Corruption reduction?

[Vae victis]

I am having some problems with corruption in this mod. When my money gets tight I see that alot of my expenses go towards corruption. Is there anything that I can do to reduce it? I also seem to make some money from corruption. How does this work?

Since I am talking about the balance sheet: to add some income, what is generally better to build in the short term, farms or markets? Can it be profitable to leave bigger garrisons in your cities to keep taxes high, or are the higher taxes nullified by garrison upkeep?

[Stoneface]

Corruption can be reduced by law, so build law temples in areas far away from your capital. There are also more buildings with a law bonus then vanilla RTW. Check the building browser. Bigger garrison do not pay of in taxes, aou are loosing money if you try, also the reduced growth might be worth it.

[Zarax]

Corruption will be higher and higher as your empire grows, conquering enemy capitals will trigger even more of that...

[stormer]

Why?

[Hopit]

huger empire, harder to watch what your governors are doing at their spare time

[Zarax]

It's the anti-snowball system, made to keep the game challenging even with a big empire.

[GoldShield Guard]

It's the anti-snowball system, made to keep the game challenging even with a big empire.

This is happening indeed, I had an income of about 40.000 per turn when I had about 40 provinces as GCS, and now that I have over 55 I hardly have 17.000, with just two more full stacks... And I thought that the game would be very easy so on, when I had that 40.000...

[Spartan198]

Is there some way to lower the corruption threshold?

[Lobo Solitario]

You should be able to change the threshold at which family members gain corruption traits by altering the following entries in xgm\Data\export_descr_character_traits.txt

Trigger corruption1
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and Treasury > 50000
Affects Corrupt 1 Chance 3
Affects Aesthetic 1 Chance 3
Affects ExpensiveTastes 1 Chance 3
Affects Epicurean 1 Chance 3
Affects BadAdministrator 1 Chance 3
;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption2
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and Treasury > 100000
Affects Corrupt 1 Chance 3
Affects Aesthetic 1 Chance 3
Affects ExpensiveTastes 1 Chance 3
Affects Epicurean 1 Chance 3
Affects Embezzler 1 Chance 3
;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption4
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and Treasury > 150000
Affects Corrupt 1 Chance 3
Affects Aesthetic 1 Chance 3
Affects ExpensiveTastes 1 Chance 3
Affects Epicurean 1 Chance 3
Affects Embezzler 1 Chance 3
;------------------------------------------
Trigger corruption3
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and Treasury > 50000
and CultureType roman
Affects ApicianRomanVice 1 Chance 3

I had a look through the rest of the file and couldn't find any more corruption-related entries, although I may well have missed them - there are a lot of entries!

As for the corruption effect in cities, that appears to be directly linked to distance-from-capital, which as far as I know, is hard-coded and unchangeable without reworking the whole map. Law bonuses reduce it though, so increasing law bonuses on buildings (with a corresponding unrest increase if you want to counterbalance the public order effect) should cut down on losses to corruption (there may be an upper limit to this effect - I haven't checked).

[gaius_caesar]

or you can just change the corruption trait because it is most likely triggered by the amount of money you have like when you get 50000 denarii....

[CaesarVincens]

You are correct, Lobo, those are the only four corruption traits.

And as far as I know, there is no limit on law bonus.

[GoldShield Guard]

You can do something far more simple to avoid triggering the corruption traits. Just spend the money you have, so as in the end of the turn, you have less than 50.000! How you do it? Just queue some expensive buildings in the building row! Or recruit the heaviest and most expensive troops you can!

I did it many times in my GCS campaign, when I had a treasury of about 90.000 is some turns.

[Lobo Solitario]

Sorry, got a bit sidetracked - with regards to the original question, other than distance-from-capital based corruption, which can be reduced with law bonuses, your generals will have a chance to pick up corruption traits when you end a turn with over 50k denarii in your treasury (with increased chances at 100k and 150k). As GoldShield Guard says, this is pretty easy to avoid by judicious spending, and keeping your armies as large as your income will comfortably allow. A note of caution on buying expensive troops as a quick solution to an overflowing treasury - make sure to check the projected upkeep against your income, or your finances might well seesaw in the other direction.

Apologies in advance if you know any or all of this already.

[Haxiel]

Well this is indeed nice to hear! In vanilla I had a ~240,000 treasury with the Greek Cities and almost no corruption at all (Or if people were stealing my money, then I didn't notice because the income was HUEG really). The game's not so fun if you have infinite cash.

Have in mind that sometimes having governors in every city might not be the brightest idea. Check their traits, more often than not you may find out that uncle of yours is a real cash leech, and getting him out of your moneymaker city will actually improve your finances. Send him on a perilous campaign or just have him walk around your empire building Minor settlements.

[Spartan198]

The game's not so fun if you have infinite cash.

I have to disagree. I've got a surplus of over 1.6m in my current Roman campaign, yet I'm having a blast.

[Haxiel]

Of course it's nice the first 30 or 40 turns, but I bet it gets boring after that.
Not that I don't like money, don't take me wrong

[Spartan198]

Of course it's nice the first 30 or 40 turns, but I bet it gets boring after that.

Not when this happens...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[silentsam74]

Not when this happens...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Nuke them from orbit! Its the only way to be sure...

[gaius_caesar]

Not when this happens...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

woah that is just wrong... a number of full stacks against a small contingency force...

[Subrosa Florens]

Not when this happens...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Wowzers!

Look at the bright side though. That General and his army will have 3 gold chevrons of experience when you are done. If they survive...