Courthouses and Harbors

[pompeynunn]

I know that Courthouses can reduce corruption, and also Harbors on separate continents. However, if both improvements are built, are the effects cumulative, or will you only get the benefits of reduced corruption for one of them.

I haven't tried this out yet, but would appreciate some feedback before I try it out on my latest game tonight.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Courthouses and Police stations both reduce corruption cummulatively. As far as harbours are concerned I never heard of them reducing corruption.

 

[BillChin]

It is all cumulative, but do not expect much. If a city is far from the capital and Forbidden Palace, the only reasonable way to get it to produce is to switch to Communism (which isn't worth it most of the time). A city with a harbor, courthouse, police station, airport is going to have very high corruption if the distance is great under all governments except Communism.

Look to see if you can eek out two shields without many improvements before investing in corruption reduction. If a city is stuck at one shield while wasting seven, it will never be much good as a production city, even with all the improvements. Corruption is slightly less as you progress from Despotism, Monarchy, Republic, Democracy, but it is only like one or two tiles more range for each upgrade on a standard size map.

 

[Joss21]

You may be talking about increased commerce brought by the presence of a harbor.
When you colonize islands or another continent, by constructing harbors you connect that cities to all the luxuries your mainland currently enjoy, thus increasing happy faces.

So, harbor influences happiness, not corruption.

 

[Mr Spice]

Being connected to the capitol reduces corruption a little. So if you found a city on a different continet it will benefit from a harbour. Unless it is connected by road to another city of yours with a harbour, of course.

 

[pompeynunn]

That's right, I had a city on a separate continent that was only producing 1 shield due to corruption - after building the harbour, it started producing 2 shields. However, after building the courthouse as well it still only produced 2 shields (the city was only size 5 though - perhaps it needs to be a bit bigger to see the effects).

Unless it is connected by road to another city of yours with a harbour, of course.

Not true - on the example shown above, only the city with the harbour got the reduced corruption - the other cities on the continent were not affected.

 

[Ironikinit]

In my experience, courthouses only affect corruption, not waste. That is, commerce, not shields.

While connection to the capital might help, is it possible that building the harbor kicked up luxuries to a level where WLTK happened? WLTK has a good effect on waste, provided you're not over the city limit.

 

[pompeynunn]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
In my experience, courthouses only affect corruption, not waste. That is, commerce, not shields.

While connection to the capital might help, is it possible that building the harbor kicked up luxuries to a level where WLTK happened? WLTK has a good effect on waste, provided you're not over the city limit.

No, courthouses definitely reduce waste as well - it was the only way I could build a Forbidden Palace at the other end of my Civ. Pre-Courthouse it only produced 1 shield - post Courthouse the same city produced 4 shields.

BTW, a small tip for getting those courthouses built in those 1 shield cities - use teams of workers to chop down trees to add shields quickly towards building the courthouse, and if you run out of trees, just keep planting new ones then chopping them down again. Useful when you want to rush something along without spending money or population.

 

[october]

It should be noted that those who have the civ3 patch 1.16f will not benefit from the repeated deforestation. You only get the shield bonus once per square.

Do courthouses cut down on both corruption and waste? What is the best way to keep waste under control? Why is communism not worth it?

-october-

 

[Ironikinit]

Well, I'll check out the courthouse effect on waste again, I thought I had it figured out. I'm wrong sometimes. Like the time I built the dang UN, held a vote, and lost.

 

[Astral]

Courthouses DO help with waste. But the effect of a courthouse is not very big when you just build it, but will increase over time. That is what I have experienced, and heard...

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Originally posted by Astral
Courthouses DO help with waste. But the effect of a courthouse is not very big when you just build it, but will increase over time. That is what I have experienced, and heard...

Now that I think about you're right. I've seen my cities have fairly high corruption even immediately after constructing a courthouse. But after visiting the city again say 24 turns later I see corruption significantly reduced. I never thought twice about it but now I see. It makes sense that a courthouse or other corruption reducing structure would take time to reduce corruption.

After all when's the last time you saw crime reduced to "zero" immediately after a new police station is built in a real world town. It takes time to hire the officers and support staff. Guess this is what's being simulated in the game here.

 

[BillChin]

Courthouses help with shields and gold, as do police stations.

Communism is usually not worth it, because your core production cities take a huge hit. Your big fringe cities may go from one shield to five shields, while your capital goes from 30 shields to 15 shields per turn. With a courthouse and police station you can get to 33% corruption, but it is a big project getting police stations in all your cities.

Monarchy is usually better as a war time government for empires that depend on a few core cities to do most of the production. Communism allows one more military police, and does have better spying, but the big hit to production near the capital is a big price for these benefits.

Originally posted by october
It should be noted that those who have the civ3 patch 1.16f will not benefit from the repeated deforestation. You only get the shield bonus once per square.

Do courthouses cut down on both corruption and waste? What is the best way to keep waste under control? Why is communism not worth it?

-october-

 

[Syndrome Zed]

If you have to have a far-flung empire - island games with several large continents, for instance - the best thing I've been able to do is to build my Forbidden somewhat close to my core cities (not right next to but not really far away either) and get the courthouses built right away even in the core cities, then when I have a good foothold in the new continent, I switch to communism and move my palace there. Then switch back to either monarchy or democracy.

It's a little tricky, and having a forested city helps to get the palace done faster. But when it works you have the courthouses and FP on your main island keeping corruption down in your previous core cities, and can get real production out of your other island.

Of course, this works best in multi-continent situations, and not always in those either. But sometimes it can help.