New "Corruption Vs Palace" model

[hclass]

I would like to suggest changes to Civ3 "corruption Vs Palace" model:

a) The very first city built is always gifted a Palace.

b) Remove "Total #cities" as a factor in the corruption formula. (i.e. #city does not contribute to the build of corruption)

c) The rate of expansion (#city increased/#population grown) in every N turns (back from current turn) is used to calculate a percentage of corruption value (the higher the expansion rate the higher this percentage will be) in which can not be reduced by any mean. Let this be C%

d) A Palace 's effect in anti-corruption is reduced by distance and has a limited scope (e.g. 30 tiles, the further the less anti-corruption effect), beyond which there will be no anti-corruption effect. 0 distance, that means city with a Palace should have only C% corruption.

e) Each city can build a Palace, that is there could be multiple Palaces throughout the empire (may be in modem era it is called another way, e.g. government center) and their anti-corruption effect are accumulative.

f) After N cities is built, allow player to build a small wonder to discard the condition in b) I.e. once the samller wonder is built, a city can really become 0% corrupted.

*Give the pleasure back to those who are capable (have time and is willing to micro-manage huge empire), i.e. a) to f) are designed to allow huge empire under full control (but not easy).

g) Cut the cost of Palace. It should be close to other city improvement intially and it is increased by the #of existing Palaces. (not by the total #cities or any other factors)

h) Palace can be captured. If a captured Palace is the "nearest Palace" to a group of cities (before it is captured), all these cities will automatically fall into enemy's hand at the time the Palace is captured. Militants are sent back to "furthest" cities.

*This means feel free to exploit Palaces but beware of the consequence if any is captured.

This model is suggested based on the facts that:
1) No change shall make current Civ3 corruption model worse. It is already the worst!
2) The suggested model is for sure better than current Civ3 model which force player to squeeze and keep a small number of cities in a small area (I consider < 45 cities as small), no matter how big the map he/she has selected...and therefore make the game does not taste like its title Civilization... which I suppose to have Big empire, Big power, Big money and everything else BIG BIG...

 

[Arathorn]

Then what method are you going to use to prevent snowballing -- the effect that the strong get stronger and stronger while the weak get weaker and weaker? That's one of the main purposes of corruption -- as a break on the strong so that those behind stay close. It's a very good game mechanic for that.

Speaking as one who likes a game to be challenging and could care less about big (if I have 45 cities, the game is boring because I've won -- where's the fun/challenge left?), let alone BIG. Your suggestion would ruin the fun for lots of gamers.

Arathorn

 

[hr_oskar]

I agree with Arathorn. The high corruption itself does not ruin the fun for me, while unchecked snowballing does.

a) The very first city built is always gifted a Palace.

Isn't it already so?

2) The suggested model is for sure better than current Civ3 model which force player to squeeze and keep a small number of cities in a small area (I consider < 45 cities as small), no matter how big the map he/she has selected...and therefore make the game does not taste like its title Civilization... which I suppose to have Big empire, Big power, Big money and everything else BIG BIG...

I don't quite understand this... the current model does not force the player to keep his empire small! Sure enough, a mega-empire covering 50% of the land area will not be twice as productive as an empire half its size, because of the corruption, but expanding your empire always furthers your cause and gets you closer to winning the game. The "useless" cities aren't so useless if you make sure to expand their cultural borders (to control more territory) and hire lots of specialists in them. Even if they were totally useless, holding them would still better because then they don't help your enemies.

My own gripe with the current corruption model is this:

The totally corrupted "useless" cities can still be made useful, but only with lots of micromanagement (hiring specialists); I hate it when the optimal strategy requires too much MM (not because I'm lazy or a bad player, but because I have a life! I play the game for fun, not work!)

I wish I could simply designate those cities as vassals and not have to manage them - I would control their territory and receive some gpt from them, as I have rightly earned (by capturing them with skill and strategy), but not be punished with unexciting and mostly irrelevant MM.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think that the whole 'Corruption' issue needs a MASSIVE rethink!

Firstly, it needs to be broken down into Crime, Corruption and Waste.

Secondly, # of cities and distance factors should effect the Crime and Corruption elements, but should be solvable through either improving technology and/or Small Wonder building. For instance, the Wild West was a VERY lawless place during the early to late 19th century but, today, it is no more or less ridden with crime or corruption than any other cities in the US (hell, just look at the crime and corruption problem in Washington DC, and thats the CAPITAL !)

