Corruption from number of cities

[DrSpike]

For those who have a predilection for large empires:

What are your experiences with corruption from number of cities? The times I've been over the threshold for the map size it didn't seem to make much difference.

Anyone looked into this properly?

[dunk]

You mean you don't have cities that are impossible to increase beyond one shield and one gold?

[DrSpike]

That is corruption from the distance factor. I said corruption from number of cities.

[Aeson]

From my experience (1.07f testing), the optimum number of cities (maybe it was 150% of that number, it's been a while) is a wall. Anything past that and the cities are totally corrupt. The productive cities stay centered around your Palace and Forbidden Palace. If you build an interior city once past the optimum number, an exterior city becomes totally corrupt. Not sure if this has been changed in either of the patches, the optimum number of cities was raised in 1.16f I think.

[DrSpike]

What are the limits now then? It may be that haven't experienced anything because I thought the limit was lower. Plus if it works as you say then you may not notice if the city you build in the exterior would have had bad corruption from the distance factor anyway.

[rpodos]

And what is the effect, if any, of the FP? Or is that only for distance?

I also think the number got changed in 1.16 or 1.17.

R

[Aeson]

The FP only affects corruption by distance.

The optimum number of cities varies by map size, the 1.17f values:

Tiny - 12
Small - 14
Standard - 16
Large - 24
Huge - 32

[Aeson]

Just ran a little test. Tiny/Regent/French (Commercial). I edited the terrain to give 25 commerce, to better show the corruption percent.

I built 6 cities along a diagonal, every other space. Then I started filling in cities around Paris, checking the furthest cities corruption levels after each city I built. The corruption is calculated at the end of turn, so I built 1 city per turn. By the 10th city overall, the outermost cities corruption started to increase. At 9 it was 33/50, at 10 - 38/50, 11 - 42/50, 12 - 44/50, 13 - 47/50. 47/50 must be the "absolute" corruption level, because I couldn't get it to go any higher by building more cities.

The "optimum" number of cities should actually be called the "maximum productive" number of cities.

[nbarclay]

In my current game in 1.16f, if I've counted correctly, I have 59 cities on (I think) a standard map. I'm not sure any of the cities are so totally corrupt that even a courthouse and police station couldn't bring them up to at least two shields; the only candidates I've noticed are recent conquests I haven't had time to develop yet. I'm running a Democracy right now, and my palace and forbidden palace are pretty well positioned for a large empire.

One thing to keep in mind is that government type has a huge impact on corruption levels. Democracy is characterized in the Civ 3 manual as having low corruption, so it can very possibly handle a lot more cities relative to the base "optimal number" than lesser forms of government can.

Nathan

[Aeson]

I forgot about Government modifiers. Do they affect number of cities or just distance? I'll run the same test in some of the other governments later.

[Aeson]

Ok, did the same tests in the other governments. Previous results were all in Despotism. I didn't test the effects of Courthouses and Police Stations on the corruption barrier. From in game experience I would guess another city or two could be made somewhat productive by their addition.

Monarchy

13 - 40/50
14 - 43/50
15 and up - 46/50

Republic

13 - 41/54
14 - 43/54
15 - 48/54
16 and up 51/54

Democracy

13 - 36/54
14 - 38/54
15 - 42/54
16 - 47/54
17 and up 51/54

Suprisingly Communism did much better on the Tiny map in overall commerce, at least up to 25 cities (got bored). Of course that is mostly because the Republic and Democratic trade bonuses were basically nullified by the 25 commerce from each tile. The extra 2 commerce per tile makes a big difference with normal terrain settings.

[Willem]

Originally posted by DrSpike
What are the limits now then? It may be that haven't experienced anything because I thought the limit was lower. Plus if it works as you say then you may not notice if the city you build in the exterior would have had bad corruption from the distance factor anyway.

Go into the editor and look in the World Sizes area, it will tell you there. There's different numbers for each map size. Off hand I think for a huge map it's 32. I don't play anything else so I can't be sure of the rest.

[chiefpaco]

So, under Communism, does the corruption affects all your cities equally? I always wondered how it worked. What is the value/return in gaining many cities for a Communist government?

