaxis) same

So courts and police have a second effect. If all your cities that lie between NOpt and 1.5NOpt have courts and police, then that can reduce corruption by moving them from the harsher formula to the nicer one.

If you get courts and police in all the cities that lie between 1.5NOpt and 2.25NOpt then these can also have corruption less than 95% because for them

0.5 < [2NCit/3NOpt - 0.5] < 1

This means that with effort a Large (NOpt=24) map can sustain perhaps 50 broadly productive cities... YEAAY!!

One query. Can you clairfy what determines how the system determines a city's NCit? Is it simply distance from the capital, or what?

Any chance of this getting reworked for 1.21f? I find the results very interesting and hope to implement them into my gameplay. But I'm curious as to the effects of the new patch on these issues.

Arathorn

Most parts of the formula still work under 1.21f. It seems that they didn't change anything except the effect of police stations, courthouses, and WLTK on corruption due to number of cities.

For each one of those things, add one fourth of Nopt to the optimal number of cities for that city. As always, WLTK affects shield waste only.

In the Apolyton chat, Soren mentioned that the FP had a similar effect on the optinal number of cities, but I didn't see it. It looks like its effect is identical to 1.17f: a second palace with a new set of cities with low Nopt. Note that if a city is close to both the palace and the FP, there is no extra benefit. You just take the smallest Nopt of the two.

A couple more notes:

1) To clarify, marketplaces, factories, libraries, et cetera, do not affect the number of red shields or commerce, but their bonus is applied to the uncorrupted part of the city's production or commerce. This means that these buildings ARE actually affected by corruption. It just looks as though they are not because the number of red shields (or commerce) remains the same, but the number of blue shields is reduced instead.

2) I found a bug that will annoy mod-makers. If you make a custom map, the game uses the optimal number of cities for a standard-sized map, no matter what the size of your actual map. For example, a tiny user-created map will have optimal number of cites = 16 instead of 12 (if you don't change anything else in the editor). I'm pretty sure this didn't happen before 1.21f

I'm not sure if I followed this thread entirely...

I agree with the fellow earlier who implied that setting an optimum number of cities for corruption severely limits playing style. It kind of forces a non-conquest situation on a huge map board.

I like to play on the huge maps, but am not entirely conquest oriented. On these huge maps, wars take a lot of time to resolve. I find the corruption and war weariness aspects of the game on these large maps to be SO tedious as to send me into to non-playing periods where I am SO disgusted with the game, that I want nothing to do with it. Trying to find a solution to this insanity is what eventually led me to this site and this thread.

While I followed Alex's calculations for the most part, I have a couple of questions (good work by the way alex):

Calculation for various map sizes. Can we clarify what that number is please? I think that I read in the 1.21f notes that the huge map is reduced to 160 by 160.

For huge is the Fd # for mapsize = (160 x 160) 25600?
Is the standard map size Fd = (100x100) 10000?

For number of cities, how do you arrive at Nopt? One fellow stated 32 cities, but I couldn't follow the logic to the number there for my own calculations.

:confused:

Calculation for various map sizes. Can we clarify what that number is please? I think that I read in the 1.21f notes that the huge map is reduced to 160 by 160.

For huge is the Fd # for mapsize = (160 x 160) 25600?
Is the standard map size Fd = (100x100) 10000?


Fd = 3.6 * Distance / MapSize

As Sebastian pointed out in an earlier post, use the average of the two map dimensions for map size. The default map sizes are equal in both dimensions. (MapSize = 100 for a standard-sized map)


For number of cities, how do you arrive at Nopt? One fellow stated 32 cities, but I couldn't follow the logic to the number there for my own calculations.


With 1.21f:

Nopt = OptimalCities * (1 + N/4) * DifficultyPercent / 100 + Nciv

OptimalCities is a setting in the editor for each map size. I believe 32 is the default for huge maps.

DifficultyPercent is also in the editor, under difficulty settings. It ranges from 100 (Chieftain) to 70 (deity).

Nciv = 1 for commercial civs. Zero otherwise.

N = Number of corruption-reducing buildings in that city (courthouse and police station). Add one for waste calculations for a city in WLTK.

Alexman, very good work. I have been running some tests to get a feel for corruption under different governments though. The FP does seem to have a 5% reduction under communism, despite what the description would lead you to believe. I posted the map I was working with in the following thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22684

Originally posted by chiefpaco

Funny how the math works out there. However, factories modify "productive" (the blue ones) shields only.

Case II:
I have a city with 12 wasted shields & 58 "productive" shields. It has a factory & hydro plant. Waste % as a whole is 12/(12+58) = 17.1%

If I sell the factory (& thereby eliminating the hydro effect), I still get 12 wasted shields but now just 29 productive ones. Waste % as a whole is 12/(12+29) = 29.3%

By this example, the fact that 12 wasted shields remained shows that factories affect productive (blue) shields only. It also illustrates alexman's other resolution, that waste % will decrease by adding improvements that multiply your productive output.
Sorry for being late with my answer, but then this thread deserves to be upped now and again.

Take your case II: without factory, you get 70.7% of the 41 shields you would get without corruption. Add the factory (and hydro effect), and an uncorrupted city would have given 82 shields. Your city only gives 58 shields, which is still exactly 70.7%. So, the factory is affected by corruption.

Look at it another way: The factory effectively gives you 29 additional productive shields. I assume the city in question has a court house, and by selling it off, the city w/o factory would go down from 29 to f.ex. 20 productive shields due to added corruption. Since factory only increases the number of productive shields, the factory (with hydro) no longer will give you 29 additional shields, but only 20.
So the factory produces less shields just because the city became more corrupted, i.e. it is affected by corruption.

Originally posted by TheNiceOne

Sorry for being late with my answer, but then this thread deserves to be upped now and again.

Take your case II: without factory, you get 70.7% of the 41 shields you would get without corruption. Add the factory (and hydro effect), and an uncorrupted city would have given 82 shields. Your city only gives 58 shields, which is still exactly 70.7%. So, the factory is affected by corruption.

