Two questions about Corruption
- Thread starter mikezang
- Start date
searcheagle
Emperor
1. Well waste is not a factor. There is no production to begin with so, no waste. No corruption either. No revenue is collected either and no costs (unit, maintaince, etc).
2. Yes there is corruption and waste in the capital. However, since it is close to the capital, it will be minimal.
The corruption in each city is the national corruption/number of cities.
2. Yes there is corruption and waste in the capital. However, since it is close to the capital, it will be minimal.
The corruption in each city is the national corruption/number of cities.
searcheagle
Emperor
I havent use communism lately. However I think the base waste is the same. I think courthouses, distances from palaces, and other things reduce this base. Once again, Im not sure.
Well, in my Corruption Calculator, all cities have the same corruption in Communism, I just wanto to confirm it.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot.
CuthaLion
Chieftain
Corruption will be removed in Civ4 they say... Is it true and is it good? What can be an alternative?
Clueless
Chieftain
How can corruption be removed? Then there would be no government.
Corruption is the clearest expression of the expand up vs. expand out tradeoff: what is the benefit of an additional city?
Should having more cities (and territory) make your empire stronger or weaker; more productive or over-stretched? When you conquer or settle new lands, are you more secure, or more vulnerable? High corruption means that the marginal value of an additional city is low: it is not very productive, but must be defended, and in some cases may be a net drain on your empire. Conversely, low corruption means that the marginal value is high: each city makes you richer, gets more science, lets you field a larger army, and build more stuff.
Surely, large empires are stronger in many respects: Rome, China, etc, were far more powerful than most of their peers. But large empires can become unwieldy and vulnerable, due to geography, politics, cultural stagnation, technology, or catastrophe. Size is not a guarantee of stability and success, and those empires were famously corrupt.
Corruption is even more of an issue in Civ because the game tries to mimic historical patterns of civ development with a decidedly a-historical model: cities as engines of population growth. Civ's basic economic model rewards larger populations in almost every context. In Civ, over-population is NOT an issue
In Civ2, the food model slowed growth at higher population levels. But each pop point brought the same marginal benefit. The result was ICS: trying to maximize your empire growth rate with lots of small cities in the "sweet spot" of the growth curve around size 2-5. While city improvements like banks and universities provided economies of scale (EcOfS), their maintenance costs were sufficiently high that the opportunity cost to ICSers of not building them were negligible.
In Civ3, that ICS effect is limited because the food needed to grow a pop point is constant over short ranges (2-6, 7-12). Also, the cost of a new city is higher (2 pop), and there are more 'thresholds' and non-food limits: barriers to pop expansion other than the food model, such as need for aqueducts, granaries, etc. At the same time, the EcOfSc improvements have much lower maintenaince costs.
Historically, of course, cities were net drains on population until the 18th century. Urban mortality rates were high due to crime and disease. Poor sanitation, closely packed residents and animals, and extreme poverty combined with epidemics and war to make cities VERY deadly. At the same time, they were engines of regional and international economic growth: huge markets and major production centers with highly specialized labor, educated leadership, and relatively abundant capital. Without the strong pull of jobs and opportunity, the natural mortality rates of cities meant that an economically unproductive city would wither and die very quickly. Only those with exceptional wealth, natural resources, political or religious significance, or geographic advantage remained large.
Civ turns this on its head: cities produce the excess population, but have limited productivity and wealth. And so, because the model is exactly backwards, we need "corruption" to try to make it work. Perhaps we need a new model: one where INCOME determines population. There could be mortality and cultural factors as well as a food factor.
Breif History:
Of the 15 major cities in Egypt & Mesopotamia in 2250, how many lasted more than 1000 years? Two: Susa on the eastern edge of Mesopotamia near the Zagros mtn barrier and the Persian plateau, and Memphis, the royal capital of Egypt. By 1300 BC, the rest were irrelevant.
How many of the 15 major cities of the Ancient world c. 1300 BC were still important a mere 600 years later? Less than half. In 670 BC, only the Assyrian royal capital of Nineveh had 30,000 residents; once-mighty Babylon had 15,000. Tyre and Damascus on the Levant trade routes, royal Memphis in Egypt, Assur and Susa in Mesopotamia were all over 7,500. Newcomer Sidon, a close neighbor of Tyre, was also important.
By 415 BC, the picture changed again. Of those around in 670BC, Assur and Nineveh were lost; Susa, Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, and Memphis were unchanged; only Babylon had grown, to over 30,000. But the rising powers of the west were appearing: Athens was also over 30,000, having been insignificant a mere 250 years earlier. Carthage likewise had swelled to over 15,000. Rome, Syracuse, and the Athenian port of Pireaus were all over 7,500.
Only some of those cities would survive the next 200 years, a period that covered the expansion of Athens, Alexander, and the rise of Rome thru the Punic Wars. Carthage, Rome, and Athens all survived, growing to over 30,000, the latter absorbing Pireaus. Syracuse, Memphis, and Tyre were over 15,000, Damascus, Sidon, and Susa had withered. But Alexander wrought change in the east: Babylon had shrunk to 15,000 while his new Egyptian city of Alexndria was the largest in the region: over 90,000. The Greek disapora after Alexander fueled the great new cities that appeared across the East: Salonkia, Pergamum, Ephesus, and Rhodes on the Aegean coast, Antioch and Seleucia farther east.
