First, I'd like to say this: this is a new game, which lends itself to new strategies, in fact throw most, if not al, of your previous civ stratagies out the freakin' window. I know it might hurt a little, but you find if your willing to learn new things you'll enhance your experiance.
Now, on to the corruption deal. I won't be speaking of it explicitly, but of more of how I expand early in the game.
First, what I used to do (civ1-2):
After a time of exploring (waiting for my first city to grow enough to expand) I would have my eyes set on certain spots, you remember the ones, where you could get 4 resources in your city radius
, based on the way they appeared on the map. I would plop cities down there, and then plop cities in between, possibly overlapping the city radii.
What I do now:
After a time of exploring (waiting for my first city to grow enough to expand) I set my eyes set on certain spots where possible late game resources might appear, close to luxuries (but not necessarily in the radius), etc.
At NO TIME do I place a city 5 or less squares from any other city, ESPECIALLY my Capital. As I'm sure you've noticed, cultural borders expand, and they expand a great deal in your capital simply because of the age of the items in it. By the modern age, if your capital was all by it's lonsome on a massive expanse of land, you should have a culture radius of 4-5 around it.
Now, to do this type of expansion you must guard your settlers. Send a spearman out with him. I get the most effective borders when I place cities 7-8 squares or more from my capital, and from there out, subtract at least one from the next city "expansion radius". So, we have your capital, 7-8 squares away is the next city, 6-7 from that is the next, and so-on. Stop at 5, there is no reason you should ever overlap your own cities' production radii. I should say 6, because if you build all the culture things and no wonders its fairly easy to get a culture expansion of 3. Use your own judgment here really. Just remeber to place your cities far enough away to allow the later cutural expansions to actually expand. And remember, this is not a "better civ 2".
You might be wondering WTF does this have to do with corruption?! Well, let me point it out. Less cities overall.
I used to build cities like this: capital, from the corner that is not in it's production radius, 2 away, 1 up/down, and so-on so that I have the most land coverage with little overlap. Now with cuture, I never place cities that close to one another. There is no need to.
The Forbidden Palace (FP).
What a great thing. This is, essentially, an unmovable palace, that's it's only drawback. I wait until I stop expanding on my home continent and have developed a bit before I determine where to put this lovely wonder. Remember, this is a palace essentially, and as such the city that builds it experiences no, or very little corruption (same as your captital). If you have an elongated continent, place this wonder 2 cites in from one coast end, and move your palace to the other, if needed. This will even out corruption for the most part on that continent, and if you used my expansion method above you will have less cities, and therefore less corruption that way.
For a long time you will have gaps in your borders... this is a neccesary evil. I read in the chat transcript that they are going to tweek the AI's desire to plop a city down when surrounded by your cities. Until then, this is what I call them: free settlers. once taken by your culture manage the people of that city, and set it to build a settler. Manage the people in such a way that the city will not grow, or in fact set it to starve. Reduce the population to 1 however you wish (starvation or settlers) abandon the city and then you can use the settler. Use it to increase the size of a small city or found a new one in that place youve been looking at. That is, if you don't want the city of course.
Using this method of expansion, and the strategic placing of the FP and your palace, you will have less cities and less corruption, but also, when placed right the cities will be more productive. You will have more land per city ratio, and be able to see more stategic and other resources when they appear (without the use of ctrl-shift-m).
Also on that matter, you, by now, should know or have a good idea where these resources will appear. Use this knowledge and the fact that your borders will expand to find new cities at those "guessed" places.
Use colonies!
You heard me. The AI uses them. The game I'm playing now the persians have 3. I have 3-5, two where taken over by another civ placing a city just outside of my influence and right by the resource/colony
. Needless to say that city will be razed, or taken by my culture and abandoned.
Well, I have played this game about 5-6 times, with a few restarts due to lost causes/emminent destruction. The first one I used the old plop the cities down as close as possible, and had heavy corruption at the further cities and as my empire grew. I quickly adapted to the culture and guessed where resources would appear and got the hang of it. corruption is no longer an issue that I worry about a great deal.
Over seas, I take over only the cities that have access to luxuries or resources, in other words, the valuable ones. The corruption is higher in them than back home but by that time you should have plenty of money to purchase the base improvments to quell it.
I hope this helps anyone in their quest for lower corruption, or basic empire building stratagy. If I help one person I've done my good deed for the day
.
Any other ways you've found to help?
