Combating corruption

[screwtype]

I bet this thread gets a few hits, LOL.

I'm pretty much a novice at this game, and I constantly find that while I can keep up tech research pretty much in the first age, I start falling waaaay behind the other civs on the second age chart (you know, the one with feudalism and so on).

The problem of course is lack of dough. Whatever I do, I can't seem to make enough money to keep up research. Now, I did think of making more scientists, but the way I figure it, you have to pay a scientist the same as you pay for research on the tech slider, ie 1 gold per science point. So scientists really only become useful when you're already maxed out at 100% on the science slider (if you've got the money to pay for them, that is). Is that right?

So what's the alternative? Tax collectors. Now the nice thing about tax collectors is that the lousy two gold they collect isn't subject to corruption, it all goes straight into the treasury - the whole two gold, both of them, whoopee. If only I had an army of tax collectors!

And then it occurs to me, why not BUILD an army of tax collectors? I mean, you have all these cities subject to massive corruption, you can't DO anything with them, except - what? Except increase the number of citizens, of course!

So I figure, what to do with those far flung cities which are subject to mucho corruption, is to quit building mines and just do nothing but IRRIGATE, thus creating a vast city with a huge population surplus who can be used as, ta-da - TAX COLLECTORS.

It sounds workable in theory, has anyone actually tried this strategy and how well does it work? I mean, there's just got to be a way around this perpetual poverty that my civs always seem to be stuck in, maybe this is it?

 

[Turner]

That could work... I've never gone that route myself, mostly because I either play DyP where there are a lot of corruption fighting buildings, or my own little mod where corruption is tweaked to something like 70 or 80%. Makes those far flung cities less corrupt and almost useful.

But the real question is, why do you start to suffer in the Middle Ages? What level are you playing? What government are you using? How many workers do you have out improving tiles?

Since you're in the Middle Ages, you should be in Republic or Monarchy. In Republic (and Democracy), you get one extra commerce for every commerce generated by tiles. So if you have a road on a river, instead of getting two commerce, you get three. When you have most of your cities over 6, and all the tiles they're working on roaded, this gives quite the boost to your commerce, and therefore your science and tax rates.

If you're still in despotism, then you're going to suffer the despotism penalty, where any tile that would produce more than two of Food/Shields/Commerce will produce one less. This will severly cripple your economy. So if you're still in despotism, get out of it as quickly as you can.

And generally you should have two workers per town improving the area. Make sure you're roading the high commerce tiles, such as those with lux's on them. They give a boost to commerce as well as making the people happy. And of course you need a road to them so they can be used. Rivers also give a boost to commerce, so make sure you're roading those tiles.

 

[screwtype]

What's DyP?

I play at Monarch level, with AI aggression set to "more aggressive". I used to set Bandits to roaming or restless but now I set them to random.

Yes, I do pump out lots of workers, but I'm starting to thinking about pumping out even more because I never seem to have enough. Yes I think two workers per city is the minimum but the problem is I find that workers always end up away from the city which generated them because you have to use them to build linking roads between cities, so you can end up with lots of workers in the most corrupt part of your empire and a dearth of them where you need them most. So now I'm thinking about building even MORE workers, four per city or more. And yes, now the first thing I try to do is road my city squares ahead of population, even before building mines/irrigation.

Govs - in my last two games I tried republic which gave me a little more gold but still not enough. Then the two neighbouring civs declared war and pretty soon my population was so miserable they were all starving to death as I had to use entertainers galore to keep them productive. And my civ basically got trashed and fell even further behind in tech as this went on.

So in my next game I tried Monarchy which doesn't suffer war weariness but I didn't seem to get hardly any more gold at all, as far as I could tell I was just getting one more gold per city and that was about it. I mean, I got about ten more gold per turn or something. Pathetic. You do of course get increased production on tiles from Monarchy, but the gold situation doesn't improve much.

