Can someone explain how corruption works?

[KoboldUtopian]

In WH2 it was weird but basically amounted to the region drifting a few % each turn before settling on the ratio between corrupt and not-corrupt. I don't get what's happening in WH3. It seems that whichever corruption is leading just eentually fully wins out and somehow having a battle or two can immediately swing the whole region to 100%.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Instead of them all adding up to 100% now you can have multiple at 100.
The higher a corruption is the higher the debuff to other corruptions. Each present corruption can add a max of -5 to all other corruptions when at a high enough level.
This means you need to produce at least +6 of your desired corruption to be able to increase it in a province with 1 maxed corruption, +12 with 2 other corruptions, etc.
Some factions can also increase their corruption by a lot after winning a siege battle. At least the Warriors of Chaos ones IIRC.

[CrUsHeR]

They also got rid of "untainted" as its own competing corruption type. Instead this was replaced with a generic negative corruption factor.

So all corruption types are now standalone, and you can have multiple of them at once. As explained above, you needed to exceed +5 to make progress against 100 "other" corruption types. Assuming there are no external effects reducing corruption in your adjacent provinces.

Factions are very different in their corruption spread. Example with Tzeentch, you get +12 local and +1 adjacent province corruption, from the money-bonus building you have in every minor settlement. And their Dimensional capital building gives up to +6 adjacent province corruption.

In turn, if you play e.g. Belakor, you can only have enough corruption for Undivided, but never any of the sub-gods. So you can never recruit e.g. Tzeentch units from warband recruitment, due to lacking the relevant corruption (and all the other bonuses coming with it).

[KoboldUtopian]

Any idea how the battles change corruption? It doesn't give a fixed amount but seems to just immediately change the total.

[franz]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

They also got rid of "untainted" as its own competing corruption type. Instead this was replaced with a generic negative corruption factor.

what ? untainted is there and is the best , as it removes all others asap (place volkmar in brass keep 2 turns its gone) . meanwhile you can have 100% vampire corruption and 100% chaos corr , and it could stay that way for a long ass time.

[Enelith]

Originally posted by CoerciveUtopian:

Any idea how the battles change corruption? It doesn't give a fixed amount but seems to just immediately change the total.

Any army represents their own corruption (you can check in the corruption details) : if they got wiped out, their bonus / minus in corruption will disappear (which in turns obviously affect the province total corruptions).

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by gg:

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

They also got rid of "untainted" as its own competing corruption type. Instead this was replaced with a generic negative corruption factor.

what ? untainted is there and is the best , as it removes all others asap (place volkmar in brass keep 2 turns its gone) . meanwhile you can have 100% vampire corruption and 100% chaos corr , and it could stay that way for a long ass time.

Show a screenshot then. The word "untainted" doesn't even exist in WH3 tooltips.

Just the explicit corruption types have a scale of 0-100. Factions without their own corruption have buildings to reduce "all corruption", except Skaven which add Skaven Corruption and reduce all other corruption at the same time.

Probably they changed this because they added the 4 chaos god corruption types.

[The God Ghetto Holy]

Corruption shifts a lot faster in Warhammer 3. If you need a particular corruption, every faction with corruption tends to have buildings and heroes that spread it. Like, when I run around as Isabella with all my vampires spreading corruption, you can get +40 to +50 a turn easy so when you conquer provinces, it's instantly vampire safe.

[KoboldUtopian]

Originally posted by Enelith:

Originally posted by CoerciveUtopian:

Any idea how the battles change corruption? It doesn't give a fixed amount but seems to just immediately change the total.

Any army represents their own corruption (you can check in the corruption details) : if they got wiped out, their bonus / minus in corruption will disappear (which in turns obviously affect the province total corruptions).

Right, but should it change immediately? I thought corruption total changed slowly over several turns. I've attacked VC in a 100% undead corrupted region and had it drop to almost nothing in two battles. There's something more going on than just removing the army's +2 (or whatever) corruption.

[Enelith]

Originally posted by CoerciveUtopian:

Right, but should it change immediately? I thought corruption total changed slowly over several turns. I've attacked VC in a 100% undead corrupted region and had it drop to almost nothing in two battles. There's something more going on than just removing the army's +2 (or whatever) corruption.

