Cure For Corruption!

FROM WHAT I HEAR AROUND THESE 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. 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.

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.

If anyone's interested, I could post the mod file here on the 'completed mods' board, but it's also pretty easy to do this yourself. Have fun fighting corruption!

-Armor

How about posting it as a modpack? I'd definitely be interested, for sure. Sounds like a major imrpovement.

I still wonder whether there is a decent way to model the problems that all civilizations faced when trying to communicate with distant colonies. So far I figured that corruption would partly reflect that, since you can still instantly change e.g. production in a far-away city.

You bet we want it! can you post it soon!

Are you guys sure about this corruption deal?

I complained as well... in the beginning.

I was the Babylonians... quickly sped through the advances to get democracy and was shocked by the amount of corruption.

But wait.

It's now 1912... and things are WAY WAY better. I'm still a democracy, though I'm much more culture-ful than I was before.

The cities on the outskirts experience both corruption and waste but to a degree that is SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER than I was experiencing 800-900 years ago.

At worst, in cities producing 18 shields, I'm losing 3.

At this point I'm refusing to install any modpacks as I'm starting to form the crazy opinion that maybe the designers built in an ageing process for government types and communication and culture that indeed makes corruption and waste progressively less of an issue.

Believe it or not, right now I'm really enjoying the way things are working out. It makes more sense, makes for a more interesting game (dealing with the corruption) and heck I love it.

I would seriously suggest that before going and modifying what more than likely was INTENDED behavior, you give the game ONE MORE fair shot by making sure that you really keep your culture up, communications going, trade with other countries etc.

Alessandro

P.S. I'm currently playing at Chieftain level, so go ahead and laugh at me... but keep in mind that I was having the same exact corruption issues at Chieftain 900 years ago... and numerous others posted that difficulty level didn't seem to increase corruption.

At this point I'm refusing to install any modpacks

I should specify that by that I mean modpacks that change corruption settings.

Oh yeah and I have a TON of cities at this point (at least 20, maybe 30... one on a far off continent, that was recently founded and is experiencing maybe 20-30% waste).

I anticipated this position in my original posting, and as I said, I'm more concerned about having a fun and engaging game to play than I am with honoring the unclear intentions of the game's developers. In any case, I feel this modification does honor their intentions, since they included the rules editor for the very purpose of allowing users to customize the game as they saw fit.

If you want to stick with their corruption levels, no one's stopping you, but I've got to tell you, this modification has saved this game for me, and I only intend to keep modifying.

I've put up a copy of the file in the 'completed mods' board for anyone who's interested, and what the hell, I'll attach it to the end of this message as well. Get ready to ramp up that economy!

your pal,

Armor

Just a quick clarification, doesn't changing the civ3mod.bic affect all games (excluding specific scenarios of course)? As I understand it, all random "scenarios" use this file, while designed scenarios use a settings in the scenario file.

Thanks for the file. <--King for a Day Celebration!

Armor,

let me point out that the only purpose of my post was to point out that apparently either with culture growth, or infrastructure building, or just plain time, waste and corruption DO go down to inconsequential.

I feel this models reality pretty well, though I *WAS* a strong advocate of "They screwed it up" while I was playing only until the middle ages.

Incidentally I FULLY understand and APPROVE (I'm not saying you or anyone else needs my approval, by approve I mean big thumbs up to you) of any mods that make the game MORE ENJOYABLE for you. After all, historic quasi-accuracy isn't pervasive throughout the game, so heck whatever works for you, and others, that's fantastic!



However... I'm somewhat concerned about what happens when someone makes this mod to get rid of that hassle and then without even realizing it uses the *more production* version of the game to play things like the GAME OF THE MONTH here on civfanatics?

DaveT didn't express his concerns in these terms but this *IS* a ramification of this kind of change (along with the mod someone posted that changes unit strength values).

Alessandro

P.S. It would be nice if scenarios could be loaded SANS MAP (I dunno if this is possible, haven't tried it yet - possibly saved SANS MAP) so that one could use your mod as a "Super Production Scenario" with random maps. Under those circumstances I would be the first to download it!!!! Heck, you think I wouldn't love to play a game where I can build a tremendous empire and rule the planet?

P.P.S. If this is indeed a possibility I would highly suggest (read: beg) that you re-release a version of the BIC file saved as a SuperProduction scenario, to avoid the GOTM problem I mentioned to those who wouldn forget to reset to the original for that game (me for instance).

I'm not so sure about that mod. Corruption is definitely a major problem in society today. It makes the game harder but in a realistic way. In the real world things don't happen and change like they do in Civ 2. The pace in Civ 2 is very fast, but that doesn't happen naturally. Do you think Democracy ended corruption overnight? Everything takes time to happen. I admit that in Civ 3 things can happen a little slowly, but it makes the player focus on why there is corruption and try to remedy the situation by rethinking the location of that city, or maybe just admitting the fact that a lot of business is wasted in the real world. The reason why civilization took so long to mature is because there will always be people that take away business and cause corruption. Anyway, that's just my opinion. I like a challenge, but yet i don't think the game should move at a snail's pace. I think that it will just be something to overcome.

Originally posted by Il Mafioso
Armor,

However... I'm somewhat concerned about what happens when someone makes this mod to get rid of that hassle and then without even realizing it uses the *more production* version of the game to play things like the GAME OF THE MONTH here on civfanatics?

