[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Thoughts about corruption

["Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gregor Zeitlinger <zeitling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Nov 2001, Mike Jing wrote:
> > Maybe we should just implement the auto-elvis feature and banish civil 
> > disorder once and for all.  Or maybe we should just get rid of unhappiness 
> > altogether.  I know that would make a LOT of people VERY happy.  ;-)
> Yes, I think this would be very useful, but since it is a very different 
> feeling, I think it should be optional.
I only said the above in jest, although the auto-elvis feature would be 
helpful.  I thought Civ3 had it when I saw the city governor can manage 
citizen mood, but unfortunately it didn't work.  :-(
> Some ieas I had about corruption and trade - motivated from long
> micromanagement sesssions in Civ2.
>
> 1) I think it's easier and more predictable to make it a function that
> depends on the total number of cities only.
Agreed.

> 2) Which city has how much corruption could still depend on the distance
> to the capital. Still easier would be to have the same amount of
> corruption in each city, as in Communism (civ2 at least). Order of
> founding could also be a possibility.
Order of founding is a bit tricky.  Better keep it as simple as possible.

> 3) How about making gold income and sience production a continuous
> function rather than a discrete one. This would eliminate the problem of a
> 10 and 1 city producing both 1 sciene because of 90% corruption.
I believe this is what Reiner has in mind, and it would certainly fix the 
roundoff problem.
> 4) A totally new idea would be to do the same as in 3) with luxury. There
> are two ideas I could come up with.
>
> 4a) (luxury is continuous) Convert the excess luxury (after making
> everyone content) into science or gold.
This would defeat the purpose of having a fixed science/tax/luxury rate and 
make the effect of rate adjustment less predictable.
> 4b) Pool all luxury together and then distribute it among the cities to
> make all people content, or, if sufficient, happy.
Then how should it be distributed?  How do you predict which city will 
become unhappy?
> The idea is to eliminate losses from roundings, which I hate, because I
> love efficiency :). Predictability is another point though.
The loss of excess luxury is not a rounding error.  It's a feature.

> I also though about the function to calculate corruption. I think it plays
> a central role in determining the optimal number of cities. Is it a lineal
> one right now? Does anybody know, or know where to find?
Yes, it is linear.  It's proportional to the distance from the capital, with 
a little base percentage thrown in under Despotism.  There is a cap of 36 on 
the maximum distance.  Of course, it doesn't depend on distance under 
Communism.
> 5) I would suggest something like (1/n)*base_trade, where n is your nth
> city. (ln(n)/n)*base_trade is the equivalent function if it applies to all
> cities, which has the convinience that you dont have to worry about which
> city has with level of corruption.
If you mean a city will have (1/n)*base_trade after corruption, then it 
would be a very steep penalty indeed.  I don't see how you come up with the 
(ln(n)/n) though.  Could yu explain that a little bit?
> This fuction has the property that the total science level is ln(n) where
> n is the trade from each city, given they are all equal. In the first
> model (different corruption levels) its aleways good to found new cites
> (for trade), while in the ladder it might be bad in the short run.
> I could also imagine a function where the trade level in all cities
> together is the same as if you had just one city ((1/n)*base_trade in each
> city). You would still have an advantage because you could produce more
> troops.
Again, how does the ln(n) come about?

> 6) The same concept can be applied to waste (which is for shild as
> curruption for trade) and food potetially too (although I don't think that
> it's much desirable)
Food probably should not suffer from the same kind of corruption/waste.  
However, this gives me an idea of removing the hard limits on city 
population...
Mike


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