Ending Corruption in settlements

[Kshatriya Warrior]

Currently, I'm playing as the Solanki Rajputs, and I conquered the city of Lahore in 1188 A.D and the income is 411! How is that possible? I checked the settlement details and it says corruption is taking 600 of the income! How can I end this corruption? Thank's.

[republic_bohemia]

Same problem occurs to me round Arabian settlements and shore/islands settlements and yes it is very annoying.

[Samariten]

I think building town hall might change effects aswell as other administrative buildings...im not sure but think corruption might be high or common when you have large income and/or treasury...

[colin666]

try putting a govener there without any bad traits.
I've noticed that corruption happens farther away from your capital so maybe try moving your capital a bit?

[Deep_Red]

Try garrison and adminstration buildings, enhance troop numbers in the city and appoint a "just" governor. Should fix most.

[Bulawayo]

Is garrisons decreasing corruption? I never knew that, only thought that law would do it, as in buildings or eventually in governors. Town halls, barracks and universities increase law and thus decrease corruption. There is also a cap on corruption of 1000 florins (or is it dinars, I dunno?), after that you won't need any more law in most cases and can focus on markets for the economy.

[GrandViZ]

Corruption is a necessary game element to limit the exponential growth of a factions economy. The distance to your capital is crucial.

The above mentioned counter measures should help to some extent, however you'll never get rid of it entirely.

[GrandViZ]

The cap for corruption can be adjusted in the file descr_settlement_mechanics.xml.

<factor name="SIF_CORRUPTION">
         <pip_modifier value="1.5"/>
         <pip_min value="0"/>
         <pip_max value="1000"/>
</factor>

[republic_bohemia]

Thanks for the help everyone.

[Kshatriya Warrior]

Thank's guys, I never knew everyone else would have this problem. How do you edit the XML file?

[Faris ad Din]

Right click on it and select "open with" Notepad. Never simply double-click on it for Internet Explorer.

And by the way, I am a strong opponent of the corruption mechanic, we had a thread about it earlier.

Thread: Corruption :\

This is the best way I can put it. I really appreciate the BC team's efforts to try to bring balanced, authentic, and challenging gameplay, and I do not discredit their reasons. But the corruption mechanic is inherently flawed; very little good can be made of it and it ends up simply breaking gameplay and the player's experience.

Simply put, if the goal is to limit exponential runaway growth of empires and in Ahiga's words, the middle and late game just as challenging as the early game, there are many and far better methods for achieving this. It is not the BC team's fault, but "corruption" based on distance makes the poor factions (Oman, Kypchaks, even Khwarezm) poorer and the rich factions (ERE, Abbasids, Ayyubids) richer. I blame CA.

Just don't rely on corruption. Please. I really mean it. Please.

[Faris ad Din]

I'm adding links to my posts within that thread, just for convenience.

First post with figures and detailed discussion.http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...5&postcount=30

Second post with screenshots.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...1&postcount=38

Third post with further discussion in response to other replies.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...3&postcount=40

Ahiga's post about his rationale for the corruption mechanic.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...7&postcount=57

Disregard my tone if I sound aggravated, I actually am not. All I wish for is the best for the mod that I have come to love the most, even among all the games I have ever played. Just about every other feature in BC is dazzling and nothing I can complain about, the use of the faulty corruption mechanic is to me a repulsive blot on the face of an otherwise spectacular mod in an truly enjoyable setting. Note: that was not "faulty use of the corruption mechanic," it is "use of the faulty corruption mechanic." I put the blame on the creators of vanilla M2:TW and RTW and not on the BC team who I urge to find a more reasonable alternative to it.

I don't mind at all if that alternative makes the game ultimately MORE challenging, just as long as it makes it more challenging for the appropriate targets (late game wealthy empires). Conquering or not conquering Yemen as the Omanis could very well mean a matter of strategic loss or victory in the campaign.

[Sher Khan]

Is there an attribute, ancillary, or stat bonus that effects corruption directly? As in "-2 to corruption"?

[GrandViZ]

Hi Faris,

up to now I was not aware of your complains in regard to corruption mechanics in M2TW. After reading your previous posts, I agree that the currrent settings cause a too steep increase. But IMO the issue is not the fact that corruption depends on distance to capital, but that it is applied as an absolute value, regardless of the settlement size.

I promise, that with the reconstruction of the "economic model" I'll take your concerns into account, but please also keep in mind, that the overall goal will still be to make the mid to end game as challenging as possible.

[Faris ad Din]

Thank you, I am grateful my concerns are heard. And I don't think there are any traits that reduce corruption directly, it seems to be a non-integratable mechanic. All the traits Upright, Loyal, even Corrupt are based on other factors like Bribe Resistance, Tax Collection and Law.

----------------------------------------

Trait Corrupt
Characters family
NoGoingBackLevel 2
AntiTraits Upright, Loyal

Level Dubious
Description Dubious_desc
EffectsDescription Dubious_effects_desc
Threshold 1

Effect BribeResistance -2
Effect TaxCollection -10
Effect Law -1

Level Underhanded
Description Underhanded_desc
EffectsDescription Underhanded_effects_desc
Threshold 3

Effect Loyalty -1
Effect BribeResistance -4
Effect TaxCollection -20
Effect Law -2

Level Corrupt
Description Corrupt_desc
EffectsDescription Corrupt_effects_desc
Threshold 6

Effect Loyalty -2
Effect BribeResistance -6
Effect TaxCollection -30
Effect Law -3
----------------------------------------

And I would love the game to be challenging, I recommend that first existing corruption itself be lowered a bit (I'd feel nearly half, or down to 0.8 and maximum cap of 600?), as it would be a little challenging to layer on other mechanics to make it focus less on far-flung sparsely-populated factions and more on densely-populated rich factions. Instead there can be different mechanics we can come up with.

Miraj (our newly-branded Mirage41!) considered a script where settlements can earn much more with governors present and are penalized for not having them. This last solution may be quite complicated and cause more liability for CTDs, but it can also discourage the banding together of mass bodyguards in armies.

I'll try to think of a cleaner and more consistent alternative on my own, I've been toying around with campaign files enough on my own. Thanks again!