Look at it another way: The factory effectively gives you 29 additional productive shields. I assume the city in question has a court house, and by selling it off, the city w/o factory would go down from 29 to f.ex. 20 productive shields due to added corruption. Since factory only increases the number of productive shields, the factory (with hydro) no longer will give you 29 additional shields, but only 20.
So the factory produces less shields just because the city became more corrupted, i.e. it is affected by corruption.

I believe I understand your argument, but there is a flaw in your logic. You're saying if there were no corruption in this city, there would be 41 shields w/o a factory, and 82 with one, correct? This is true. Also, if there were the given amount of corruption, there would be 12 waste and 29 shields w/o, 12 waste and 58 shields with. True as well. Now, 29/41 = 58/82, so you argue the total number of shields is relatively the same either way. However, this hypothetical scenarios are not the case at hand. Although the overall effects are the same, the factory itself is not affected by corruption and produces only usable shields. The factory does not affect waste. The results would be the same either way, for if it did double your waste, your net results would not change, and neither would the percentages.

Maybe I don't. I missed in the thread, what is the difference between waste and corruption. This definition is dotted in transcript. Is it corruption we can fight but nothing can be done about waste?

Waste refers to shield loss, corruption with money lost. Courthouses, police stations, and FP help with both.

Originally posted by MuddyOne
The FP does seem to have a reduction under communism, despite what the description would lead you to believe.


You are right about that. My initial statement that the FP does not affect communism is not true. In reality the FP (and capital) city does not count against the optimal number of cities limit. So having a FP actually reduces corruption a bit. The percentage of the reduction depends on the number of cities in your empire and the number of optimal cities. I edited the initial post to reflect this. Thanks for pointing that out MuddyOne. :goodjob:

Also, lets settle this factory and marketplace debate once and for all. TheNiceOne is right. Even though on the screen it looks as though the city improvement reduced the corruption percentage because the number of red icons stay the same, that's not the case. I think I mentioned this earlier in this thread. So, contrary to what I initially thought, the corruption (and waste) percentage is not affected by marketplaces (and factories).

About the forbidden palace, am I correct in understanding that the FP essentially gives you an entirely new set of optimal cities to work with? For example, if the optimum number of cities is 4, does this mean that I can build the capital and 3 other cities, then build a forbidden palace on another continent, and build 3 cities around that, and all of them will use the low formula for corruption? And if I build the forbidden palace close to my original palace, does this effectively reduce the number of cities I get? (ex. I build a capital and forbidden palace one square apart - all cities are in the same order of closeness. Do 4 cities use the optimal formula or 8? Are intermediate cities between the capital and FP counted once for each capital or are the two capitals mutually exclusive?)

Dracleath, you are correct in your understanding of the way the FP works. It gives you a whole new set of cities, but any overlap with the capital is lost, except for the fact that the FP city itself does not count against the optimal number of cities limit. So in your example, only 4 cities will use the optimal formula, but of course not including the capital and FP. The last city using the part of the formula for N <= Nopt will be the 6th city.

In other words, build the FP far away from your capital! That's the most important use of great leaders, IMHO...

punkbass2000, I guess we're debating semantics, because we agree on the hard numbers, but look at it this way:

A factory in a corrupt city produces less shields than a uncorrupt (but otherwise identical) city. If the city has a base shield production of 50, a factory in an uncorrupt city adds 25 shields, while a factory in a 40%-corrupt city only adds 15 shields (to the 30 productive base shields).

So since the factory in the 40%-corrupt city produces 40% less additional shields, it is clearly affected by the corruption.

Originally posted by TheNiceOne
punkbass2000, I guess we're debating semantics, because we agree on the hard numbers,

I'll agree to this.

Originally posted by TheNiceOne

Take your case II: without factory, you get 70.7% of the 41 shields you would get without corruption. Add the factory (and hydro effect), and an uncorrupted city would have given 82 shields. Your city only gives 58 shields, which is still exactly 70.7%. So, the factory is affected by corruption.

But your math is not what I observed. I didn't get 82 total shields when I had the factory+plant, I had 70. 58 were productive and 12 were wasted. Where did the other 12 go?

OTOH, the production jumped from 58 down to 29, exactly half and just what I would expect from getting rid of the 2 bonuses that increase un-wasted production by 50%.

However, I see your point. If the factory multiplied the total production, my percentage would remain the same and I would effectively get the same overall productive number of shields. However, the wasted shields would also have to multiply and they did not. Therefore, I'm sticking to the subtle & non-significant point that it affects only the unwasted shields.

Originally posted by alexman
Edit for 1.21f: Courthouses, police stations, and WLTK (waste only) each increase Nopt by a fourth, for this city's corruption calculation.



So... with 1.21f: on a Huge Map with the Difficulty NOpt percentage set to 100% you would have:

Base NOpt=32
w/Courthouse, NOpt=40
and w/Police Station, NOpt=50
and w/WLTK, NOpt=62.5 (rounded down to 62)

Do I have this right?

What about the new Corruption slider added in 1.21f? Is this value applied to final product of the corruption/waste calculation? (or is it used in one of the previous steps of the calculation?)

Yes, you have it exactly right. :)

I don't know about the corruption slider. I would guess it reduces the corruption after all modifiers, but I don't feel like testing it! :sleep:

I would be surprised if he has it right. Everything else in CivIII does not "stack" the bonuses as he was doing. Example, 32 gold with a market and a bank is only 64 (32*(1+.5+.5)), not 72 ((32*1.5)*1.5).

I would expect the limit is

32
40 with courthouse or WLTKD
48 with courthouse and police station or courthouse and WLTKD
56 with courthouse, police station, and WLKTD

I've not tested this at all, so I can't be sure, but this seems to me to be much more likely.

Arathorn

Arathorn, you are of course correct... It's been a while so I forgot. I should have looked at my earlier post:

Originally posted by alexman

Nopt = OptimalCities * (1 + N/4) * DifficultyPercent / 100 + Nciv

N = Number of corruption-reducing buildings in that city (courthouse and police station). Add one for waste calculations for a city in WLTK

Wow. I couln't follow everything you said, but it sure helped a lot and you obviously put a lot of work into this.

