Is it just me or is corruption the biggest fun-killer in Civ3?

[rychan]

Originally posted by vesuvius_prime
I would enjoy as much realism as possible without hurting the gameplay. This would mean that corruption should not be the *only* thing that should keep a lid on my early expansion. (Civil wars could also be a factor, among other things.)

Hehe, I've thought about that before. How cool would it be to have part of your empire detach and form an NPC empire? How cool would it be if you (or maybe just NPCs) could have their entire empire shatter in to smaller empires? It has happened so much historically. The Roman empire splitting up (the byzantines being an offshoot of them), the Americans being an old British colony, repeat 1000x. Of course it would suck to lose a large part of your empire suddenly, but oh well, you shouldn't mistreat them! And they would probably be unimportant cities anyway- recently founded or conquered. But who knows, now with proper management maybe the end up bailing you out of a world war 170 years later.

It probably wouldn't be too hard to take back your cities, unless someone (like the sneaky french) decide to help the revolutionaries. It's not the same as cultural switches (though maybe culture could prevent it, then again there are places like barcelona that have plenty of culture but want to be independent of their nation). I think unhappiness, geographical separation, etc would be the biggest factors. I guess you could relate it to corruption, but I think we've all agreed that the current corruption model needs to be thrown out the window.

As for shattering an empire, maybe taking a capital under certain conditions would do it. That's what effectively did it for the romans, right? A couple of barbarian (goth? vandal?) visits to rome when the civilization was already in decline.

 

[Turner]

Corruption is a PITA, second only to (more likely tied with) micromanaging.

For S&G's, I've modded corruption to about half of what it is, and created a huge map. Corruption is almost gone, and I have to admit it does take something away from the game. I don't build courthouses now, and Police stations only for WW issues. I thought it might be fun to build a huge empire, and didn't want to deal with the corruption issue. Well. . .went to far. If I decide to stick with this, I'll put it halfway between where it is now and 'normal'.

I don't mind modding the corruption, but it really does need to be balanced.

 

[ShiplordAtvar]

Problem is, if you mod the game so as to jack up the OCN or change the corruption %, you will wind up having to spend way too much time managing all those formerly unproductive cities. If a city is only putting out one shield per turn and wasting 49, you don't have to deal with it all that often. If, all of a sudden, that city is now putting out 48 shields with only two wasted, you have to spend a lot more time managing it. This is a bad thing if you're of the school of thought that doesn't like to spend 90 minutes on each turn.

 

[Turner]

Good point. However, I'd rather spend time managing a semi to fully productive city, than have one that does little more than produce a shield/gold per turn.

Build Ques, Build Last Unit. . .this cuts down on a lot of management.

 

[Longasc]

Corruption is NOT for realism.

It is for BALANCE.

Expansion would be rewarded even more, you would simply outproduce your enemy and gain the upperhand easier than now.

C3C did a good job in making corruption less serious:

Again, I say: Communism. The government for those players having 511/512 cities.

With less cities, democracy works fairly well, too!

One problem I think is that with MOOD Management on the governor never uses Policeman or civil engineers - one of those increases production - to make the city produce more. I have not seen that so far, even with emphasis on production.

 

[vesuvius_prime]

Micromanagement can also be reduced through the proper use of governors and by specifying build queues for several "classes" of cities. For example, I can pre-define build queues for core cities, border cities, science cities, military cities, industrial cities, commercial cities, etc. The names of these "classes" should also be defined by me. And then, when I found or capture a city, a may simply assign some pre-defined queue to it. This concept is not new, some games have it.

One other thought: there are some very small nations which are totally corrupt, while there are some very big nations which have no big problems with corruption (although some still have big problems with special interests and lobbying). This is totally opposite to the situation in Civ3. I suppose corruption depends also on the level of control that the government has upon its citizens, the strength and zeal of the ruler(s), etc. And I don't consider "control" to be the same as "oppression". I mean the ability of police/security/revisors to maintain order and accountability.

Corruption is a realistic concept and it's a good thing that Civ3 has it. What is not good is *how* it is implemented in Civ3. It simply cripples the outlying provinces of my empire and takes away at least as much realism from the game as it adds.

 

[Commander Bello]

vesuvius_prime,

You hit the nail on it's head!

But, please allow me to add another aspect to the discussion. In a similar thread somebody pointed out (very correctly in my eyes) that it is not *Corruption*, but *Waste* which is so annoying.
I strongly agree with that point of view.
The problem of Civ3 is, that we have different productivity factors in the game:
a) food
b) culture
c) shields
d) commerce.

