Cure For Corruption!

Armor

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 5, 2001
Messages
31
I don't know if I'd describe this as a 'mod pack' but I posted about it on the boards, and several people have asked me to make it available, so here it is -- my cure for corruption -- attached at the bottom of this message. Here's the original post:

FROM WHAT I HEARD AROUND THE BOARDS, IT SOUNDS LIKE many of you share my feeling that corruption is way out of hand in Civ3, whether or not it's intentional on the part of the designers. Switching to Republic or even Democracy seems to give almost no benefit, despite its significant costs, and as a result there's no clear way to ramp up the economy or knowledge production, nor to make peripheral cities useful contributors to the nation. In Civ2, you got a return on your investment when you made all the sacrifices necessary to switch to representative governments, and although the designers may have intended for players to be continually plagued by heavy corruption in Civ3, I find it makes the game slow and depressing.

SO HERE'S WHAT I DID:

I changed the rules in civ3mod.bic, adding the 'reduces corruption' flag to a number of buildings besides the courthouse. I reasoned that the sort of buildings that increase culture, particularly religious and educational institutions, would also be likely to reduce corruption. Indeed the sacred texts of most major religions, including Christianity and Islam, specifically address issues of corruption and fairness in business. And these Middle-Eastern religions are seen by some experts as having arisen, in part, to address the moral vaccum created by increasing international commerce.

Furthermore, in the world today, education levels map almost directly inverse to corruption levels throughout the world, with highly educated nations like Sweeden and Denmark experiencing the lowest corruption, while developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia suffer from the highest.

So I added the 'reduces corruption' flag to the library, temple, university, cathedral, and research lab, as well as all the great wonders. I also added it to the police station, for obvious reasons. The courthouse remains useful because it also fights propaganda, but I reduced its price slightly to reflect its diminished relevance, but you'd be surprised how often you still want to build one.

IT WASN'T ENOUGH

So I did this, then went back to my moderate-sized democracy (13 cities) on a normal map, and found corruption to still be lingering around 30-40% of the economy (down from around 70%). I felt this was still too high for a highly educated (and quite religious!) democracy, so I went back and flagged the economic development buildings as well: marketplace and bank. This yielded corruption of around 10-15%, which I found acceptable. Although I haven't tested it in other government forms yet, corruption should go up an down appropriately, since I didn't alter the government/corruption settings. Also, some users have speculated that corruption levels go down as one enters the modern era -- this mod would not affect that dynamic either.

SO WHAT'S IT LIKE?

It's great. I don't care what the developers' intentions were: this is better. It doesn't unbalance the game, since all civs get the same benefits, and all build these buildings anyway. But suddenly, it was as though the game came back to life! The pace picked up, my research sped up (though I didn't pull ahead), my economy kicked in -- it was like the brisk pace of Civ2 with all the added functionality, graphics and complexity of Civ3. Believe me, you owe it to yourself to play Civ3 this way.

Have fun fighting corruption!

-Armor
 

Attachments

  • anticorruption.zip
    17.5 KB · Views: 5,243
How easy is it to return to the default rules? I haven't made any changes to the rules so far. :)
 
Yes you can restore default rules by clicking under Rules, restore default rules. I find it easier to just back up the rules and cut and paste it if a corruption occurs. I have also done what Armor says to do and concur with him in it does work. What I do find interesting is if you adjust the govt down to minimal corruption you still have rampant corruption if you have a lot of cities 20+ which is not a low number on a huge map.
Armor's suggestion does work to solve a portion of that problem.
 
I have about half a dozen cities that are 20+ now, and haven't noticed a rise in corruption with my 'patch' in effect. Note, of course, that all these cities have the corruption reducing buildings mentioned above, including courthouses, and some of them have a wonder or two as well (though not all). Also, as I mentioned, I'm using this in a democracy where everything else that can be done to fight corruption is also being done, and almost every day is 'hail to the president' day.

I also wanted to note that the patch, while reducing corruption, does not interfere with any other corruption-related systems in Civ3. For example, if corruption goes down over time, which some have claimed, that would still be the case; it's also the case that cities further away from the capital/hidden palace continue to experience much higher levels of corruption than do central cities, and government forms still have their own effect on corruption. But if you build cultural/religious buildings, the normative level of corruption is reduced -- that's it.

As for backing up the .bic, yes, it's all explained in the readme that comes with the download, but it's very, very easy, and can be switched around with little effort.

Armor
 
How would I put this into the game, and still be able to keep the Pre-patch mod pack? I really like the pre-patch one, but I'd also like to take care of some of my corruption problems too.

Thanks
 
Someone should combine the pre-patch mod, the anti-corruption mod, and the Elvis mod....

As the author of the Elvis mod (if you have 1.0 make sure you get 2.0 with elvis getting fatter and getting his signature glasses in the modern age) I can assure you that Elvis mod will work with any of the mods mentioned above... it doesn't touch any game rules, just the graphics.

My newest mod, named:"Usability Pack" (also just a graphic mod that methinks comes in very handy) will not however work well with packs that change the game rules re: unit upgrades, generated culture...)
 
I've emailed the creator of the popular 'pre-patch' mod to see if s/he is up for issuing a combined version -- shouldn't be difficult at all to make. Of course the graphic updates are a different ball of wax, and shouldn't interfere with rules modifications.

Armor
 
A couple questions about this mod, and installing modpacks in general (I've never done it before):

1. Where is the original bic. file?
2. Does the mod immediately affect games that are already in progress or just new games?
3. Is this an automatic mod (once installed) or is there something else you have to do?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Great patch. I thought about adding lower corruption flags to other buildings myself, but I didn't think they'd stack up, apparently they do :) ta
 
I'm glad people are trying this patch -- I certainly find the game more fun to play with it. But I encourage everyone to experiment with it, and add or remove the 'reduces corruption' flag from various buildings. Recently, I turned off the flags on the marketplace and bank in my own games, as I felt corruption too low in the modern era.