So you see I'm still stuck with not getting enough gold. I'm looking more closely at the game to see how to get more, but the lack of gold in this game is really hard to deal with.

 

[Turner]

Double Your Pleasure.

Well, at this point I would suggest uploading a save and people here can look at it and tell you what's going on.

Are you building temples/cathedrals for happiness, and marketplaces/banks for gold?

 

[pacificwb]

but important thing is too difficult,most players perhaps have no time to do it.so most to look,lest to do.

 

[Siv]

Combating corruption. 2 simple words, but very hard to manage. I am sure you know this already, but the Forbidden palace, courthouses may help a bit, but for those far flung totally corrupt cities you can try to use police and civil engineers later in the game. Until then I like the idea of irrigating available land and have the taxman generate income for you.

About the money - Build marketplaces, also sell tech for gpt

Worker tip - In those corrupt cities build foreign workers (free maintance) after capturing the city. Once the foreign pop is down and you have a few free workers, you can use those workers to irrigate the land to rebuild your city with your own people.

Hope this helps - good luck!!

 

[Bad Brett]

Don't forget about WLKD... it can reduce corruption even in cities on the other side of the planet.

 

[socralynnek]

... also sell tech for gpt

If you want to be the tech leader, that's the best you can do. Just let the AI pay for your science, so you can sometimes research at 100% and still have a surplus.
And if the AI pays gold per turn to you, then they are researching less.

And to combat corruption: Go to Republic ASAP (to Democracy when you have it), build the Forbidden Palace, build courthouses. Your idea with tax coll./scientists army also work.
Democracy has least corruption, if you have a huge empire, communism might also work, but Republic and Democracy get +1 commerce where you already have commerce. In your core cities those improvements that give you +50% (tax or science) are very important. Build them ASAP. Your core is where you make the most money, so the cities outside are not so important for your research.

Edit: One thing to mention: Every entertainer in your core city costs a lot.
If you can make 3 commerce on one more til, this can become 10 commerce by those multipliers (with wonders for example) and you can have more shields and more food. Often it is better to raise the luxury slider, trade for more luxuries and build happiness improvements.

 

[Bede]

The problem of course is lack of dough. Whatever I do, I can't seem to make enough money to keep up research. Now, I did think of making more scientists, but the way I figure it, you have to pay a scientist the same as you pay for research on the tech slider, ie 1 gold per science point. So scientists really only become useful when you're already maxed out at 100% on the science slider (if you've got the money to pay for them, that is). Is that right?

Scientists can be useful in towns which are corrupt and have no library. When a town gets to 4 uncorrupted gold it is generally better to build a library as the extra two gold translates directly to 1 beaker

So what's the alternative? Tax collectors. Now the nice thing about tax collectors is that the lousy two gold they collect isn't subject to corruption, it all goes straight into the treasury - the whole two gold, both of them, whoopee. If only I had an army of tax collectors!
And then it occurs to me, why not BUILD an army of tax collectors? I mean, you have all these cities subject to massive corruption, you can't DO anything with them, except - what? Except increase the number of citizens, of course!

So I figure, what to do with those far flung cities which are subject to mucho corruption, is to quit building mines and just do nothing but IRRIGATE, thus creating a vast city with a huge population surplus who can be used as, ta-da - TAX COLLECTORS.

It sounds workable in theory, has anyone actually tried this strategy and how well does it work? I mean, there's just got to be a way around this perpetual poverty that my civs always seem to be stuck in, maybe this is it?

It works very well. In fact you only need three or four roads (the points of the compass and to connect any local luxuries or resources) out of a corrupt city as the extra gold from the roads just disappears into the corruption, and you certainly don't need mines until policemen are available.

There is something you need to be aware of, however. Tax collected gold does not contribute to the luxury or science budget. It can be used to buy technology or luxuries from the other nations.

The specialist strategy tou are using will not completely solve the problem you describe. It is a useful tool, however, to make corrupt towns productive.