Forbidden Palace Placement in Conquests?

[Jerh9e1k5]

Hello,

I have read many posts saying that the forbidden palace does not have as much of an effect as it used to. Does it still make a ring of productive cities around it? Or does it only decrease rank corruption? Is it worth it to take 100 turns to build it in some faraway town to help that area, or is it more worthwhile to build it in 10 turns right next to your existing palace?

Thank you
Jerh9e1k5

[Aeson]

Build it early in one of your high production cities. Placement doesn't matter that much.

[pedrojedi]

So it does not change corruption on the area around it? Disgusting...

[Kloreep]

It changes "distance to capital" corruption; before you have the FP, the distance factor is simply the distance to your capital; with the FP, the distance factor will depend on either the distance to your capital or the distance to your FP, whichever is shorter.

However, it does not effect City Rank (a factor in Optimal City Number corruption), which it does in Vanilla and PTW. (In fact, it was bugged in that respect.) It does increase the Optimal City Number more than it did in PTW, which is another factor in OCN corruption.

[CyberChrist]

Originally posted by Kloreep
It changes "distance to capital" corruption; before you have the FP, the distance factor is simply the distance to your capital; with the FP, the distance factor will depend on either the distance to your capital or the distance to your FP, whichever is shorter.

Pretty sure this is not so - none of the cities located close to city with FP have a corruption level anywhere near the low corruption of the cities close to my real capitol.
City with FP itself have almost no corruption though.

[Jerh9e1k5]

However, it does not effect City Rank (a factor in Optimal City Number corruption), which it does in Vanilla and PTW. (In fact, it was bugged in that respect.) It does increase the Optimal City Number more than it did in PTW, which is another factor in OCN corruption.

This would mean that it does make a new ring of cities with low corruption. Can somebody please clarify? Is it that it does make a ring but the amount of time it takes to make it farther away is not worth it?

Thank you
Jerh9e1k5

[Kloreep]

As I said, it does not affect City Ranks, which is a crucial part of OCN corruption. Indeed, later in the game, when advanced governments reduce distance corruption, and your empire has a lot of cities (increasing OCN corruption), OCN corruption becomes a bigger problem than distance corruption for many of your cities.

I highly recommend Alexman's Everything about Corruption: C3C Edition thread.

BTW, on the city with the FP: Yes, the FP lowers maximum corruption for its city by 70% to 20% before courthouse or police station. (Default in a FP-less, courthouse-less, police station-less city is 90%.)

Edit: Crosspost. Jerh9e1k5, basically you have two main factors in corruption: a straight distance-to-nearest-corruption-center factor, and a factor that is influenced by A) city rank and B) your empire's OCN. OCN depends on world size and difficulty level, and can be further modified by other things such as the FP being built. (Check the thread linked above for the full details, Alexman is the expert on corruption.) City Ranks are handed out in order of which cities are closest to the capital; the more cities that are closer than City X, the higher the rank of City X goes, and the higher the Rank, the higher the OCN corruption. In Vanilla and PTW, the FP formed its own circle of city ranks. (Better, in fact; it was bugged and gave all cities closer to it than the palace Rank 1.) In C3C, only the palace matters for city ranks.

So, while the FP will combat distance corruption in the cities surrounding it, it will not effect those cities' ranks. Hence, higher corruption in the FP core than the palace core.

[Arnelos]

One scenario under which I have found it is good to still construct your FP far from your palace is if land is limited on your home continent/island (such as with an archiapelago map).

Since the FP still doubles your OCN and becomes a new centrepoint for distance corruption, you can still create a second core of low-corruption cities far away from your palace if your main core around your palace doesn't have very many cities compared to the OCN for the map.

Other than that situation, however, I agree that it's best to now found your FP relatively close to home... I would recommend still doing it midrange distance from your palace, however, as it still at least reduces distance corruption in the area directly around it.

[Vince278]

Everytime I read about the FP I get even more confused. Seems like a case of someone making the issue more difficult than it needs to be.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Vince278
Everytime I read about the FP I get even more confused. Seems like a case of someone making the issue more difficult than it needs to be.

Heh. I think even alexman would agree with this assessment.

[joncnunn]

Another popular option in this case, particlarly if the quality of the other landmass is better is build the FP in the center city of your exisitng land mass and then relocate your Palace to the center of the new landmass.

Originally posted by Arnelos
One scenario under which I have found it is good to still construct your FP far from your palace is if land is limited on your home continent/island (such as with an archiapelago map).

Since the FP still doubles your OCN and becomes a new centrepoint for distance corruption, you can still create a second core of low-corruption cities far away from your palace if your main core around your palace doesn't have very many cities compared to the OCN for the map.

Other than that situation, however, I agree that it's best to now found your FP relatively close to home... I would recommend still doing it midrange distance from your palace, however, as it still at least reduces distance corruption in the area directly around it.

[Vince278]

I never moved my palace. I feel like it would take the focus out of my core cities.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Vince278
I never moved my palace. I feel like it would take the focus out of my core cities.

If your palace core is reasonably well developed, building your FP next door and then moving your palace to a reasonably undeveloped group of cities will hasten your overall economic development. If done at the right time, it will not have any appreciable negative impact on your economy, and will speed up production of improvements where they are needed.

[Vince278]

Machiavelli recommended something similar to that in "The Prince".

[Arrian]

If you have a relatively large landmass for your empire, I'd recommend building the FP early a few cities away from your capital. I dunno if I agree with Aeson about building it ASAP right next door (unless you're planning a palace jump) because the distance corruption does matter too.

I tend to use CxxxC spacing, and my FP's lately have been in the third city out from my capital... so let's say 10-12 tiles from my palace. This is on a standard map.

edit: if I'm remembering the map right, in my current game the FP is 9.5 tiles from the palace, as the corruption crow files. Maybe 10.5. In any case, that's pretty close. Far closer than I would have accepted in PTW.

If you have an island home, then building the FP far away on another island can work nicely. So long as the cities around the FP don't have very high rank corruption, the area will be productive.

The problem is when you try the old PTW placement, going for the "barbell" empire. If there are too many cities between the palace and the FP, the cities around the FP will still be super corrupt due to rank corruption.

Short version: Oval empire, instead of Barbell. Build it closer than you would have in PTW. The sooner it's up, the better. In Conquests more than in PTW, waiting for a "perfect" spot is a bad idea. In Conquests, there really isn't a perfect spot.

-Arrian