I don't know how they reduced corruption in the patch, but the whole way corruption is handled seems so far off from a reasonable simulation that I couldn't help but come up with better system.
Ok, the further the city is from the capital, the worse the corruption. That seems more or less reasonable. But its really not the proximity to the captital that is important, it is the connection to the capital. which is to say, the easier it is for you to send out judges, marshalls, spies and enforcers to a city, the lower its corruption would be.
How would this work in the game? A lot of different improvements would work to lower corruption in a city. Being connected by road to the capital or the forbidden palace would drop corruption. Being connected by railroad would be an even greater factor. Being connected by a harbor would lower corruption, and an airport would lower it much further. The courthouse and police stations obviously lower corruption, and the Radio technology would reduce it further.
I see two way of working this in. The first is to just reverse the commodity function, so any city that sees the capital in its resource box would lower its cooruption, or maybe it will lower it once it has a courthouse. Then corruption would be reduced with certain tech increases that increase the populations mobility or communication - steam, combustion, radio, computers - or with the age the empire is in to simplify things.
The second is to modify the distances the game sees your cities from the capital baased on their connection to the capital and having a courthouse - maybe reduce it by 20% for road connection, 50% for rail, so a city 40 tiles away from the capital but connected by a rail would check corruption as if it were 20 tiles away if it had a courthouse. Then have connecting harbors reduce remaining corruption by 15% or connecting airports by 30%, radios reduce corruption 20% over all, computers another 20%. So a fully modern society would have many factors reducing their corruption to maybe 10 - 35%, with all improvements considered.
Ok, the further the city is from the capital, the worse the corruption. That seems more or less reasonable. But its really not the proximity to the captital that is important, it is the connection to the capital. which is to say, the easier it is for you to send out judges, marshalls, spies and enforcers to a city, the lower its corruption would be.
How would this work in the game? A lot of different improvements would work to lower corruption in a city. Being connected by road to the capital or the forbidden palace would drop corruption. Being connected by railroad would be an even greater factor. Being connected by a harbor would lower corruption, and an airport would lower it much further. The courthouse and police stations obviously lower corruption, and the Radio technology would reduce it further.
I see two way of working this in. The first is to just reverse the commodity function, so any city that sees the capital in its resource box would lower its cooruption, or maybe it will lower it once it has a courthouse. Then corruption would be reduced with certain tech increases that increase the populations mobility or communication - steam, combustion, radio, computers - or with the age the empire is in to simplify things.
The second is to modify the distances the game sees your cities from the capital baased on their connection to the capital and having a courthouse - maybe reduce it by 20% for road connection, 50% for rail, so a city 40 tiles away from the capital but connected by a rail would check corruption as if it were 20 tiles away if it had a courthouse. Then have connecting harbors reduce remaining corruption by 15% or connecting airports by 30%, radios reduce corruption 20% over all, computers another 20%. So a fully modern society would have many factors reducing their corruption to maybe 10 - 35%, with all improvements considered.
