Corruption -92.9%

[Sneakery]

I own 83 regions and 20 provinces. My corruption is -92.9% severely impairing my finances. This is such a large number. How do I reduce corruption? The game says to research technologies, but I already have all the anti-corruption techs! Is this just unavoidable--the price of nearing the endgame? All I have to do is sweep my legions through a few more provinces in Asia and I beat the game.

Should I be more careful about which provinces I acquire? Is it better to setup client states? Do client states still contribution to corruption?

[2GenL]

Controlling most of the map will cause that... Cant avoid it tbh. Same reason why the roman empire struggled towards its own end

[Clockwork]

This why I got into modding. One little change and corruption is heavily reduced. It's a poorly implemented mechanic anyway.

I believe there are certain buildings that reduce corruption besides just technology.

[Sneakery]

What buildings reduce corruption? I haven't seen any as Roman. I have seen some pretty cool buildings from other factions I've kept, like one that gives +8% tax rate and +3 dignitary rank. It looks like tax, slaves, and corruption are additive so +tax/slave is more powerful than +resource because of the way the math works. Example: If you are -90% corruption and 30% tax/slaves, that -60% net. Getting +1% tax/slaves moves from -60% to -59% which is actually a 2.5% increase (.41-.4)/.4
I did find a spy power Watchman that gives -1% corruption. That's huge. Every time I rank up in that, my income goes up 1000 in one click.
I appreciate the extra challenge corruption added. I'm still making progress, but it did make me pause and recheck my strategy. I can't just bulldoze blindly into enemy territory, I have to think more.

Here's the problem I always have though, in every single Total War game. When war breaks out, I end up conquering every single land the enemy has, and this causes too rapid expansion. I don't know how to slow down the rate of expansion because if I don't expand then I'm still surrounded by enemies. Sometimes I can just plow all the way to the ocean, but mostly, there are just new enemies behind my enemy. I've tried Client States, but they just rebel and are so annoying.

[LSD]

There's agent traits, depending on culture, that reduce corruption. The diplomat tends to have it. The max level promotions for women and men in the family tree thing tend to have corruption reductions too.

But ultimately, you shouldn't ve suffering with 83 regions. Learn to use bonus modifiers, e.g., stack industry in regions with high industry bonuses. And stop recruiting masses of armies when you hold almost the whole map.

You've won and should have immense income. Corruption is to cheaply add some semblance of challenge to the late game.

[Gutvald]

They are some cool mods in the workshop that reduces corruption with library building (so it's not easy cheat) or some give a small reduction by settlement (lot more easy). You can also search for imperium modification mods, but most of them seems outdated.

[Sneakery]

Originally posted by LSD:

There's agent traits, depending on culture, that reduce corruption. The diplomat tends to have it. The max level promotions for women and men in the family tree thing tend to have corruption reductions too.

But ultimately, you shouldn't ve suffering with 83 regions. Learn to use bonus modifiers, e.g., stack industry in regions with high industry bonuses. And stop recruiting masses of armies when you hold almost the whole map.

You've won and should have immense income. Corruption is to cheaply add some semblance of challenge to the late game.

I have to recruit mass armies because I'll have wars going on in 3-4 different places and each war needs 2-3 legions. I probably need to be better at managing the length of my hostile frontier. I was in Gaul, Germania, Balkans, Persia, and Egypt all at the same time.

I do stack bonus modifiers but they're reduced by corruption so much. Improving tax rate / slave bonus / reducing corruption seems to be the most effective.

Eventually I was able to make money when corruption plateaued around 93% so I was able to keep upgrading buildings and eventually break through. I grew my income back up to 40k/turn.

What's the most economical army? Sometimes I just do mass Praetorian Guards so I can have the most powerful stack possible but obviously that's very expensive.

[Pat Fenis]

Factions get different skill trees on their agents and generals, and I haven't played Rome in a looong time. Dignitaries usually have skills to collect more tax and reduce corruption when deployed. Tax and corruption cancel each other out so having high taxes can offset high corruption.

The other things are filling out Philosophy techs, and some random household can reduce corruption 5% or whatever. Reforming into an empire usually gives your leader a new title which comes with a corruption reduction too (e.g. Basileus to Megas Basileus for greeks)

Forgot about trade income. If you have resources go for all the trade agreements you can. I think Rome gets the wine trader so you can stack trade tariff income incredibly high. I usually make half my income or more from trade agreements later in campaigns.

[Iron Knights]

Corruption ? Destroy cultural centers that are not matching with yours or anything that affects Loyalty that are of Foreign design. They are after all replaceable.