PT4414, the answers to your questions are in the readme.txt that comes with the file.

I decided not to bother with a combination 'pre-patch' and anti-corruption mod since rules changes are being updated all the time and there are more of them each day. If you want to combine them, I suggest you try doing it yourself -- just click on the civ3mod.bic file, select 'edit rules' from the rules menu, go to improvements/wonders tab, and add the 'reduces corruption' flag to buildings as mentioned in my original post above (or to whichever buildings you want). You can do this to one of the modified civ3mod.bic files to add corruption-fighting power to it.

Have Fun!

-Armor
 
I had this idea myself and it works!

The corruption level is more in tune with CIV 2!

It BALANCES the game and gives you a fighting chance!

DOWN with corruption!

Nice one armour!!!

I also suggest adding 10+ attack points to all the modern
wheeled vehicles as this make them more realistic!:goodjob:
 
Thanks. The old system was ridiculous: only distance from capital/hidden palace seemed to matter (democracy and modern age) in a highly civilised society and corruption/waste was rampant. I also suggest taking the flag off from the marketplace, but IMO banks should remove corruption in society, but maybe the wonders shouldn`t ?
 
I suppose y'all just don't like challenges.

Getting rid of corruption?! Why don't you just play it on Chieftan level. I have WLTK Days all the time in my game on Chieftan level. It is really easy, too. I'm about to win with a culture victory.

Heck, I could modify the rules so that I could kick AI butt on Deity level and get a really high score and brag about it. So what? What fun is that? This isn't Civ2 anymore. Not that mods are bad, but switching to this mod permanently will never really give you a Civ3 experience. Maybe you should try to figure out how to cure corruption within the rules before you go and change them. It's all part of the challenge.

Just my 2 cents. I don't mean to bash anyone, all I'm saying is that I'm sure there is a way to compete with the AI without changing the rules. It's just that no one has figured out how yet, and they would just rather change the rules to make it easier.

Why not just play on an easier level? Pride holding you back? Don't let it. I used to play only Deity level in Civ2, but here I am in Civ3, playing Chieftan. Bring yourself down a level or 2. Try it on an easier level if you can't compete with the AI. Don't go changing the game around so you can still kick the AI's butt on Deity level like you did in Civ2. This is Civ3. Don't expect to have it mastered the first time you play it. It's not Civ 2.99. It's Civ3.
 
Those changed waste/corruption rules apply to A.I. too so I don`t really get your cheating point. IMO there is serious gameplay flaw in dealing with corruption especially in huge maps. Try Earth (Huge).bic under Scenarios and see what I mean. I`ve tried to adapt and tested this in various ways but always gotten abnormally large corruption and waste (95%) even when cities are on the same continents: when the capital is e.g. under Sahara in Africa and all the really big developed mining cities in the north produce 1 shield and gold under democracy. Under 10 hexes the corruption is really low, but the courthouse alone doesn`t do jack when the distance is 10+ more hexes from the capital/hidden palace. All that matters is distance, not happiness, culture, nor infrastructure or sciense.

The distance isn`t so big factor in smaller maps, but it really really ruins the big ones. Only thing you can do is raise scores in the big cities not near the capital, but what`s the fun in that. I`d rather produce something to distinguish those cities from the ones with 1-3 population. This is surely gonna be changed in some way in the upcoming patches for Civ3 but why wait if you can tune it yourself rather easily. That`s why the Civ3Edit.exe is supplied with the game, to make it customizable and that way suit your own tastes. And I didn`t even play Civ2, just the first one in the series and also SMAC :)
 
Explain to me why corruption is getting everyone so upset. So what if your captured city is not producing at 100% efficiency. Even 10% is acceptable, because these cities are only there to increase your border. Plus, temples, marketplaces, and librarys can be built if you only have 1 or 2 shields. Hence, courruption does not make the game impossible to play like some of you complain.

With your main core cities' infrastructues built up, change them to build wealth, and then use the additional cash to rush build any important buildings you might need on the newly aquired cities. Not too difficult at all, it's just another challenge, not a hinderance to the game.

Infact, this point hasn't been really discussed. But the ability to generate wealth, instead of waiting for corporation is a great change.
 
Maybe everyone elses game does have a corruption bug. In all the games that I have played, I don't ever recall seeing a city lose more than 50% of its ability to corruption (except in anarchy or civil disorder).

The game I'm in right now is on a 180x180 map with 16 civs and corruption doesn't seem to be a HUGE problem like y'all seem to think it is. It is definitely there, but it ain't that big a deal.
 
Good work on the mod... although civ 3 aint here yet where i live.
From what people were saying in these forums it sounded like corruption was way too high, i saw the post from the firaxis guy and thought it was a horrid thought of razing caputured cities because they were useless/to prevent huge corruption due to too many cities.. one should be able to capture the entire world and still have reasonably low corruption if you have a modern govt, courthouse, and a couple of other things like connected to captal via road/harbour /airport etc any more than 30% corruption/waste after this is BS (note forbidden palace would lower corruption in one area from what i understand, but no use once you go conquer someone else)

One idea though, and this would be more difficult, and hopefully there will be an official patch to change this (or provide an option or editing ability to change it) is to change the corruption forumla.

perhaps there is something like "number of cities until BS corruption starts = 15" or something of the like.. adding a zero would fix the problem :) or perhaps changing the other part of the distance corruption factor.

not sure if thats possibile to do the above thru the editor, but maybe someone knows how?
 
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