While food is only used for city growth, and culture only for the border expansion and flip calculation, shields and commerce are very important for the overall performance of your empire. From both, shields are even more important.
Nearly everything depends on shields, even the creation of units (which, btw, is a total misconcept).
So, the loss of shields due to whatever reason is the one thing which may hamper you the most. Especially, and that is, what most players don't notice, since shields are not saved at productions end.
A short example: You may have a city with a gross of 50 shields. Due to "corruption" (this term used for both, corruption AND waste in the following), you loose 15 of them. So, your net production is 35 (only 70%).
Now, you're going to produce a library, costing 80 shields. For that, you will have to spend 3 turns, totalling up to 105 shields used - although you just would have needed 80. That means an over-production of 31.25%!
Without the corruption, you would have needed 2 turns, resulting in an over-production of only 25% (which is ridicoulous, anyway).
That way, corruption hit you two times!
Of course, now one could say, for any improvement which costs only 70 shields, corruption would have reduced the over-production to just 0%, what of course would be correct. But this would stand true only for the rather rare occasions when net production divided by shield cost for improvement/wonder would give an integer value, or a very low fraction. And even then, in most cases corruption just elongates the prodution time.

Anyway, the fact of over-production is inherent to the game and adds up to the effect of corruption, if you are not going for excessive micro-management.
I am pretty sure that most players just blow 50% of their total production (counted for the whole game) just into the air.

 

[iron0037]

Here's a thought: why not have a civ and city's cultural values affect corruption as well?

I think a major factor on corruption in the real world is the cultural tradition of the people that reside there. Distance from the capital and form of government also shape corruption, but to essentially ignore such a huge contributor seems a little odd to me. If you look at corruption in developed nations over time, you see that it dwindles. The corruption in New York City today isn't nearly as bad as it was in 1900. The wild west was wild because it was the frontier and there was little to no civic infrastructure to fight corruption. (It shouldn't be just one or two specialized buildings BTW; corruption is affected by the sum total of all civic institutions). Places like the Falklands and Hawaii have little corruption despite the distance from their capital because they have these institutions and their nations have a culture history of organized, people driven governments. I could go on...

Not only do I think this is more realistic, but it's a good gameplay solution. It encourages the builder mentality which the developers want to promote so desperately. It makes expansion less advantageous because you pay for neglecting your city infrastructure. At the same time, your conquered cities will be corrupt for quite some time while you try to build their cultural value back up from zero. It gives players hope that with enough time and effort, they can all but eliminate corruption.

Just an idea.

 

[thestonesfan]

Corruption can be annoying, but it pales next to the hassle of pollution.

It's not balancing, it's not realistic, it's just a pain in the a$$.

 

[vesuvius_prime]

Originally posted by iron0037
Here's a thought: why not have a civ and city's cultural values affect corruption as well?

I think a major factor on corruption in the real world is the cultural tradition of the people that reside there.

Culture matters but it is only one of the components. And by itself it can't remove corruption. Romans, for instance, were quite corrupt despite their culture. And people in every country try to cheat with taxes, promote their relatives, etc. The main difference is how successful they can be in doing this and what deterrents are there to force them to keep the law.

I think what matters greatly is:

1. Proper laws (well-defined and without loopholes)
2. Effective law-enforcement system (very important)
3. Effective judicial system
4. Enough money to properly finance these

If law enforcement collapses, even civilized people tend to succumb lawlessness, pursuit of self-interest and even anarchy. The perfect environment for corruption.

We see the despicable situation of countries where law is either bad, or not enforced properly. Sometimes policemen even turn into one of the most corrupt members of society, especially when they are not paid well by the government. Crime and corruption flourishes in such environment. And the size of the country doesn't matter much.

It would be great, if the game mechanics could be changed to reflect real-life corruption more adequately.

As for the balance, I suppose there can be other ways to achieve balance. Better AI is, of course, always on top of the list. But there can be other things. For example, even a small and insignificant nation can rise to greatness and power. There are numerous examples of that throughout history. Just recall the following:

1. Macedonia of Alexander The Great was a totally insignificant state before he and his father Philip brought about a total change.

2. Arabia at the time of Mohammed was a complete miracle -- in less than a century after the death of Mohammed the Arabs had conquered huge areas, including Messopotamia, Northern Africa, and even the powerful Sassanid Persia. And all that was done by tribal people who came from a resourceless land in the deserts of Arabia.

3. Genghis Khan led the Mongols to greatness, conquering Asia, and even coming within a hair's breadth from conquering Europe. All that within the lifetime of a single ruler who started with just a few horses and a few followers.

4. America, only for a few hundred years, turned from a small colony into a superpower.

As we can see, factors like great military commanders, religious zeal, innovation, administrative skill and vision have helped bring about huge changes into the world and have turned seemingly hopeless nations into world powers.

