Road & Railroad networks should decrease corruption

[CMcQueeny]

I've been thinking theoretically about corruption quite a bit recently, primarily due to the Conquests F.P. bug. I am only able to rationalise distance corruption in the following manner: As one gets farther from the capital, the percieved power of the sovereign decreases while both the perceived and real (Remember that the law tends to become more lax far from it's source.) power of local criminals increases. This leads to corruption and inefficiency.

First, with the advent of a road network, the sovereign's power becomes very close indeed. It would take but a few days at most for fresh orders to reach a city, as well as for police reinforcments to arrive. Therefore, road connexion should decrease distance corruption.

Second, such a model only seems to be realistic when the ruler is autocratic. Under system more representative of the people, power is greatly decentralised in order to be more 'in tune' with the needs of the bourgeoise. To me, this leads to the notion that democracies should have near-blanket corruption rates.

Am I completely misinterpreting this?

 

[Mercade]

With roads I would not agree so much, but for railroad you do have a point that railroad might decrease it slightly as the distance to capital indeed decreases. This might be a modifier on the distance corruption indeed if the city and the capital are connected by railroad, or so.

 

[Grille]

If a city is connected to the capital (regardless how - could be by harbour), corruption actually decreases in that city in civ3.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

As Grille pointed out, this is already in the game (just not for railroads, since a railroad already has a road under it).