Corruption Model Problems

[solops]

After some consideration I have decided that the corruption model is seriously flawed. First of all, in ancient civilisations, the corruption level may be a bit too high, although I concede that the distance from the central authority is probably the best mechanism for controlling the levels.

However, in the modern age, the corruption model is completely broken. I do not think that distance from the capitol has any relevance to corruption today. Indeed, the capitol is arguably the highest corruption place in any country. Also, in Civ III, corruption is completely crippling. That is not something we see today. Corruption levels are tied to technology and education as well as government type. In line with that, country size is not nearly as great a factor. A developing world economy, international credit facilities, etc has changed the very concept of trade & commerce.

To that end, I believe that a strong case can be made to have educational facilities and commercial facilities reduce corruption with increasing effectiveness as the technical level of the civilisation advances. If this can not be accomplished by a tech level index, then perhaps simply make the institutions themselves individually more effective; i.e. such as universities more effective than libraries and research centers vastly more effective than universities.

 

[WarKiwi]

I'm sorry, but I seem to have missed the relationship between corruption and education. Could you enlighten me please?

Corruption itself is related to the level of bribery your form of govenrment 'breeds'. In certain types of government the main corruption is at the lower level authority - police and politicians taking bribes in exchange for favours. The theory is the closer the city with the corrupt officials is to your capital, the easier it is for the government to react to stamp out the corruption... hence the distance relationship.

The arguement that the capital has the highest level of corruption may be true for certain government types, but with Despotisim and Monarchy where there is conceptually a single ruler, they would only be robbing themselves so the "corruption model" rings true. In a Republic, Democracy, and Communisim there is a ruling faction and the more people there are ruling, the more chance there is of corruption.

I agree the whole corruption model is wrong, but in (Civ IIIs) Democracy there is not enough corruption - if you look at the modern Democracy the 'senators' are beset by lobbiests who are well known to pass bribes be they monetary or favours of other sorts. There are also people who get into politics for personal gain instead of the benefit to their country.

 

[Zachriel]

Culture is quite playable. I would only like to add a couple more palaces, such as Colonial Palace, Imperial Palace and Corporate Palace. Then you could actually afford to build the Forbidden Palace early enough in the game to make a difference.

http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/Culture.htm

 

[SSK]

Originally posted by solops
Also, in Civ III, corruption is completely crippling.

I think this makes the game somewhat less enjoyable for my personal preferred style, but then there is the editor to fix that...

That is not something we see today. Corruption levels are tied to technology and education as well as government type.

Umm, here's one word from U.S. current events to refute your argument: ENRON. I think the collapse of Enron has been quite crippling to a portion of the energy industry and for all the families of the employees ripped off by senior management, possibly tied to government influence. This was only the latest "cripplng" scandal made possible by technologically advanced, educated, highly developed society. We could list many such things from Whitewater to all sorts of senatorial influence peddling scandals going back to the robber barons of industrial times. In short corruption is alive and well in the modern world, and education only leads to more ingenious schemes. WarKiwi is right.

But really corruption in CivIII is more important from a gameplay angle than from the historical accuracy standpoint. The developers wanted to make it harder to dominate the world by creation of masses of far-flung cities, to increase the likelihood that the modern era would contain more civs. In CivII I would always dominate the world by the 1400s or so, so unless I played the WWII scenario, I had no interesting late-game competition. It would, however, be nice if the corruption model could achieve gameplay balance while *at the same time* work in a more intuitive way...

:enlighten How about this: New small wonder called "Antitrust legislation", available after Miniaturization (I like the association with offshore platform since it was Standard Oil of Ohio that was first broken up in this way) that under Republic or Democracy reduces corruption by 20-30% and costs upkeep of, say, 10 gold/turn (representing the the cost to the government of adequately policing big corporations and politicians). Culture production 1 point/turn. Note that current anti-trust legislation in the U.S. is probably not working this well so the wonder would be really kind of like antitrust plus more vigilant political ethics (which don't yet exist).

 

[Psychlone]

I'd be very interested to see any place, current or historical where corruption consumed 95% of the local economy and output. A city with 20 shield production only netting 1 shield due to corruption is absolutely silly.

One would think that such crippling corruption would certainly be noticed, even at the furthest fringe of an empire, and draconian steps taken to correct it, even in an ancient civilization. Hell, especially in an ancient civilization. It's like stealing from the ruler, and gee, despots and kings are SO tolerant of being stolen from... A ruler would have to be blind, deaf, and stupid not to notice such corruption. And the likely response would be to roll into town and execute just about anyone. I would think the survivors would be scrupulously honest.

