Was FP Corruption Bug fixed?

dexters · December 23, 2003, 06:03

I haven't had time to start a new game so I'm just continuing my 4th C3C epic game which I held off several weeks ago waiting for the patch.

I installed it and my bootup screen showed v1.12 as expect. GPT bug was fixed. I did a trial tally just to be sure, but I assumed (but did not check to see) whether the corruption bug has been fixed.

It has been my experience that the city with the FP should have minimal corruption (it is like a second capital after all - 1 shield/1 commerce is the usual under democracy)

As I was cycling through my cities about 30 turns into my save, I noticed this strange sight. My FP city with considerable corruption, under democracy too.

I checked my F1 advisor and it shows my income was 1023 with corruption of 187, or nearly 19% corruption, under democracy. I'm probaby at or a few cities over the OCN.

What's going on?

dexters · December 23, 2003, 06:25

This is really stange. I had recalled checking on Matsuyama earlier in the game and seeing low corruption. And this was proven with a backsave that I loaded.

I had only built/acquired 3 cities during the 30 turns so it was easy for me to go back and find out what happened.

Here is Matsuyama 3 or 4 turns into my patched v1.12 game. City count 22 (ocn for standard map is 20)

dexters · December 23, 2003, 06:25

I rushbuilt a settler in one my cities and 1 turn later, I plopped down a new city.

City count is 23.

Look at the difference.

dexters · December 23, 2003, 06:28

Checking F1 empire status screen, overall corruption increasely only marginally. So that's good. But it still feels like corruption is running higher than expected... about 132 on income of 800 (before foreign income)

watorrey · December 23, 2003, 07:05

I noticed the same thing with a 1.02 game. When you first load it and look it over, all appears fine. Once you do something that causes a recalculation of city production, everything goes bad. The overall corruption increases alot, most of it lost around the FP.

Just for giggles, i abandoned the FP city and everything got worse still.

I'm curious to find out if it works the same way in a new 1.12 game, but do not really want to play one out that far to find out.

MrWhereItsAt · December 23, 2003, 07:20

This could always be the result of loading an old game with the patch. It was reported Jesse advised we should start new games with the patch.

dexters · December 23, 2003, 07:32

Quote:

Originally posted by watorrey
I noticed the same thing with a 1.02 game. When you first load it and look it over, all appears fine. Once you do something that causes a recalculation of city production, everything goes bad. The overall corruption increases alot, most of it lost around the FP.

Just for giggles, i abandoned the FP city and everything got worse still.

I'm curious to find out if it works the same way in a new 1.12 game, but do not really want to play one out that far to find out.

The anomaly I'm reported IS from v1.12

Mr. whereitsat, good point. I made sure to point out in my 1st post it's a continuation of a v 1.00 game (I'm in Canada and we get the US version and hence, I never upgraded to v 1.02)

MrWhereItsAt · December 23, 2003, 09:00

I have just noticed corruption go up for FP-centric cities, but down for Palace-centric cities! With a recalc of corruption/waste from a game saved and started in v1.00, the corresponding increase in production/trade for Palace-centric cities roughly matched the decrease in FP-centric cities.

[Wild hypothesis]

Perhaps now when using city rank to caclulate corruption the game gives the Palce-centric cities the lower value and FP-centric a higher one. Or maybe there is a new factor added to the equation for corruption - the distance from the Palace (in addition to the distance from either Palace OR FP in the presently established formula).

/wild hypothesis

nbarclay · December 24, 2003, 02:11

I'm playing a new game started with the patch, and can confirm that the odd behavior of the FP is not just bcause the game was loaded from a pre-patch save. I built the FP fairly close to the palace and was surprised to see that corruption was still rather high. I just tested what would happen if I abandoned it, and two of the three closest cities lost a shield. It looks like the FP now has a small positive impact on corruption, but only a small one. So instead of a FP that can be used as the center of a second core but that causes harm to cities in the original core, we now seem to have a FP that does not cause harm but that can no longer provide a second core either.

Nathan

vmxa1 · December 24, 2003, 03:54

I have not put up an FP with the patch yet. I sort of gathered it would be as you say Nathan. I guess that is what everybody wanted. A dimunition of the FP so no second core.

nbarclay · December 24, 2003, 15:08

What "everybody" wanted? I certainly never wanted it; at least not to anywhere near this degree. With the ability to establish a second core, a civilization that started on a relatively small land mass could establish a second core on a larger land mass to build a stronger economic base without effectively throwing away most of its investment in its original cities. Now that option no longer exists. Either you settle for your original land mass with its weak economic potential (possibly gaining relatively marginal additional value from conquests on other land masses) or you move your palace to a new land mass and watch the original core you worked so hard on lose most of its value. For me, as a builder who views warmongering as a way to acquire additional territory to build in, that is not a choice that makes the game more fun!