Do foreign citizens affect waste/corruption?

Since a certain distance from capital/FB leaves a city with only 1 shield of production (many times), would it then make sense to dense build border cities? You wouldn't need aquaduct, temple, or anything. You'd just get the land and happy citizen points, right? Plop cities down with and set them to produce wealth.

For anyone wanting to play without editor changes, there is a subtle trick that can lessen the overall affect of corruption: Play on a map one size larger than you prefer, but with 60% landmass. For example, play a large map with 60% instead of a standard map with normal land/water ratio. It's not exactly the same game, but very close. Thus it is as if you played a standard map with optimal cities set to 24.

As a bonus, this also helps when playing a larger map than your computer can reasonably handle. I found this because I wanted 12 civs but not the speed of a standard map. :p

Originally posted by Crazy Jerome
For anyone wanting to play without editor changes, there is a subtle trick that can lessen the overall affect of corruption: Play on a map one size larger than you prefer, but with 60% landmass. For example, play a large map with 60% instead of a standard map with normal land/water ratio. It's not exactly the same game, but very close. Thus it is as if you played a standard map with optimal cities set to 24.

As a bonus, this also helps when playing a larger map than your computer can reasonably handle. I found this because I wanted 12 civs but not the speed of a standard map. :p

VERY Clever idea, Crazy Jerome! I think I will try this, with at the same time editing up the cities limit- the effect on speed should be good, in the endgame. Now I wonder how this effects Strategic resources distrubition??

I really like your corruption calculator, alexman, but wondered if you ever update it, could you change a couple little things?

The enter key seems to close the utility when it starts up and then later just follows the focus. Could you always make it "Calculate"?

Could you add a minimize button? Sometimes I like to keep it open but get distracted by something else.

The "Set Defaults" screen. Can you make it remember the last settings I chose? I often just want to change 1 thing at a time.

Thanks. Also 1 suggestion. Why not also add it to the "Utilities" subforum?

Ask and you shall receive! :D
I updated the attachment in the initial post.

As for putting it in the utilities, I don't think it's that useful of a tool, but you can start a thread in that forum with a link to this thread if you like...

Awesome! Thanks!

This is a great program for figuring corruption. It's pretty neat.
I have 1 request though: Can you change corruption from descriptive to the government type? Thx.

I'm furious about this. I usually played on the biggest maps, making 250+ cities and today, I can't pass 50 'cause of this! The optimal number of cities should be x10!

Great work, thank you Alexman.

Where do you get the figures for the boxes in the "Number of Cities" section of your calculator?

"1) Optimal number of cities, Nopt
This is an integer number equal to the optimal number of cities for the current map size, multiplied by a factor that depends on difficulty level. Both these values may be found in the editor."

Are you referring to the map editor that comes with the game? If so, it does not work with the GOTM games.

A lot of threads refer to the optimal number of cities but no one states what that number is. Is it a secret? What is that number? Is there a chart somewhere listing those numbers?

Where do you get the number that goes in the box "Closer"?

The original post of this thread is April, so I hope it is not to late to get a reply.

It's never too late for a CivFanatic! ;)

Under the default rules, the optimal number of cities is as follows:
Tiny: 12
Small: 14
Standard: 16
Large: 24
Huge: 32
You can get these numbers by opening civ3mod.bic with the editor, and clicking the World Sizes tab. Select a map size and you will see different values in the "optimum number of cities" field. The GOTM uses default rules, so you know the value if you know the map size.

As for the "closer" field in the calculator, it refers to the number of cities that are physically closer to the palace (or FP) than the city in question, including the palace itself. I'm afraid you have to count them yourself from looking at the map! :p

Alexman,

Glad to see you're still reading this thread! I have a question
for you (or anyone else who knows the answer).

About seven months ago I posted a strategy guide on how to work
around corruption and waste in order to maximize the overall
production and efficiency of one's empire, to the "Official
Corruption Solotions" thread. I'm now working on a complete
overhaul of that guide, as it's now quite out of date. Some of
the things in it are no longer true as a result of patches, and
others were based on empirical observations I had made without
fully understanding the mechanics behind what I was seeing, and
your post that started this thread has some important
implications to that. Also I just have a lot more experience
with the game now, and I've changed my mind about some things.

Anyway my question has to do with FP placement, and what happens
with cities that are more or less equidistant from your capital
and FP.

You said that the FP gives you a whole new set of cities where
Ncity starts at one. Basically what I want to know is, is the
set of cities whose Fc is determined by their distance from the
FP completely distinct from the set of cities whose Fc is
determined by their distance from the capital, or is it possible
for one city to be a member of both sets?

For example, suppose you're playing as the Americans. Your capital
is in Washington, and you built your FP in Chicago, which is 10
squares away from Washington. Now suppose you have 3 cities within
5 squares of Washington, those being Philadelphia, New York, and
Boston. The next farthest out city from Washington, after Boston,
is Detroit. Detroit is 7 squares from Washington, but only 6
squares from Chicago. Then comes Atlanta, which is 8 squares away
from Washington and 11 squares from Chicago. Philly, New York and
Boston are all at least 12 squares away from Chicago.

Now the question is, what is Atlanta's Ncity value? 3, 4, or 5?
Atlanta is the 5th farthest city from Washington, coming after
number 4 Detroit. However Detroit is closer to the FP in Chicago
than it is to the capital in Washington. Does that mean that it
doesn't count towards Atlanta's Ncity value?

In other words, do the Ncity rankings look like this:

0 Washington
1 Philly
2 New York
3 Boston
4 Atlanta

0 Chicago
1 Detroit

or like this:

0 Washington
1 Philly
2 New York
3 Boston
4 Detroit
5 Atlanta
6 Chicago

0 Chicago
1 Detroit
2 Washington
3 Atlanta
4 Philly
5 New York
6 Boston

Does each city belong in both lists, or just one?