Look at the real world concept of the "baker's dozen" which is in fact, 13. The reason for this being that bakers in middle age England often cheated customers who couldn't count, and when this practice (corruption) became commonplace, the penalties levied were so severe, that bakers took to giving 13 piece "dozens" just to ensure they didn't mistakenly shortcount someone and put themselves in danger of punishment. With the incentive of honesty or the headsman's axe, I fail to see the justification of such a stupid corruption model.

 

[SSK]

Psychlone: I like your arguments, and agree 95% is too excessive from a historical perspective. Two issues:

1) Whatever Draconain measures have been taken in certain times, we still have Michele Sindona of the Franklin National Bank scandal, one of the younger Bushes with a Bank scandal in the '80s, Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham, Ivan Boesky, etc (to name just a few off the top of my head)--where are these people? Either in jail with their money intact, or released from jail, money intact, or NEVER in jail! So big corruption still exists. We don't have a big enough headsman with axe just now IMNSHO

2) The severe corruption penalties in the game are there for game balance by the developers. Perhaps we can come up with a more reasonable way to limit prolific city growth--see my recently-edited previous post concerning a new small wonder. Actually I think the biggest real-world problem with far-away cities is that they are likely to want independence or to align with more local civilizations--this has already been addressed in the game using the concept of culture flips. So it seems they are being redundant in punishing too many/far away cities.

 

[Psychlone]

SSK, such modern examples are exactly what I was thinking. Even considering people who have embezzled, scammed or otherwise stolen millions of dollars, however, it amounts to a ridiculously small percentage of the money banks and government agencies are tossing around.

Maybe what it is, is that your provincial cites are buying those $600 hammers and $1 each nails that the news used to talk about people selling to the US government...

I guess I should just make a mod to turn corruption down and stop standing on a soapbox.

 

[Zachriel]

Perhaps the name corruption is throwing everybody. The available shields represents the production in outlying areas which is available for public works. That is not to say that the people aren't using the production for some purpose. It is just not available to the controlling authorities in the capital.

Besides, a couple more palaces would solve the problem anyway.

 

[DrJambo]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Perhaps the name corruption is throwing everybody. The available shields represents the production in outlying areas which is available for public works. That is not to say that the people aren't using the production for some purpose. It is just not available to the controlling authorities in the capital.

Besides, a couple more palaces would solve the problem anyway.

Agreed

I also agree with SSK that it's mainly there for gameplay reasons ..

 

[Arvedui]

I think that for cities on a different island or continent there should be one city which would be the "administrative center". This city would work as the capital for these cities, with less corruption near it and more as the distance increased.
For instance, colonial Brazil was part of the Portuguese kingdom, but it had an administrative capital in Brazil. First it was Salvador, then Rio de Janeiro.

 

[6october]

what if corruption only affected what the city builds for the empire ( units , wonders , small wonders ) but does not affect what the city builds for itself ( temples - librarys - power plants - etc. )

they at least wont corrupt what is for their own benifit but they may do so if they were asked to build somethings that the city doesnt really care about.

One thing though I guess it would bevery hard to implement in the game.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by SSK



But really corruption in CivIII is more important from a gameplay angle than from the historical accuracy standpoint. The developers wanted to make it harder to dominate the world by creation of masses of far-flung cities, to increase the likelihood that the modern era would contain more civs. In CivII I would always dominate the world by the 1400s or so, so unless I played the WWII scenario, I had no interesting late-game competition. It would, however, be nice if the corruption model could achieve gameplay balance while *at the same time* work in a more intuitive way...

Word.

Originally posted by Zachriel
Perhaps the name corruption is throwing everybody. The available shields represents the production in outlying areas which is available for public works. That is not to say that the people aren't using the production for some purpose. It is just not available to the controlling authorities in the capital.

Word.

 

[DrJambo]

Originally posted by Arvedui
I think that for cities on a different island or continent there should be one city which would be the "administrative center". This city would work as the capital for these cities, with less corruption near it and more as the distance increased.
For instance, colonial Brazil was part of the Portuguese kingdom, but it had an administrative capital in Brazil. First it was Salvador, then Rio de Janeiro.

The words "Forbidden Palace" spring to mind ...