(The "Son of So Very Cold" Apolyton University game is a classic example of how, with enough hard work, a combination of a well-placed Forbidden Palace and a subsequent palace move could be used to turn a nation that started on a small continent into a superpower with a huge economy. Under the C3C rules as of the current patch, with starting position having so much larger a long-term effect on a civ's destiny, the starting position in that game would be both less playable and less enjoyable in the ultimate fruits of success.)

Also consider the impact on civs that start on the far tip of a land mass. (That is especially likely to happen to Seafaring civs, since they are essentially guaranteed coastal starts.) Under the old rules, such a civ would normally use its FP either to establish a well-centered core or to provide a counterbalance at the other end of the land mass. Under the new rules, moving the palace is the only way to get lower overall distance corruption, and building a new palace is vastly more expensive than building a FP (at least by the time the investment in a new palace can be spared). If the cost of a palace would be reduced to a hundred shields or so, that would be no big deal (and would also, incidentally, go a long way toward killing the use of a palace as a prebuild for wonders). But as things stand, it strikes me as a serious problem.

I'll admit that good use of a second core gave us humans a huge advantage over the AIs in previous versions of Civ 3. But if the value of the FP is to be largely destroyed, other balance issues need to be considered to deal with problems of small, somewhat isolated starting land masses and off-center starting locations.

Nathan

Edit: P.S. The idea of potentially having to move a civilization's only core far from its original territory in order to have a good economic base also has serious problems from a roleplay perspective. If my Roman (or Dutch or whatever) people succeed in fighing their way out of a bad starting position and becoming the world's greatest superpower, I don't want their "reward" to be that the natives of the nation's original homeland have to live in cities with rampant waste and corruption.

Aggie · December 24, 2003, 15:27

I was going to respond but then I saw Nathan's response. That says it all. This change in the FP is not what i wanted. for a matter of fact I'd prefer more FP's not less.
Aggie

WarpStorm · December 24, 2003, 15:53

What I would want is an FP that worked more or less like before just without the various exploits.

(Either that or a whole new corruption system based on transit time and number of cities without the concept of rank an the various exploits it gives)

vmxa1 · December 24, 2003, 16:46

Ok so maybe that is not what everyone wanted. Me I was fine with the way it worked in PTW. I understand what you are saying as it is obvious, I don't mind either way. Just pick the way it works, let me know how it works and I will deal with it.
Stop changing it all the time, that is all I ask.

Sarxis · December 24, 2003, 16:59

I wonder if this is a balance fix, considering we have Police and SPHQ now?

It really doesn't bother me the way it is now, but I was rather surprised at how little the FP combats corruption (at least when running Monarchy).

Fishman2 · December 24, 2003, 17:01

Having tried V1.12 with a previous game and with a new game I regret to conclude that the FP / corruption issue is not fixed to my satisfaction.

My findings:-

Pre patch - adding FP increases the corruption to main core cities around the palace.
FP does however provide a half reasonable 2nd core.
FP WORTH HAVING.

Post patch - adding FP doesn't noticably increase corruption to main core but FP 2nd core is crap.

Yes perhaps 1 extra usable shield in the cities near to the FP - frankly not worth the effort of building the FP.
FP NOT WORTH HAVING.

REALLY, REALLY, DISAPOINTED......

Alex · December 24, 2003, 17:33

Posted by Jesse Smith at CivFanatics:

Quote:

Save Games - You can continue your save games. However, the problem is the save includes the corruptionandwaste for each city so when you load it thats where it continues the calculation. As your progress through turns the calculation will take affect.

It should be noted that Forbidden Palaces are not supposed to 'eliminate' corruption in the home city. They just 'reduce corruption' and act 'like a 2nd palace'. A city that has a Forbidden Palace will not be corrupt-free. However, combinations of good trade ways, city placement, government choice, local military forces, and other buildings can reduce your corruption to a minimal amount.

Also, this 'minimal corruption' is amplified when playing on higher difficulty levels.

Either we were doing great "combinations" before or the FP was originally broken in Civ3 and PTW.

Harovan · December 24, 2003, 17:46

Seems this effect is intended for AI's sake (who almost never builds a good FP) and there's no need to demand a change. Corruption has been lowered by increasing the OCN values. Additionally, there are new ways to fight corruption by using specialists, the effect of which has been vastly improved. Scientists and taxmen have increased output, civil engineers provide corruption-free shields and police officers reduce corruption in cities where it's necessary. Irrigation is the key in completely corrupt cities. Maximize food, and with the big surplus feed corruption-free specialists. There's a big difference between 1 shield + 1 commerce, and, say, 5 shields, 4 taxes and 6 science, made by irrigation-fed specialists.

Sarxis · December 24, 2003, 17:46

What does he mean by 'good tradeways'? And larger garrisons reduce corruption?