Nice study. It's easy to see here why the corruption often looks similar from govt to govt (static corruption # past optimum city limit).

[DrSpike]

Nice job again Aeson. A bit more work and you could be the Xin of civ3!

The limits are as I thought. I find it really interesting that corruption starts to go up around the 10th city in despotism, and then levels out after 12. Perhaps the optimal numbers apply to later govts, and 12 is the threshold for despotism. This is how unhappiness from number of cities worked in civ2 for instance. But still, it doesn't imply that you can build up to 12 and get no corruption from number of cities.

Also it's good to know that your core cities aren't affected by corruption from number of cities. I envisaged extra corruption being spread amongst the cities in your empire when you breached the limit, which it seems isn't the case.

[alexman]

Dr Spike: In the editor, under difficulty levels, there is a setting called "Percentage of optimal cities". For chieftain this is at 100 and it decreases to 70 for deity. I am assuming that this, multiplied by the optimum number of cities for the map, is what determines when number-of-cities corruption will start.

From Aeson's experiment, I'm guessing he was playing at Monarch, where the percentage is 85%, because corruption started at 10 cities (12 * 0.85 = 10.2)

[DrSpike]

Hey, that's really interesting. I've been playing and posting since Novemeber and I've seen no mention of that.

[Aeson]

I hadn't noticed that either Alexman. I was testing at Regent level, (12 * .9 = 10.8), which still fits if they truncate (most likely) instead of round.

[Aeson]

Same tests, with a non-Commercial Civ

Despotism

7 - 34/51
8 - 37/51
9 - 39/51
10 - 42/51
11 - 44/51
12 and up - 47/51

Monarchy

7 - 29/53
8 - 31/53
9 - 34/53
10 - 36/53
11 - 39/53
12 - 42/53
13 - 47/53
14 and up - 49/53

Republic

7 - 28/53
8 - 31/53
9 - 33/53
10 - 36/53
11 - 38/53
12 - 41/55
13 - 43/55
14 - 48/55
15 and up - 51/54

Republic with Courthouse

15 - 41/55
16 - 45/54
17 - 50/54
18 and up - 51/54

Republic with Courthouse and Police Station

18 - 40/54
19 - 44/54
20 - 48/54
21 and up - 51/54

It seems on Tiny maps that the Commercial trait is worth ~1 extra productive city. Should be ~2 on a Huge map. A Courthouse extends the corruption barrier another 3 cities, and a Police Station 3 more. Not sure why the variations on max commerce were showing up (within the same government), the same terrain was always in use.

[chiefpaco]

I think you just showed that building courthouses are very useful on the edge of your "productive" empire. I'd agree with that.

How about including Communism in your study? I know it's a different structure, but it ought to work out to the same, and I think there are a lot of myths about its usefulness & overall corruption.

I like your test map, since it makes it easier to compare the corruption rates at an even level. I suppose it would be reasonable to assume the ratios would be consistent on a normal map? i.e. when the Republic/Democracy trade bonus doubles.

[Aeson]

Courthouses and Police Stations -

Remember that these outlying "corrupt" cities will usually only have a few total commerce and production in most cases. Adding a Courthouse is very helpful for a few cities, but only if they have high production and commerce numbers already (which are being corrupted). If you look at the 15th city in a Republic, 10 commerce was added by building a Courthouse, definitely worth it. But if that was a city using normal terrain, there might be say 5-10 total commerce, 4-9 of which would be wasted. Adding a Courthouse would probably decrease the waste by 1 or 2, just barely paying for it's own upkeep. It would be more efficient to take the shields being added to build a Courthouse and use them in some other manner. The larger the city though, the more useful the Courthouse would become.

Communism -

Communism works too differently to really do a comparison, especially with how I edited terrain. 25 commerce per tile makes Communism look much better than it does in normal circumstances. At 20 cities the corruption in Communism was about half of each city's production. In a normal setting this would mean that your "good" cities are producing at half efficiency, while your "bad" cities barely produce anything extra. It really isn't a good trade off.

