Official Corruption Solutions Thread

[Lefty Scaevola]

Corruption and Waste appear to be a major problem for all civs, particularly large ones.

Post TESTED solutions to corruption and waste here. Please post relatively clear instructions, because everyone is a newbie at this game (I do not even have my order yet). Please leave out less useful padding, digressions, and conversation.
Give a judgement of its relative efficacy and costs.

This will remain topped until the end of December.

 

[Yeti]

Known to help:

Governments with a higher degree of self rule (democracies have the least corruption/waste, followed by republics)

Courthouses.

Proximity to palace / forbidden palace.

WLTK day.


Known to hurt:

Going over X total cities (varies by map size).

Being further from the nearest palace/forbidden palace.

Non-self rule governments.


Questions:

Does happiness help directly, or only if it causes WLTK day? I know from testing that it does not show an immediate benefit (tested both cranking luxuries/entertainment rate on advisor screen and making entertainers in a specific city), but it may only update at the beginning of a turn.

Do luxuries help directly, or only by improving happiness (which either helps directly, or only by pushing you towards WLTK day)?

What is the cut-off for number of cities at each map size, and after you go over it, what are the actual effects? Does everything suddenly get worse everywhere, or only in (for example) the 17th city (if 16 is the cutoff)? Are the changes binary (you're either over or under), or do they keep getting worse and worse as you add more cities?

Anything else we know or any othe specific questions we have so far?

 

[ironfang]

Corruption is indeed a difficult subject.

Corruption needs to be dealt with in planning. Before taking steps to deal with corruption, you need to decide if the cure is worse than the sickness.

1-2 Shield Loss - Not Worth dealing with.

Also the farther from your capital, the worse corruption gets. Forbidden Palace is nice to deal with this, but you can only create one.

City improvements can also help (courthouses and police stations) but they cost shields to build, and take a VERY long time to build in cities with high corruption (because of shield loss due to corruption).

Effectively, you need to upgrade your empire's government as your empire grows. A empire with "around" 15 cities or less, can benefit from a King. While you grow larger, more than 30 cities, and go to different continents, Democracy is really the only choice you have. But dont go to Democracy early because it will bankrupt an early civ.

ironfang

 

[Yeti]

Are you sure a police station helps with corruption? According to the civilopedia it only helps with war weariness.

 

[KingSponge]

Luxuries + Marketplace = Many happy people who don't steal!

Luxuries - each luxury makes a single person Happy

Marketplace - multiplies the effect of each luxury (beyond the first)

 

[Zannhart]

aaaaa

 

[solarjetman]

Trade loss and shield loss are basically the two features of corruption; courthouses and such reduce both.

I think the most interesting question with regards to dealing with corruption is where to build the Forbidden Palace. The farther away from your main palace, the better effect it has, but you're not going to be able to build it as fast due to the corruption itself. It's definitely a decision that requires considerable planning.

Still, even with a Democratic government and a Forbidden Palace and courthouses, the corruption still keeps your country from getting all that large. It's certainly a major change from Civ II, where you could reasonably govern an empire covering half the planet. Now you can't, and I don't think that's entirely a bad thing.

 

[ironfang]

I have yet to play a "Standard" size map in Civ, prefering the Ego driven monster HUG map.

I can bet that corruption is less of a problem on a smaller map.

ironfang

 

[dozenlong]

There seems to be a correlation between distance and map size--I am playing on a tiny map, and cities ten squares from my capital experience horrible corruption. On the large maps, I could have cities twenty or more squares from my capital produce well. Does anyone have a formula for distance from capital and corruption/waste for each map size?

 

[Sarcastro]

Originally posted by ironfang
I have yet to play a "Standard" size map in Civ, prefering the Ego driven monster HUG map.

Aw, that sounds pleasant. Is that the type of map where everyone is best friends and gives each other lots of emotional support when it's most needed?

 

[adamschroeder]

The in game help is wrong on Communism. In my expierence it was not any better than depotism in dealing with waste. The manual said that all cities will have an equal amount of waste when in fact it was still related to the distance from a palace, and my cities were still only receiving one shield regardless of there actual production.

