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

[werewolf]

Some people don't mind the corruption because they employ tricks (like making the citizens specialists, etc.). Where's the realism in that?

I would agree that corruption is a huge balancing factor... but it still sucks! WHy not employ other 'balancing factors'?

- I would suggest you lower democracy's corruption alot, but increase maintenance costs of units/buildings (price of bureaucracy, perhaps?). Choose your investments wisely: easy come, easy go! This would make Democracy an awesome peacetime government... but when it's time for war... look out... it's gonna be costly. Maybe this could be applied to Republic to a lesser degree as well.

- Culture should be a factor in corruption (bravo iron0037!)... the more the better. However, 'foreign' culture should have a negetive effect (though it would diminish over time)... so recently captured cities would take a while to become useful.

I just think the idea of a big city taking a game century to build a library as just plain silly. THe concept of corruption is good, the application of it is not. I'm sure some good solutions wont require revamping of the AI.

I for one have been holding off playing, waiting for the official 'late-Feb' patch... hopefully my patience will bear fruit.

 

[Rellin]

Just go in the editor and edit the percantage of optimal cities on whatever difficulty level your playing on under the difficulty levels tab to like 150 or 200 to get either 50% or 100% more cities before coruption becomes a problem. I have edited my game to the 150 number and I find it much more acceptable.

 

[Cedrick]

Originally posted by 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.

I quite agree that corruption has gone crazy. I have been playing since Civ 1 and corruption has become worse with each version since. With Civ 1, you would start very corrupt after a certain distance from your palace but with each improvement that cut that distance (road/railroad/harbor/airport) it would go down. A courthouse cut it in half. Lastly, every century you had the city it would drop slightly though never reach zero.
I have heard it was changed for play balance which to me is a very poor escuse. Like some of the other posts here, my enjoyment of the game isn't as high as it was with Civ 1. I am not war like but like to build a vast peaceful empire which under the current system is not possible unless you think it is fun having half your cities useless. I do not.
As for using the editor, that is not for me since your game is then blocked from the hall of fame.
For reasons unclear to me, Firax seems determined to make each generation less fun and punish the player more for staying with the series. At this point it is very doubtful I will continue getting any further versions since I wish to play for enjoyment not working out ways to get around blocks the developers have put in to lower said enjoyment using the lame expalantion of play balance.

 

[Cuivienen]

Simple solution: reduce Corruption effects under difficulty level in the editor in Conquests.biq (or whatever version -- civ3mod.bic for Vanilla, but I don't know what it is for PTW) to 50%. Viola! Corruption is far more realistic. (IMO, Corruption should only affect gold, not shields, as in SMAC&SMAX, but there is no way to do that in the Editor )

 

[Turner]

Nah, I've played at 50% corruption, and it's deceptive. It's a lot less that 50%, it seems. I'm sure I'm not looking at the equation properly.

I like DyP's approach: Multiple corruption reducing improvements/wonders. It was a struggle, but you could eventually make those far flung cities productive. Of course, CE % Police Specialists do help in C3C.

 

[Mallipeep]

To sum it up...

High corruption sucks

Change it in editor.

But i cant submit it into hall of fame then.

Make your own hall of fame.

It is not realistic

There are lot's of things that are more unrealistic in this game.

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I kind of was scared of the corruption in the beginning too, but it was just because i was used to civ2. In latest C3C patch it seems very fine to me.

The real problem lies within the scoring system. If score would'nt be mostly territory based then maybe everyone wouldnt want to conquer the world, and have every city productive.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Mallipeep
To sum it up...

Change it in editor.

Make your own hall of fame.

There are lot's of things that are more unrealistic in this game.

No offense, Mal, but what's the point of a "just deal with it" attitude? Even for those of us capable of using the editor to make the game more to our liking, its still legitimate and perfectly reasonable to hold out hope that future versions (patches, expansions, or Civ 4) will be more to our liking in their default, un-modded state. And many of the suggestions made here aren't things that can be modded: its not simply that people want less corruption because they don't like dealing with it, its that people want corruption implemented differently, because dealing with it could maybe then be more fun. If you just decrease corruption in the editor, that just makes the game easier, which isn't the same thing as more fun.

Of course there are lots of things that aren't realistic, but so what? Yes, its a game, and not a simulation of reality, but some of the fun of this particular game is that it has a feeling or reality to it: techs, units, improvements, etc are all based on real things that actually existed. To me, having a corruption implementation that would let me make an empire that felt more like one of the great empires of history would not only be more fun but be more in the spirit of the game. Corruption should be something you have to deal with (as it has been for real civilizations) and it shouldn't necessarily be easy to handle. But there should be enough variety in how to handle it to allow a variety of strategies, not just the current binary choice between (1) rely entirely on a core of cities (a few cores if you've built the right Small Wonders) or (2) switch to Communism.

And yes, Conquests helps with its various additions, but they help corruption at the expense of more micromanagement. And in my opinion, the answer to the question posed in the thread title is "No, micromanagement is the biggest fun killer... corruption, and pollution as well, are only big fun killers because they increase the amount of micromanagement. The second biggest fun killer is dumb AI." Some people like to micromanage, that's fine, the option should be available. But victory in the game should depend on an ability to come up with good strategies to suit the situations you find yourself in, not just an ability to pay attention to lots of tiny details. And coming up with winning strategies would be more challenging and more fun if the AI acted less predictably and with more strategy of its own.

 

[Halcyon]

The principal problem is that of waste. Alpha Centauri's corruption system worked well, but Civ3's is a pain. It's a shame that there's no way to lower waste in the editor without lowering corruption, which is a big black mark on the game. There's also no way to set a government's corruption to 'nil', either, which is another mark.