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
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