And if each city appears in both lists, then is its Ncity value
that is used to compute corruption based on the minimum of its
rankings in the two lists, or on its ranking in the list for
whichever "capital" it's closest to? In other words, would
Atlanta's Ncity value be 5, because it's closer to Washington
than to Chicago, and it's the 5th farthest city from Washington,
or would it be 3, because it's only the 3rd farthest city from
Chicago?

The major implication of this question is that, if each city
only appears in one of the two lists, putting the FP a great
distance from the capital is much less important that it would
otherwise appear.

Whenever you have a lot of cities, Fc is going to be the primary
limiting factor to your overall productivity, rather than Fd.
Basically you get a cluser of approximately Nopt productive cities
surrounding your capital, and another cluster of Nopt productive
cities surrounding the FP. All of your other cities will have 95%
corruption, or close to it, and will be net liabilities to your
empire rather than assets. But if each city appears in only one
of the two Ncity ranking lists, then the only thing that changes
by putting your FP right next door to your capital is that you
get one cluster of 2*Nopt productive cities, rather than two
clusters each contaning Nopt. Either way you get a total of 2*Nopt
productive cities.

Of course it would have to be a bigger cluster, in order to avoid
the cities' production radii from overlapping, which means the
average distance from the capital/FP of your productive cities would
be a bit greater, which means you get a bit more Fd, which means
your empire's total productivity would take a bit of a hit. But it
would be far from disasterous, and that loss might actually be
outweighed by the advantages of putting the FP close to the capital,
such as that you can build it with the city's native productivity
rather than always having to use up a Great Leader, and your
perimiter would be smaller, making your home territory easier to
defend.

What do you think?

Also, anyone from Firaxis want to comment on this?

Originally posted by artax
...is the set of cities whose Fc is determined by their distance from the FP completely distinct from the set of cities whose Fc is determined by their distance from the capital, or is it possible for one city to be a member of both sets?

The latter. A city is always member of both lists when you have a FP.



...if each city appears in both lists, then is its Ncity value that is used to compute corruption based on the minimum of its rankings in the two lists, or on its ranking in the list for whichever "capital" it's closest to?

The former. Its ranking is the minimum rank of that city out of the two lists.

Basically, if you want maximum productivity in your empire, you have to arrange so that each city that appears in the first half of the capital's list, appears in the second half of the FP list, and vice versa. This is very difficult to do in practice, but there are many ways to at least come close. But this is not for here. I'll let you cover those ways in your strategy guide! ;)

Got it. Thanks for the clarification!

Too bad Firaxis didn't make it work the other way, though. I
think that would make it more playable. It would give more
flexibility in terms of what shape your empire can be, and
still be maximally productive.

I agree that making it so that each city that appears in the
first half of the capital's list appears in the second half of
the FP's list, and vice versa, would be difficult. However
that's only important if you don't have much over 2*Nopt
total cities. My strategy guide is going to be mostly aimed
at people who like to win by total world conquest, and
end up with lots of cities. In that case, all you have to do
to is make sure that your capital and FP are far enough
apart that the cluster of productive cities surrounding the
capital and the cluster of productive cities surrounding
the FP don't overlap. All cities outside those two clusters
will have 95% corruption anyway, so it doesn't matter
what order they're in within each of the two lists.

Hi folks,

This is an interesting thread - I would particularly like to hear some more tips on the placement of the FP and the Palace, as this is a very important decision that always fills me with doubt.

Many players are no doubt aware of this, but after seeing numerous posts on rushing the Forbidden Palace with a leader, I thought I'd point out an alternative strategy that I nearly always use. When I first get the entire world map, I try to make some long term plans about where the final borders of my empire should lie. On many maps, a reasonable goal is simply to conquer the continent on which I started. I then estimate two reasonable sites for the Palace and the FP, and then I immediately build the FP at the site nearest to my current capital (using plain old shields). Later, when I've conquered the territory where my second palace should lie, I rush build a Palace with a leader at that site, thus jumping my capital there. The old core of my empire should still be pretty near my FP.

The main advantage of this strategy is of course that you get the FP as soon as possible, yet at an optimal site. Another advantage, if you avoid building any wonders in your capital, is that you can always resort to moving your capital by abandoning it, in case you have no leader on your hands.

Thanks Rider for the excellent FP tip. I will sometimes move my capital to a more centralize location by abandonment to save time and leaders if I have not built any wonders there. I often will not build any great wonders preferring to obtain them as spoils of war.

Very good post for a Rookie. I'd never thought that way.

Hmmm...

It worth trying...

Good job :goodjob:

(red, in higher dificulty levels building GW is usually a bad option)
(a tip btw, give masonry to your closest neighbour: you want Pyramids next to you :D )

Thanx 4 the nice beakdown guys.

Quetions:

1. Does anybody know the optimal # of cities for each map size?

2. Does % water/landmass ratio affect these #'s?

3. Is it possible that government type affects the optimal #?

Hope to hear a reply!

Cannon

very good analysis...
Can I ask you a question? Is it necessary a Courthouse in the Capitol?

Cannon- #1 is answered if you scroll up a little on this page.
#2 - No
#3 - Not really. Governments affect the distance from capital part of the corruption formula. Communism is not affected by distance but only by # of cities.

Lord Guilhon- Most of the time, no. But sometimes I do lose a shield and 1 or 2 gold in the capital and recover this when I build a courthouse. I wouldn't bother building a courthouse in your capital until you actually see corruption/waste in it. And even then, it may be debatable sometimes whether it's worth building the courthouse.

Thanx

Looking for info about that lone gold of corruption lost in the capital and that single shield wasted, I found this excellent analysis by Alexman. It says that the game counts the capital as being one tile away from itself, and thus has one shield of waste and one gold lost to corruption.

This is in contradiction with the Civilopedia that says that the palace eliminates corruption and waste in your capital. But since we all see this happening, either the Civilopedia should be adjusted, or its a bug that needs fixing in the game if you are indeed supposed to have no corruption/waste there.