And maybe it really was broken in CIVanilla/PTW. Or at least overpowered?

Kuciwalker · December 24, 2003, 18:22

Still, it's broken. It doesn't act like a "second palace".

ducki · December 24, 2003, 18:52

Maybe he meant to say "secondary", not "second".

That would suggest not being equal.

I have to say I'm disappointed. I miss the old FP, and if it was broken all along, it seems a bit late to "fix" it.

If it wasn't broken, but has been adjusted to help fix corruption, it doesn't seem like a "good" fix.

Either way, I rarely _depended_ on the second core, but it sure will be missed.

dexters · December 24, 2003, 19:07

I haven't tested if they changed this, but ore v.1.12 officers almost always add at most 1 corrupt shield and 1 corrupt commerce back into non-corruption when used. This is in a moderately corrupt city. In really corrupt cities, they have no effect. We'd almost always be better off using other specialists (taxman, civil engineer), giving either 2 tax or 2 shields in any city you use them. I feel officers need to be tweaked to make them more useful. There should be a diminishing returns algorithm where officers are more powerful on really corrupt cities and gets decreasingly so closer to your capital.

I personally prefer to have a second core, but the argument that this was changed for the AI's sake is a convincing argument. Still, I find corruption to be higher.

I loaded up my PTW game and the differences were starling. In v 1,12 c3c I'm running 20% plus of corruption to total income (not including wall street and foreign trade income) under democracy.

Kuciwalker · December 24, 2003, 19:24

Why not just fix the AI so it knows how to place the FP

dexters · December 24, 2003, 19:28

LOL. love your avatar Skywaler. tank v spear eh?

Fixing the AI? We'd be lucky if they fix any number of stuff in Alexman's wishlist of things to be fixed and better palace placement isn't on the list.

But yes, preferably a smarter AI is better.

Xorbon · December 24, 2003, 21:43

If this was a democracy I'd vote in favour of returning to PTW corruption. It seems to be a little late in the game's development to be playing around with the corruption system. Maybe they should wait for Civ 4 when they can completely overhaul the system.

Kuciwalker · December 24, 2003, 22:29

Quote:

LOL. love your avatar Skywaler. tank v spear eh?

Thanks

Cerbykins · December 25, 2003, 01:29

If they want to wipe out my FP advantage, then I want the AI to take responsiblity for wrecking my trade deals, and a few of it's other cheap little tricks. Having someone declare war and cut off my seaway is NOT my fault. Any human would understand and GLADLY accept compensation. Instead of which, my trading is ruined for all of history (in THAT game anyway

) and the AI reaps the reward???

Oh well, guess I won't be making it to Sid level after all...

I'll still get further than I'm at now...just not ALL the way

And the most bizarre thing of all this...in only a few weeks I've gone from FP-dependent, to it not even being on the build list

(small lie, I'm giving it to a small island this time around...but otherwise, it's (edit - SEEMINGLY

) worthless!

Actually, THERE'S an idea

- time to play more 80% water archipelago maps

I'm probably OT by now

dexters · December 25, 2003, 04:20

I'm hoping someone from Firaxis (Mike?) who is I'm sure on their holidays right now can spend maybe 5 minutes to explain the rationale for the way FP works right now.

It seems like they went way over their head trying to fix the RCP exploit with C3C and now, everyone is stuck with a fix to the initial fix that appears to be hated ( or at least disliked) by a large part of the community.

Nathan makes strong points in favour of a second core, and on the other hand, I can see how a weaker FP can remove the human advantage of good FP placement.

Speaking frankly however, part of the fun with Civ games is having large empires and the FP's second core plays a large part in this. If FP is weakened, will large empires be even worth having other than to shoot for a domination victory where a few core cities carry the entire civ?

On top of this, I don't think they've modified the 'police officer's' corruption fighting powers. Yeah, nice that we get 1 shield and 1 commerce in moderately corrupt cities. Try using them in really corrupt cities (1 good shield cities) and you won't get anything-- but these are where police officers are most needed, not the cores. Totally counterintuitive, and very underwehlming and useless as a specialist.

P.S. - Was the Secret police HQ working after switching out of communism fixed?

Wittlich · December 25, 2003, 05:16

Quote:

Originally posted by dexters
P.S. - Was the Secret police HQ working after switching out of communism fixed?

Ah, no. The Secret Police headqaurters (SPH) can ONLY be built when you are a Communist Government. AND the SPH is only active if you are a communist government.

So if you build the SPH and then swich to another government (can you say democracy?

) the SPH will not work nor have any effect on your civ.

dexters · December 25, 2003, 05:32

oh. never even built it yet. I had heard, i believe this was in the bugs thread, that when you are in communism and build the SPH and then switch out of it, the SPH effect remains in the unpatched version.