Corruption!!

[Brizzad]

I am rather new to the game. I have been using Germany and i am about to Modern times. I am having a huge problem with corruption. My income is about 2100 gold and about 1200 is being pissed away on corruption. I have tried to build courthouses. I have switched back to a Republic rather than a democracy. I have many cities and control most of the map but I am having some huge funding issues. My science is set at 40% and happiness at 30%.

Any suggestions would ne great. I love this is site and Civ 3 is the ****.

 

[BillChin]

Best way to limit corruption is to limit the number of cities in your empire. Other ways are to adjust the slider in the editor before starting a game. Democracy has very slightly lower corruption than Republic, and that is slightly better than Monarchy. Communism is an uncompetitive government for a well-built empire with any kind of industrial core.

A well centered palace and Forbidden Palace help. Courthouses, Police Stations, and We-Love-the-King day all help. However, after a certain number of cities (twice the optimal number of cities for a given map size and difficulty level) additional cities can not be helped much. For these fringe cities, the best use is often as food farms with several tax men or researchers.
+ Bill

 

[Renata]

Yeah, corruption's tough, isn't it? You said you switched back to republic from democracy, was that due to war weariness? Because corruption is actually lowest in democracy.

At any rate, here's what I do with ultracorrupt cities (those producing only 1 uncorrupted shield per turn). First, I sell off any unnecessary improvements. For example, say I've captured a size 5 city that has a barracks, granary, harbor, marketplace, courthouse and aqueduct. I see that even with the courthouse it's only making 1spt. So the courthouse gets sold. The barracks gets sold unless the city's in a vulnerable position - this town's never going to produce any units for me. The marketplace stays if I control a lot of luxuries, since it'll let me keep a lot of citizens happy in the town for only 1 spt upkeep. The harbor goes unless it's only one (or one of only a couple) on the landmass, or unless I have Smith's to remove maintenence on it. The granary goes, probably (see below). I will probably have to buy a temple or library to expand the cultural borders, but I can sell it again as soon as that happens. The aqueduct I cannot sell; the game doesn't allow it.

I then bring in my workers to irrigate (and railroad if possible) all high-food producing tiles in the expanded city radius. Once that's done, I join workers of my own nationality or of an extinct civ's nationality to the town to bring it up to its maximum happy size (you might be able to go a little higher than that if you're done fighting and war weariness won't be a further issue). If I don't have any such workers to spare, I let the town grow itself to that size by working the high-food tiles (this is where I would temporarily keep a granary). At that point, remove as many workers as you can from the lowest-food-producing tiles and convert them to taxmen - the output of taxment is not subject to corruption. Generally for a size 12 city you can manage to support about 6 taxmen on decent land after railroads, occasionally as many as 8 or 9 on very good land. Finally, set the city to product wealth; that'll convert that 1 spt to 1 gpt.

The benefit: you've gone from a city that was costing your civilization 6-ish gold per turn to one that is producing 6-ish gpt. Multiply that over 30 or 50 ultracorrupt cities and it makes an immense change to your income.

One last thing: the lux slider at 30% seems a bit high. Unless that's due to war weariness (in which case it's fairly normal), you may want to consider building more marketplaces and cathedrals in your core (i.e. noncorrupt) cities so you can reduce that a notch or two.

Hope that helps,
Renata

 

[zerksees]

Excellent suggestion Renata! There are so many ways to defeat corruption, and you just added another one to my list.

Recently I read the "Massive Despot Rush Strategy" in the War Academy online lessons. It will help turn corrupt cities into productive cities. I am not sure how well it will work late in the game, as I need to get some practice with it myself, but should be checked out.

As mentioned earlier, the Forbidden Palace is a "must build" to help limit corruption. I always build one.

 

[BretP]

I have to say that when I am at war, Communism is what I use. If you plan for the corruption, it works great. I have maybe 4 spt lost per city to corruption. Not bad when my core cities are all about 100 spt. The corruption is then minimal. I also try to use all the corruption reducing improvments.

 

[Brizzad]

Thanks, I appreciate the info. I must be a real newbie because some of this stuff you guys are talking about is beyond me.