I've discovered a correction to the corruption formula posted by alexman.

Distance to the palace or forbidden palace is not computed using Euclidean distance (square roots). Instead, the distance is based on the shortest path, where each orthogonal move costs 1.0 and each diagonal move costs 1.5.

I discovered this because the corruption for a test city at distance (4,3) is not exactly the same as the corruption for a test city at distance (5,0). However, a test city at distance (4,3) has exactly the same corruption as a test city at distance (5,1).

Another way of writing the formula is

Distance = max(x,y) + 0.5*min(x,y)

where x and y are the distance in the NW/SE and NE/SW directions, respectively.

:goodjob:
(Initial post updated)

That really is very interesting. And while I was just re-designing my build pattern, this news is music to my ears. Thanks a lot DaviddesJ, and alexman.

-friend alexman or anyone else pls do write a few details of how we can use correctly the corruption calculator ...thanx indeed
-especially how we enter the values in distances!:confused:

I'm not going to write a manual for such a simple program, but I would be glad to answer any specific questions. :)

To enter the distance, just count the tiles from the city in question to the capital (or to the FP, whichever is closer). The two numbers you enter are the components of the distance in the orthogonal directions Northwest-to-Southeast and Northeast-to-Southwest.

I recently updated the calculator to use DavidesJ's distance formula.

alexman,

I should have posted here before since this thread taught me loads about corruption, I guess I am just a little lazy. :blush:

Thanks also goes to DavidesJ for his distance calculation. I guess the distance formula is the same for all Civ matters, and so I have updated my FlipCalc (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53157) accordingly too.

Thanks guys! :thumbsup:

Originally posted by anarres
Thanks also goes to DavidesJ for his distance calculation. I guess the distance formula is the same for all Civ matters, and so I have updated my FlipCalc (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53157) accordingly too.


I'm not sure this is true. For example, the number of your cities within a distance of 8 affect the choice of new capital when you lose your capital, but the "distance" used for that purpose is different than the distance used for corruption.

I'm not even absolutely sure that the distance used for number-of-cities corruption is the same as the distance used for distance-to-capital corruption. Although that seems likely, because I've never noticed two cities in the same ring having different corruption levels, even by a tiny amount.

I think different people implemented different parts of the Civ3 code, and they each used their own methodology, so there may not be much internal consistency.

Still, I agree that the corruption distance is probably the "best guess" for how to compute distance for flips. Perhaps it would be possible to set up some test games and test this hypothesis, but it would be quite a bit of work.

A detail about corruption that's not mentioned in the main article of this thread is how rounding works. It seems to be this: once the corruption percentage is computed, then multiply it by the shields/turn to compute waste, and round to the nearest integer.

E.g., if corruption is 10%, then there will be no waste if you produce 1-4 shields, 1 waste if you produce 5-14 shields, 2 waste if you produce 15-24 shields, etc. Thus, if you're producing 4 shields then adding a 5th gives you no benefit.
I call these values (at which adding another shield gives no benefit) breakpoints: 4, 14, 24, etc., in this example.

Notice that it's usually a long way from the 1st breakpoint to the 2nd breakpoint, if corruption is low, but after that they are evenly spaced.

P.S. This calculation seems very close, but not 100% exact. It gives about 98% correct results, but occasionally the corruption percentage appears to be 1-2% different from what's calculated using the formulas in this thread. I'm not sure what accounts for that.

DaviddesJ,

I am going to set up some tests when I have time, although they will not be totally trivial to perform.

Until then I think is likely that distance to capital or FP is more likely to be the same as the distance used in corruption calcs, and I agree, it is likely that city rank is the same too.

I will let you know either way when I do the tests. :)

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
...once the corruption percentage is computed, then multiply it by the shields/turn to compute waste, and round to the nearest integer.


Thanks for verifying that. I suspected that actual corruption was calculated that way, but most of my initial tests involved cities with 100 uncorrupted shields, so I never got to see for sure which way the rounding went. I'll update the initial post. :goodjob:

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
I've discovered a correction to the corruption formula posted by alexman.

Distance to the palace or forbidden palace is not computed using Euclidean distance (square roots). Instead, the distance is based on the shortest path, where each orthogonal move costs 1.0 and each diagonal move costs 1.5.

I discovered this because the corruption for a test city at distance (4,3) is not exactly the same as the corruption for a test city at distance (5,0). However, a test city at distance (4,3) has exactly the same corruption as a test city at distance (5,1).

Another way of writing the formula is

Distance = max(x,y) + 0.5*min(x,y)

where x and y are the distance in the NW/SE and NE/SW directions, respectively.

Daviddesj,

Bang-on! :goodjob:

However, it got me thinking: In-Game, all locations are measured in an (X,Y) co-ordinate system. Surely there must be some easy formula to relate the distance between (X1,Y1) & (X2,Y2).

In Civ II, the map locations were given to you in-game when you clicked on a square, and people had spent a lot of time analysing the resutls for such things as trade deliveries. On a hunch, I tried the Civ II formula, and the numbers agree with you observations.

The link that I stole the formula from is here, (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64729) but the basic formula is as follows:

Stolen from a post by Samson @ 'poly
Distance = (Xdistance + Ydistance)/2 + ( | Xdistance - Ydistance | )/4

If the coordinates of point A are (Xa, Ya) and the coordinates of point B are (Xb, Yb), then the absolute difference between Y coordinates is:

Ydistance = |Ya - Yb|.

Or, in other words, simply subtract the smaller Y value from the larger one.
On a FLAT map, the Xdistance value is found the same way:

Xdistance = |Xa - Xb|.

