Official Corruption Solutions Thread

[Astral]

Originally posted by Elfi Wolfe

and finally...
emphasize building a few great cities instead of a bunch of puny ones

In the fight to eliminate corruption, building a few big cities might be a solution, BUT there is a major disadvantage. One of the easiest way to get a high score, is by owning alot of landmass. Actually I have experienced that landmass, is the very most important thing for ur score...(exept winning maybe)...
And the computer most definatly will fill out the free landmass if you don't...
Astral

 

[nikitos]

The benefits of controlling a larger land mass by having some corrupt cities included outweighs the corruption penalties hands down.

 

[wilboman]

Originally posted by Yeti
Nicket:


Small - 12
Normal - 18
Large - 24
Huge - 32

I appreciate that corruption forces people to be a little more diplomatic. I also hate people who build one zillion+ city empires, then grab more from their neighbours. I just think corruption kicks in far to early. It should start hurting OUTLYING cities after about fifty towns, but not to the ridiculous extent it does now. There are more large towns even in the nation I come from, and I live in Norway! Firaxis's home country (USA) certainly has far moretowns than that, and I don't see them succumbing to excessive corruption. (The occasional slush fund, sure, but total annhiliation like this? I think not!)
It's almost so I feel like tweaking the rules.

Repair patch, anyone?

 

[ahenobarb]

Here's a trick I learned for helping with the Forbidden Palace (I have stopped using the move the palace trick, you must have engineering for this -- but that's when your thinking forbidden palace anyway):

In your hinterland city, you decide to build the Forbidden Palace.

It's corrupt and losing most of its sheilds.

You have two workers near that city.

Find some unused grassland/plains nearby (within the production zone)

Turn 1: Convert to forest (it can be done in one turn with 2 workers in a democracy)

Turn 2: Cut forest down (also, 1 turn)

Viola! 10 sheilds sent to city for it's project, the Forbideen Palace.

Rinse and Repeat ... always repeat.


Hey That's cheating!!!

Response: I didn't make up the rules, I just play by them.

 

[ahenobarb]

I meant "you must have engineering to do this trick", not for the move the palace trick.

Also, "Forbideen Palace" is "Forbidden Palace"


While I'm at it, you can do this for any improvement.

 

[eyrei]

Actually, cutting down trees doesn't add shields to a wonder, even the forbidden palace. It is a good tactic for building improvements in corrupt cities.

 

[scadam]

The only luck I've had reducing corruption is with the forbidden palace. Unfortunately, the spot you want to build it in will be the center of a big group of 1-shield producing cities. I've only found one solution to this (I'm not interested in uprooting my palace as a workaround...). You can rush build the Forbidden Palace the same as any other wonder, by using a great leader. Since the Forbidden Palace is a one-shot deal, and so valuable, this seems to be a worthy use for a leader.

A minor tip - focus all your 1-shield producing cities on food production. You can have every single person in the city producing food and not a single shield, and you still have the same production level (the 1 shield that every city gets from its core square). Might as well crank up the population for extra entertainers, workers, settlers, drafts, higher score, specialists, and general power in the eyes of the other civs. Maybe if you make them tax collectors or scientists they aren't affected by corruption? I know the specialists contributions go directly into the domestic or trade screen...

Also, as has been mentioned before, building and tearing down forest is the cheapest way to build up distant cities. Later in the game 2 workers can plant or cut a forest in one turn - that's 10 shield toward production every second turn.

Alternatively if you've just conquered the cities and you really dominate the map, disbanding some of your attacking units in a captured city will get you an instant Temple (I always go Temple first). I do the same with captured enemy artillery - I don't think it's worth the single coin it costs to have in my army, so it goes toward that first temple immediately!