I think the main myth about Communism is that it's good for large empires during war. The fact is that the larger the empire, the worse Communism becomes. Later in the game when Communism is available, rushing with gold is much more efficient than rushing with population. Because of this Monarchy is a better choice for wartime governments in most cases.

I'm sure there are a few situations where Communism shines. An empire of about "optimal cities" size with lots of spacing between each city could really benefit. Say an Archipelago map where cities are far flung and they all need to keep several garrison units.

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by Aeson

Communism -

Communism works too differently to really do a comparison, especially with how I edited terrain. 25 commerce per tile makes Communism look much better than it does in normal circumstances. At 20 cities the corruption in Communism was about half of each city's production. In a normal setting this would mean that your "good" cities are producing at half efficiency, while your "bad" cities barely produce anything extra. It really isn't a good trade off.

You're right. It would be hard to do a straight comparison. I have lots of saved games where I've tried, but it's so subjective on the map & way the empire was constructed.

I think the main myth about Communism is that it's good for large empires during war. The fact is that the larger the empire, the worse Communism becomes. Later in the game when Communism is available, rushing with gold is much more efficient than rushing with population. Because of this Monarchy is a better choice for wartime governments in most cases.

I'm sure there are a few situations where Communism shines. An empire of about "optimal cities" size with lots of spacing between each city could really benefit. Say an Archipelago map where cities are far flung and they all need to keep several garrison units.

Sorry to take your post off topic into a Communism debate. I won't continue... I was just curious about the effects of additional cities under communism. Can I assume that adding a new city past the optimal city limit introduces as many productive gold as taken away from my core cities? Do you know what I mean? Seeing as for the other govts, you get barely any extra gold for extra cities, I just wondered if the same performance occurs under Communism.

Also, do the same ratios apply to waste? Sorry for the grilling here. I should do more work on it myself. Just you have that test map already set up...

Thanks

[Aeson]

I think I understand what you are asking, just ran some more tests on total commerce corruption under each government.

I built cities 1 away on the diagonal, this should weaken Communism's numbers a bit in relation. The no corruption by distance is one of Communism's biggest strengths. The high commerce per tile will also make Democracy and Republic seem much weaker, relatively cutting each of their numbers in half. 54 vs 50 total commerce (edited terrain) isn't as big an advantage as 8 vs 4 (normal terrain) would be.

Democracy -

7 cities - 285 gold/turn
8 - 332
9 - 381
10 - 400
11 - 437
12 - 445
13 - 468
14 - 476
15 - 512
16 - 506*
17 - 524

* triple checked this even, don't build just 16 cities in a Democracy!


Republic -

7 - 264
8 - 317
9 - 347
10 - 371
11 - 399
12 - 411
13 - 425
14 - 443
15 - 460
16 - 474
17 - 488

Communism -

7 - 255
8 - 288
9 - 323
10 - 348
11 - 382
12 - 391
13 - 423
14 - 441
15 - 472
16 - 487
17 - 517

Monarchy -

7 - 254
8 - 297
9 - 331
10 - 353
11 - 373
12 - 381
13 - 387
14 - 407
15 - 423
16 - 432
17 - 441

Despotism -

7 - ???
8 - 258
9 - 289
10 - 316
11 - 323
12 - 334
13 - 337
14 - 364?
15 - 365?
16 - 368?
17 - 371?

At size 14 there was a jump in Despotism's overall numbers. I have no idea why. Population of the cities and tile usage remained the same throughout.

The reason Communism's numbers seem so strong (other than the terrain's high commerce) is that all the cities were size 1 and producing the same amount of total commerce. There were no developed "core" cities being weakened so that outlying "bad" cities could get minimal gains. Even with this, Monarchy's numbers were very close or better until the optimal number of cities was exceeded.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by chiefpaco
Also, do the same ratios apply to waste? Sorry for the grilling here. I should do more work on it myself. Just you have that test map already set up...

In the testing I did previously (1.07f), I used 25 commerce, 25 corruption terrain. In all cases the corruption was the same as the waste. Im not sure if corruption and waste are modified the same by Courthouses and Police Stations though. I think I remember a post which said they were treated differently.

