Corruption and Naval Battles Queries

I've noticed some members advise reducing corruption as a way to squeeze more profits from one's settlements. How exactly does one go about doing this? (According to my financial summary I'm losing several thousand denarii a turn due to corruption.)

Also, I'm a bit confused on the naval battle system. I enjoy using navies in RTW, but sometimes I notice that when I achieve a "victory" but destory no enemey ships, their ship icon sinks on the campaign map. Is there ship destroyed, or does it retreat out of my sight? I think this happened to one of my fleets too (w/ an army on board). I'm playing the Julii, and I lost one of those 30 spanish ships vs. 1 roman ship battles, but the casuality report noted that no ships were destroyed during the encounter (though my opponent achieved a clear victory), yet my fleet sank on th ecampaign map and my army w/ it! Am I missing something? ~:eek:

Thanks.

"but sometimes I notice that when I achieve a "victory" but destory no enemey ships, their ship icon sinks on the campaign map."

This happens when your ship runs out of men I think.

I fought a barbarian ship with 8 men, killed all 8, but sunk no ships. As I closed the battle screen, I saw his ship sink.

It is my impression that a unit loses some strength as it retreats. I frequently see ships with just a few men left sink instead of retreat. While I don't expect them to mod the sea battles to be like land battles it would be nice if they added some "tactics" or "formations" you could adopt and the AI choose one as well that might impact the overall result.

1. You can reduce corruption by building buildings that improve law (like shrines that improve law and such).

2. I think it's the same as with a land army. Sometimes if it has no route of escape, or maybe if they lost more then x% of all forces, they just disband. Since disbanding on see is a bit weird.. they just sink. Or maybe you need a certain amount of men to flee from the battle (1 man rowing an antire boat isn't going to work)
And I agree with Saracen.. we really need more influence on the sea battles.