Corruption - tips needed

[Greyhawk1]

I learnt from my last game that corruption is a crippling thing even in Democracy. All my far flung cities I'd conquired were wasting every single shield bar one to corruption.

IMHO you get the Forbidden City too early in the game when your empire is half the size it will be when it finishes. This means corruption effectively makes all cities outside a certain radius all but useless. It takes 80 turns to build a Courthouse with one shield - thats obviously a non-starter but gold is sometimes in short supply so its not always possible to go defensive unit/rush temple/rush courthouse in those far off colonies.

Anyone have any tips for reducing corruption thats not immediately obvious?

IMHO there should've been a 'police' unit in the game which is 1/1/1 but reduces corruption in any city they're built in possibly researched when you get Communism (Police Station).

I really miss SMAC's custom units...

 

[[GoD]Toxic]

Happy citizens are less corrupt - a city with only one nationality is less corrupt - com is the best goverment for a corrupt empire

all that i can think of right now...

 

[Scyphax]

Both the FP and Palace support set of cities in which corruption is not that bad.

Ideally these 2 sets should not overlap otherwise you have fewer productive cities.

I find that forestry is a good way of adding city improvements very corrupt cities.

 

[Taxi Driver]

If a city is equidistant from the Palace and Forbidden Palace, does it receive corruption reduction from both?

Or does the game just look for the closest of the two, pick one somehow if they're equidistant, and calculate the reduction based on that?

 

[zak]

If money is in short supply so you can't rush a courthouse, you can build units in cities with little corruption and disband them in cities with high corruption.

 

[widdowmaker]

The solution is simple. dont build the FP until yu REALLY want to. But on the higer difficulty levels let them be corupt as all hell and use them as trading chips for techs form the ai's yur nto at war with or for your "allies"

 

[widdowmaker]

Just thought of another one. Go COMUNIST! IT RULEZ! Comunal coruption menas it take the TOTAL coruption form EVERY CITIE. And gives ti the effect ti was next to a palace and FP and has the total effect of all the courthouses/police stations/ECT averaged for a low coruption in ALL cities effect.

 

[Naval Freak]

If u r really desperate, u can abandon your city that has the FP and then re-build the city; then u cand start production for FP and then buy it w/ gold!


Lol!

 

[billindenver]

Lots of people build their FP in a good location for the early game (opposite end of their original 8-10 cities) then build a palace later in the game in a captured AI city. You almost have to use a Great Leader to do that though.

I always hesitate to do that because you lose the culture value of the original palace, plus, I just don't like the feeling of not having my original capital as my capital city. But that's just emotional attachment.

In my current game, for example, I built the FP right next to my capital, cause I could build it fast, and it was central to my old empire. When I conquer the 1/2 continent to my north, I will build my palace central in that half continent.

 

[sparty44]

Scyphax wrote that he uses forest to get shields to cities bogged down in corruption. But aren't those 10 shields also lost to corruption? Anyone know? Also, I read elsewhere that you can only use the shields from a cleared forest once per tile.

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by sparty44
Scyphax wrote that he uses forest to get shields to cities bogged down in corruption. But aren't those 10 shields also lost to corruption? Anyone know? Also, I read elsewhere that you can only use the shields from a cleared forest once per tile.

Forestry shields will be uncorrupted. And yes, you only get one forest-clearing bonus per tile. Unit-disbands are uncorrupted as well.

Personally I dislike communist-style corruption. Essentially, you get improved production in lots of small, typically undeveloped towns in exchange for crippling your size-18, fully-developed, powerhouse cities.

Renata

 

[Knossos]

I'm relatively new to civ 3 but if this is any help, the latest game I played:
Standard sized map with lots of islands. (played as babylons)

I took the first island that i started on leaving my capital there, then took another relatively big island with resources and built the FP (this took a while to build, 80 turns, but it was early on in the game). I covered the rest of my second island as quickly as possible planting towns on all key resources and just made sure they were well defended and spent my time improving the land with workers switching the towns to wealth until FP was completed.

I didn't worry about moving my palace to decrease corruption on other islands I took as it would have taken too long and i generally rely on my starting island for wonder building etc.

The only reason i keep taking land is just to stop other civs getting it or if theres some key resources/luxurys on it. Also for staging spots for a war.

This was on warlord so this may be harder to pull off on regent or higher.

I agree with Renata about com, i prefere to use dem unless in war.

 

[thedirk]

I will usually hold off building the FP until I have a city well suited to providing the best coverage. I often attain this by sending a group of defensive units on a long trip around the globe along with a settler. Once I find a nice spot far away from my capital I build a city, fortify my defensive units (need a few to prevent culture flipping) build a temple (for culture to prevent flipping) and then set to work on the FP. By the time that city builds the FP my armies are usually in the area taking enemy cities which now have low corruption rather the high corruption usually associated with conquest far from home.

 

[Bloog]

I've cast the formula's of the corruption thread of Alexman into an Excel sheet. Go play with it .

As a rule of thumb, Communism is the most effective government even at peace time if your empire contains more cities than
(4*optimal_number/number_of_palaces)
This usually happens when you knock over 3 other civs. This is most likely to happen on large and huge maps.
Communism only hits 95% corruption if you ICS over 80% of a huge map (like 800 cities).

The main disadvantage of Communism is not being able to rush build (small) (conquered) border cities. Pop-rush actually behaves as a penalty for Communism. So it may require a short period of cash rushing gov to buy courtyards in the fringe cities of the empire.