City Coruption and Courthouse

[Potatoe985]

i have civ assist which tells you the percent of coruption of a city but i am wondering what amount of coruption is the point where a courthouse would not help.

thanks in advance

 

[citizen001]

say your city is production 8 shields and there is 1 corrupted then the courthouse probably wouldn't help. it doesn't help when there is only a small number of shields or commerce corrupted.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

corruption is a rather complex formula. Can't just say how many % a courthouse decreases it so simply.

However, there also is a cap to corruption, which is 90%. A courthouse will make that 80%.

Courthouses will always decrease corruption, but with only a little corruption, as just said it won't be noticable. With medium corruption, it will save a shield or 2 in large cities. With extremely high corruption, it will help by lowering the max to 80%, but since then a city is still useless, it is not worth building them in those cities.

Personally, i never build any courthouses.

 

[Tomoyo]

I usually only build courthouses in second ring-ish cities, as that is where it is actually worth building.

 

[punkbass2000]

I tend to build quite a number of courthouses. Not too far away, of course, but oftern 3rd and 4th ring. As I figure it, if you save even one commerce it's at least paying for itself. It also is reasonably likely to turn that one-shield town into a two shield town around 10 total shields or so.

 

[Potatoe985]

so if a city is 70% corrupt is it worth building a courthouse? what percent window is best for courthouse, like 10%-80% or what? is there no such window?

 

[Grogs]

so if a city is 70% corrupt is it worth building a courthouse? what percent window is best for courthouse, like 10%-80% or what? is there no such window?

I think it depends on what you're hoping to get out of the city. If you're looking for a powerhouse production city that can build wonders/improvements/units quickly, then probably not past the 50% point. There is a point at a certain distance from your palace/forbidden palace where corruption will be naturally maxed out. I rarely find it useful to build courthouses at this point or beyond. Inside of that, a courthouse can usually make a reasonable productive 3-4 spt town that can help out producing military units (albeit slowly.)

Since nobody's mentioned it, I'll also add that if you haven't built the Forbidden Palace, you should. It's the single biggest corruption reducing building you can have. In the original Civ 3 and PTW, the FP can be used to create a 2nd ring of productive cities around it. In Conquests, it (mostly) just increases the Optimal City Number, making the placement less critical.

 

[Stoo.W]

I used to build a lot of courthouses, thinking that they would pay for themselves as punkbass2000 points out. But... if corruption is that bad then you will probably rush build most things in that city anyway, meaning you dont need that lost production back. so long as you have enuf cash for the marketplace, aquaduct and hospital (mass transit and granaries, optional), those cities should just be there to rack up points from the population. if im still fighting wars, i usually find a factory makes up or any lost production. Even with heavy corruption, a factory should give you ample production for the things you need.

 

[Bagatur]

And here for what purpose MGLs are coming for, beside armies and small wonders. Rushing Factories in less productive cities

 

[WackenOpenAir]

In real life, there is interest and inflation.
Money you are investing needs to return you more than that or you have no profit at all.
It is the same in civ3. I am not an economist, and i am not planning to calculate or estimate the actual numbers for this in civ3, (which would most likely vary for different era's) maybe someone else would like to do so

There are many ways you can invest your resources, varying from an army to settlers to factories or marketplaces. They pay back in cities, shields or gold.
Your empire grows in a sort of reversed piramid form trough the payback of all these investments.
This should allow you to calculate a common interest rate.

As i said i have not calculated it, but i'm pretty sure courthouses' payback will not reach the common interest rate by a long shot and thus are a waste of resources.

It is similar to doing an investment in real life with, say a 0.5% return on investment per year. Yes, it does give you profit, but it is so small you better invest your resources elsewhere.

Of course this is just an over complicated way to say that it is merely less efficient than building other things.
(which also is the case for your 0.5% profit investment)

 

[bouncelot]

And here for what purpose MGLs are coming for, beside armies and small wonders. Rushing Factories in less productive cities

But why would you want a factory in less productive cities?

 

[SJ Frank]

If you use them immediately, units always have the best return on investment.

Of the building, I think that courthouse has the 2nd highest return on investment. The reason: building a courthouse first makes everything that comes after it build faster.

For example, for a city at 8spt, with 400 shields of things to build, which would normally take 50 turns. If a courthouse can save just 2 shields, increasing that city's shield output to 10spt, then it would take only 40 turns to build 400 shields, saving 10 turns.

In this case, it would take 10 turns to build the courthouse, so the final tally comes out equal. But if you have more than 400 shields to build, or if the courthouse saves more than 2 shields, then building a courthouse first comes out ahead. 400 shield, by the way, is not a lot: granary=60s, aquaduct = 100s, marketplace =100s, library=80s, university=200s, etc.

My conclusion is that, as long as you don't have an immediate need for something, then it is sometimes a good idea to build a courthouse first.

One more thing about the courthouse that makes it powerful, is that its saving are further multiplied by other buildings. If you city has a marketplace and a bank, then each gold saved by a courthouse is actually 2 gold in the bank. So for fully developed cities, courthouses and police stations can amount to huge savings.

So where do I build my courthouses? Any productive city that has 5 or more corrupted shields eventually gets one (a courthouse will usually save 2 of those shields) . Any semi corrupt city (40-70%) usually gets one as the first thing that it builds. In cities more corrupt than that, it doesn't matter. You're not depending on those cities' production or commerce to win the game.

 

[Stoo.W]

But why would you want a factory in less productive cities?

to make it more productive? if you only have a limited number of cities and need to get military units out as well as more important things built in your other cities, then a factory will increase the number of shields!

 

[Bagatur]

Bcs, with factory and powerplant city can actually produce something usefull, like bank and university. And bcs I usually cant use MGLs for something better. Having 20-30 armies and all core cities full developed, I cant find how to use my MGLs anymore, except in this way. Half or even 2/3 corrupted city, can produce infantry for lets say 4-5 turns, which isnt that bad. Very usefull if u have Hoover Dam already on same landmass.