We need to talk about Corruption 

It's both. You steal to get resources, and you bribe to get away with it and obtain what you can't steal.

Would explain the autonomy, but how does debasing the currency lead to this state? Each individual thing can be explained, combined we have issues.

​@@LemonCake101they probably thought: " Which modern state is doing that? Or right Venezuela. And they are also corrupted SO that means... debasing must increase corruption. Imo it should increase inflation and IF the country is already corrupted only then also increase corruption.

I honestly feel that up to like, 25% corruption should decrease unrest (Local leaders are able to enrich themselves), but after that it should start increasing because the actual institutes themselves become so corrupt that everyone would start thinking "Maybe I should be at the head of this gravy train". The heir increase is probably because everyone wants the corruption to continue; everyone in power wants to keep the gravy train to go on. I think of it less of people 'stealing' from the state, and more the state turning away from the management of the country, and towards the enrichment of the power holders. That's why it doesn't have tax penalties or trade penalties baked in.

​@@LemonCake101 Debasing should increase inflation realistically. But I think they do this for gameplay reason. It will be too easy to generate money as inflation is easily reduced, especially on late game.

I guess? But most revolts in Eu4 are either event based, or separatism, and at the end of the day Eu4 takes place at the end of Feudalism, not the start.

yup,lets take afganistan for example.USA allowed for both bacha gazi and drug producion to keep theri lolac aleis satsfied instreead of turning to talibans and it worked for time but was detrimental in klong run

​@@LemonCake101Maybe because the local lords, contrary to the people, actually DONT want to rise up because they can, contrary to bevore, now suck off a lot more money. But then the burghers loyalty equilibrum should be loweres not +10% so either way it contradicts

@@LemonCake101 Even after feudalism civil wars and revolts were mostly various powerful figures. Look at the American Civil War, English Civil War, and the Spanish Dynastic Conflicts.

Literally why we Moroccans are stable 😅😅😅 Corruption

Well, I don't but I didn't want to make a 40 min video, 20 min is long enough. And basically what Eu4 gives you is way too all over the shop.

@@LemonCake101 I mean, if you don't, then corruption should make much more sense for u So almost all video... shouldn't exist... I guess... Love ur content btw😍

​​@@LemonCake101u gave the example with the church. Corruption is growing, because parishioners are not happy that their religion is oppressing them, but the severity of the laws is offset by the optionality of their implementation. Therefore, more people will ignore laws and breed corruption. Ottomans didn't care about religion in their empire, so thats why they don't get punished for religion unity (I'm not into the ottomans game mechanics, hope u get the point + we can have more than 100% rel. un. or some religion don't affect ur rel.u. Pretty immersive mechanics) If u conquered 1 church in Poland, peoples in Каzаn wouldn't steel money for their church, that will do people in Poland😅 (not steel money, we had this discussion) U could say, that corruption should have been specific to each province, not the whole country. But this is already eu5 staff _______________________ And so with almost everything u said about corruption, I really don't get why u think (made video) about the absurdity and 0 immensity of this modifier Ну и накакал в комментарии

@@meta671games Thanks! but yeah no my main issue and point of the video is that corruption as a mechanic is way too all over the shop. Having unbalanced research should not make people like your heir more.

but it sounds like high autonomy Also autonomy is strange thing, cos it's not clear where money goes, but not in development, obviously. Privilege "Delegate Provincial Administration" for eunuchs in China reduces autonomy instead of increasing. wut Land rights for eunuchs also reduces autonomy. wut The subjects of autonomy is the ruling elites in provs like lords and nobles, i think, but at the same time, the mechanics of estate ownership of land do not affect autonomy at all. It used to be more logical, when estates could be given provs. But I don't remember if this affected autonomy.

Could be? But that would normally hurt the main monarch, and well higher claim on heir only helps, not hinders.

Bribing nobles to accept the heir?