 

[Magellan]

I've played all the map sizes and corruption is a problem on all maps. Basically, regardless of map size, if you take a city that is not on your starting continent and/or which is further away than bordering on your core area, you will have a "fully" corrupt city, meaning you get 1 shield and 1 commerce for that city. You will have to wait about 50 turns to build even a simple structure, unless you want to rush it, even under democracy.
Yes, Forbidden Palace helps, but it's pretty hard to build it on the next continent over when your conquered cities are fully corrupt. Similarly, while other structures help, it's very hard to build them while corrupt. At the same time, your cities continue to grow, so you get tipped into disorder frequently.
Without debating what is realistic, I think the corruption is interfering with fun. Accordingly, I designed my own rules, modifying the basic rules to allow many buildings to have an anti-corruption effect. Corruption is still higher in newly-conquered cities, but it does allow you to play in conquer mode, if you so choose. Plus, it's totally fair, as the AI will have lower corruption levels too. Anyway, that's my 100% easy, effective anti-corruption tool.

 

[whoozat]

Reference Zannhart's question about communism:

I tried changing government types on one map and communism was a big no-go as far as corruption and waste. It did spread everything out as advertised but the cure was worse than the disease.

To begin with, I had a democracy and cities on two continents: continent 1 good, continent 2 (all new cities) bad - everything was producing 1 shield and 1 commerce. Overall I had about 15% loss and a gross income of around 1000.

After switching to communism, continent 2 did get better - but my gross income fell to around 600 and I had a 30% loss. (Usually I keep better notes but this was so obviously bad I just restored my save immediately with a shudder).

 

[donsig]

Playing my first game on a big mape with 4 other civs. They all started on one continent while I had the other all to myself. My 'colonial era' began around 1700 AD and I was in democracy. I sent ships to the other continent and the southern part of my continent to found cities. Even the cities on 'my' continent had max corruption. (It turns out they are further form my palace than those I planted on the other continent). I have not had a war in the whole game. Corruption affects peace-lovers as much as warmongers.

 

[Bugg]

One of the better strategies though it is wasteful that I saw was building Forbidden Palace in Capital and then relocating the Palace closer to most corrupted cities(not the ones producing 1 usable shield)and then as the corruption decreases move the palace again to a better spot and then hopefully you will have two real productive capitals.

 

[curmudgeon42]

Originally posted by Bugg
One of the better strategies though it is wasteful that I saw was building Forbidden Palace in Capital and then relocating the Palace closer to most corrupted cities(not the ones producing 1 usable shield)and then as the corruption decreases move the palace again to a better spot and then hopefully you will have two real productive capitals.

How do you "move" the Palace? I thought once you built the Forbidden Palace that is where it stayed. And also, is the Palace city improvement different than the FB, or related?

 

[Elfi Wolfe]

To help deal with corruption.

because of corruption cities farther away from captial cannot build structures need.
in government that allow fast building with money, increase taxes till +40 is made a turn then every 3 or 4 turn you can rush build in cities that have major corruption.

Problem, becuase of corruption taxes will still be small in these cities.
advantage, the cities become better developed and will expand culture borders.

It is simular to what happens in history with large empires. The core cities make revenue and science improvements to help the smaller outling cities to develop.
Game:
The smaller country doesn't have to spend so much of it's resources supporting all the cities and can put more resources into getting technology and money.

-Elfi Wolfe

PS. It seems that as the culture of a city (not civ culture) increases the corruption decreases. this is total unproven.

 

[Ulthien]

very good strategy, Bugg. I think its about the only thing that helps battle corruption effectively.

Cumurdgeon: when you build a palace in a city, your original palace (i.e. capital city) is moved - the original palace of your start city is deleted.

That way, with two antipoles of corruption in your empire, its easier to battle the thiefs

Btw. I also read somewhere that *longer* the courthouses are active, the better their effect is... (unconfirmed).

Hello, Remmi

 

[Yeti]

I did some testing last night.

Happiness has no effect on corruption and waste unless it is enough to kick off a WLTK day.

So higher luxury rates, more luxuries, marketplaces to increase the benefit of luxuries, entertainers, temples, cathedrals, wonders of the world, garrisoned troops (military police), etc... all have no effect on corruption/waste.

I think one strategy will be to raze (mega produce workers/settlers) certain cities later on in the game so that you have fewer cities (stay under the magic number for your map size) but each of them is as large as possible. Then the cities too far from your palace/FP you'll have to work on kicking into WLTK day.

And don't discount luxuries just because the happy faces don't DIRECTLY affect corruption/waste. 8 total luxuries I believe. With a marketplace that's 2+(2*6) = 14 smilies, which can help a lot in maintaining WLTK days.

 

[Essex]

Quick question: Can the palace city improvement be rushed? If it can the solution to corruption is exactly as suggested. Build the Forbidden palace in your original capital where you have plenty of shields and rush build the palace in new location. This would be ideal under despotism if you just captured a large city because you can rid yourself of all the enemy workers by using them up building your new palace MUWHAHAHAHA.