On a ROUND map, however, there will be two values which express the horizontal distance between two points: |Xa - Xb| and (C - |Xa - Xb|) where C is the circumference of the map. These values represent the X distances between the two points obtained by traveling East or West respectively. The Xdistance value used in calculating Civ2 distances is the smaller of these two numbers. Thus:

Xdistance = SmallerOf( |Xa - Xb| , (C - |Xa - Xb|) )

This calculation is easier to do in practice than it is to formally describe.
For example, given two points A(23, 71) and B( 84, 12) on a medium map (50 x 80),
where the circumference is 100:

Ydistance = 71 - 12 = 59.
Xdistance = SmallerOf( 84 - 23 , 100 - (84-23) = SmallerOf( 61, 39) = 39
Distance = (39 + 59)/2 + (|39 - 59|)/4 = 98/2 + 20/4 = 49 + 5 = 54


The important thing to note is that a move NW decreases both X & Y by 1, and a move SE increases both by 1.

A move NE increases X by 1 and decreases Y by 1.
A move SW decreases X by 1, and increases Y by 1.


The easy way to remember this: X increases with any move towards the right; Y increases with any move down. :)

Thanks for digging that up. It's nice to know how Civ2 worked, but in Civ3 that distance formula is clearly not in agreement with what DaviddesJ has found.

Take x greater than y.

Then DaviddesJ's formula gives:
Distance = x + y/2

And Samson's formula for civ2 gives:
Distance = (x+y)/2 + (x-y)/4 = 3x/4 + y/4

These two are clearly not the same for all x > y

As for that round map business, it is already implied in DaviddesJ's formula by the way he defines x and y.

That's because Daviddesj's X & Y are not the Samson / Civ internal X & Y.

Daviddesj's X & Y are the number of squares moved in a given direction; the Civ one is a location reference.

Eg:

Consider a move 3 squares SE and 1 square NE. Daviddesj's formula gives the distance = (Max(3,1) + 0.5 * Min(3,1)) = 3.5.

For the Samson formula, assume you start at (X,Y) = (0,0). This move would take you to (4,2).

Y Distance = (2-0) = 2
X Distance = min(4 and 100-4) = 4

Thus distance = (4 + 2) / 2 + abs(4-2)/4
= 3 + 0.5 = 3.5

Sure, the formulas are equivalent. Maybe I shouldn't have used "X" and "Y" as the variables, when I described the calculation. (I wasn't aware that the game uses them internally in a different way. Are X and Y ever displayed in the game, or only stored internally?)

Anyway, the most useful thing to remember is the underlying explanation of how to determine the distance: take the shortest path, where NW/NE/SW/SE moves count 1.0 and N/E/S/W moves count 1.5. Both formulas are both just different ways of expressing that rule mathematically.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
Sure, the formulas are equivalent. Maybe I shouldn't have used "X" and "Y" as the variables, when I described the calculation. (I wasn't aware that the game uses them internally in a different way. Are X and Y ever displayed in the game, or only stored internally?)

They are used extensively internally. However, the only real way to see them (easily) is via the editor. Open the editor, move the mouse around the screen and you will see the x,y locations. :)

Originally posted by ainwood
They are used extensively internally. However, the only real way to see them (easily) is via the editor. Open the editor, move the mouse around the screen and you will see the x,y locations. :)
You can also show them in the editor via the View->Grid Coordinates menu item (or Ctrl+Shift+G for you keyboard freaks:)).

Oops, my bad. I didn't realize how the civ coordinate system was set up. I was assuming it was aligned with the NE/SW, NW/SE directions.

Hi, in the latter stages of the game when I have loads of cities spread over a large area, I move my capital city around gradually. This kills corruption in the cities nearby and corruption doesnt seem to increase that much in the cities that used to be around the capital, maybe because they have become large with extensive improvements.

Well, of course the courthouses would reduce corruption, but the libraries/marketplaces would also make it 'appear' that you have better corruption, because those improvements are multiplying the uncorrupted gold. So when you moved the palace all those cities will get a little more corruption (and the increased corruption doesn't get multiplied by the buildings, so you really are losing more commerce).

Yes, moving the palace around may help you build up areas faster, so your complete civ gets built up with all the improvements (eventually). But most times it just is not worth the shields/time to keep moving the palace several times. You don't need every one of your cities in the world to have all the improvements to win the game. Just 2 solid good cores (palace/forbidden palace) is all you need.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Yes, moving the palace around may help you build up areas faster, so your complete civ gets built up with all the improvements (eventually). But most times it just is not worth the shields/time to keep moving the palace several times.

Another way, unless your empire is excessively large, is to change governments to Communism while you build your Courthouses/Police Stations, then change back to your preferred government when they are built. Obviously this works best on a Religious Civ, but it would probably be preferable to moving the Palace around for a non-religious civ.

ACtually when I get two leaders per turn and use them to build Tanks or Modern Armor I would move the Palace around to build those marketplaces sooner. I would actually lose some money with this move but it would be OK for milking purposes

By the time I'm building marketplaces in all those high-corrupt cities, I have all of that area irrigated, so having those cities produce just a few more shields isn't worth all the increased corruption from your core cities that already have marketplace/bank/etc.

Dianthus, that may work with some play styles. But when you have 400+ cities, the best city in communism produces only about 6 shields/turn no matter how big it is, or how heavy it is mined.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Dianthus, that may work with some play styles. But when you have 400+ cities, the best city in communism produces only about 6 shields/turn no matter how big it is, or how heavy it is mined.
Hence my "unless your empire is excessively large" at the start of the post :)

First I want to give alexman and Daviddesj thanks for their excellent work :goodjob:

Now, I notice there is nothing in the formula to indicate any osrt of increased corruption in a city that is located on a different continent than the capital, provided it is linked by a Harbour or Airport.

Am I missing something here or is that actually the case?

You're not missing anything. :)

And thanks for the thanks, but there are many more people that have contributed to the final form of this formula other than DavidesJ and me (and not only on this site).

Well... then... thanks to them too! :D

I now look closer at corruption due to RCP. I made a observation in GOTM22 that I am getting same corruption for a city at distance 3 and 3.5. I did some test and it seems to tell me that only integer portion of the distance is used for corruption calculation. I.e. Distance of 2.5 is the same as 2, 10.5 is the same as 10. So, the distance formula may be this instead.

Distance = Floor(max(x,y) + 0.5*min(x,y)) which affects ranks as well.