@@ryanfarrelly4647 that could be i guess

I understand how it would 'lower' it conceptually in core lands, but its not represented as Soviet Style corruption: its universal unrest reduction corruption taking place 500 years before the system you mentioned occurred. Again, separatist don't revolt less because of institutional corruption, if anything they are worse since they have easier access to smuggled weapons/supplies.

@@LemonCake101 I would say corruption just means that there's either an absence of a justice system, or that it's not being upheld faithfully (selectively enforced, etc.). Which means that every man's for themselves. It can be everything from a general embezzling money, down to an individual soldier on the ground pocketing equipment to sell on the down low. As mentioned though I agree that it's a bit odd for it to work in separatist territory, but it's not like EU4 can be perfect in every area. Something like making separatist unrest penalty scale with corruption to offset the unrest bonus in newly conquered territory would make sense. That said, corrupt countries tend to be a lot more efficient at suppressing unrest in conquered territories. Simply because they do not give a f about how they treat them. Like putting an entire village to the torch because someone spoke out of line or on a suspicion alone. Of course, this isn't something unique to corrupt countries, but corrupt countries tend to be like this.

@@TheRealXartaX Oh lets be clear its not like I want Eu4 to be perfect, but for sure my main issue is the combination of all these mechanics: they should be split up or at least less related. That is my main argument here which I didn't summaries well.

@@LemonCake101 My take on the whole merchant republic being taken over by a corrupt monarchy and still being happy about it is basically just the government being so corrupt that, despite the people being slated for being turned into serfs, the government is just so corrupt that noone gets around to doing it so people just kinda... Get to continue their old lives even though theoretically they have been put into a whole different system of governance. Though Autonomy already is meant to represent this

Honestly fair: my main issue is even if you say ok debasing is corruption, it is not a form of corruption that would for example lead to peasants stopping uprisings, and I don't think the estates gain more loyalty to the state scaling with how much less gold you have in your coinage. As discussed in other comments, individually you can explain each step, but combined it breaks down.

See it does reduces unrest

I mean that can work for some revolts, but I don't think separatists in particular would. Each individual thing can be explained, combined we have issues.

​@@LemonCake101Even seperatists would be less likely to rebel,if their leaders were granted bribes and local government positions with corruption. Like this is how Ottomans avoided any Mamluk revolts irl

​@@LemonCake101 The corruption is imo, how corrupt your nation is. Not only the monarch or government. Lower unrest because now bribe is more prevalent and rules not strongly upheld. Meaning people will be satisfied with how there are no need to heed rules. Separatist calmer because their leaders is bribed.

Pretty much

That's quite an interesting idea actually.

Isn't there actually already a print money button in the game that increases inflation for a certain amount of money? I think the main reason it isn't used is that without ticking inflation reduction, you need to invest monarch points to get rid of it

@@hanneswiggenhorn2023 there are loans, and not much besides to my knowledge. Unless you mean gold, which *is* used quite a lot. If I’m wrong, please let me know.

@@anabsentprofessor6120 I just checked and noticed, I think maybe the inflation thing was related to a mod because I could swear there was a button for it

@@hanneswiggenhorn2023 I do remember debasing at one point costing inflation as well? but I cant remember if I was playing modded at the time

I make what I think are good/important videos so thank!

I have seen that video don’t worry. Again, having unbalanced research doesn’t make people steal more from me in practice, and neither does that lead to people supporting my heir harder. The issue is the combination of those mechanics into one.

@@LemonCake101 Why not? If your leader was a mad military guy and neglected administrative things, the heir of that leader would be looked forward to. How does that not make sense?

I think that is what they where going for, but in implementation it is still really weird.

Ay a write up! Appreciate it, but I will be honest I am reading this but answering all the comments etc is being a big pain. My main response as always is in isolation these things make sense, but combined into one mechanic, they don't. For what its worth I did read your comment sorry but I just don't have time to go through these point by point, sorry. for the tldr: not the worst mechanic sure, but its all over the shop, interacts with gold in a weird way and its not even a 'good' mechanic because even AI know you just shove root out corruption slider to the max and not worry about corruption as a mechanic unless you are stacking OE to the mood.

