[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Thoughts about corruption

["Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kevin Brown <kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Sure, but teleportation should bring corruption down to a constant
> value that is independent of the distance between the capital city and
> the target city, because with teleportation both cities are now
> essentially part of the same city (cheap teleportation would have all
> sorts of interesting social consequences that I won't get into here).
[...]
> Right.  But I think the purpose of implementing corruption in the Civ
> series is to model the historical effects of distance and time from
> the ruler's location to the outer reaches of the civilization in
> question, so the fact that there would be corruption even in the
> capital isn't terribly interesting for this purpose.
Actually, the real purpose of having corruption and waste in civ is not for 
historical accuracy, but as a tool for balancing between different forms of 
government as well as between large and small empires.  In the latter role, 
distance from capital is used as a reasonable if not entirely accurate 
measure of empire size.  If the distance factor is taken away, then some 
other measure of empire size, such as number of cities, will have to be 
used, with the lose of "realism".
> There are other effects that distance (in travel time) would have on a
> civilization: the more distant a city from the ruling source, the more
> likely that city would succeed in breaking away from the ruling
> civilization in the event of an uprising.  What this means in game
> terms is that it should be more important to keep your citizens
> content in distance cities than in ones that are closer to the
> capital.  I think this should be modeled in Freeciv if it isn't
> already: when the population gets unhappy and they attempt revolt,
> there should be some probability per turn that the city will "succeed"
> in this and become independent (with the result that any military
> units stationed in the city also go rogue and support the city in its
> independence).  When that happens, you should have to reconquer it
> with your military, which might not be easy if you had a strong
> military presence there already.
This sounds interesting, and should work nicely along with the Civ3 culture 
system.  In Civ3 your city might spontenously join another civ due to their 
superior culture.  Along the same lines, they might demand independence as 
well if they are unhappy about your rule.
> Furthermore, moving military units
> into a city should be one way to reduce the chance of a revolt's
> success, but doing so should make more citizens unhappy.  Right now
> having a military presence increases the overall happiness of the
> population, which seems counterintuitive.
This is a tough call.  Since the chance of revolt happening is determined by 
happiness, if military units make people unhappy, it would increase the 
chance of revolt, while on the other hand, you also want military presence 
to decrease the chance of success of such revolts, it's hard to see what the 
end result should be.
> It doesn't make sense to me to have the city automatically revolt just
> because a certain percentage of the population is unhappy.  The
> happiness/unhappiness of the population as a whole should affect (but
> not be the only factor in) the probability that the city will revolt
> during the turn.  A city that is composed mostly of happy citizens is
> very unlikely to revolt, but it shouldn't be entirely impossible.
I think people will start a revolt of their own if cities that should 
normally be at peace suddenly start to go into revolt for no apparent 
reason.  The problem with such random events is that nobody likes them.  
Civil disorder is annoying enough as it is, so I don't think many would 
accept such a change.
> I think it makes more sense to actually limit the movement distance
> per turn that is possible on the railroads.  Right now the railroads
> are "infinitely" fast but in reality they are perhaps twice to four
> times as fast as travel on horseback.
I agree that rail movement should be reduced.

> Then again, time in the game is measured in years to decades, so in
> reality you should be able to go an "infinite" amount of distance on
> both horseback and on a train, and somewhat less (but much more than
> one square!) on foot.
>
> It would be interesting to see how well the game would play with
> "realistic" movement and corruption.
Just to beat the dead horse one more time: realism really isn't the most 
important thing, but gameplay is.
Mike

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