How to counter corruption + inefficiency?

[pillium]

Hi guys,

I notice that when cities are far from the capital, there is a lot of corruption and a lot of shields are wasted. One city is generating 15 shields but only 2 is used for actual production. FYI I have courthouse and many improvements up to modern age and Democracy doesn't help much. Any workaround on this nagging major issue I'm experiencing. Tks.

 

[Yeti]

If you have too many cities the ones furthest from your capitals are going to waste all but 1 shield/gold (you can get more than 1 shield by modifying that shield with improvements though. You can get it up to a wonderful 2 with the addition of a factory and a hydro or other power plant for example, and I didn't test it, but probably up to 3 with a factory + nuke, and maybe 4 with a manufacturing plant. Yipee skipee...)

So....
Don't create a TON of cities just for the heck of it. One thing I sometimes do is rip through the enemy razing his cities and replace roughly every two of his with one really well placed one.

Try to have your palace and your forbidden palace positioned as well as possible. This can present problems on it's own since it's hard to build anything in a highly corrupt city, and moving your palace at any time costs you a lot of potential culture (your palace will revert to generating just 1 or 2 culture points a turn - whatever it's base value is (I forget which)).

Some cities you're just going to have to give up on from a shield stand point. For those, rush build improvements to keep folks happy and use the plant forest/clear forest over and over technique with your workers to create some production there.

Don't bother building courthouses in totally corrupt cities. They're great for cities that are losing anything less than all but 1 shield, but for those totally bad cities they won't help.

Also don't bother building factories or power plants or anything like that. Just not worth the effort. There's also no point in mining around those cities - just go for irrigation and build up some people/score.

Don't rush things until there is at least 1 shield in the build box. This halves the cost per shield to complete the project. With no shields in the build box it costs 8 gold per shield to rush. Once there is at least 1 shield, it costs 4 gold per shield.

Hmmm, I think that's about it for dealing with corruption, at least for now. They are hinting at some changes to corruption and waste for the patch.

 

[Ghengis Brom]

They act like another capital.

 

[pillium]

Yes I have built the Forbidden City but I think it was <> 12 squares away from the capital. Should I build it further? I don't think I can sell now. City with a population at 20 and with factory produces only 2 shields. What a bug...

 

[wilboman]

CORRUPTION SUCKS!
I HATE CORRUPTION!
IT PLAYS FAR TO GREAT A ROLE, AND
COMPLETELY DESTROYS MY NORMAL GAMING TACTICS!
IF THEY DON'T FIX CORRUPTION FOR THE PATCH,
i shall be very annoyed. I'm not nice when I'm annoyed.
(by the way, that was my low threatening voice)
Glad to get that off my chest.
Does anyone have a mail adress for *****ing, like complain@civ3.com or something? I'd be very grateful if someone could provide me with it.

 

[Proteus]

If you don´t have success with your old Tactics invent new ones.

Someone came up with dividing his Realm in Inner Cities (those who have less Problems with Corruptions) which are used for the Production of Wonders, Units and the like and the outer Cities, which are only there to expand your Borders and produce Culturepoints.

Oki, I´m also a bit annoyed, that maybe 10-20% of my Empire constists of totally corrupt cities (it has been est. 40-50% before I built the Forbidden Palace) but it´s a far better way to say an Emperor that he´s got enough Cities at his hand, then a fixed Limit after which you can´t build any more cities (such as it is the case in Civ 2 from Activision AFAIK )

Uh, btw.
Yes, it is very important to build your Forbidden Palace in a great Distance from your Capital, Pilium
And it´s not a bug

 

[stefano]

Place 2-4 workers next to a fully corrupted city (production = 1 shield), make and destroy a forest tile "per turn" and you get 10 shields per turn ! You can eventually make more lumberjacks increasing lumbers production...

I hope with the next patch corruption will be reduced and not crazy lumberjacks allowed.

P.S.: the a.m. trick doesn't work while the city is producing wonders or the palace

 

[tetley]

The single, absolute best thing I've figured out to do with those 1-shield/1-gold cities is to sell them.
And not to my best friends, either--but to my future enemies. Get techs and lump sums from them, and more if you're willing to wait the 20 turns, then promptly start a war and retake them. Then turn around and sell them again. That makes the BUYER vulnerable to culture flips--not you. Later on you can even negotiate mutual protection pacts with your best friends and start a war. Hee hee hee.... I think that causes permanent damage to the diplomatic relations between those 2 AI civs, as well as temporarily improves relations between you and your friend during the war.

Short of selling them, the next best thing is to milk them for their population. That means cranking out workers & settlers, Despot-rushing out army units, the draft (this is awesome), and later on you might even relocate your Palace/Forbidden Palace to make them useful. I've found a late Industrial/post-Hoover Dam Palace relocation to be highly profitable. Plus rushing a Temple up to expand your borders, if you have no intention of selling the city at all.