Provincial capitals and other suggestions?

[Uiler]

I really hate the corruption model in Civ3. As soon as you get a relatively short distance away from your capital things get screwed. This is true even in Republic and Democracy (look at real life - is Texas or California or Florida substantially more corrupt then Washington)? I think having more manageable corruption in Communism is very unrealistic. Communist countries like China and the former USSR are/were very corrupt. I propose:

1. Provincial capitals. Act like normal capitals except their radius of influence and the amount they decrease corruption by is significantly less. Also make it so that you can't have two provincial capitals less than X distance away from each other. A city belongs to the province whose capital it is closest to. To add to the excitement, in times of anarchy, or if there is significant unrest in the province the province could "break away" from the rest of the empire. This means it is possible for your empire to break up into discrete kingdoms ruled by warlords. Initially all the citizens in the new civ is part of your empire (to make it easier for you to capture it back) but gradually they get replaced by citizens of the new civ.

2. Corruption effects depend on how "connected" a city is with its provincial capital and/or main capital. Once a city is connected by roads (or harbour) to the provincial capital or main capital it receives the full corruption reducing benefits. Otherwise corruption is crippling. Railroads further decrease corruption and finally airports decrease it even further. The more "connected" a provincial capital is to the main capital (and the closer it is) the less chance of the province rebelling. Basically the trade network should have an effect on corruption.

What do people think?

 

[JennyRad]

1. is an interesting idea - sort of a version of the Forbidden Palace? I like it but it may be too complicated - at least, the breakaway-civs thing might be. The basic premise sounds good.

2. is a very good idea, and doesn't, of course, need to depend on the existance of provincial capitals.

 

[skyline5k]

Provincial Capitols were brought up before. Personally, I like the idea.

For convenience: It could be used to deal with multiple cities at once, instead of setting up queues for each city.

For corruption: see above posts.

For large maps: easier to manage overall, esp. if you have a rather huge empire. (TETurkhan's maps...)

 

[AEP]

Great idea. i also find corruption a real thorn in the side and wish there were more remedies to combat it. provincial capitals would certainly be a solution and i escpecially like the idea of provinces potentially breaking away during ww or anarchy - would make for more interesting game play

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Provinces would be a very fine idea to implement, there were several discussions going on before. This idea tohether with province small wonders is widely accepted within the community. As a question to the community: are there official statements about provinces in civ4?

 

[Mgoering]

I like that idea as much as those who posted an answer before me. Not only don't I see why corruption should be calculated with the distance to the Palace and Forbidden palace. Do you imagine that the USA's capital should then be Kansas City ?!

And by the way, I don't see why a small town is proportionnaly as much corrupted than a big one. Cities of less than 3 should basicly have very little or no corruption. People of a 10'000 or 20'000 city would certainly not live in this one if there is 90% of corruption. Then, starting from a size 4 city (or 3), corruption appears.

Tool to reduce it exist, but aren't enough, even in Republic or Democracy. I saw a Courthouses and a Police Station not been enough to reduce any corruption. Just like Uiler said, the trade network should help to. Not necessarly the building, but the connections : roads, railroads, highways (for those who'd like to see it in combination or not with the railroads), airports and harbors (the building).


But even with all that, we still can imagine Provincial Capitals. Their effect would be to improve the % of corruption decrease (all the effects I mentionned), not from 100%, but from 20-25%.

 

[Stid]

its one thing saying that distance from capitals mean more corruption but where in the world is there provinces or areas where corruption is more/less in certain places? sure you can get the majorities of corrupt countries such as mexico or zimbabwe.corrupt countries take an extra dollar or two but in which way does it slow the production of units or the construction of buildings such as in civ3?im not quite sure what im suggesting to solve this problem btw