 

[eyrei]

As far as building the Forbidden Palace is concerned, be patient. Assuming you don't have a leader available, it will take a really long time to build the FP. If your empire isn't gigantic, you should eventually be able to get the ideal city for your FP to produce about 5 shields/turn (courthouse, and whatever else you need to bring about a permanent WLTK day). I usually comprimise about which city I will build it in- if the city does not produce two shields out of six with a courthouse, I move it one step closer to the capital. If you can get two shields, you can get five or six if all your citizens are happy for a long time. It still will not be completed until probably the mid to late middle ages, but this is ok with me. The sudden increase in commerce and productivity is worth the wait. It usually takes me about 150 turns to build it, including the time spent rushing the requisite improvements for WLTK day. I certainly don't think it should be quick and easy to bring the rule of law to the far reaches of your empire. Again, PATIENCE!

 

[scadam]

eyrei - I think you just proved my point! If you have to idle half a continent of corrupt cities (or else shovel gold into them) for 150 turns before they're usefull, using a leader to rush the Forbidden Palce instead certainly makes sense. I can't imagine which wonder would be more valuable than half a continent of productive cities for an extra 150 turns.

You said that you are able squeeze several shields out of these cities sometimes. I want the Forbidden Palace to be central to a lot of corrupt cities so I don't like the idea of moving it closer to my capital in order to get it built in a reasonable amount of time, but I do like the idea that WLTK day can increase productivity. How long do you find that it takes before it gives you any good effect on corruption? For those cities that are at rock bottom and the courthouse doesn't change anything, does WLTK day EVER work?

 

[eyrei]

First of all, I rarely get great leaders so I have to deal without.
Second, WLTK day usually has some effect the turn after it starts, but sometimes it takes a few turns. I think WLTK day may not be quite enough. I think having all citizens in the city happy has more of an effect. Sometimes, you have to change which squares are being worked. If the possible production of the city, without corruption goes from 5 to 8, two of those extra three shields may be obtained in WLTK day. Thus, your city's production goes from 2 to 4 or maybe even five. Maybe happy citizens' probably lose less of their production/commerce to corruption.

 

[scadam]

Great leaders are rare to me too - even though I usually have a militaristic playing style, I've never actually used a civ with the "militaristic' attribute.

In my current game I just used my first and only leader to build the forbidden palace. I'm on the biggest continent, with my capital in the south, and I built Forbidden Palace in the center of the north. Nothing is as satisfying as having to work my way through a couple sets of "new build orders" each turn because all these previously useless cities are suddenly powerhouses!

This game is in the bag - There's only one other large continent and it's split into 3 just like an easter egg! I've been coddling the guy in the middle to ensure I'm not irritated by a unified continent. I wonder if he'll figure out which type of victory I'm going for after I wipe out the island civs and then the guys above and below him... heh

 

[ahenobarb]

Also, to savagely barbarize the rules to the game:

Cut down the forest in one turn with 2 workers, get 10 shields, have two other workers on the same square replant it in one turn!! That's 10 shields a turn!

Heavy on workers, but those corrupt cities are only good for making babies at first anyway (I like the emphasise population idea).

I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay ...

you're right about the FP, I was wondering why the message about ten shields didn't come up, but I was busy fighting elsewhere and having a bit of software problems anyway, so I ignored it.

 

[Peteus]

'Course if you don't happen to be industrious, forestry takes twice as long. That makes the industrious attribute the best long-term "expansionist" attribute, as long as you are willing to devote that much time to micromanagement!

And militaristic makes a huge difference to your ability to produce great leaders. I'm playing the Germans this game, and have six so far...and it isn't even 1900! Spaceship soon though... I think I heard the audible snap from my enemies' collective will about a century ago!

Because of the need for forestry and Great Leaders (to build Heroic Epic and then rush Forbidden Palace), the Chinese are excellent at building up a far-flung empire, if anyone is!

 

[dragontail]

Originally posted by Peteus
Remember that you can rush some other expensive improvement, and then switch to the FP, thus cutting a fair number of those turns out!

This doesn't work. If you've ever done any of the following, you won't be able to switch your current project to wonder/palace:

rush build
plant/clear forest
disband unit

 

[Peteus]

Heh - guess I should try some of these Palace-building exploits before I say it's so just because it seems like it would be, eh!

