The more I play this game, the more I realize that there are lots of interesting strategies for handling high-corruption regions. Furthermore, the AI, which is quite good at developing around its capital, doesn't seem to know how to deal with extreme corruption.
You just have to realize that there will be one region around your capital and one around your forbidden palace where standard Civ2 building techniques, lots of city improvements, and size 20 cities are appropriate. On the rest of the map you will get one shield per city and negligible commerce, but you can produce food = population and culture without penalty. The latter may be the biggest attraction. Imagine a continent packed with 50 small (and hence happy) cities, each with a temple and library, rush-built by using the money that you get from selling an occasional corrupt city to the AI. This is something that you can do that the AI would never "think of."
I predict that the first person to win at Deity level will do so on a very large map by using a strategy that would fail if corruption were turned off.
You just have to realize that there will be one region around your capital and one around your forbidden palace where standard Civ2 building techniques, lots of city improvements, and size 20 cities are appropriate. On the rest of the map you will get one shield per city and negligible commerce, but you can produce food = population and culture without penalty. The latter may be the biggest attraction. Imagine a continent packed with 50 small (and hence happy) cities, each with a temple and library, rush-built by using the money that you get from selling an occasional corrupt city to the AI. This is something that you can do that the AI would never "think of."
I predict that the first person to win at Deity level will do so on a very large map by using a strategy that would fail if corruption were turned off.