Less science for large empires

After a game where the whole world was outteched by an AI that expanded like mad, and after doing so myself a few times, I started thinking about a solution. And so I got: universities and laboratories reduce science in each city by 1%. It fits all criteria (imo):

• Gameplay: takes away some of the large science advantage of large (wide + reasonably tall) empires, while barely affecting (pure) tall empires.
• Realism: A university drains the brilliant minds from other cities to work there. When universities are widespread, the entry level lowers and less research will be cutting edge. Also, competition for publications will increase pressure on scientists, leading to rushed, poor research or even fraud.
• Control: cut down on universities to keep the negative effects low. Adopt Free Thought.
• Decisions: follows from above. Putting a university in every tall-ish city is no longer a no-brainer.
• AI use: it takes over 30 cities to really wander into negative effects, so this is at worst just another bad AI priority. But if the AI hits 20+ cities, just how bad can it be doing to begin with?
• Modding: totally easy to implement.

Good idea? I'd also like your help to determine the details. Maybe make the effect -2% but boost universities to +50% (in its city) again by default? And should I drop the university prerequisite for public schools then (require library instead)?

They need to bring back the Corruption mechanism to penalize sprawling AIs.

Corruption would increase based on number of cities, city population and distance from your capital city. Corruption is higher in puppeted and annexed cities. Constabularies, Courthouses and police stations would reduce corruption significantly.

Yes, corruption, or more generally "crime", is a concept that deserves reintroduction. Though I don't see it replace the happiness mechanic; that's there to stay. But it could work alongside without being too penalizing: instead of stopping growth when entering unhappiness, crime could increase, becoming crippling when becoming "very unhappy". And when your gold is gone, troops start to defect. I hate it now how often I will just sit there queuing up buildings and clicking "next", because I don't have the happiness to support a war. What do I care if my acquired territory is miserable? My home cities shouldn't stop growing (though if the men are at the front, that does make sense somehow).

It seems quite reasonable to implement too, except for maybe one thing: the city governor is probably coded somewhere to still try to stop growth.

Back on the original topic: I tried a game with a 50% / -2% university. The -2% strangely put me off building it, even though at 9 cities it was nearly exactly as powerful as the unaltered one. Also I think for small, tall empires a 50% university might be overpowered, so I'm going for the original, -1%, version I think. Small enough not to influence decision making, but large enough to have an effect.