Overreliance on Luxuries should cause an increase in corruption, wheras too much unhappiness should lead to increased crime. Trade in contraband should increase both crime AND corruption. Poverty and unemployment (if they are incorporated into the game) should contribute to high crime rates, wheras excessive wealth would contribute to corruption!
Overpopulation should also contribute to increased crime rates.
It should never be possible to reduce corruption and crime to zero-even in the capital. It should, however, be possible to reduce them to 'managable levels'!
Crime and corruption should definitely reduce a city's income and reduce happiness, but other effects would have to be determined based on gameplay balance!
Waste is a totally different issue, and relates to material-be it food or shields-that is lost as a result of inefficiency. Waste would have no distance or optimal city component, but instead relate strictly to city size, corruption and technology. For instance, due to 'Economies of Scale' smaller cities would have a bigger problem with waste than larger ones. In addition, when first built, many production improvements will be inefficient-thus contributing to waste. However, as technology improves, these improvements will become less wasteful. Optionally, when an appropriate technology comes along, you could be asked to 'upgrade' all production improvements-the same way you used to upgrade barracks in civ2! If you don't, then the improvement remains wasteful. Lastly, certain levels of corruption can increase a city's waste. Waste reduces shield and food output, with each one lost contributing to a city's pollution levels.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I think this would make all forms of 'corruption' much more realistic, and a lot easier to 'control', whilst still allowing it to restrict unchecked growth!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh and, as an additional point, my biggest GRIPE about corruption is that it is sooo damn unrealistic. As I said before, many so-called Capital cities have high levels of crime and corruption (just look at London, Washington or, hell, even Sydney!) yet in civ3 your capital is totally corruption free, whilst your outlying cities are all totally useless.
In my opinion, corruption in its myriad forms should be more spread out-with different factors contributing to different aspects of the corruption equation-as I've shown above! Small cities, for instance, have a greater problem with waste, but almost no problem with crime (unless they are at the very outskirts of the empire). Greater Federalism, as represented by both government types and Small Wonders, can help to significantly reduce distance based corruption, whilst greater imperialism will help to overcome corruption based on city numbers!
Crime and corruption can be reduced through both a broad Social Engineering approach, as well as achieveing a balance between too little and too much happiness (via luxuries!) and too little and too much wealth! It can also be dealt with through the traditional approach of Improvement and Small Wonder construction.
Waste can be dealt with largely through encouraging small cities to grow (possibly at the expense of your larger cities-something that will reduce overpopulation and crime!) and by regularly upgrading your production facilities every so often!
So, as you see, my solution adds greater depth and realism to the corruption issue (at least, IMHO ) whilst adding no additional levels of micromanagement to the game (again, IMHO!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Milan's Warrior]

Corruption is so unrealistic in Civ3.
Real world corruption is mainly withIN the palace (i.e. the government); it does not make any sense that the closer to the government the smaller the the corruption. Even just making something as simple as the opposite (=the capital city is the most corrupted city of all) would increase realism.

My two cents.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Exactly my thought Milan! Perhaps CRIME might increase according to how far from your capital you get (and according to tech level), wheras corruption might increase the closer the city is to the 'Centre of Power'! As always, though, there should be ways of limiting both crime and corruption effects-no matter WHAT the distance from the capital!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Duke_of_BOOM!]

Hmm, I like the idea of a base universal corruption, perhaps a diminishing return could be applied to the slider bars.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I haven't thought this through, so go easy on me.

One distinction I haven't seen made is between corruption/waste/crime/whatever for local (i.e. city) things versus empire-wide. Everyone keeps saying that small cities are more wasteful, but they aren't. They are less wasteful with what they have (because what they have is theirs and they don't have very much), but don't gain efficiencies of scale. Lack of efficiency and waste are not the same thing, because a lot gets done locally in a frugal manner that doesn't benefit from efficiency of scale. I'll grant that the Civ3 waste is probably meant to represent both concepts.

I'm not even sure Civ would want to make the distinction more explicit. It somewhat makes the distinction abstractly, in that a certain amount of commerce goes to maintenance costs of local buildings and the food can be though to represent purely local concerns and the shields purely empire ones. I suppose one way to tweak it a bit would be to take the maintenance cost of local buildings out of the city commerce before corruption was applied (to the extent possible) but then charge more for those buildings supported by imperial tax money. (If we take money from City A, send it to the capital, send it to City B to pay marketplace maintenance, that's exactly where corruption comes in.) There isn't any analogous shield maintenance cost, though perhaps when building an improvement, half the shields could apply before waste was calculated? The units and wonders remain "imperial" costs.

