Why do I have so much corruption?

I'm playing Warlord level (my first game). My government is Democracy. I'm not at war with anybody. It's 1750 A.D. and my cities far from my capitol have so much corruption. I built courthouses but that didn't help. In the original Civ, Democracy totally eliminated corruption, but not in Civ III? Somebody help!

 

If your cities are farther than 10 squares from your capital or forbidden palace (rule of thumb, I ususally play standard or large maps) you'll have pretty bad corruption. Also, if you have too many cities (threshold depends on map size and difficulty level) you'll get more corruption throughout your civ.

Highly corrupt cities can be improved somewhat with courthouses, police stations, and WLTKD.

Note that specialist production is not affected by corruption.

If you really have a big problem with the idea of corruption, you can tweak it in the editor. A lot of people add corruption reducing tags to various city improvements. However, if you take time to figure out how to deal with it as it is, you can dominate with the default corruption rules. Avoiding overexpansion and a keeping your civ pruned back does the trick.

 

Why do I have so much corruption?

Because you're playing Civ III.



Solutions: Go into Editor, as most everyone else has, and make temples, cathedrals, and banks corruption reducers. You can also lower the cost for palaces (move to a central location), and also lower it for the Forbidden Palace.

 

Man, Troyens, you really hate this game don't you.

Though I've seen alot of your posts, I've yet to see a single positive one.

Anyway, I suggest using the editor as well, if you increase the number of optimal cities, corruption becomes much more manageable, have fun.

 

Don't use the editor - what's the point? Its like cheating at Patience.

If you want a big Empire, play on a huge map. You can have a sizable civ of about 30 cities without having unstoppable corruption and waste at the edges, if you're Democracy.

Carefully place your palace and Forbidden Palace. Use a leader to rush the palace.

Consider your Empire's centre to be where the production effort goes on. The outlying areas are basically holding pens for culture-producing improvements. Later on, when the centre of your civ has everything, and you have a reasonable standing army, build military units, move them to a frontier town, and disband them. The shield loss is only equivalent to building in a city with 50% waste. I think of miltary units as being "shield caravans".

 

You could also just get someone to play the game for you, that way you don't have to edit, you don't have to save/reload, just relish in false victory.

Contrary to uneducated opinion, the AI suffers from the same consequences of corruption as the player does, so by changing some settings, it's not doing any good, unless they're going in and actually handicapping the AI, but if you're reduced to that, what's the point?

I'll lose the sarcasm when the whiners take their cheese elsewhere, it's getting way beyond OLD.

 

Much to my surprise, a Poll I conducted a while back showed that 80% of people play without any rule modifications at all. I found this quite surprising given that the question was asked at a website with forums dedicated to changing the rules of the game. You can check it out at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13993 .

Granted, I didn't get a huge turnout for my poll, so the results are statistically insignificant, but it's interesting data anyway IMHO.

Troyens, please stop speaking on behalf of the Civ community when you say things like "as most everyone else has". Everytime you are going to write this, replace it with "as I have" or "as some people have". Thanks.

 

can i make this my signature? i love it!

 

Well as noone else has mentioned it I might as well... get the patch (1.16f). It reduce the corruption levels somewhat (but not that much though!).
My personal opinion is that the courthouse/police station and units fortified in the towns should have been more effective when it comes to corruption. Still, I play by the original rules eventhough the thought of dowloadning a mod' that reduces the corruption has struck my mind from time to time.

 

I agree. Cheating is stupid. If I have high corruption levels I try and do something about it, I don't go and change the rules as I may aswell just go and say that I have all the Tech at the start, and it only takes 1 shield to produce a battleship!

I play the game how it is meant to be played, and the only time that I will use the Editor is if I want a bit of fun, and I want something to fool around with.

 

Just FYI, cheese actually improves with age, so are you suggestion that we post more cheese or less cheese? Your suggestion is a little unclear.

PS : Don't ever lose the sarcasm.

 

I don't find corruption to be a problem at all. Using a Monarchy (one of the more "corrupt" govt's), I find I still have a dozen or so very productive cites, reasonably spaced, on a standard map, with a good FP location (built with a GL). I find I really don't need more than that to be a strong civ. All my other cities are good for land area, holding down resources or producing culture with their temples.

Factor in that the computer suffers the same effects and I don't see what the problem is.

 

I agree that cheating is not a good way to play this game yet who are you to define

one cannot define a universal standard for that unless you wrote Civ3.

 

All I got to say about cheese is:
It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby.

I love that movie!

 

Well if Firaxis had created Civilisation as 'the game you make' where you had to set the Corruption levels, etc, first before playing the game. Then I would be the first to say that this was the way you were supposed to play. But then they have created it so that the corruption levels are set at the fairest level, therefore playing it anyother way is cheating unless you're just playing it for fun.

After all, getting rid of corruption, giving you the perfect island to grow on, giving the enemy no resources... That's a fun way to play isn't it?

Not.

 

i agree that it isn't a fun or challenging way to play, i agree that people shouldn't go around changing things to make the game easier but one must define how the game is to be played for himself and noone should demand that their style of play is the proper one. If you want to create the perfect Civ and perfect government with no coruption and all the civ traits go ahead i won't join you but go ahead. I encourage that we accept that some people have not the skill to play an unmodified game of Civ3.

 

Just so people know it is possible. I got corruption down to about 7% throughout my empire using republic as a government, and without having yet built police stations. Granted, it was not a huge country, but it was large enough to build a forbidden palace. I do not see any need to reduce corruption through the editor, as it is quite possible to get a handle on it.

 

7% is pretty good, can you give more details? Map type, difficulty, general notes, etc.

 

Don't we ALL play the game for fun??? Is there ANY OTHER reason???

 

Tell that to the AI.

It cheats constantly in every way possible.