Forbidden City Placement

[Fistleaf]

Has anybody checked how much maintenance savings you can get from siting the Forbidden City on another continent, instead of somewhere nearer your Capital?
I am thinking if the savings are not that much, I might as well build the Forbidden City near my Capital as it is extremely time consuming to build it far away in usually lower production cities. The faster Forbidden City build time could save more maintenance in the long run as the savings (albeit low) start way earlier.

[wodan11]

Using a GE to pop the FC is sometimes a good idea.

Anyway it's my understanding that colony maintenance is capped at a multiple of the distance penalty. Thus, if you reduce the distance penalty on your cities on another continent, then the colony maintenance would dramatically drop, in proportion.

[snoopy369]

Assuming you're playing Civ4, and not Civ3, I'd definitely build it further away. In Civ3 the hammer corruption was a problem, of course In Civ4, you should be getting high hammer cities all over the place. My guess is that you don't make enough of an effort to quickly grow your cities (obviously without seeing any of your play, so it's just a guess). You should have a city that is at least size 10 fairly easily pretty much anywhere, post-bureaucracy, with appropriate irrigation and a couple of food specials.

[Will9]

If you are playing BTS, putting it on another continent is even more valuable since colonial maintenance is capped at twice distance maintenance.

[Supr49er]

Any reason/benefit to put Versailles and Forbidden Palace in the same city?

[rah]

If you're in State property will the FP even make a difference.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Supr49er
Any reason/benefit to put Versailles and Forbidden Palace in the same city?

No, and I'm not entirely sure it's possible.

[Garth Vader]

It's not possible, and no in State Property there is no difference.

[Blaupanzer]

Does the FC only reduce distance maintenance?

[wodan11]

Yes but whereas colony maintenance is calculated for each city from distance maintenance, it's a moot point.

[The Priest]

If you are playing BTS, putting it on another continent is even more valuable since colonial maintenance is capped at twice distance maintenance.

Now I didn't know that. That is very valuable.

Going on from there - what happens if your FP is in territory which you later grant independent to. Obviously you lose the benefits. But presumably, you then no longer have a FP - so you can build another one? That would mean that building it in a colony would be a good strategy - reduces colony maintenance while you have it, but it if still ends up too much, you grant it independent and build it elsewhere.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
It's not possible, and no in State Property there is no difference.

Except you do still get the culture and the GP points.

[Wittlich]

Originally posted by The Priest
Going on from there - what happens if your FP is in territory which you later grant independent to. Obviously you lose the benefits. But presumably, you then no longer have a FP - so you can build another one? That would mean that building it in a colony would be a good strategy - reduces colony maintenance while you have it, but it if still ends up too much, you grant it independent and build it elsewhere.

Yes, if you build the FC in a city that you later grant independence to - you will then be able to build it in another city (as long as the city does not already have 2 national wonders built). The same thing goes for any national wonders that you build in a city that you later grant independence to (as long as the national wonder is not obsolete).

[rah]

Silly follow up question then.
If you grant it independence, do the national wonders stay or are they erased. How about if you send one back to it's original civ and they have created a dup? (I can guess the latter but more wondering about the former)

[Wittlich]

If you grant independence, ANY national wonders in the city are erased (You can them build them again in another of your cities).

If you send a city back to its original owner, irrelevent if the original owner built another national wonder or not - if there is a national wonder in the city being gifted, it too is erased.