My empire is full of corruption...help me

[rusting]

hi,
Beore i came to middle ages i was the most wealthiest nation in the game. I had a balance of abt 1500 gold. after i entered the middle ages i upgraded many of my army and my balance went down to 300. the prob is that there is balant corruption all over my empire asnd more so in my wealthy states. take the example of new orleans. it has a commerce of 21 per turn but it gives me only 1 per turn. pls help me. i am down to 19 gold. i have courthouse in the city. i cant build forbidden palace as i have built it in another city

[JonahRowley]

Have you changed from despotism? Monarchy has a little better corruption, Republic is even better. It depends on my goals. If I'm warmongering, monarchy is better, but for building and researching, Republic is better. Make sure you connect your cities by roads, don't build them too tightly (too many cities can contribute to corruption) and don't try to spread your empire out too far.

Sometimes corruption is just unavoidable. In that case, irrigate as much land as you can and use specialists. One scientist provides three gold towards science, more than a highly-corrupted city makes as a whole. Make good friends with your neighbor as well. Trade techs, money and luxuries, this will prevent you from falling behind. The AI trades with eachother, you have to keep up with it.

[Turner]

Can you uplaod a save? That's always helpful.

[TimBentley]

I would guess that you're building too many improvements. In particular, it's a waste of money to build many improvements in corrupt cities.

[Michelangelo]

You can also set your corrupt cities (those that produce only 1 shield wathever it's size) to producing wealth. A lot of them gets you a lot of shields. Also check for city sizes. Size 7 usually gives you a lot more unit support as compared to <7. That is if you're republic, which is in most cases a good choice.

[Fried Egg]

Choosing a Civ with a Commercial trait also helps lower corruption. Later, you can assign the Policeman specialist to reduce corruption too.

However, unless you are end up with a Communist government, you will have to resign yourself to the fact that your distant cities may be hopelessly corrupt. It is not even worth building courthouses in such cities. Build only the minimum of other improvements that may be necessary in such cities and irrigate all their tiles. Once their population has maxed out, take off as many citizens from working the land to become specialists (such as taxmen or scientists). Switch their production to wealth.

By doing all of the above with your hopelessly corrupt cities, you will at least get maximum commercial benefit from them (with minimal cost).

[CivDestroyer]

Originally Posted by rusting

hi,
Beore i came to middle ages i was the most wealthiest nation in the game. I had a balance of abt 1500 gold. after i entered the middle ages i upgraded many of my army and my balance went down to 300. the prob is that there is balant corruption all over my empire asnd more so in my wealthy states. take the example of new orleans. it has a commerce of 21 per turn but it gives me only 1 per turn. pls help me. i am down to 19 gold. i have courthouse in the city. i cant build forbidden palace as i have built it in another city

Well you are in a bit of a pickle. First you need to look at the cities around the city where you built the FP. The wonder has a very small radius (not as large as a palace) where cities around it also have reduced corruption. Building court houses in those cities should further reduce corruption.

Second thing you need to do is look at the cities close to your capitol. Make sure all of them in the first and second "rings" have court houses. If you have any "holes" "(i.e open areas with no cities) near either your capitol or FP make them the first priority for building new cities.

Your treasury loss might also because of slower population growth in your cities. As cities get bigger they take longer to grow, and production of units often out paces new tax revenues. So make sure your cities around the capitol and FP have population increasing improvements like graineries and aquaducts.

Finally if your current capitol is in a bad place (along a shore line for example, or in a place where terrain like mountains or desert limits new cities and pop growth) you might think about building a new palace in a more centralized city that either has more cities around it or has better places to build cities.

In any event it looks like you'll have to reduce your research budget until you get your corruption under better control.


Hope you find this helpful.