Lords and Heroes also play a huge part in corruption.
I wouldn't be surprised if some army would provide like +30 in a specific corruption by themselves. Remove them, it goes away real quickly.
But again, it depends of circumstances and scenario.

Generally speaking, I feel Corruption in TWWH3 is better than TWWH2 (but that's my opinion).

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by CoerciveUtopian:

Any idea how the battles change corruption? It doesn't give a fixed amount but seems to just immediately change the total.

Testing this. Starting as Belakor, using the console cheat mod to do this all on the first turn. So there are no in between turn changes.
He only uses Undivided corruption at game start, so we're only counting that for now.


1. Initial battle: 25 > 27 (+2)
2. Konquata siege: 27 > 31 (+4)
3. Occupying Citadel of Lead: 31 > 34 (+3)

Note that the existing Tzeentch corruption seems to go down too, but i'm not recording that.
So the gain from battles with the small starting army seem fairly minor, and not a fixed value.

I am now adding 2 undivided Chaos Sorcerors to the army, and saving up skillpoints to see if their bonus corruption skill makes a difference later. Also filling up the army to 20 units.


4. Razing Couronne: 0 > 14 (+14)
5. Defeating Leoncoeur: 14 > 25 (+11)
6. Defeating the Mousillon army: 25 > 29 (+4)
7. Razing L'Anguille: 29 > 33 (+4)

8. Sacking Castle Artois: 0 > 10 (+10)
9. Occupying Artois: 10 > 10 (+0)
10. Occupying Gisoreux: 10 > 17 (+7)
11. Razing Bastonne: 0 > 16 (+16)


So by now, it mostly seems like target strength, or the sack / post battle loot value is deciding the corruption impact. And only battles add instant corruption, not taking an empty settlement.

Lastly, i am now adding 50k XP to all characters, to see if perhaps their bonus corruption skills make any difference.


12. Razing Bordelaux: 0 > 10 (+10)
13. Razing Mousillion: 0 > 13 (+13)


So, seems like just the battle size is relevant. Belakor's final skill with +3 of each monogod corruption has no effect (still only adds undivided).

For a final test, i am going to raze Nagashizzar three times. It always is a fully built-up T5 settlement with 0 chaos- and 10 skaven corruption.

1st Nagash: 0 > 24
2nd Nagash: 0 > 24
3rd Nagash: 0 > 24



So... of course this is very random sample testing, you would have to repeat each battle with different parameters for more reliable insights.

While the different settlement and field battles appear to be very random, the identical results for Nagashizzar suggest that there is a fixed formula. Or perhaps it uses a pre-rolled RNG number, like savescumming a hero action always gives the same result.

[AurumHawke]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Note that the existing Tzeentch corruption seems to go down too, but i'm not recording that.
So the gain from battles with the small starting army seem fairly minor, and not a fixed value.

The winning army takes corruption from the losing army so the change in each should be the same absolute value.
In provinces with multiple corruptions present, only the ones involved in the battle change.
(need to check a 3-4 corruption battle since these are fairly rare, might just be primary-attacker/primary-defender)

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

So, seems like just the battle size is relevant. Belakor's final skill with +3 of each monogod corruption has no effect (still only adds undivided).

Yeah, total number/strength of the units involved determines the amount corruption changes from a battle.
Don't recall it mattering whether anyone has more units, but starting strength may have an effect. Or whether the battle results matter beyond victory/loss.


Or ... nevermind any of that - found "corruption_swing.lua" and looked through it.
Each unit in the defeated army adds 0.5 + 0.001 * unit-gold-value to the total swing.
0.5 of the swing is applied to increasing winner's corruption and 0.5 is applied to decreasing defeated's corruption. One being No-Corruption applies both to increasing/decreasing corruption.
Only the attacking and defending factions are checked. Rebel factions and some temporary stuff are invalid.

There's also the per-turn effect which appears to be 0.1 + 0.0001 * unit-gold-value recalculated on reload or end-of-turn.