I don't know whether such things can be implemented well into Civilization and how exactly they can be implemented to keep the game interesting, but they deserve some thinking. Balance shouldn't be achieved only by putting restraints on development.

 

[Zekee]

I agree that corruption is over done, I like to play long games on large worlds and corruption spoils the conquest part. I take the point that it is combatable by changing to Communism but I think that is not realistic. Communism had (has) as much if not more corruption as Democracy. Hope to see a change in future as suggested speed of communication balance with distance.

 

[Qpdaj]

Well, as someone who played vanila civ3 for long enough to be quite annoyed with corruption, I'm pretty happy with C3C's corruption levels.

However, you're right when you say it doesn't accurately reflect real life. To model corruption in a modern democracy, it would have to be similiar to the communism model (with the exception of the capital being twice as corrupt ). Perhaps another government type should be introduced - Modern Democracy, that changes the corruption model...

As far as trying to build huge empires under democracy, I don't see how you can do that without war, and in that case, switch to communism! Forget the real-life stigma associated with it, in Civilization, it truly exels.

 

[valamas]

Yep, corruption sucks now. I remember CIV 1 being so fun. Now i am faced with useless cities which I have to stick on wealth or be overcome by boring managment of cities that may only produce a temple and librayr throughout the rest of the game.

According to CIV rules, Perth in Australia must be very corrupt.
Washington (Seattle) must be very corrupt. Heheh, lets not mention California who voted in a movie star

It all sucks now. I may have to look at another game. Any suggestions?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think that the best approach is go the mod route. You can then reflect the corruption reducing effects of certain technologies by introducing new improvements and small wonders with this techs!
For instance, radio might allow you to build a Mass Media Small Wonder which, in turn, acts as 'Radio/TV coverage' in every city-an improvement which reduces Corruption, and possibly war weariness (admittedly, because the Wonder editor is still 'broken' in my opinion, you might have to make it as a great wonder, then TURN it into a Small Wonder before incorporating it into the game!)
If you make a number of these improvements/Small Wonders, then it should be possible to have a Modern Age Civ which has few, if any, problems with corruption-unless it is truly IMPERIAL in nature!
Hope this helps.

The_Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Valamas, if you've read the newspaper recently, you'll see that Perth IS very corrupt, with the worst police force in the Country! So, maybe Civ3 has it right after all !

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

Oh, btw, I hope that a better (and more realistic) system of corruption and corruption management comes into future versions of Civ!

Basically, in my Civ4 suggestions, I recommend that Corruption be largely based on how much of your budget you commit to 'law and order', the presence/absence of corruption busting improvements, your government type, tech level, trade in 'illicit' resources, and how much 'influence' you give to your 'criminal classes'!

 

[tomart109]

I agree with vesuvius_prime: corruption has leached away more fun from my civ3 games than anything else by far.

Originally posted by valamas

It all sucks now. I may have to look at another game. Any suggestions?

There's a simple, easy and effective solution - don't abandon the game! Go to the editor, find the waste/corruption slider, and set it down a bit. Don't go too far, the other extreme is bad too.

I think between 60 and 80% of the standard setting should be about right.

Then save the file and select that (it'll be in the civ content menu.)

 

[Warlord Sam]

I have played Civ 3 since Vanilla, and I must say that Corruption is the least fun factor in the game, for me. I also agree that it should reward the builder-mentality with a lower corruption, this could totally make the game so much more rewarding when you spend a lot of time on infrastructure and not so much on expanding, etc.

Also, this would make a strung out empire (such as on an archipelago map) possible; the corruption issues of archipelago maps is a big annoyance of mine, currently.

 

[kb2tvl]

I think corruption should be reduced with added communication techs and it should be reduced by the %t of people that are of your own nationality. The exception here would be commy.

 

[Nisku]

I don't understand why they didn't use a government system like in SMAC. To me this would have been much more realistic and you could have made better choices to fine tweak what you want to do with your Civ. Like vesuvius_prime mentioned corruption/waste is dependant on a large number of factors, this could have been simulated by a more complex system of government choices/policies.

 

[vesuvius_prime]

Originally posted by Aussie_Lurker
Basically, in my Civ4 suggestions, I recommend that Corruption be largely based on how much of your budget you commit to 'law and order', the presence/absence of corruption busting improvements, your government type, tech level, trade in 'illicit' resources, and how much 'influence' you give to your 'criminal classes'! [/B]

My sentiments exactly.

And there should be a more reasonable upper limit on corruption. After all, the current situation results in most cities essentially being in constant anarchy. No normal government would allow such outrageous lawlessness. Unless the government itself is on the brink of collapse, that is.