Corruption from number of cities

[DrSpike]

This is more than I hoped for when I posted the thread! It is tricky to crunch the numbers and formulate a game plan, since it is hard to relate the numbers with the changed terrain value. But it looks like it isn't far wrong to say build up to the prescribed optimal number of cities.

One of the most useful things for me is it is shown that the periphery is solely affected. I often have recruitment cities, or worker factories that push my total number of cities above the optimal number. It is nice to know my core cities aren't going to be affected by this.

As an aside Aeson's comments on communism are spot on. Whether or not it was intended for large empires I don't know, but it isn't effective. It would be interesting to know how far apart the optimal number of cities would have to be to make communism better in terms of overall production than say democracy.

[player1]

Has anyone tried calculations with tripled optimal cities percentages in difficulty menu?

That way Forbidden palace come in saem time, but optimal num. or cities is multiplied by difficulty level.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by player1
Has anyone tried calculations with tripled optimal cities percentages in difficulty menu?

That way Forbidden palace come in saem time, but optimal num. or cities is multiplied by difficulty level.

And has anyone tested if this affects only the human player or also the AI's?

[player1]

Originally posted by lockstep


And has anyone tested if this affects only the human player or also the AI's?

I remember that when Soren was expalining how "delfault AI vaule" works he said that that setting (which is default regent) measn ON WHAT SETTING AI actualy plays against other players. Also that setting won't affaect AI bonuses or penalities.

So, on every diff. level unrest for AI starts with 3 pop, like it is regent.
I assume that same is for corruprion:
Regent corruption for AI (maybe I'm wrong)

[lockstep]

I had forgotten about the 'default difficulty level' setting and thought that regent was hardcoded as default. So I guess you're right about the AI playing at the regent 'no. of optimal cities' setting, whatever this setting may get tweaked to (150%, 200%, 500% ...). At least I hope you're right, because this would offer a lot of possibilities for mod-makers.

[chiefpaco]

Well, I agree with most of Ethelred said, but some things. (I think it's ok to talk about corruption/waste strategy here, as a result of the spirit of the original post):

- Yes, don't get obsessed over corruption/waste (c/w) but knowing how it works will help your empire.

- I was under the impression that corruption was lost (red) gold and waste lost (red) shields. You can call it what you wish, but I usually keep the terms this way so it's clear what were talking about.

- 2 factors for corruption: By distance (from Palace or FP) and by # of cities. Aeson's study showed the effects of the latter. For the former, I highly recommend Bamspeedy's study over at CivFanatics for a detailed look.

Bamspeedy also showed the relative effectiveness of Courthouses & Police Stations. I'll let you judge their overall effectiveness for yourself. However, IMHO, I don't think they are automatic builds in most cases.

- Ethelred's advice is good for Republics & Democracies & even Monarchies, however, the Communism strategy is different.

- Corruption by distance is not a factor for Communism. Hence, you only have to worry about # cities. Therefore, courthouses & PS are very useful for every city under Communism. Also, the FP is unnecessary because it only combats the distance factor.

- Packing your cities in a ring around your Palace & FP is probably most useful under any govt but Communism. After that, most people use the other cities in a non-producing role. Under Communism, it pays to spread out your cities, reducing the # cities factor to stay closer to the limit, thanks to Aeson's study.

As an aside Aeson's comments on communism are spot on. Whether or not it was intended for large empires I don't know, but it isn't effective. It would be interesting to know how far apart the optimal number of cities would have to be to make communism better in terms of overall production than say democracy.

I am also surprised that the c/w in Communism isn't a bit lower. However, one thing it does have going for it is that courthouses & PS are always useful & can bring the total down considerably for every city. Remember, Courhouses & PS do nothing for cities past your C-by-distance limit. I'm not sure if this brings Communism back even, but it may help slightly.

[Aeson]

Here are the numbers in a more readable format

All the numbers are for a city built on the 6th diagonal from the Palace, on a Tiny/Regent map.

Corruption by Number of Cities (Commercial)



Number of Cities  
Despotism  
Monarchy  
Communism  
Republic  
Democracy



9
33/50
-
-
-
-



10
38/50
-
-
-
-



11
42/50
-
-
-
-



12
44/50
-
-
-
-



13
47/50
40/50
-
41/54
36/54



14
"
43/50
-
43/54
38/54



15
"
46/50
-
48/54
42/54



16
"
"
-
51/54
43/54



17
"
"
-
"
51/54

[Aeson]

Corruption by Number of Cities (non-Commercial)



Number of Cities  
Despotism  
Monarchy  
Republic  
Republic + CH 
Republic + CH + PS



7
-
29/53
28/53
-
-



8
37/51
31/53
31/53
-
-



9
39/51
34/53
34/53
-
-



10
42/51
36/53
36/53
-
-



11
44/51
39/53
38/53
-
-



12
47/51
42/53
41/53
-
-



13
"
47/53
43/53
-
-



14
"
49/53
48/53
-
-



15
"
"
51/53
41/55
-



16
"
"
"
45/55
-



17
"
"
"
50/54
-



18
"
"
"
51/54
40/54



19
"
"
"
"
44/54



20
"
"
"
"
48/54



21
"
"
"
"
51/54

[Aeson]

Total Commerce by Number of Cities



Number of Cities  
Despotism  
Monarchy  
Communism  
Republic  
Democracy



7
-
254
255
264
285



8
258
297
288
317
332



9
289
331
323
347
381



10
316
353
348
371
400



11
323
373
382
399
437



12
334
381
391
411
445



13
337
387
423
425
468



14
-
407
441
443
476



15
-
423
472
460
512



16
-
432
487
474
506



17
-
441
517
488
524

[Ethelred]

- I was under the impression that corruption was lost (red) gold and waste lost (red) shields.