I think one of my problems is I have too many failing settlements. I tried early in the game to out-settle my opponents. I figured I would try and block their settlements by settling in front of their progress.

Now, I am plagued with pollution and corruption and if IM lucky, I will turn 5 gold a turn. If I drop my smiley face bar lower than 20, my people with revolt. I own about 70 percent of the map but my production is week. Maybe I need to start over.

This is the is great site by the way, did I mention that already??

 

[Gothmog]

The corruption in Republic and Monarchy is the same. From Alexman's excellent corruption thread:
2) Government factor, Fg
The distance factor is multiplied by a factor that depends on government. Here are the values:
Despotism: 1.0
Monarchy: 2/3
Republic: 2/3
Democracy: 4/9
Communism: 0.3

Another tidbit is that WLTKD will reduce corruption in the same way that a courthouse or police station do.

If you own 70% of the map you are very close to a domination victory. If your income is only 5 gpt something is very wrong, more than just corruption.

 

[billindenver]

Originally posted by Brizzad
I own about 70 percent of the map but my production is week. Maybe I need to start over.

Start over??? When you own 70% of the map???

Sounds like your luxury slider is too high to me. How many luxuries do you have? If you only have 1 or 2 different luxuries, you need to get a few more via trade.

How much are you trading with the AI?

 

[BretP]

Are you at war? Have you built marketplaces and banks in your core cities? These things can make a HUGE difference. You are doing very well. Corruption is part of having a large empire.

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by zerksees
Excellent suggestion Renata! There are so many ways to defeat corruption, and you just added another one to my list.

TY! I am very proud of this strategy as it's about the only one I came up with myself independently of the excellent advice on this site. Although I do think I had seen someone mention it in passing, as the name I use for it (tax farming) seems to be common.

Renata

 

[YNCS]

One other thing to do to lower corruption is to road from the corrupt cities to the capital (or to a harbor if on a different land mass). That way you get the maximum number of luxuries.

BTW, Renata, excellent post.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Brizzad
Thanks, I appreciate the info. I must be a real newbie because some of this stuff you guys are talking about is beyond me.

I think one of my problems is I have too many failing settlements. I tried early in the game to out-settle my opponents. I figured I would try and block their settlements by settling in front of their progress.

This is a good tactic, most newbies tend to build too few cities in their area, not too many, so I doub't you have too many cities. How many working squares do each city have for itself. If its above 10, then you definately don't have too many cities.

Now, I am plagued with pollution and corruption and if IM lucky, I will turn 5 gold a turn. If I drop my smiley face bar lower than 20, my people with revolt. I own about 70 percent of the map but my production is week. Maybe I need to start over.

First and foremost, have you installed the latest pathc (1.29)? Corruption has been toned down quite a bit in a few of the patces.
Secondly, I don't necessarily think corruption is your main problem. In civ3, there will always be a lot of corruption, you just have to minimize it by building corthouses, connecting your cities by road/harbour and later by building police stations - and very important, by building your forbidden palace in a good spot.
What rather may be your problem is the lack of luxuries and improvements in your cities. If you have at least 3-4 luxuries, a temple, cathedral and marketplace in your cities, then you should be able to lower the luxury slider down to zero.

Then remember to trade the techs with the other civs. If they have a tech you lack - buy it from them. It's often much cheaper than researching it. And if you have a tech lead, trade some techs away - if the other civs have a good income, then they will pay you huge amounts of gold per turn for it.

 

[Trev]

With close to 70% of the land mass you must have most luxuries, ie at least 5 or 6 under your control. If you have all these connected by roads or harbours or airports, happiness definitely should not be a problem. The luxury rate should not be higher than 10% if you have sufficient roads, marketplaces and banks built inyour core cities

The corruption in your non core cities (highly corrupted cities) means that entertainers will be necessary to keep the happiness, but as they do not achieve anything that is ok

 

[Brizzad]

OK..after playing last night for about 3 hours, I was able to heed the advice and prop up my huge empire. I think what I had done is expanded two quickly. Allot of my cities were without certain lux and improvements. Now, IM turning about 200 a turn and my Lux slider is down to zero with my science up to 70. I have already started building my space rocket. I have railroads and now my workers can control the pollution.