@@LemonCake101 Imagine if slider to combat corruption was (locked behind DLC, no) restricted by estates, events, etc.

Yeah that one is weird...

For sure.

Debasing currency isn't putting more into the market, it's putting more into your hands as a government. You're essentially lowering the amount of gold in your minted currency, and putting that extra gold into your pocket. So it would have no effect on inflation, but would have a large effect on your citizens' trust in your currency, leading to using local currencies and bartering instead. Look at when that one Chinese dynasty started using paper money. It wasn't inflation, people just didn't really use the paper money.

Exactly.

I thought about a good comparison - in older Civ games corruption depends on how far from the capital the city is - you have lower control over officials so they are stealing from you

Part 2/3 - Sources of Corruption - Unbalanced Research - I agree. Corruption should not be generated from tech differentials. Overextension - I think this might be the DUMBEST point of contention in the video! A government that is overextended does not have the resources and authority to keep the bureaucrats, nobles, and other middle management staff that would normally not accept a bribe in check!!! This is one of the few places in the game that I can't find a reason to NOT add corruption!!! The administrative points paid at the beginning of coring represent the investment of resources of the government in the establishment of bureaucratic agencies for the province, agencies that take time to set up. Think about how many different points of failure there might be for an overextended government to govern a region without corruption. A language barrier might make it easier for a disloyal or greedy interpreter to let someone off the hook for a bribe. An overworked records keeper might be willing to save himself some work by just accepting what some people say as fact without corroboration. An underpaid judge, without the careful eye of 'home' looking over him, might be tempted to forget about a crime in exchange for money. To address your point about poor countries being corrupt, generally this is the other way around. There are cases where it is not true, and a poor country became corrupt, but it is usually the case where a rich country becomes corrupt, and then becomes poor as a result. China, Ottomans, Spain, Portugal, and Majapahit, just to name a few. Religious (dis)Unity - This is a weird one, but some of it has to do with taxes. Temple buildings are the tax building in this game, which I have always interpreted as meaning that the churches represent a sizable portion of the tax base for the nation you are playing. Churches were taxed at this point in time depending on religion, region and what not, but you also need to keep in mind that a portion of the state that does not follow the same religion as the governing body, and therefore probably doesn't share the same moral code, can be considered as 'corrupt' by the standards of the government. Honestly, I could go either way with this one. Just as a tangent for the last point, I'm not sure if you quite get religious unity. It is based on the portion of development in your country that a religion that is not syncretized or primary holds, so it isn't an Orthodox church in Moscow stealing some money because of a Catholic church in Krakow, It's a Catholic church in Krakow stealing some money because they do not recognize your religion as legitimate. Debasing Currency - You are completely off of the mark here, like, unbelievably off of the mark. Debasement has historically been considered one of the most corrupt things that a government can do - the deviation from the Golden Standard is an exception to the rule here. The biggest thing I think you've missed is that everybody in this game, every single nation, is on the Golden Standard. All of them. By debasing your currency and raising the amount of money in circulation beyond what is actually there (the amount of gold) you allow practices such as coin-clipping (clipping the edge of coins off to keep precious metals to sell off or forge another coin while still having the "full" coin to use commercially) to occur because the new coins cannot be trusted to be the same standard as the rest. While it's true that debasing should have inflation tied to it, the corruption gain is definitely warranted as well. - Rooting Out Corruption - I will start this segment by asking if you understood your own words here -> 15:10 (I might have some of the words wrong, but you can listen to the video) "There is a joke I have with my friends when I play EU4, and that is that when we have corruption we need to spend loads of money because if there are corrupt government officials what you want to do is take money from the state and give it to them and that makes the corruption go away, as in we are bribing our officials