Confusion over the role of the forbidden palace

[JeffH]

Having read many of your thoughts on the Forbidden palace as it has progressed through the various C3C patches, I'm confussed.

I'm playing with Patch 1.15 and as I undersatnd the changes the forbidden place now:

1. drastically reduces curruption in the city in which its built

2. Increases the Optimum city(OC) value for the civilization concerned.

So here's my confussion:

Does it create a second core of cities, given the above I don't think it does. If thats the case it would be faster to build the FP close to the capital and reap the beifits of an increased OC Value

Any clarification would be good

[vulture]

See the 'So you conquered half the world thread'...

the FP reduces distance corruption for the nearby cities (the distance to the FP used in place of the distance to the palace, if shorter), but OC corruption doesn't change. So it gives you a moderate boost to the cities around it, unless they were already above 100% corruption. So basically it gives you a second core that is (very roughly) 1/3 as strong as the main core. Not really sure where to get the best benefit out of it though - try in a town with about 20% corruption - that should give you a reasonable boost, and I don't think the overall bost you get depends much on where you place the FP (unless it is in hopelessly corrupt land, or very close to the palace).

EDIT: by 'OC corruption doesn't change' I mean that the 'rank' of the city is unchanged - the corruption value itself is changed by the change in the optimal number of cities, obviously.

[Arrian]

See alexman's thread in the Conquest forum:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=107242

alexman starts by explaining it in words, then he presents the actual formulas. Then there is discussion, and I posted a save game and there was some discussion of that.

-Arrian