Alex or Davidesj, maybe you want to verify this. My test sample size is about 10 pairs. If this is true, RCP may be alot more flexible in terms of tile choice.

That's a great discovery, Qitai!
I just verified it and it's true! RCP just became much more powerful.

Makes sense. I haven't checked it out yet, but I'm willing to believe it.

delete me

Originally posted by Qitai
I now look closer at corruption due to RCP. I made a observation in GOTM22 that I am getting same corruption for a city at distance 3 and 3.5. I did some test and it seems to tell me that only integer portion of the distance is used for corruption calculation. I.e. Distance of 2.5 is the same as 2, 10.5 is the same as 10. So, the distance formula may be this instead.

Distance = Floor(max(x,y) + 0.5*min(x,y)) which affects ranks as well.

Alex or Davidesj, maybe you want to verify this. My test sample size is about 10 pairs. If this is true, RCP may be alot more flexible in terms of tile choice.

Is this in the Corruption due to distance calculation, in the determination of city rank, or both?

Both.

Excellent. Now that annoying mountain that muddles up my plan is now irrelevant!

Thanks for the info!

Made more discovery on corruption. Alex, I post a new thread since I mention an exploit there as well. So far, Sir Pleb has verified it. You may want to update the formula. With this latest discovery, I am now able to get exact corruption figures.

:thumbsup: Thank you, Qitai!

I updated the initial post, and I'm hoping I have to update it again soon (after Firaxis fixes that bug you found!)

wow, just calculated this **** al over.

in the beginning on my deity game on normal map, city distance 4.
12% distance corruption, 4,5% corruption per city closer to capital.

Calculating the capital as the first city that is closer (so always being at least 1 city to calculate) and the game rounding properly, it works out perfectly.

thanx for this info.

i shortly translate this whole math to (on my diff and map size):
corruption = 3% per distance + 4.5% per city that is closer to cap (including cap itself)

that is of course only for early game, where i have no govt or other bonus things except for a road connection.

really, this is marvelous. this solves the whole corruption problem.
at distance 5 or 6 (= only 15-18%) you can pretty well build 12+ citys around your cappital.
do it again later with forbidden and with 26 fully productional cities, you're even better than ever been in civ2. And this is deity and normal size map i'm talking about.

hehe, got an update for conquests? ;)

Hehe, yes, but I'll wait for the patch first.

Have you had any confirmation that they're going to do a patch soon?

Yes, they claim they fixed some corruption issues already.

Excellent!

Thanks alexman. :thumbsup:

Are there even any rumors on possible release date for this patch?

Anyone know how the model at the top of this post compares to Corruption in C3C?

Corruption in C3C is buggy anyways..

does this post (and the calculator) still applies to C3C v 1.15?

There are certain things (mainly concerning the FP) that have changed. I will open a new C3C thread soon.

This is the corruption in one of my cities (warlord level, huge map about 3/4 of the map vertically from my capital) it is producing 23 sheilds of which 1 can be used, and 42 commerce of which 1 can be used. these both seem to be counter to the 95% max claim.

Can you post a save 7rew? That is very unusual and may be a bug.

Ok here is the save game (please bear in mind this is my first warlord game, so i'm not that good) Also the numbers may be a bit higher as the city has grown since the post (but is producing no more)

Ok here is the save game (please bear in mind this is my first warlord game, so i'm not that good) Also the numbers may be a bit higher as the city has grown since the post (but is producing no more) the city is the metropolis in the small area of green due north of the main area.

7rew, there is no save...

Welcome to CFC anyway!

7rew,
I suspect you either used the "reply-to-post-direct attachment feature" (whatever its name is, file size limit is only 100k here) or forgot to link to your (uploaded) file.

Here's an exhaustive description how to use the upload feature:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/announcement.php?forumid=109
(just ignore the fuss about bug description...)
Also, state your 'version' (vanilla, PTW, C3C) and the patch level you use.

Right, here goes I should have got this right this time.... hopefully.

the game is HERE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/7rew_corruption.zip)

My version is unpatched vanilla.

The city in question is new Hamadan (30/31 sheilds wasted 46/47 commerce to corruption)

Hmm, if you still use unpatched civ3 (v1.07), that may just be the problem (corruption was worse back then).
I stronly recommend to d/l latest patches and install them. You can find them e.g. here on CFC:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3patches.shtml

I cannot be bothered to downgrade. However, I tried to load your save-file (into PTW 1.27 though, but this *should* normally work with vanilla save files). Alas, I get a load error. I hoped that I could show you that the corruption cap is 95% when using the latest patch.

The different versions at different patch levels may be responsible for that load error, although I never faced a technical problem when loading an "obsolete" version's save file into the most recent version of vanilla or PTW.:hmm:

So w/o being able to look into the game, my best guess is to blame the 46/47 corrupted commerce on the unpatched version.

Guys, Thanks a lot for all the work you put into this thread, it's been invaluable for a lazy newbie like me. So I'd like to ask you a few more questions that I came across in my games and that I wonder if you would be able to help me with, since they don't seem to have been addressed in this thread.
Basically, I would like to know 3 things:
1) what is the effect of government penalties (e.g. Despotism -1 to shield and and commerce above 2), is corruption applied to the total before or after the penalty due to government type?
2) in a Golden Age, are the extra shield and commerce gained subject to waste/corruption or are they applied after waste/corruption effect is calculated (similar to the effect of a factory or marketplace)?
3) what if I mix both effects?

As an example, suppose I have a size 4 city with 25% corruption and waste, that produces 10 shields and 10 commerce before any bonus/penalty, broken down as follows (square#/shields/commerce):
before despotism penalty
1/3/2, 2/3/2, 3/2/3, 4/2/3 - total 10 shield, 10 commerce

after despotism penalty
1/2/2, 2/2/2, 3/2/2, 4/2/2 - total 8 shields, 8 commerce

Will waste/corruption be 10 * .25 = 3 (2.5 rounded)
or
8 * .25 = 2 ?