to not be corrupt. No, no, you don't root out corruption that way. You root out corruption through societal reforms that may jeopardize the stability and very fabric of society by identifying corrupt institutions, destroying them, and building new, non-corrupt institutions for example. Getting rid of corruption, in practice, in reality, is incredibly expensive, but also an incredibly society destabilizing endeavor." You say it yourself, reducing corruption is an incredibly expensive process, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you are giving money to the corrupt officials - though in practice it might be a good idea. Some people only engage in corrupt practices to get by, meaning they aren't being paid enough for the job as is. Increasing their pay would be a way to fix that. Other people are greedy, true, but some of those greedy people might be willing to rat out their 'friends' for a hefty payout. You can also pay people you trust, as in people who have been vetted and share a common set of values/goals with the ruling government to investigate sources of corruption and bring them to your attention so you can dig them out. Despite what you claim, not every endeavor to root out corruption is "society changing", especially not when the game clearly intends for you to be fighting corruption as it starts to grow. Even maintaining a low to no level of corruption takes effort on the part of the government, constantly checking itself, paying people to check itself, and paying people to check the people it paid to check itself, and it costs money. Something else to consider is that, yes, this takes a long time to do. And this is reflected IN GAME!!!! The slider will, at maximum, reduce yearly corruption by 1. If you start at 100 corruption, the most it can be, and have no other modifiers to corruption gain or loss, it will take a CENTURY, about a fourth of the game's run time, for you to completely root out corruption from your empire. That's 100 years of a LOT of money per month in this game. If that isn't a "long and systemic process" then I don't know what is. I will get to your points about effects on stability later with a separate point. Stability - Honestly, this is just a stupid argument on your end. Stability in game implicitly suggests that the people/officials possess a level of loyalty and faith in the government's ability to perform properly and bring them prosperity (literally modeled in game btw). Officials that are less worried about their next paycheck or their future are less likely to engage in corrupt practices, something also modeled in the national unrest reduction. Also, -0.06 yrly corruption isn't irrelevant, it is enough to prevent an increase in corruption for 60% of your nation's development being of a different religion to your primary one, a +0.10 modifier at 100% that you seemed to think was "annoying" earlier. Ahead of Time on Tech - No actually, Muscovy DOESN'T get an ahead of time bonus to corruption for having pike squares ahead of everyone else. I know what you are trying to say, but Mil tech advantage does not confer any bonuses beyond Russian modernization and the fact you are ahead in miltech. Administrative and Diplomacy are the ones that provide the tax/trade and yrly corruption bonuses, and I think there is a good reason for that, in fact it was one you were just bitching about (excuse my language but as time goes on it really does feel more and more like whining on your part). Several times you have made complaints about how reducing corruption is tied to institutional change. Guess what Admin and Diplo techs introduce? Institutional change. Admittedly not all of them are like that, but I will give you some examples of tech's that might reasonably reduce government corruption - and I encourage you read the description attached to them either in the wiki or the in-game tooltip. Administrative - 3 Medieval Administration, 5 National Ideas, 7 Renaissance Thought, 8 Courthouse, 10 Modern Theocracy, 12 Early Modern Administration, 15 Military Administration, 17 University, 20 Absolute Rulership, 22 The Constitution, 24 Bonds and Tontines, 26 Separation of Powers, 27 Modern Bureaucracy, 29 Rights of Man, 31 Revolutionary Ideals Diplomatic - 5 Basic Financial Instruments, 13 Chartered Companies, 16 Development of Maritime Law, 20 Naval Professionalization, 28 Joint Stock Companies, 32 The Gold Standard All of these techs, in some way or another, seek to increase the control the state has, invoke the nation with a shared set of moral values (nationalism), and increase the fairness/reduce corruptibility of processes or instruments, but most of them require some level of input, some degree of investment and effort, to keep working. That is why you need to be 'ahead of the curve', so to speak, so that your institutions do not stagnate, so that people can't find ways around them faster than your can block them off.

