Has anybody found a use for the Courthouse?

Comrade Tribune · November 11, 2001, 17:08

Since it doesn´t significantly reduce Corruption, why should one ever build it?

Comrade Tribune · November 11, 2001, 19:47

To bring this up again: I built 2 Courthouses in my 2nd game, and found them to be totally useless. Did I overlook something, or do you all agree this building is really just a method to waste some shields? Is this some sort of Firaxian joke?

yin26 · November 11, 2001, 20:02

I only build them for culture value. My guess is the entire corruption system will be addressed in the first or second patch.

Mnus · November 11, 2001, 20:08

Wait, Yin, do they have cultural value? Don't have the game in front of me, but I didn't think they did. ?!?!

I'll build them to an extant, just to ever so slightly curb the corruption, but they really don't seem to be that great.

Pyrodrew · November 11, 2001, 20:20

Courthouses give no culture points. They do make the city resistant to propaganda tho. They are also good if you want to increase your total maintenance cost by +1.

Pembleton · November 11, 2001, 20:21

I've only noticed a slight decrease in commerce corruption and I think a few times I've seen it decrease the shield corruption by 1 or 2 shields.

And they don't produce culture.

yin26 · November 11, 2001, 20:24

Don't produce culture, eh? Hadn't checked carefully enough.

Well, then, they do seem rather worthless then, eh?

Peterk · November 11, 2001, 21:30

Well guys, think of them like an investment, sort of like the banks/colosseums.

They cost you one gold in support (if i remember correctly) per turn and they'll reduce your corruption by a couple golds and a couple shields per turn. Are you making profit on the deal? Yes. Then they're worth it. I don't think they should magically reduce corruption down to zip like some people expect. I buy them in pretty much all my cities but it's never a high priority buy.

A colosseum costs more gold and it might only keep one-two more worker happy and on the job and those guys might just add a couple of shields/golds. Not too much different.

Jing · November 11, 2001, 22:13

Just to give a more precise idea of the (in)effectiveness of the courthouse, it reduces corruption and waste by 25%, e.g. corruption 16->12, waste 8->6. I have only tested this under Republic, but I suspect the number should not depend on government.

As you can see, as ineffective as it is, it would still make a huge difference in far away cities where almost all production and commerce are lost to corruption, you know those only produce one shield and commerce per turn without it.

yeesh · November 11, 2001, 23:08

In my huge monarchy game I build a courthouse in every city. I know they don't decrease corruption and waste as much as we'd like, but to say they do absolutely nothing is overstating it. A city on the fringes with only one unwasted shield will produce two or more after a courthouse, and even getting to two is a doubling of your production power. And it generally pays for itself in commerce as well.

mathgoulet · November 12, 2001, 00:06

Courthouses affect corruption, but only winthin a radius around the palace or the forbidden palace. You have no choice but to build the palace and the Forbidden Palace according to their radius, to optimize the fight against corruption. Of course you have to build a courthouse everywhere and you have no choice but to use Democracy/Republic.

When you conquer foreign city that are outside this radius, burn them to the ground and build some colony to pump resources.

player1 · November 12, 2001, 01:17

I DO BUILD CHORTHOUSES AND THEY HELP MUCH (giving 10-30% extra shields & commerce).
THEY ARE MUST HAVE.
THEY ARE RELATIVLY CHEAP

THEY ARE GREAT IN COMBO WITH WE LOVE THE KING!

P.S.
Played on Normal & Large maps.

cheerful · November 21, 2001, 13:34

In my game, courthouse does nothing in remote city that has 1 shield/gold output. It seems the distance OR the city#, as suggessted by some, dominate all other factores.

Frito · November 21, 2001, 13:47

Your only going to notice a decent effect if its in a big city thats on the edge of your empire. The problem is border cities are the last cities to get big. I build them anyways because they do help down the road and I'd rather have it built early then have to deal with it when I could be building more important stuff like factorys, banks, armys, etc. You also have to play in democracy to notice a major effect too.

cheerful · November 21, 2001, 13:50

I am playing democracy and managed to buy these remote cities a lot of stuff. They are at size 12 with about 10 total shields/golds. But I net only 1 with courthouse, temple, cathedral, aqeduct, library, granary. Even with WLTKD, same result.

Frito · November 21, 2001, 13:57

I don't think that temple, cathedral, aqeduct, and granarys matter to currupion. If you have courthouse, factory, marketplace, bank, and library you should have a fine city...unless the city is on the other side of the world...