My only problem now is, when I try to attack the French or they try and attack me, my government gets thrown into anarchy. This was after I changed to a democracy. What gives? During war, should I use my lux slider to keep my democracy from revolting? It happens just as soon as war breaks out. That is why I changed back to a republic in the first place. Any suggestions?

You guys are the ****. Thanks.

 

[Renata]

Try waiting a few more turns. War weariness vs. a particular civ doesn't go away when you make peace; it just gets masked. If you go back to war with that civ inside a certain number (20?) of turns, you go right back to the same level of war weariness as you had before. Wait it out, and use the time to build military. The WW will reset, and you'll be fine fighting again for a while.

Oh, one more thing. WW is calculated independently for each civ. So if you have another potential enemy out there that you hadn't been fighting recently, you could choose to fight them instead while you're waiting it out on France and not have the same problem.

Renata

 

[BillChin]

Originally posted by Brizzad

My only problem now is, when I try to attack the French or they try and attack me, my government gets thrown into anarchy. This was after I changed to a democracy. What gives? During war, should I use my lux slider to keep my democracy from revolting? It happens just as soon as war breaks out. That is why I changed back to a republic in the first place. Any suggestions?

Late in the game, many players activate the governors to manage happiness (press G at the city screen). This may cost a few gold and shields, but this helps with a lot of cities and trying to wage war in Democracy. Use the governors in combination with the luxury slider. Keep the wars short and casualties low, or a Democracy may fall and you will have to choose a new government. The Universal Suffrage wonder helps (as does playing on a low difficulty level).
+ Bill

 

[Gothmog]

YNCS wrote:
"One other thing to do to lower corruption is to road from the corrupt cities to the capital (or to a harbor if on a different land mass). That way you get the maximum number of luxuries."

While luxuries wont help corruption (except if they help initiate a WLTKD), corruption is reduced by the simple act of connecting cities to your capital.

 

[billindenver]

Originally posted by Brizzad
OK..after playing last night for about 3 hours, I was able to heed the advice and prop up my huge empire. I think what I had done is expanded two quickly. Allot of my cities were without certain lux and improvements. Now, IM turning about 200 a turn and my Lux slider is down to zero with my science up to 70. I have already started building my space rocket. I have railroads and now my workers can control the pollution.

My only problem now is, when I try to attack the French or they try and attack me, my government gets thrown into anarchy. This was after I changed to a democracy. What gives? During war, should I use my lux slider to keep my democracy from revolting? It happens just as soon as war breaks out. That is why I changed back to a republic in the first place. Any suggestions?

You guys are the ****. Thanks.

Great!! Glad to hear you didn't quit!!

Yes, definitely use the luxury slider during wartime in Democracy. BillChin also suggested using governors, and I'd take his advice. Might have to try that myself, because it's frequently a problem for me in late wars.

However, if you fight a LONG war, eventually, in Democracy, war weariness will get so bad that you have to raise luxury rates up to the point where you are losing gold every turn or you can't do any research. Once it gets to that point, you'd better either end the war or switch to another form of govt.

Congrats. Sounds like you're on your way to victory!

 

[Shillen]

Hmm, I don't think of corrupt cities as costing money so much as not helping me. If you look at your domestic window it will show -2000 gold from corruption but that number is really meaningless. It's not like conquering a new city will reduce your income, unless it has a lot of improvements that require maintenance but you should sell those off anyway. So after you sell all those you'll be gaining at minimum 1 gpt for each city you conquer no matter how corrupt it is. Also, if you're a monarchy or communist you can support more units.

 

[Cetulapsus]

Useally I keep my FP for when I realy need it, and, if some other country declare war on me and the war goes well, I keep the second leader for later use to, like using it to build a FP on an other continent far, far away. Or I use obsolate unit, like Swordman to speeding the production and a lot of workers to build forest and cut it. With my palace on my capital and my FP on the other side of the planet, the corrupt are useally a lesser problem. BTW I alway play in Democracy, it give me lot of cash.