Forbidden palace problem

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Solomwi
It still affects distance corruption like it did before, for all cities closer to the FP than the Palace. IOW, city A that's closer to the FP will get distance corruption as related to the FP, but still suffer rank corruption as ranked from the Palace.

Solomwi, you beat me to it by a minute!

[Solomwi]

And you're supposed to be younger than that now.

You probably don't even fear that you'll become your enemy the instant that you preach, do you?

[Aqualung71]

I'm impressed!

[Melboz99]

Okay, sorry to threadjack, but I have a FP question.

I was playing a PBEM game, when one of the players left leaving me his estate. So, basicaly, I have about 25 cities on the other side of an AI civ, maybe 50-75 squares away from my capitol.

At my capitol I have about 25 cities as well. The cites that are about 4 city radius's away are already feeling a lot of corruption as I am on Monarch.

I was thinking of building a courthouse in the center of the cities that the other player gave me, and then building a FP. This of course would take a very long time, as the production in that town is only 6 to without corruption.

So, should I forget that whole idea and just build my FP on the outskirts of my original borders, between the two territories?

What kind of decreases in corruption should I expect from each?

There is another possibility I suppose. The land I'm on is very enlongated. If I were to build my FP on the outsirts of my original cities now, I suppose I could move my capitol to one of the AI cities once I conquer them. This would put an almost equal distance between the capitol and FP as I would have to the north and south coasts from the either the FP or capitol.

Well, this whole discussion on FPs really got me rethinking my strategy. Let me know what you think I should do.

Thanks,
Dan O.

[alexman]

It's probably not going to be worth it to build the FP in your inherited lands. If you had fewer cities in your core, it might have been, but as you describe it, the FP rank will be well over the OCN (assuming you are playing on a standard-size map), making the cities around the FP suffer from high rank corruption. Note that if you conquer the cities of the AI that is between your two lands, the corruption in your inherited lands will increase even more (assuming your palace remains in the same place).

If I were you, I would build my FP as soon as possible, in a central city where it can be built quickly. This will give you an OCN bonus, so all the rest of your cities will get a bit lower corruption. Then, if you get a leader, you can consider rushing your palace to a more efficient location.

[Arrian]

In PTW, I would most often build the FP close to home and then try to move my palace (via leader) far, far away.

Now that isn't very attractive, because it wrecks your original core.

Theseus: my basic rule of thumb on FP's in Conquests is that I try to place 'em about 1/2 as far away as I would have in PTW. It gets you a nice boost, but isn't Uberpowerful like in PTW. Then, later, I probably switch to Communism (something I wouldn't have touched with a 12-foot electrified cattle prod in PTW).

-Arrian

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Arrian
(something I wouldn't have touched with a 12-foot electrified cattle prod in PTW).

-Arrian

Presumably this is a technological improvement on the traditional "10 foot barge pole"? Or do we have a cultural gap here?

[DrSpike]

Arrian is well known for advocating a beeline to the newly introduced advanced electrified cattle prod tech. This tech allows you to zap encroaching enemy units from a great distance.

[Arrian]

Just trying to, um, drive home my point about the difference between PTW communism and C3C communism.

-Arrian

[DrSpike]

Yes one's too cold and one's too hot. Unfortunately Goldilocks doesn't work for Firaxis.

[Melboz99]

Is there anywhere I can go to see all the updates to the game since Vanilla Civ?

I stoped playing for a long time, and I feel as thought I've missed out on some vital information. This summer I may be able to play again. Somehow I didn't even know that after replacable parts I could use engineers to increase production. Was that available in vanilla civ?

I'm feeling clueless,
Dan O.

[Arrian]

Dan,

Yeah, the changes from Vanilla CivIII -> Conquests patch 1.22 are MANY.

In fact, I don't think I could list them all (off the top of my head at least).

The big ones: New traits. Agricultural and Seafaring have been introduced (and new civs with new units), and Industrious has been somewhat nerfed. I bet you understand that stuff, though.

Corruption has changed a lot. Overall corruption has dropped, but in Conquests (once they patched it and sort some stuff out), the Forbidden Palace works very differently, as explained earlier in this thread, such that it's less powerful.

