Wow! Communist corruption at 78%!

Rusty Nail · December 21, 2001, 08:51

I wonder if this was Firaxis' intention with the changes in corruption in 1.16f. I thought Communism was supposed to be the preferred government for waging a conquest victory in civ3 with less corruption than Despotism. Actually, in my case (68 cities currently on a normal map, over half the area, many small distant cities naturally, tech level working on Computers) Despotism is far better with a corruption rate of only 40% and good cah flow as opposed to Communism's 78% (and a NEGATIVE cash flow even with Science at zero!). In fact Democracy may be even better than Despotism, in spite of war weariness. I am not sure yet as I have been twice thrown into anarchy without warning in spite of having Sufferage, Sistine, Bach, and oodles of banks, cathedrals and police stations, 6 luxeries, and entertainment at 10% (long war, granted). I suspect a level of 30% might be enough to stay in Democracy but I just don't know, in which case it will still beat Despotism. Apparently there is no way of knowing in advance (trial by error), which just emphasizes the importance of being a religious civ. It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong here.

Rusty Nail · December 21, 2001, 17:33

A further comment later. I was too optimistic. Even putting entertainment up to 100% with a negative cash flow of 500 per turn and no science (40 turns) was not enough to stop a fall from Democracy into anarchy. I would really like to know what is going on here if anyone has an insight. Perhaps there is some kind of unannounced limit put on the number of cities or on the length of a war under Democracy. If this is the way it works, then Despotism seems to be the only way to handle conquest, i.e. long wars. The question then remains: is there any point in having Communism in the game at all?

pcasey · December 21, 2001, 18:29

Communism is the preferred conquest government because you can pop-rush building units, not because of corruption benefits. The manual and civlopedia are *extermely* misleading in regards to communism's corruption level.

There are two components to corruption : Distance From a Palace/FP and Total Number of Cities you own.

Communism flattens out the distance multiplier, but it doesn't do anything to the city count multiplier. So, if you're empire is larger than Frixaris thinks it should be e.g. you have too many cities, you get uber corruption nomatter what government you have.

Pop rushing isn't impaced by corruption though, so you can pop rush units in distance 1 shield 1 gold cities quite efficiently.

Blaupanzer · December 21, 2001, 18:46

You can pop rush is Despotism too. What is Communism's advantage?

pcasey · December 21, 2001, 18:54

Under most end game conditions e.g. large numbers of cities in your control, you will have less aggregate corruption than under despotism.

Your core cities will have more corruption under communism, but your semi-core cities will still be functional.

Under despotism, your palace and fp palace cities will ahve tolerable corruption, and most everything else will be absurd except for a narrow belt around your palace/fp which is merely bad.

Easy Rhino · December 22, 2001, 09:29

And your espionage is better, and you can conscript infinite numbers of troops, and you get Christmas cards from Uncle Joe.

ER

Blaupanzer · December 22, 2001, 15:00

Plus four martial law troops rather than 2. Still, the overall production of your cities (shields and gold) is barely more than under despotism. Monarchy actually gives more, in many cases! Not good. Feudal systems are NOT superior to centrally planned systems. (Neither are very good.) I'm uncomfortable that the fix is SO different. Play-testing, where art thou?

FalloutBoy · January 4, 2002, 18:12

I have yet to find a situation where Communism is a better choice than any other gov't. It is definitly not viable for any length of time. Perhaps if you are religious and can afford to bounce back and forth between communism and democracy if you need to do some pop-rushing or when war-weariness gets out of hand. That's the only thing I can think of.

I just endured 12 turns (60 years!) of anarchy after switching out of monarchy and tried switching to communism only to discover how worthless this gov't is. I could have switched to democracy a long time ago if I had known this.