Corruption

[tmarcl]

I didn't see this in the 'current topics' thread, which surprises me, but, I'd like to see less corruption. Or, at the very least, a better way to deal with corruption. It's annoying (to me, at least) how the AI will build 20, 30 or more cities, and you can only build 10 or so that have any value. Capturing their cities is just gives you unproductive cities, which is annoying as well.

If we can't do away with it (and we probably shouldn't get rid of it altogether), then we need more improvements that reduce it (like the improvements in DYP (if I remember correctly). If I'm playing on a large map, I want to be able to have my newest cities producing something of value, rather than just being non-productive outposts.

 

[searcheagle]

I like how corruption is a limiting (restraining) factor to civs. It is disturbing when I have done everything I can do with corruption and it is still at 75% or so. I would be in favor of way to reduce civ growth and conquest (civil war). I am a proponent of provinces, which if the federal government does to many things it does not like it tries to break away.

 

[Moonsinger]

I vote for better corruption management tool. How about a Future Civil Management tech? Basically, each of these future tech would increase the effectiveness of the Courthouse or whatever. For example, Future Civil+1 will increase the power of the courthouse by 1 (courthouse+1). Future Civil+2 will increase the courthouse+2 and so on. Of course, instead of increase the power of the courthouse or something, it can just simply increase the power of certain Small Wonder too.

 

[Timoteo]

I can live with the corruption; it is the waste (ie the reduction in shields produced) that bothers me. In my current game, I had 5 cities on the southern fringe of my empire that were producing 1 shield.

So I thought I would build some court houses. I spent a fortune to rush them, and after they were complete, those cities were still producing 1 shield.

So then, I thought I will change government to republic. Again those cities only produced one shield.

I then decided build a bunch of mines to get shield production before waste up to 10-12 and still those cities would only produce one shield. That's over 90% waste!! I could not build the Forbidden City because at 1 shield per turn it would take 200 turns.

Finally, I discovered democracy and, after I switched, I had one of those cities bump up to 4 shields, which enabled me to build the Forbidden City.

As I see it there are three problems:

1. Waste is too high, which makes it difficult to build improvements that might reduce waste.

2. There needs to me more ways to reduce waste including connecting the city to the capital by road/rail road and technologies like telephone/telegraph.

3. The computer players do not seem to be effected by waste.

Btw, does anyone know of a way to mod the game to reduce waste/corruption?

 

[dh_epic]

I'd like to see corruption be less of a nuisance, but more meaningful in other aspects. While it wouldn't cripple a city's productivity, I think corruption should make it more vulnerable to outside influence (subversive propaganda in war or peacetime) and perhaps cost you valuable resources.

I also think corruption shouldn't just vary with the size of your empire, but with legitimate decisions the shape the morality of your people. I couldn't imagine a nation backstabbing an ally and justifying it without it affecting how its people think of the leadership or think of themselves.

Kind of an odd way of looking at it, but I really would rather it didn't just annoy me into hurrying production over and over and investing in a courthouse sooner ... but instead motivated me to really change the direction of my empire.

 

[Pook]

Timoteo, one way to mod the game to reduce corruption is the raise the OCN (Optimal City Number). It's an indirect effect, but it works.

Having lived in not-so-privileged countries, I think the level of corruption is about right, although in real life there's certainly a lot of it in the capital- more power, more money, more corruption. I would like to see a better way to manage it, though.

 

[jabancho]

Timoteo, one way to mod the game to reduce corruption is the raise the OCN (Optimal City Number). It's an indirect effect, but it works.

Having lived in not-so-privileged countries, I think the level of corruption is about right, although in real life there's certainly a lot of it in the capital- more power, more money, more corruption. I would like to see a better way to manage it, though.

So your are saying that pretty much there is no production at all of anything in "not-so-privileged countries"?
The problem of corruption is rather money-wise than production-wise, therefore the problem is not about building but of control.
BTW there is corruption in ALL countries of the World, not just the "not-so-privileged"...

 

[Elgalad]

I'd like to see corruption be less of a nuisance, but more meaningful in other aspects. While it wouldn't cripple a city's productivity, I think corruption should make it more vulnerable to outside influence (subversive propaganda in war or peacetime) and perhaps cost you valuable resources.

I also think corruption shouldn't just vary with the size of your empire, but with legitimate decisions the shape the morality of your people. I couldn't imagine a nation backstabbing an ally and justifying it without it affecting how its people think of the leadership or think of themselves.