With that kind of model, you could actually be fairly hard-nosed with the remaining corruption/waste.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I guess that, for small cities, it would be better to say that any food and/or shields, above a certain level, that you collect from working tiles and/or building 'production improvements' will be lost as waste. So, as an example, a size four city might only be able to successfully make use of 8-12 shields but, if they somehow get more shields than this (via certain types of terrains and/or factories and mfg plants), then these extra shields would be lost-to simulate the 'economies of scale' that I was referring to earlier. I admit that my model is a little 'rough round the edges', but I personally feel that it's a reasonable starting off point for the re-working of the corruption system in Civ4!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[hclass]

Hello Arathorn,

"Then what method are you going to use to prevent snowballing"

I don't think you really see the purpose of my suggested model... and have a good understanding on snowball effect...

1) snowball effect can never be prevented.
2) corruption is not the only way that has some control to snowball effect.
3) I have never suggested a removal of corruption from Civ game.

"if I have 45 cities, the game is boring because I've won"
I suggest you think about how is the corruption works on player who win with 45 or less cities under my model (again let say 45 or less is small number of cities)
And think about those who can get bored by always playing small or standard map with limited cities ...

The below is a good thread on snowball issue:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=87393&page=1&pp=20

 

[hclass]

Please, I would like to invite everyone who can make the suggested model even more interesting. Or suggest an improvement to it so that small/big map players, peace maker and warmonger can all be contented.

The objective of the suggested model is to give a room to those who like to expand to a huge empire (and yet can manage them gracefully) without forfeit the joy of those who prefer not to expand too far, control and manage reasonable #cities (and win of course).

 

[Arathorn]

I have a very good understanding of snowball, believe me.

I don't quite agree that snowball can never be prevented, but it shouldn't be prevented, only controlled. I think we agree that corruption isn't the only way to control the snowball. In Civ3, though, I think it's one of the primary ones -- and it's pretty effective at it. Your suggestion, while not removing corruption, minimizes it to such a degree that it's a non-issue -- it doesn't serve its snowball-lessening purpose well.

I suggest you think about how is the corruption works on player who win with 45 or less cities under my model

I'm not at all sure what you're saying here. I certainly often win with less than 45 cities under my control, even at very high difficulty levels and/or large maps. Corruption is always an issue in Civ3 and understanding it is one of the marks of a good player.

For me, a small number of cities is about 8-20 and more than that usually means I'm doing very well and the AI will seen feel my heel at its neck (exceptions exist, of course, but only rarely).

And think about those who can get bored by always playing small or standard map with limited cities ...

Well, play large or huge maps then. Go into the editor and mod corruption down to zero. Play your game your way but don't force the rest of us to play that way. Solutions already exist to do what you want -- why ask for more?

Arathorn

 

[hclass]

Hello Arathorn,

"I'm not at all sure what you're saying here. I certainly often win with less than 45 cities under my control, even at very high difficulty levels and/or large maps"

It means the suggested model makes not much difference from current Civ corruption system IF you play below 45 cities. However it has the below benefit:
1) If player like you (<45 cities) prefer to really minimize corruption, you can build a few more Palaces. (Remember the C% shall be min in this case because you hardly increase your #cities)
2) Player (like me) who love the BIG kind of empire can expand (with additional palaces) to the N cities condition and build the smaller wonder (not for you since you are always < 45 cities) as suggested, remove the curruption at all with Palaces+other city improvements's help.
3) Weaker player has a chance to suddenly capture several cities (and become quite strong), this is anti-snowball. So the one who expand crazily, understand the risk ...

All parties happy ...
The impotant thing is, it is now the player who decides his/her style. The game shouldn't be geared merely for those who do not expand and do not want to manage big #cities.

 

[Gengis Khan]

You can modify corruption down to nearly 0 in the editor, that way you can have your BIG BIG BIG sprawling empires corruption free if you want.

It's a horrible idea. As much as the masses rant about corruption is does very well at what it was programed to do: Give smaller empires a chance against the big ones.

 

[Mojotronica]

I don't have a problem with the corruption model as it is now. Basing it partly on "# of cities beyond a certain #" seems like a nice way to counter the snowballing effect to me.