Part 3/3 - The Finale - All of this post culminates in what I believe to be the biggest problem with your assessment of corruption, which is that you don't mention what the game considers to be a 'high' level of corruption. 10 is considered to be the benchmark for "High Corruption" for the purposes of bad events. "Middling" or "Neutral" events sit between 2 and 10, while the events you mentioned at the beginning for "No Corruption" are all triggered at below 1. Returning to the part of the essay about how long it takes for corruption to tick down, 1 a year with only the slider, going from the minimum to qualify as high to the maximum to qualify as none would take 9 years, 10 if we want to be safe. I think this satisfies your condition of anti-corruption efforts taking a long time. What I don't think you appreciate (and I don't think you are alone on this one) is how much effort goes into not just rooting out corruption, but making sure that it doesn't get it's foot in the door. I think EU4 gets corruption wrong not by having a sliderbar and a 0-100 value displayed that ambiguates a host of factors on the subject, but by letting you know where in that 0-100 value you are, how fast you are increasing/decreasing that value, and by not taking any money to maintain a 0 value with a maxed out corruption slider. In the end, I think that this was an overall poorly thought out video with many large holes in your arguments that don't seem to be characteristic of your videos overall. With due Respect - cakeonfrosting

First of all I appreciate the effort put into this, thank for it. RU-vid comments are a terrible place for a real discussion, but non the less, well lets go through this best I can. Regarding definitions, this is kind of what the video was about that I communicated badly: corruption should be like 3 modifiers, ranging from 'government efficiency' to 'state theft' and grouping it all under corruption is a bad idea. I do understand why you would want to avoid confusion with 'administrative efficiency' but that desire doesn't make the name corruption better, and hence the argument of the video. Basically my main line the comments and what I communicated what I now concede as badly was the fact that the corruption systems in this game is all over the place, and has unrelated weird impacts on unrelated modifiers; having unbalanced research should not prevent uprisings. 1. Unrest fair enough yes corruption can in some form prevent uprising as you discussed there, my issue is the things causing corruption tend to not be the forms of corruption that prevent uprising: debasing a currency does make a peasant want to go home. 2. Spy stuff we agree it seems. 3. All power cost: gamey mechanic demonstrating 'government incompetence': all power costs suck as a debuff, I actually agree with you indirectly because +5% all power costs is frankly an awful modifier from a game point of view. 4. Autonomy being control makes more sense, but that's I think the issue here, autonomy implies autonomy from the state, and not state level of control. Free cities had a lot of Autonomy in the HRE, but where under the control of the HRE, and here we run into issues for example. But yes more corruption less control, in a vague way. 5. Mandate - sure Mandate gets worse when corruption moving on 6. Heir Claim/Estate Loyalty: the hair claim increase level is really pathetic, even at 100 corruption, which as you mention is overkill, so it very cosmetic inherently. 7. Estates - we agree. Sources of corruption: 1. Tech - ok agreement good! 2. We do have a system for how overextended the government is: government capacity. Make going over that give overextension by your own definitions if you follow them. An administration does have some leeway, and a linear system means the Roman Empire, the entire thing with 10k dev, will gain the same tick up in corruption from annexing a 10 dev province hence increasing the administration by 0.1%, as a 10 dev Irish administration annexing another 10 dev Irish administration, or doubling its size. Countries have a capacity for annexation and size increases, simply put when France integrated Corsica into its realm, Brittany didn't gain any corruption, nor did some Peasants in Normandy decide to not rise up. 3. Poverty for corruption/wealth was an absurdist example to demonstrate absurdity by correlation, not as an actual argument: I was saying it more and I clarified in the video; if can justify both poverty and wealth causing corruption, well the argument itself must be flawed, a proof by counter example if you will. 4. Debasing: paper currency is literally a technology: for a time period like Ck2, yes, and early on in Eu4, until the 16th century, sure: but this is literally the time period where we are transitioning out of it. I know 'no one plays past 1550' is a popular mood, but the game does end in 1821. Rooting out Corruption: 1. It is expensive, sure, but it needs to cost more then money is my point. The issue too is in practice unless you are doing 'fun' 4k OE stacking in Eu4, you have the corruption slider on max and you basically never worry about corruption in this game. Regarding taking a long time, fair enough, but in practice unless you are MP deathwaring you never let it get to even as much as +2, so its still pretty instant. 2. I don't think stability implies 'people possess a level of faith in the government' but that's a separate debate. 3. True, military techs don't give ahead of time buffs, I am used to MP mods that do, I forgot about that in vanilla. As for the bitching comments: yeah fair the video did devolve into the more complaining style for sure, no worries there chief. If techs reduce corruption because of institutional change, that should be tied to technology, not being 'ahead of time'. Tech 29 rights of man as an example if it does reduce corruption should not stop reducing corruption arbitrarily when a certain date is hit. To conclude: I think we agree that Eu4 models corruption badly; by not having this 0-100 slider, and my main argument which I made terribly in the video was this is a miss-mash of mechanics that are communicated terribly. I hope I was able to address some points. If you want to talk further, please join my discord or honestly any other format over RU-vid comments sections would be preferable for a conversation.