Kind of an odd way of looking at it, but I really would rather it didn't just annoy me into hurrying production over and over and investing in a courthouse sooner ... but instead motivated me to really change the direction of my empire.

I agree with this completely. The way corruption works now is simply a drag on your economy. In real life, Corruption does act in that manner, but it also creates unhappiness, which can lead to unrest, which can even lead to outright rebellion and revolution if it isn't addressed.

So introduce those elements. In cities with high corruption due to distance from capital and lack of governmental control buildings as well as unpopular government types, start creating happy faces as a product of the ratio of corruption. Say 1 sad face per 10% corruption. If a system of edicts (suggested elsewhere) were enabled, one of them could be a visit from the head of state which would reset an unhappiness timer (like the timer for pop labor only reversed) on this sort of unhappy face. Another way to treat it would be martial law. And of course you'd always have the ability to just increase luxury/entertainment or government corruption control buildings.

Basically just give the player more options to deal with corruption and make its effects more believable.

-Elgalad

 

[Jake5555555]

How we have corruption now is totally unrealistic and useless. I would rather just get rid of the feature then keep it how it is. That having been said, I think that the level of corruption should not affect production, but instead it should affect happyness, commerce, likelyhood of rebellion, and amount of culture.

 

[Exel]

Corruption isn't necessarily a bad feature, but it is way too simple now, the city's distance from capitol being pretty much the only determining factor. If it would be simulated with realistic and logical reasons, it'd be a nice addition to the game.

 

[Pook]

So your are saying that pretty much there is no production at all of anything in "not-so-privileged countries"?
The problem of corruption is rather money-wise than production-wise, therefore the problem is not about building but of control.
BTW there is corruption in ALL countries of the World, not just the "not-so-privileged"...

Have you seen it for yourself?

There is certainly corruption in all countries, but when-
- your army is paying $10 (equivalent) per head of lettuce because the lettuce company is owned by the brother of the contracting officer, and a parliament member who speaks out against this is gunned down outside the parliament building;
- your air force needs to have the chutes on its ejection seats repacked. They can either pay $50K for the equipment and have people already under contract do the work in-country, or they can pay $413K to ship the chutes out of country for 5 months. They choose the $413K option because of family relationships;

it's quite a bit worse than in countries with a free press where the rule of law actually matters. Been there, seen it. I as a future Civ 4 player would like to have some better mechanism by which to manage it.

 

[dh_epic]

A lot of theories of Crime and Deviance relate anti-social behavior to the disparity between the most powerful and the least powerful in the society -- often power is related to wealth.

So it's no surprise that selfish dictatorships encounter horrible amounts of crime. Unable or unwilling to pay a lot to their police officers, the police turns crooked and starts taking bribes. Unable to feed their people, their people begin to behave in disorganized anti-social ways, such as snubbing institutions, even petty theft. With the people feeling voiceless, they turn to rioting to express themselves (as opposed to voting, which is either forbidden or makes no difference). And if it gets bad enough, the people actually form organized bodies of disobedience -- and that's where revolution or even just drastic social change can come from.

I think Civ 4 would benefit from having a "social engine", a distant cousin of a physics engine. There are twice as many social factors in history as there are physical factors in a driving game. Why not get half of them in there, and watch how the whole world plays out?

 

[jabancho]

Have you seen it for yourself?

There is certainly corruption in all countries, but when-
- your army is paying $10 (equivalent) per head of lettuce because the lettuce company is owned by the brother of the contracting officer, and a parliament member who speaks out against this is gunned down outside the parliament building;
- your air force needs to have the chutes on its ejection seats repacked. They can either pay $50K for the equipment and have people already under contract do the work in-country, or they can pay $413K to ship the chutes out of country for 5 months. They choose the $413K option because of family relationships;

it's quite a bit worse than in countries with a free press where the rule of law actually matters. Been there, seen it. I as a future Civ 4 player would like to have some better mechanism by which to manage it.

As a CIV player, I will suggest that corruption should be more focused on what it usually ends up being in governments: mismanagement of funds. Rather than taking the shields away, corruption could affect the costs in gold of production. Government corruption (which is the one that CIV prortrays) comes in many different ways (abuse of power, misleading funds, etc), but in CIV it only affects production of a city. The effects should be wider that just taking away shields.