DaveT didn't express his concerns in these terms but this *IS* a ramification of this kind of change (along with the mod someone posted that changes unit strength values).

Alessandro

P.S. It would be nice if scenarios could be loaded SANS MAP (I dunno if this is possible, haven't tried it yet - possibly saved SANS MAP) so that one could use your mod as a "Super Production Scenario" with random maps. Under those circumstances I would be the first to download it!!!! Heck, you think I wouldn't love to play a game where I can build a tremendous empire and rule the planet?

Click to expand...

According to some of the people who have already taken them apart, maps and rules are independent in the BIC-files, so you can have a map without rules, rules without map, or both together

That's why there shouldn't be any problems with the GOTM, either, if they just include the rules

Thanks Armor, as I haven't mucked about with the editor yet I most likely would not have thought of using it to tone down the ridiculous corruption levels for ages

I added 'Reduces Corruption' to the listed buildings and the Wonders that I consider cultural, and now under Republic I have 15-20% corruption as opposed to the 50-70% odd it was beforehand.

To Killerdaffy

Originally posted by Killerdaffy


According to some of the people who have already taken them apart, maps and rules are independent in the BIC-files, so you can have a map without rules, rules without map, or both together

That's why there shouldn't be any problems with the GOTM, either, if they just include the rules

Click to expand...

If that is the case, then wouldn't it make sense to release corruption decreasing, or unit altering rule changes as MAP-FREE scenarios?

Otherwise it would be burdening all those of us who would like to have this as an OPTION to either keep backing up our standard rules or pass on the mod. And burdening those who are just setting up a game to include a specific *scenario* with it, when in reality this *scenario* is just the game's STANDARD rules (unless you go and modify the default BIC file.

Alessandro

Most of the issues people seem to have with this mod/technique I addressed in the original posting, so let me refer the critics to it. Some of you seem to approach the original Civ3 rules as though they were holy texts, and that if their logic isn't apparent at first glance, a life of hardship and sacrifice will likely teach you their value.

Well call me a Protestant then, because I'm breaking from Papal authority. Like many people who have posted about this here, I found the levels of corruption in the game to be so ridiculous that I was going to stop playing. And I can't emphasize more that I did EVERYTHING you guys have been going on about, including wait until the modern era. I have yet to see a post with a suggestion that I didn't try long ago. This isn't an issue of undiscovered game dynamics that reveal to all the secret wisdom of the creators. It's an issue of making this game fun again, instead of depressingly slow.

Let me further add that this 'patch' does not elliminate corruption -- it reduces it substantially in your more developed cities -- and as such, game dynamics relating to corruption still play a significant role. In sum, I think to appreciate this patch you have to let go your fanatical reverence for whomever decided Civ3 should be plagued with crippling corruption, and embrace popular re-interpretation of the scriptures. Hallelujah!

Armor

OK, but regardless of the relative brilliance or lack thereof of the designers choices, obviously the "Reduces Corruption" flag is intended to be a special feature possessed by only a few (or one as the case may be) buildings. Regardless of whether the game is finetuned or not, giving that flag to almost EVERY building is basically silly. :crazyeyes

I agree with Il Mafioso, if you think its fun then enjoy. Its your $50. But surely you see that what your doing denies any possible method to Firaxis' madness. They have come out on forums here and at Apolyton and addressed many issues that people have complained about. To my knowledge, this has not been one of them.

Whats more, I have now beaten the game on Warlord and Regent fair and square and can honestly say that I have no problem with corruption as is.

Perhaps you should adjust your playing style before you adjust the game.....?

I'm not really interested in defending this mod -- if you don't want to play with it, there are plenty of other threads to post in. I only found this website because I was looking for a solution to the crippling corruption in Civ3, and, finding that no one had come up with anything, I figured out a solution myself. I posted about it -- people asked me to make it available, and I did. And now I'm attacked by narrow-minded fundamentalists who can't look beyond their rigid interpretations of the developers' intentions?

Look, guys, I don't really give a rat's ass whether the developers thought a library should or shouldn't reduce corruption -- in my opinion, the game is better with less corruption, and that's the only way I could find to reduce it. Just like some of you think it makes the game better to have Elvis as the domestic advisor, or paratroopers with longer ranges, though apparently those things weren't part of the original vision.

Anyway, I see there's no converting the faithful, so I'll let it go with this. Live and let live,

Armor

I just wanted to thank you for providing this modification. I wish I had the skills to do such things myself! Spending many hours of careful playing, I had had at least six different games with varying civilizations, opponents, and building strategies, and in all of them, well into the game, even up to the 1900's, the corruption percentage was ridiculously high, above 55 percent! This made the continuation an excercise in futility and increasing frustration. I like and want a challenge, but this was ridiculous.

At any rate, here is an example of how this mod makes the game more playable and enjoyable: At 1900, at the warrior level with significant numbers of wonders, minor wonders, and buildings, before the mod, corruption was running around 55%, when I included the modification, it runs around 45%. With a total income per turn of around 1,000, that 10% yields 100 extra income per turn, which can be used to adjust (increase) spending for entertainment and industry just enough to make the game playable, challenging, and rewarding! Corruption is still running around 45 percent, which is significant, but managable and in my opinion, reasonable!

The game is still a considerable challenge, which it should be!

Thanks again!

Excellent - I will pass this on!

There is already a solution to Corruption in Civ3 . . .

Just build the Cure for Cancer wonder.

That's what corruption is in Civ3, right? A cancer?