Governments have changed in Conquests too. Republic is now trickier, because it now has a certain amount of "free unit support" (1 per town, 3 per city, 4 per metro), but charges TWO gold per turn for each unit about that number. Communism is now quite strong, because Firaxis boosted the OCN, increased the power of the FP for communism (IIRC), and added the Secret Police HQ. You can have an empire that is teetering right on the brink of Domination victory, with a FP & SPHQ, and have every city (with a courthouse and policestation) be productive. Facism and Feudalism have also been added, but I've never used either one so I'll not try and explain those.

Great Leaders have changed. Scientific Great Leaders have been added (SGLs) and military great leaders (MGLs) have been changed a bit. SGLs can rush any project to completion or they can fire a "scientific golden age" which increases research across the board by 25%. You have a small percentage chance of SGL generation every time your civ is the first to discover a technology (3% non-sci civs, 5% sci civs). MGLs may only rush small wonders and regular buildings, or make armies.

Armies are now more powerful. They are now truely better than the sum of their parts. To start, they receive a 1/6 bonus to their attack & defense values - as so: add up the attack strengths of all units in the army, divide by 6, round down, and add the bonus to each unit in the army. Same for defense. Also, armies gain a bonus movement point, with blitz, and can pillage a tile they are on at NO movement cost. Thus, if you put 3 medieval infantries (4.2.1) in an army, you get a 6.3.2 monster. And that's before the military academy & pentagon. The MA increases the bonus to 1/4, and obviously the pentagon allows a 4th unit. Therefore, a 4x cavalry army becomes a 12.6.4 terror.

Bombardment has changed. Now units are targetted first (except walls, which leads to the Great Wall bug, but let's ignore that for now). This means a stack of catapults in the ancient age is now VERY effective. In short, bombardment is better now. There is a new unit - the Trebuchet, that fits in between cats and cannons.

Upgrade cost has changed. It used to be 2 gold per shield, so that upgrading a warrior (10s) to a sword (30s) was 40 gold. It's now 3 gps - so the same upgrade costs 60 gold. This makes mass upgrades a bit less of a no-brainer.

Specialists have changed. Taxmen now give you 2gold, and Scientists give 3 beakers. Plus, you now get policemen and civil engineers (nationalism / replaceable parts? I think). Policemen drop corruption a tad (typically this is most useful in core or close-to-core cities which have all the improvements, such that 1 saved shield or beaker is magnified) and civil engineers just add 2 shields/turn to any ongoing build (non-units).

New wonders:

Mausoleum of Maussolos (sp?): +3 happy citizens in that city forever. Sea/Sci. 300 shields (or is it 200?), Philosophy. Meh.

Statue of Zeus: generates an ancient cavalry unit (3.2.2, +1 hp, only can be created via the wonder) every 5 turns until you have metallurgy. 200! shields, requires mathematics & Ivory. Badass in the extreme.

Temple of Artemis: free temple in every city on the continent (complete with culture output) until Theology, at which point all those temples vanish. 500 shields, Polytheism. I'm not a fan.

Great Wall: old wonder, new effects: free city walls in every city - just like it was in CivII.

Knights Templar: generates a Crusader (5.3.1., can build forts, only created via wonder) every 5 turns. Req Chivalry. 400 shields.

Shakespeare's Theatre: old wonder, new abilities. Still gives 8 content faces, but also acts as a hospital. Cost increased to 450 shields.

Also, some wonders may eventually become "tourist attractions" and start generating gold per turn. I forget which ones (Pyramids are one, for instance) and exactly how it accumulates.

Technology: the 1.22 patch, which I've yet to apply, removed the Radio tech, and moved Radar Towers (eek, those were a PTW addition, weren't they?) to Advanced Flight.

Ok, I'm running out of steam...

-Arrian

[Aqualung71]

That's a pretty good list Arrian....great job!

[Solomwi]

Thanks, Arrian. I had been having trouble finding out just what the Army/MA boni were. Now that I know... .

This means my 4xMarine armies are now 24/12/2 with amphibious ability. That's stout. Also, I believe they boosted amphibious attack by ignoring any defense bonus, or was that just a rumor?

[Arrian]

I don't know that one, sorry. I'm not much for amphib attacks myself. I think it has been tested, though. I just can't remember the results.

-Arrian