BTW I do have seen the worst govt corruption (in many different ways), yet real world events have shown it affects even countries with "free press", remember Enron, Parmalat? (and they are private enterprises)....

 

[Dragonlord]

Corruption/Waste as such is OK and should be retained, but the effects and management should be completely redone!

Corruption increasing by distance from capitol is only partly realistic and should be eliminated or greatly reduced.
Corruption from too many cities is totally idiotic and should be eliminated!

The maximum corruption/waste from all effects (whatever) should be much lower - 90% is simply idiotic and unrealistic.

IMO, corruption/waste should depend solely on social factors such as Governments and Techs - some Techs could actually increase corruption - with much more effective ways of reducing corruption than currently possible, down to effectively zero if all options are used.

The current corruption model was implemented to limit the warmonger style of gaming, since conquered cities far from your capital are practically unproductive - I'd like to see this point of view abandoned completely; why the heck shouldn't Civ be played like a wargame if so inclined?
Improve the AI to make conquering harder, don't use such unrealistic crutches!

 

[dh_epic]

Personally, I think dissent, morale, and international interdependence should limit warmongering.

- Your people become more corrupt if you play corrupt -- like breaking treaties left and right, it gives your people liscence to do the same.
- Your people become more upset if you play corrupt, breaking treaties and such
- As much as war weariness suffers from fighting, it should be higher for an "unjust war"
- Troops should have less morale as they question what they're fighting for, an "unjust war"
- Troops should have less morale as the war goes on too long. Even Alexander the Great had to listen when his troops said "no further".
- Your economy and culture should depend on good relationships with others. I've never heard about a nation who has no international allies and yet has a powerful economy and a culture that is admired.

Obviously you'd still be able to play like a warmonger, but then your nation would look like a war monger's nation: very centralized control, your funds coming from the ocassional looting, much of your funds going into your weapons, and your weapons helping to maintain your control ... a vicious (and glorious) cycle.

More specifically, corruption should come from being a bastard, not from being an expansionist.

 

[Khan Quest]

Personally, I think dissent, morale, and international interdependence should limit warmongering.

- Your people become more corrupt if you play corrupt -- like breaking treaties left and right, it gives your people liscence to do the same.
- Your people become more upset if you play corrupt, breaking treaties and such
- As much as war weariness suffers from fighting, it should be higher for an "unjust war"
- Troops should have less morale as they question what they're fighting for, an "unjust war"
- Troops should have less morale as the war goes on too long. Even Alexander the Great had to listen when his troops said "no further".
- Your economy and culture should depend on good relationships with others. I've never heard about a nation who has no international allies and yet has a powerful economy and a culture that is admired.

Obviously you'd still be able to play like a warmonger, but then your nation would look like a war monger's nation: very centralized control, your funds coming from the ocassional looting, much of your funds going into your weapons, and your weapons helping to maintain your control ... a vicious (and glorious) cycle.

More specifically, corruption should come from being a bastard, not from being an expansionist.

Well said, dh_epic. That's an excellent proposal.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Like the corruption idea, there should just be better ways to deal with it.

 

[jkp1187]

The current corruption model is fine. I think that adding a second Forbidden Palace to deal with it (perhaps a separate one for each government type, ala Secret Police/Communism) would be appropriate.

 

[MeatWad]

What about luxuries affecting corruption? The further to the right the luxury slider is, the more it could impact your Civ. Note I said COULD. Under less restrictive governments, this would be debauchery on a national scale (think Roman Empire or city of New Orleans ) Under more restrictive Govs, think of it as 'State Mandated Fun' with little or no rise in corruption.

 

[Jawn Henry]

I don't know if there's an easy way to measure just how much production is going to military stuff, but if it's more than a given percentage, you're probably going to come short on niceties of life - a black market will fill in the void. Perhaps some of the corruption can be tied in to how much you're putting in military vs "civilian-oriented" things (like universities, capitalization, courthouse, NOT barracks, walls, military units...).

Linking it to treaty violations sounds like a good idea, too. Just one thing: the player shouldn't be punished for ever. There should be "something" that he can do to rectify this over time. Maybe some sort of "Badboy" factor (yes, similar to EU2... ) can contribute to corruption, with ... i don't know what right now, but with "something" that one could do to push the badboy factor down.

The level of corruption could (should?) also affect how other nations (AI-controlled) see you...

JH