Rasbelin · November 21, 2001, 15:31

In Civ II the courthouse could really become usefull, but now it's more like one of those buildings that are not a must-have. Apparently the current corruption mode sucks so much that the courthouse is therefore is a secondary enchancement. Looks like the guys at Firaxis really have to reconstruct the corruption scheme. I haven't built a courthouse in all of my cities, because its current cost-income ballance is bad or at least not the best possible. But this is of course just my opinion.

Jack_www · November 21, 2001, 16:02

I have one idea on how to make corruption better in Civ3, please tell me what you think of it. In history their are many examples of large spralling empires that had lots of corruption. One reason for this was the fact that it took long peroids of time to travel to the most distance parts of the empire and communication also took a long time as well. Thus having high corruption levels in the early game I think is a good idea since it reflects history. Of course today one can travel anywere in the world in one day. Also ccommunictaion with anyone on the earth is instanous now. Thus as a result I think that with the discovery of certain techs that corruption levels should be decreased for the reasons I have just stated. One example is when you discover radio that the corruption levels in all your cities be decreased by increasing the range of your capital city has on decreasinf corruption in all your cities.

Lugh · November 21, 2001, 16:07

25% is SOOO stinky!! I don't mind that corruption seems to be more rampant in this game than in civ2, I don't mind changing strategies (I quite enjoy it actually), but when the tool we have for offsetting this corruption doesn't work for sh*t, what do we do?

The problem is worst in new little cities. I don't mind less $ and science and production in big cities that can make do, but taking 50 turns (what's that usually, 500-2,000 years?) just to install a barracks and spearman in my new province is simply annoying. Courthouses are supposed to help, dammit!

Maybe they should be adjusted: reduce corruption by 50%, or else make it a flat value. Ie. it could give a fledgling town 3 units of production/commerce free of corruption, and the corruption would kick in afterwards. OR, (getting creative here) make it scalable like unit support for monarchies: 3 corruption-free units of production and commerce for towns, 6 for cities, and 9 for metropolises. This itself could scale by government: 2/size level for despotism, 3 for monarchy/republic, and 4 for democracy/communism. This way you could still PLAY THE GAME with your little new towns, without ruling out corruption as an overall game consideration.

Okay, rant's over. Thanks for listening, I'll be here all week.

Dis · November 21, 2001, 19:01

they worked for me

they knocked off a few coins of corruption. that is enough to pay for itself and more.

star mouse · November 21, 2001, 19:26

According to the CIV3 site, one way of reducing corruption in distant cities is to connect it to the capital via a trade route. Don't know if it works tho.

Also, number of cities affects corruption. This is probably a method to combat ICS.

Here's how I would do corruption:

* Code of Laws
Courthouse improvement that reduces corruption by 25%

* Corporation + 10 courthouses
Gives access to Supreme Court small wonder that doubles the effectiveness of all courthouses (reduce corruption by 50%) and also acts like a 1/4-strength Forbidden palace for reducing corruption in nearby cities

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
Reduces the corruption a courthouse doesn't affect by another 25% (so corruption with courthouse + police station is 75% * 75% = 56%, not 50%). Also halves the effect the city contributes to the number-of-cities effect of corruption.

* 10 police stations
Gives access to the Police Central small wonder (or FBI if you will), which doubles effectiveness of all police stations.

Note that Courthouse + Supreme Court + Police Station + Police Central does not eliminate corruption, but only reduces it by 75%.

EDIT: Corrected typos.

Dale · November 21, 2001, 20:35

Quote:

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
Reduces the corruption a courthouse doesn't affect by another 25% (so corruption with courthouse + police station is 75% * 75% = 56%, not 50%). Also halves the effect the city contributes to the number-of-cities effect of corruption.

Or, if playing the Australians:

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
INCREASES the corruption affect by 25%, thus simulating dodgy drug raids, Police brutality, Police "protection" scams.

Lord Cannager · November 21, 2001, 21:07

duuuuhhhhhhhhhh its makes citys less vunerable to propaganda and it does reduce corruption(doesn't it?)

barefootbadass · November 22, 2001, 01:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Lugh
25% is SOOO stinky!! I don't mind that corruption seems to be more rampant in this game than in civ2, I don't mind changing strategies (I quite enjoy it actually), but when the tool we have for offsetting this corruption doesn't work for sh*t, what do we do?