[rpodos]

I think a Courthouse reduces corruption, and a Police Station reduces corruption and warweariness. Neither has an effect on waste.

I think only the Palace, FP, and WLKD can help there (other than gov't type).

R

[chiefpaco]

I think a Courthouse reduces corruption, and a Police Station reduces corruption and warweariness. Neither has an effect on waste.

Incorrect. The Courthouse & PS reduce waste as well. For more information, their effects were studied over at civfanatics recently by Bamspeedy in a thread called "How much improvements really help corruption".

Good work Aeson. Huge thanks. A tip, perhaps: Looking over your tests, it's sometimes difficult to see/remember what the numbers mean. You last post was better with the title "Cities, Gold/turn". To be clear, I think it might be a little better to put exactly what number you're reading, like "Corruption total". That's for us slow folk or for those joining the thread half-way...

I don't mean this to you, rpodos, but I think there are a lot of people confused and therefore frustrated over the corruption/waste model. A clearer explanation, like what Aeson's doing for us, at least lets us know more how it works and therefore, combat it strategically.
(I hate to criticize, but I think I needed that out...)

[Aeson]

I'll try to format the numbers a little better in the future. Is there any way to create tables or text columns in this message board format?

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by Aeson
I'll try to format the numbers a little better in the future. Is there any way to create tables or text columns in this message board format?

I wondered the same, perhaps with some HTML or vB code, but I don't know if it's allowed or possible. Bamspeedy's study was on a spreadsheet, which was nice & presentable, but I always wondered how many people actually download the thing rather than looking at your results. Perhaps it's just better your way.

[nbarclay]

Here's another question: What, exactly, is the effect of the Forbidden Palace on the number of cities an empire can support? Does it exactly double it, or is there more involved?

[rpodos]

Noproblemo, cp.

Aeson, thanks for going to the trouble of testing.

I am still confused though... in simple terms, what are the best methods to fight corruption and waste? In what order?

Who's got a prescription?

R

[Ethelred]

Well in simple terms. The only kind the matter anyway.

Build cities and don't worry so much about corruption. Build the Forbidden City in the best place you can manage when it becomes available. Use the best government for the job. Usually either Republic or Democracy. I like to stay a Republic unless I am playing a religous civ. The difference in corruption just isn't that much.

Later in the game if you get a Great Leader it may be a good idea to move your Palace. Which is why I don't worry about getting my Forbidden Palace a long way from my Palace. Even if its only one city away it helps. In fact it can be better one space away as that allows you to move the Palace without wrecking your core cities.

Build a courthouse when it becomes available in any city that can be helped. That can even be the capital late in the game. It only costs on gold per turn and can save one or more BEFORE the amplification effects of improvements. Later the Police station will cut corruption again.

From what the editor has for those two buildings they both have the exact same effect on corruption. So since a courthouse is cheaper build it first. If there is still corruption of more than one coin and you don't have anything else to build then build the Police Station.


To be redundant for clarity sake.

Corruption and waste are not different things. Corruption is the cause waste is the result and effects BOTH shields and commerce. Either building will have the same effect on both shields and commerce so build the cheapest one available first.

For seriously corrupt cities it is possible for a Courthouse and Police station to make them usefull. After a point though you will notice that NOTHING will help. In that case rush a temple and maybe a library. More population will add to your score but not much else.

Generally the distance effect is more important than the number of cities. At least in regards to making a cities corruption absolutely hopeless. I would guess that if you were to try to build a bunch of small cities than the city number might be more important than distance but generally more cities mean they must be farther away.

To me I think the best way to handle corruption is to not worry about it. Just build the cities. If there is corruption and eventually there will be then build one or both of the corruption reducing buildings. Its your core cities that will win the game for you. The AI has the same problem so if you develop those core cities they will produce all the war material you need to win. Distant cities are mere place holders. One culture producing improvement is all they really need. Who wants to fiddle a lot with more than the core cities anyway?

The thing is the details of how corruption works don't matter all that much on a practical basis except for the distance effects. Those effect where you place your Forbidden Palace and whether you want to move your Palace or not. The rest is something you simply deal with on a per city basis.

The details are nice to know though.