Now suppose the same city, in a Golden Age:
before GA bonus
1/3/2, 2/3/2, 3/2/3, 4/2/3 - total 10 shield, 10 commerce
after GA bonus
1/4/3, 2/4/3, 3/3/4, 4/3/4 - total 14 shield, 14 commerce

Will waste/corruption be 10 * .25 = 3 (2.5 rounded)
or
14 * .25 = 4 (3.5 rounded)?

Now let's make it really confusing, by having a wasteful GA in Despotism:
before GA bonus and Despotism penalty:
1/3/2, 2/3/2, 3/2/3, 4/2/3 - total 10 shield, 10 commerce

Will it apply the penalty then the bonus, yielding
1/3/3, 2/3/3, 3/3/3, 4/3/3 - total 12 shield, 12 commerce

or the bonus then the penalty, resulting in
1/3/2, 2/3/2, 3/2/3, 4/2/3 - total 10 shield, 10 commerce ?

How will corruption apply in this case?

Well, I hope I asked questions worth asking :))

Thanks,

Diploled

Government penalty, GA, and mobilization, just change the number of shields/commerce you get from some land tiles, so they are subject to corruption.

Just add up all the shields/commerce, multiply by corruption, and round to the nearest integer.

Cool, thanks!
Would you mind if I ask another question (asking it already)?
I observed that the corrupted commerce is alocated into tax and science just like the "net" commerce, making my city screen show something like
Tax - 2 (corrupted) 1 (useful)
Science - 6 (corrupted) 3 (useful)
Luxury - 1 (useful)

The numbers are not real, just an example off the top of my head. I wonder if the corruption is calculated based on the total and them allocated according to my settings in the control panel, or if commerce is first allocated and then corruption is applied separately to tax, science and luxury.

Also, I would like to confirm this: it seems that, no matter how high the corruption is, I'll always get at least 1 commerce. So if I have a really small, undeveloped city that generates only 2 commerce, at 95% max corruption I would only lose 50%:) Is that correct?

As far as I know, corrupted commerce does not change when you change the sliders.

And yes, you get at least 1 shield and 1 commerce no matter what's going on with corruption. I should have mentioned that in the first post. :thumbsup:

Hi everyone! I followed another approach regarding corruption, mainly because I usualy build large empires. So, I looked over the corruption percentage on the general budget level. My observation: Shortly, indifferent of how big the empire is, a good corruption management lowers corruption to losses around 10% of all the national revenues. That means that any of you, who maintains his/her losses from corruption to 7-15% of the national/imperial income, has success in circling the phenomena.

On a similar note; does anyone else think it might make sense that garisoned troops (in Despotism, Monarch, and Communism) should decrease waste (ever try to be lazy when there's a tank next to you?) but increase corruption (due the troops "borrowing" to support themselves)? This would be an interesting effect, and very helpful with the waste in a sprawlng communist empire.

Has someone finally fiddled out how the WltKDs exactly work?

I did some testings, but I'm lost :confused:. Completely.

In short, what I see is:
(Important: That city has the highest distance. If its distance is a lower one, that works like a increase of the OCN for that city. I.E., you will see an effect for WltKD, even if your total city count is way above 2xOCN.)

1a) You are not above 2xOCN; in WltKD
WltkD has an effect, but less than CH would. Adding a CH (or Police Station) will further decrease waste; but adding CH+Police Station has a huge additional effect (~-30%!).

1b) You are not above 2xOCN; not in WltKD
CH and PS alone or together decrease for about 10% each.

2a) You are substantially above 2xOCN; in WltKD
WltKD has zero effects. Adding a CH (or PS) will result in exactly the same decrease as the CH without WltKD would.
But, and that's what I completely fail to get in my head:
Adding a CH + PS again has a huge effect (~ -30%, compared to one of them alone).

2b) You are substantially above 2xOCN; not in WltKD
CH/PS do exactly what you'd expect.

(WltKD of course has no effect on corruption.)

Anyone able to explain that?

The effect of WltKD alone can be easily explained as 'For that city, the OCN is increased'; thus, if that particular city has a very high rank/you have lots of cities, you'd expect to see little to no effect. No problem here. Same as the 'linear' effect one corruption reducer has.
But I absuletely cannot explain why in case of WltKDs two (and more?) corruption reducers will result in such a huge reduction of waste.

Thanks for the analysis. I've noticed that when taking over captured cities the corruption/waste whatever you want to call it (Loss of money and production) is dramatically larger than if I would have razed the city and built my own. This is true even after the city has calmed down and I have grown some of my own people in it.

Any ideas?

Im sure this has been touched on a number of times, but what is the optimal number of cities? I'm sure there's a formula for it! How bad are the effects when you first go over the optimal amount, and does the amount compound as you go over more and more or does it stay the same? I find myself asking whats the use in even conquering sometimes unless resources are for capture. Corruption makes these cities virtually unusable and then take up research time and/or gold to build an able defense for many of these cities. IT's got to be the most frusterating feature in the game, much worse then pollution!

I imagine that it probably depends on your civ traits, your government type, the city placement you use, etc...

The Base Value for OCN can be found in the Map Editor. Open it up, select "use custom rules" and then go to the world settings.
By default it is (I think)
Tiny 14
Small 17
Standard 20
Large 28
Huge 36


Your OCN is lowered at higher difficulty levels (the multiplier is also in the Map Editor)
100% at Chieftan down to 50% at Sid.

As a note. All cities can be useful (especially in C3C), but can require a lot of MM. All those corrupt cities can hire specialists. Specialists can make a big difference. I have seen games where people were researching IA techs in 4 turns using just Scientists in highly corrupt cities.

Note that the number of efficient cities is increased significantly by certain buildings (courthouse, police station) and certain small wonders (Secret Police Station and Forbidden Palace). So you can build far more efficient cities than the OCN would suggest. See the first post of this thread for more details.

It occurs to me that it would reduce confusion if a Moderator were to update the first post of this thread to mention that this is specific to Vanilla/PTW and to include a link to c3c version. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=76619)

@jeffelammar: Done. I've adjusted the title as well.