Maybe they should be adjusted: reduce corruption by 50%, or else make it a flat value. Ie. it could give a fledgling town 3 units of production/commerce free of

Okay, rant's over. Thanks for listening, I'll be here all week.

25% is plenty of a reduction if the corruption would be limited to what the city can produce. 50% is far too much of a reduction, there would be no pressure to avoid getting to big or a tendency for your empire to collapse if it were that effective.

Think about it this way, say your city has a corruption level of 100% so you only get 1 shield and gold as opposed to, say 24 shields and 32 gold without corruption. If you were to build a courthouse you would get 6 shields and 8 gold for only the cost of 1 gold maintenance and an initial investment to build. This is SOOO worth it! Understand?? In fact, you can't afford not to have it unless hte city is just being used to hold resources or something like that. Also note, that in my model the cities that have 1 shield no matter what you do would have corruption levels like 150% and up or something.

Rust · November 22, 2001, 01:26

Supreme Court? Police Central?

The_Aussie_Lurker · November 22, 2001, 01:43

Now guys, before you throw rotten tomatoes at me, PLEASE remeber that I don't have the game, and so am just guessing at a solution.
The Radio advance no longer has an associated improvement/wonder (it used to have airport!!)
My idea was to have an improvement called "Media outlet" which could massively reduce distance corruption, create happiness, and give a bonus to resisting foreign propaganda!
Alternatively, you could have a minor wonder called "Mass Media" which could have the same effect (Or you could have it be an additional minor wonder, requiring 5 media outlets, that increases the effect of all media outlets).
On a side note, I'd also like to have a minor wonder, restricted to Communist and Fascist governments called "War Rallies". It requires 5 media outlets to build and reduces war weariness!!
Anyway, what do you think?

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

The_Aussie_Lurker · November 22, 2001, 01:54

LOL
Excellent Point Dale, by the way!!!
It would be so much funnier if it weren't so TRUE!!!!!
Perhaps it should only apply to building police stations in cities called Sydney or Newcastle etc.?

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

BigBopper · November 22, 2001, 13:14

How about a special worker (like the entertainer, science guy, etc)
that would reduce corruption by say 10% Call him whatever, IRS agent, Internal Affairs, etc.
I've often taken a good sized enemy city and found it worthless, thus just had to pillage it. Thats B.S., improvements in comunication should also reduce the corruption affect. Firaxis already started this by having a trade route reduce corruption. Next having a railroad, and harbor, and a airport should reduce the affect, and let your empire get larger.

Venger · November 22, 2001, 13:19

Quote:

Originally posted by star mouse
Here's how I would do corruption:

* Code of Laws
Courthouse improvement that reduces corruption by 25%

* Corporation + 10 courthouses
Gives access to Supreme Court small wonder that doubles the effectiveness of all courthouses (reduce corruption by 50%) and also acts like a 1/4-strength Forbidden palace for reducing corruption in nearby cities

VERY SMART THINKING.

Quote:

* Police Station
In addition to its current effects:
Reduces the corruption a courthouse doesn't affect by another 25% (so corruption with courthouse + police station is 75% * 75% = 56%, not 50%). Also halves the effect the city contributes to the number-of-cities effect of corruption.

* 10 police stations
Gives access to the Police Central small wonder (or FBI if you will), which doubles effectiveness of all police stations.

Another smart move. FBI though, Police Central sounds sorta gay...

Well thought out. You know, a limited public beta of people on Apolyton could have made Civ3 a KNOCKOUT if it'd been done and some of these type of smart changes been looked at...

Venger

Tim Ward · November 22, 2001, 14:16

Quote:

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker

Alternatively, you could have a minor wonder called "Mass Media" which could have the same effect (Or you could have it be an additional minor wonder, requiring 5 media outlets, that increases the effect of all media outlets).

This is an excellent idea, although I don't really like 'media out-lets' (just WTF are they supposed to represent?). Just have a mass media small wonder available with radio. Additionally, distance from capital government takes no account of local government. Some guy on this forum said a few weeks back that if the corporation rates are representative of real life, then Seattle would be a wasteland. Well, maybe that would be true if America was run entirely from Washington. Well, it isn't. American has one of the most devolved governments in the world.

The British empire didn't run all it's colonies from London, either. It installed High Commisioners to run things locally. There ought to be some representation of this that makes oversea's colonies possible. Like, a local government improvement that's limited to one per five cities, or something.

It's not that the corruption rates are to high, it's that there's no way to tackle the problem with Civ2 enchancements.