Corruption is based on rate of expansion, then? I'm unclear on this formula.

At a glance your Palaces sound like Courthouses to me. Why not simply make the Sm Wonder affect Courthouses?

A Sm Wonder that negates corruption in cities with Palaces/Courthouses seems powerful. I'd like it to have an additional built-in drawback like potential rebellion/new Civ spawning, and have the Palaces/Courthouses be very costly to build. Preferably tied to number of cities owned, like the Palace.

The Sm Wonder, the elimination of "# of cities beyond a certain #," corruption based on rate of expansion,* and the weakening of the starting free Palace seem like they would benefit big established Civs and weaken small fledgling Civs.
*because establishd Civs don't need to expand as fast while small Civs must expand quickly to catch up.

Your captured Palace/Courthouse mechanic is pretty cool. I like sudden reversals like that. It has a certain "Fall of Rome/Napoleon marching on Moscow/Hitler MUST have Stalingrad" quality to it... But it would definitely change the nature of the game. Could the AI be programmed to target cities with the Palace/Courthouse? I think it could become a serious exploit in the hands of a skilled human player. It doesn't discriminate between a conquering Civ that is weak or one that is strong, so it would most often accelerate the process of consolidating power into the hands of one Civ.

All in all I appreciate the time and effort that you put into this idea. I think it would work as a game mechanic, but I don't think it would improve gameplay. It would actually make it more challenging to be lean and hungry and easier for a great power to pursue it's policy of global hegemony.

 

[Dell19]

Its not quite the same as it keeps the same fixed number of civilizations in the game and the only negative from building new palaces seems to be that conquest would be easier... It could work as it makes sense to take key cities and watch an empire fall apart but the idea does need some kind of extra features to limit conquest once inner cities are reached, perhaps cities over size 6 can no longer flip regardless of palaces.

 

[hclass]

Hello Mojotronica,

"Corruption is based on rate of expansion, then? I'm unclear on this formula"
It is not fully based on rate of expansion, just a basic percentage which grows fast if you expand fast and can not be reduced (except after the smaller wonder) is built. This serves to prevent blindly expand style (both to human and AI player)

"At a glance your Palaces sound like Courthouses to me"
No. One major diff is a Palace cover more than 1 city but courthouse is for individual city.

"The Sm Wonder, the elimination of "# of cities beyond a certain #," corruption based on rate of expansion,* and the weakening of the starting free Palace seem like they would benefit big established Civs and weaken small fledgling Civs.
*because establishd Civs don't need to expand as fast while small Civs must expand quickly to catch up."
Look at it from another angle: to get BIG+POWERFUL is not so easy under this model. Expand (adds cities) too fast (in a few turns) means one has to face increase in the basic corruption mentioned and when slow down (so the C% or basic corruption drops), one might want to quickly gain big benefit by building more Palaces but this will mean a risk of lossing a group of cities and a lot of production has to be channel to building the palaces. On the other hand if one choose to expand steadily and not to a very high #cities, he/she will have the C% maintaining low along the process, fewer Palaces need to be built and at a slower rate and is therefore easier to protect.
My idea is when one player is powerful and big enough (#cities approching the N which allows to build the small wonder mentioned), it is already the time to let the snowball effect take over (freely) or it is already enter the sure win phase. So the N has to be a magic number (need testing). The Small wonder simply serves to allow continue building of the already big empire. I understand not every one enjoy this, but he/she won't build to such a size ...

 

[hclass]

Hello Dell19,

"the only negative from building new palaces seems to be that conquest would be easier... "
Not really.

"perhaps cities over size 6 can no longer flip regardless of palaces."
I would like to highlight one point, as soon as an additional palace is added, some cities will "jump group". It all depends on where the new Palace is built. And I would like to add this, if the distance of a city to a few Palaces are the same, the city will belong to the group of the eldest Palace. i.e. keeping it a sore Palace means you have a great one to protect (otherwise you will lose the game simply because you can't protect this key city), building more Palaces will remove this risk, however there are more key cities to protect and hence it is up to the choice of the player. I think the size 6 condition will spoil the whole idea...

 

[Dell19]

Corruption is so unrealistic in Civ3.
Real world corruption is mainly withIN the palace (i.e. the government)

Corruption may start in governments but it spreads and it is likely to be far reaching governers who feel that they can get away with stealing more money whilst cities closer to the capital are likely to gain more investment as the government will probably feel that its best to spend its resources on areas that are closest to them.