I never have the super-slow FP problem because never wait long enough to fully (or mostly) expand before I use it. The one time I moved my Palace, I rushed it with a Leader, so I know that works!

 

[Nelson Minar]

I like the corruption rule because it's a check on making a giant empire. Earlier games of this type uniformly rewarded getting bigger and bigger - it means once you start to get ahead, you tend to win. With corruption (and with culture causing cities to revert), you have some incentive to keep your empire smaller. I like that.

What I don't like is the importance Forbidden Palace places on getting Leaders. If you don't have a Leader, it's really awkward to build an FP. I've started wars just to try to generate a leader unit. That feels wrong to me.

There are more subtle solutions to dealing with getting an FP in a good spot in your continent. You can move your Palace, too! One thing I've done is build the FP a little ways away from my Palace, somewhere where I have 50% waste. FP takes 20, 30 turns, then it's built. Then I move the Palace a little ways away, in the opposite direction. It works out fairly well.

 

[eyrei]

The only downside to moving your palace is your capital loses the culture bonus generate because your palace is a 4,000 year old building (I wonder if part of this bonus is for you being a 4,000 year old ruler.)

 

[MansaMusa]

You cannot rush a palace.

Its really annoying when people say that you can, well you cant, so deal with that. What is really meant by the 'moving palace'



you can use a great leader to rush *anything*

that includes palaces and great wonders.

keep that in mind, because it is very useful.

Also, when you are under a communist government, distance from the capital has NO EFFECT on corruption, but number of cities DOES. (that's straight from the manual)

[dance]

 

[Proteus]

eyrei has posted already a really good Solution to the Corruption Problem.
Ongoing WLTK-Days seem to reduce Corruption even in totally corrupt Cities. My Empire with 70-80 Cities has only 1-4 totally Corrupt Cities to date, since I assurte every turn, that those Cities with much Corruption (i.e. also the totally corrput ones) fulfill the requirements for WLTK-Days.
It seems to be pretty sure, that it must have something to do with the WLTK-Days, cause before I tried this I already had enough wonders to make a large percentage of the Citizens happy, but I always had some unhappy workers in the Cities who prohibited WLTK-Days from taking place.
Only after I assured that WLTK-Days take place in totally corrupt cities the picture changed slowly as more and more of those cities (I had maybe 10-20 of them) became more productive (O.K. some of them still have only One Production, but their Value of 2 on Commerce shows that they aren´t totally corrupt anymore and I think, if I wait a couple of Turns Commerce and Production will rise higher).
But don´t expect the changes to take place over night. It seems to take a lot of turns with WLTK-Days to lower the Corruption in the totally corrupt cities.

 

[Bretwalda]

How do you make your cities (especially conquered ones) celebrate? Temple+Cathedral+MarketPlace+Colosseum? And all luxuries, ideally?

What effect does it create? Can you give more details, please?

Originally posted by Proteus
eyrei has posted already a really good Solution to the Corruption Problem.
Ongoing WLTK-Days seem to reduce Corruption even in totally corrupt Cities. My Empire with 70-80 Cities has only 1-4 totally Corrupt Cities to date, since I assurte every turn, that those Cities with much Corruption (i.e. also the totally corrput ones) fulfill the requirements for WLTK-Days.
It seems to be pretty sure, that it must have something to do with the WLTK-Days, cause before I tried this I already had enough wonders to make a large percentage of the Citizens happy, but I always had some unhappy workers in the Cities who prohibited WLTK-Days from taking place.
Only after I assured that WLTK-Days take place in totally corrupt cities the picture changed slowly as more and more of those cities (I had maybe 10-20 of them) became more productive (O.K. some of them still have only One Production, but their Value of 2 on Commerce shows that they aren´t totally corrupt anymore and I think, if I wait a couple of Turns Commerce and Production will rise higher).
But don´t expect the changes to take place over night. It seems to take a lot of turns with WLTK-Days to lower the Corruption in the totally corrupt cities.