I'm almost applause for the effort involve. But Relgious unity were forgotten :v Also suprisingly forgotten topic, how Corruption with Tech and Stability

Then that should be something like 'national efficiency' - otherwise Western Countries have really corrupt governments because the people working office jobs are lazy..

​@@LemonCake101I mean you can't project how corruption affects a late medieval/early modern state onto contemporary post-industrial western economies

​@@LemonCake101Just, look at South Africa.

That could be interesting!

Damn rip me... but yeah to be clear individually each point can be summarized, but I refuse to see a world where you can justify combining a person debasing a currency leading to a state official being more corrupt which makes technology more expensive. My argument is the corruption mechanic is a bad umbrella of modifiers that makes no sense on close inspection.

Taxdodging is not corruption. Corruption is when greek people pay government officials directly to avoid taxation. Something that didnt happen or at the very least wasnt unique to greece.

It is a touch all over the shop for sure.

That's a really cool idea actually

Thanks!

It's only the beginning, we starting with Trade Winds, now this, and well potentially more to come!

No for sure, but while each individual thing can be explained, combined we have issues. We have unbalanced research stopping peasants rising up in revolt. And yes we have limitations of game design and being fun, but its so arbitary with what gives corruption, what it causes, and how it is 'solved'. In practice of course you shove the root out corruption on full and ignore it 99% of the time.

@@LemonCake101 i just dont see any way to make corruption more interesting in terms of political intrigue. itd probably just turn out like CK3's plague dlc that everyone hates. and yeah it is something to be ignored 99% of the time. ive only ever had two or three games where it mattered and only one of those was vanilla anyways

@@deasys yeah fair. I can only hope though.

You won't have any money.

@@SpicyFiur you take that from the people you beat up

Can't dig 5x5 tunnels in EU4, makes corruption a huge problem, perhaps the largest

Thanks!

Appreciate it! But they definitely have more qualified people then me (I hope) working on the game.

Maybe for presidential dictatorship?

Could be cool for sure

Well sure, but a couple other things rely on the implication of the state itself being the corrupt instrument, and then those other half fail as examples.

I covered this in other comments, but basically while each one can be justified together we have issues. Simply put debasing a currency does not prevent a Peasant rising up. Having your technology be unbalanced should not lead to your heir being more popular. You can explain each point in isolation but together we have issues. I hope this clarification helps!

It certainly has a branding issue.

No for sure: I just gave that as an example that if you say an overextended administration enables corruption, then so does being rich and being poor. Its a proof by counter example if you will, or a demonstration of the absurdism of the argument.

Could be cool for sure!