[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#2574) RFC: (PR# 1762) corruption revisited

["Per I. Mathisen via RT" <rt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Davide Pagnin via RT wrote:
> This is actual code of city.h city_corruption(), I want to open a
> discussion on this whole topic and perhaps reach some agreement on what
> need changes.

I agree with Raahul that this should preferably come after his waste
patch.

> > if (pcity->size <= game.notradesize) {
> > trade_penalty = trade;
> > } else if (pcity->size >= game.fulltradesize) {
> > trade_penalty = 0;
> > } else {
> >trade_penalty = trade * (game.fulltradesize - pcity->size) /
> >     (game.fulltradesize - game.notradesize);
> > }
>
> This first part handle fulltradesize and notradesize options, they have
> been introduced to cut offICS but are not used in the default ruleset
> nor in the vast majority of games.

Both I and Thomas (pille) have argued before that they do not solve ICS,
and IMHO are rather boring to play with. So maybe we should consider
removing them?

> > if (g->corruption_level == 0) {
> > return trade_penalty;
> > }
>
> fine with this, but we need to have courthouse behavior not depending on
> this parameter

I don't understand.

> > if (city_got_building(pcity, B_COURTHOUSE) ||
> >   city_got_building(pcity, B_PALACE)) val /= 2;
>
> I know that Per isn't convinced of this, but I think that this check
> should be moved down, after the CLIP function.
> This is civ2 behavior and moreover increases the value of the
> courthouse.
> When this 2 choice differ??
>
> Then you are very distant from your capital and there is a lot of
> corruption!

You are right, I remain unconvinced. Both possibilities should preferably
be supported by general effects.

This may seem like triviality, but for some rulesets this will be
important. Davide's suggestion makes it impossible to force a player to
build increasingly effective anti-corruption buildings to fend off rising
a steadily increasing empire-wide corruption, since one Courthouse will
always give you at least 50% trade/shields (which can be a lot). For
example, ICS can be solved using a rapidly rising corruption for each
additional city, and have several effective buildings that can counter
this effect that you have to build in order to expand your empire past a
certain point.

(Also: If a city produces 10 trade and 30 trade would be taken by
corruption, then it doesn't really make sense that the net result should
be that the city produces 5 trade. That's magic. Where did that trade come
from?)

  - Per