This seems to be a player idea based on what the Civalopedia says. As far as I can see the game treats shields and coins equally. Both a courthouse and a police station effect both at once.

If you look at them in the editor its pretty simple.

Courthouse

Resistant to Propaganda
Reduces Corruption
Maintenence 1
Cost 8

Police Station

Reduces Corruption
Reduces War Weariness
Maintenence 2
Cost 16

Thats pretty much it. There is no checkbox for waste. It seems pretty clear to me that both loss of shields and loss of coins are covered and simply by checking when you build either of them you will see the same thing.

The use by some of the word corruption to refer to loss of shields and waste to refer to loss of coins IS in the Civolpedia BUT the game itself appears to make no such distinction. This is the cause of much of the confusion surrounding this issue.

Interestingly after the Civilopedia make says corruption is for income and waste refers to shields it says absolutly nothing about waste regarding either the Courthouse or the Police Station. It ONLY mentions corruption. I strongly suspect the Civalopedia is WRONG in trying to distinguish between the two. In all likelyhood the person writing it simply misunderstood what was going on.

Now to experiment a bit. I have a game open. I am playing as the Egyptians, on Emperor standard map, continents. One of my cities is Eight tiles south from my Palace and seven more tiles south plus two tiles west of the Forbidden Palace so most likely only the Palace is having a significant effect. I have eleven cities total so the corruption is mostly due to distance.


The city has both the courthouse and the police station so I will sell one reload and sell the other plus have both sold as well.


The city has a factory but no power plant yet. A marketplace but no bank. So there is a 50% amplification to the worked tiles.

Science set to zero for the test.

33 coins produced by counting tiles worked.

Resulting in 36 for the treasury and 9 lost. Thats 33-9=24 times 1.5 for the marketplace resulting in the 36 that is going to the treasury. This test would be cleaner without the marketplace and the factory. How about I do that, sell the marketplace and the factory. Now I have saved it as test.sav.

New results.

Comerce is 33 loss is 9 leaving 24 going to the treasury.

Total Production is 27 loss is 7 so 20 go to the production box

Now sell courthouse

Commerce now has a loss of 11 change of two

Production now has a loss of 9 change of two

Now load the save and sell the Police Station.

Whaddya know. Same exact result

Commerce loss of 11

Production loss of 9

Both buildings have the same effect.

Now to sell the courthouse so we can see both at once.

Commerce loss of 14 total change is 5

Production loss of 12 total change is 3

I suspect round off effects on that. Rounding down the loss.

So my conclusion from this test is that the Civalopedia is spreading uneeded confusion about corruption. I think I read somewhere that the corruption checkbox made a 20% difference and taking a round down of corruption into account that may be right.

I think Firaxis has another thing it should fix in the Civalopedia.

[notyoueither]

There is a distinction between corruption and waste. It's not big, but it's there. I believe.

The percentages lost of coin to corruption are generally higher than the percentages lost of shields to waste.

I believe that the references to corruption for the CH and PS are in error for mentioning corruption only. They should also mention waste.

BTW. It is the players that are obfuscating the distinction mostly. Most everybody just says *corruption suxors*, but I would guess that the Civalopaedia entry for CH leads them to do it.

[Ethelred]

It looks to me like corruption is the cause and waste is the effect. That is the it works in the real world as well.

The difference in percentages looks very much the same once you take the round off into accout. Since the money is usually a larger number than the production the round of error for money would usually be smaller than for production. If it is always rounded towards less corruption then that would result in production waste being slightly smaller than coin waste. One out of eleven is smaller than one out of nine.

Suppose the corruption in the city I used was 35% then
33 would yield 11.55 or 11 after rounding down. Now decrease the waste by 20% and the result is 28% yielding a loss of 9.24 again rounded down to 9.

Now production of 27 at 35% corruption yields 9.45 rounded down to 9. Decrease waste by 20% again we have 28% yielding 7.56 rounded down to 7.

Matching the actual results. Either building made a change of 20% after rounding down. The only percentage difference is due to round off error.

Same percentages for both coin and shield after round offs.

[notyoueither]

Hmmm. Now I'm curious.

I examined a large city close to FP under Republic. Massage the tiles do that there are the same number of total shields and commerce and the percentages lost are identical.

Examine a large, distant city under Communism and massage the tiles. At 20 commerce and 20 shields same result. 1 shield, 1 gold, but at 28 and 28 there are 2 shield and 3 gold, so they are out of step.

From recollection, I am sure that I have seen the results skewed the other way. Lower percentage of shields lost than commerce.

At any rate. The differences are minimal, so they might as well be all corruption.

However, now I'm confused.

[Ethelred]

Thanks for checking. Nothing is real without confirmation in my mind. Till then its a tentively held belief no matter how adamant my oppinion appears to be. Which can be quite obdurat till I am shown to be in error.

I think I will add a post to the Bug thread requesting a change in the Civalopedia. Its is clear to me the definition there is spreading doubt, uncertainty and fear.

And loads of that confusion stuff.

Perhaps then someone from Firaxis will see it. They may not see this thread.

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by Aeson
Here are the numbers in a more readable format

All the numbers are for a city built on the 6th diagonal from the Palace, on a Tiny/Regent map.

...

Sweet table !