There were 13 cities over 15,000 in 200 BC. 550 years later, before the final collapse of Rome in the West, there were 12. Of the 13, only 7 were survivors: Rome at 125,000, still the largest by far but shrunk by half from its size at the height of its imperial glory. Alexandria too had shrunk, by a third to 60,000. Although Carthage, Salonika, Ephesus, Tyre, and Antioch were unchanged (the last four peaceful at the heart of the emerging Byzantine East, which would last another 1000 years), Babylon, Syracuse, Athens, and eternal Memphis had dwindled to insignificance.
Should having more cities (and territory) make your empire stronger or weaker; more productive or over-stretched? When you conquer or settle new lands, are you more secure, or more vulnerable? High corruption means that the marginal value of an additional city is low: it is not very productive, but must be defended, and in some cases may be a net drain on your empire. Conversely, low corruption means that the marginal value is high: each city makes you richer, gets more science, lets you field a larger army, and build more stuff.
Surely, large empires are stronger in many respects: Rome, China, etc, were far more powerful than most of their peers. But large empires can become unwieldy and vulnerable, due to geography, politics, cultural stagnation, technology, or catastrophe. Size is not a guarantee of stability and success, and those empires were famously corrupt.
Corruption is even more of an issue in Civ because the game tries to mimic historical patterns of civ development with a decidedly a-historical model: cities as engines of population growth. Civ's basic economic model rewards larger populations in almost every context. In Civ, over-population is NOT an issue
In Civ2, the food model slowed growth at higher population levels. But each pop point brought the same marginal benefit. The result was ICS: trying to maximize your empire growth rate with lots of small cities in the "sweet spot" of the growth curve around size 2-5. While city improvements like banks and universities provided economies of scale (EcOfS), their maintenance costs were sufficiently high that the opportunity cost to ICSers of not building them were negligible.
In Civ3, that ICS effect is limited because the food needed to grow a pop point is constant over short ranges (2-6, 7-12). Also, the cost of a new city is higher (2 pop), and there are more 'thresholds' and non-food limits: barriers to pop expansion other than the food model, such as need for aqueducts, granaries, etc. At the same time, the EcOfSc improvements have much lower maintenaince costs.
Historically, of course, cities were net drains on population until the 18th century. Urban mortality rates were high due to crime and disease. Poor sanitation, closely packed residents and animals, and extreme poverty combined with epidemics and war to make cities VERY deadly. At the same time, they were engines of regional and international economic growth: huge markets and major production centers with highly specialized labor, educated leadership, and relatively abundant capital. Without the strong pull of jobs and opportunity, the natural mortality rates of cities meant that an economically unproductive city would wither and die very quickly. Only those with exceptional wealth, natural resources, political or religious significance, or geographic advantage remained large.
Civ turns this on its head: cities produce the excess population, but have limited productivity and wealth. And so, because the model is exactly backwards, we need "corruption" to try to make it work. Perhaps we need a new model: one where INCOME determines population. There could be mortality and cultural factors as well as a food factor.
Breif History:
Of the 15 major cities in Egypt & Mesopotamia in 2250, how many lasted more than 1000 years? Two: Susa on the eastern edge of Mesopotamia near the Zagros mtn barrier and the Persian plateau, and Memphis, the royal capital of Egypt. By 1300 BC, the rest were irrelevant.
How many of the 15 major cities of the Ancient world c. 1300 BC were still important a mere 600 years later? Less than half. In 670 BC, only the Assyrian royal capital of Nineveh had 30,000 residents; once-mighty Babylon had 15,000. Tyre and Damascus on the Levant trade routes, royal Memphis in Egypt, Assur and Susa in Mesopotamia were all over 7,500. Newcomer Sidon, a close neighbor of Tyre, was also important.
By 415 BC, the picture changed again. Of those around in 670BC, Assur and Nineveh were lost; Susa, Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, and Memphis were unchanged; only Babylon had grown, to over 30,000. But the rising powers of the west were appearing: Athens was also over 30,000, having been insignificant a mere 250 years earlier. Carthage likewise had swelled to over 15,000. Rome, Syracuse, and the Athenian port of Pireaus were all over 7,500.
Only some of those cities would survive the next 200 years, a period that covered the expansion of Athens, Alexander, and the rise of Rome thru the Punic Wars. Carthage, Rome, and Athens all survived, growing to over 30,000, the latter absorbing Pireaus. Syracuse, Memphis, and Tyre were over 15,000, Damascus, Sidon, and Susa had withered. But Alexander wrought change in the east: Babylon had shrunk to 15,000 while his new Egyptian city of Alexndria was the largest in the region: over 90,000. The Greek disapora after Alexander fueled the great new cities that appeared across the East: Salonkia, Pergamum, Ephesus, and Rhodes on the Aegean coast, Antioch and Seleucia farther east.
There were 13 cities over 15,000 in 200 BC. 550 years later, before the final collapse of Rome in the West, there were 12. Of the 13, only 7 were survivors: Rome at 125,000, still the largest by far but shrunk by half from its size at the height of its imperial glory. Alexandria too had shrunk, by a third to 60,000. Although Carthage, Salonika, Ephesus, Tyre, and Antioch were unchanged (the last four peaceful at the heart of the emerging Byzantine East, which would last another 1000 years), Babylon, Syracuse, Athens, and eternal Memphis had dwindled to insignificance.
