OFFICIAL Suggestions of the Palace Committee Poll

[Vitreous Humor]

Regarding where we will be in the future: What is the current and very tentative ideas regarding the annexation of the Greeks? (If one at all.) I saw someone mention this on one of the other posts.

If we are going to go further in the near/medium future north then Macross City or Chiquita are ideal otherwise build in one of the more central cities and (maybe) move the palace later.

[Donegeal]

I agree that the Greeks will be easy picking in the future, but I don't forseen us going all out to take them over like we have the Persians. I see no point in even attacking them as the only thing they have that we might want is Ivory, and we already trade for that. The only two places where our border is going to expand is the American Province and Uber Island.

Oh crap! Gotta go! BRB!

[Arnelos]

it looks like this poll has two clear frontrunners, but such statements tend to get drowned by additional votes within 24 hours

[Harovan]

My favorite for a FP is Geofront. It's right in the middle of an awesome future productive area. The cities there have 50% grassland and 50% mountains/hills and will yield 80-100 shields after factories and power plants. It would be terribly bad to hurt these powerhouses with corruption and waste in favor for some low productive grassland cities.

For the palace I would be in favor for Macross city. It's about 50% corrupt now and even could build the palace "the hard way", if we begin soon enough. It's near the other mountainous range (former France), which will also give a big production in the future. And I think, if we consider our sphere of interest at this side of the continent, it will gain a central role soon enough.

So my vote is Macross city and Geofront.

[Arnelos]

The problem with the Macross-Geofront plan is that Mingapulco (still our best province) and Uber Isle (likely to become at least a great trade center in the future) will become corrupt...

[Donegeal]

Sorry for the deley, my "job" can make me busy in an instant.

Any, as I already stated, I don't see our borders expanding much beyond what we already have. With this in mind, I feel that a FP in Contigon (or however you spell it) and P in Timeline is Ideal. Both could be done by conventional means and distance is almost perfect (20-25 tiles). Our river hotbeads (our homeland and Persian annexation) will get the most benefits ( more uncorupt commerce ) and the P/FP overlaps near our future production centers.

The only negative about Timeline is it won't help much for Uber Island. If we decide to skip the American Annexation then I would change my vote to Ghengistown (real original, Ghengis ) and Contigon.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Arnelos
The problem with the Macross-Geofront plan is that Mingapulco (still our best province) and Uber Isle (likely to become at least a great trade center in the future) will become corrupt...

About our current core: After removing jungle it has 99% grassland and will be a pretty unproductive area, compared with the mentioned powerhouses. And if both Macross city and Geofront are at about 50% now, this will mean that our current core will be at least 50% in the future. In fact it will be much better, because it's between the 2 centers and our government will change soon to less corrupt forms.

Uber Isle will be corrupt in all cases. No big deal.

[GhengisFarb™]

100% grassland cities still builf Modern Armor/Mech Infantry units in 2-3 tuns without Manufacturing Plants. I've never had production problems with an empire of all grassland cities.

The huge population they generate increases the civ score and other stats tremendously which allows for a greater chance of victory.

I just don't see reducing all the core cities to 50%+ corruption for the benefit of 2-3 cities by placing the capital in Macross City.

[Harovan]

What 2-3 cities are you talking about? The # of cities with reduced corruption doesn't depend on the direction these cities are located. For example, if the map size setting determines, that a palace or FP reduces corruption for, say, 10 cities, it doesn't matter if they are located around the P/FP city, but the reduced corruption affects the 10 nearest cities, nevertheless of their direction and even distance.

Btw: Powerhouse cities in a 50% grassland/50% hills+mountains location will produce tanks in 1 turn pre and MAs in 1 turn post nuclear plants. And the corruption doesnt affect population and growth. So your grassland cities can still grow if they are 2/3 corrupt.

[Randolph]

Three mined & railroad grassland squares = 6 food + 7.5 production (assuming ½ improved grass); 1 mine & rail grass + 2 mine & rail hill = 6 food + 8.5 production (1/2 improved grass)(commerce will be the same). An advantage of the hill & grass city is the ability to switch back and forth between high production and high growth. There is more potential in the hill+ grass cities, and more “room for growth” (edges of current empire), thus much greater long term potential. On the other hand having the palace in the center will be much better for the short and mid term. It’s hard to make up my mind, long term potential is hard to give up, but what will the AI be doing while we build up? Macros / geo may be biting off more than we can chew, but timeline is ‘settling for what we have’ a rather dull strategy. humm
edit: ralph is right, and 1 trun is 100% faster than 2 turns. I don't mean to be stating the obvious, but it shows that a a 10-20% shield increase can mean a 100% military growth increase.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
What 2-3 cities are you talking about?

the 2-3 cities with hills on the French border which is the only reason Macross City was suggested.

And the corruption doesnt affect population and growth. So your grassland cities can still grow if they are 2/3 corrupt.

Food has never been an issue, it does affect commerce, gold and science, which you conveniently "forgot" to mention and Macross City leaves the massive river valley of our heartland out in the cold. Those cities get +1 commerce for every tile that has a river, and that's a lot of tiles.

Originally posted by Randolph
An advantage of the hill & grass city is the ability to switch back and forth between high production and high growth.

That's actually an advantage of a grassland city not a hill city. With railroads, a mined grassland produces more shields than a forest tile. An irrigated grassland is second only to floodplains. To switch improvements, ie to irrigate a mined tile or vice versa is far faster on grassland than hills. Cleaning up pollution is far faster on grassland than hills. Hence the superiority of the grassland city.

Originally posted by Randolph
edit: ralph is right, and 1 trun is 100% faster than 2 turns. I don't mean to be stating the obvious, but it shows that a a 10-20% shield increase can mean a 100% military growth increase.

After Manufacturing Facilities both produce the units in one turn, only now the hill city is wasting half its production and generating extra pollution for it.

[Randolph]

quote:
"That's actually an advantage of a grassland city not a hill city. With railroads, a mined grassland produces more shields than a forest tile. An irrigated grassland is second only to floodplains. To switch improvements, ie to irrigate a mined tile or vice versa is far faster on grassland than hills. Cleaning up pollution is far faster on grassland than hills. Hence the superiority of the grassland city."
yes but with hill & grass there is no need for a worker to change the improvement, one simply switches to more grass or more hill tiles used (This is of course only before the city becomes large)

quote:
"After Manufacturing Facilities both produce the units in one turn, only now the hill city is wasting half its production and generating extra pollution for it."

Or one simply doesn't bother to get robotics or build mfg plants. This could mean 2 techs and 30+ military units not to mention lower maintenance. Also higher production cities are nice for producing space ship parts.

hey, I'm not trying to say the hill & grass of macross & geo is 'better' (in fact if it was 'my' single player game I would probably make the conservative choice), but if you won't admit that there are advantages to both...
anyway I have no desire to fight about this

[GhengisFarb™]

This is a revelation to me. I've always know of the Builder vs Wamonger concepts. But I was never aware of the Shields vs Commerce strategies.

I am definitely in the pro-Commerce strategy camp. Shields only do 1 thing: build. Commerce does 3 things: Science, Gold, and Happiness.

Shields can be converted to gold with the Wealth option. Commerce can be converted to production with the rush option under Monarch, Republic, and Democracy.

So commerce can do anything a shield can do, but a shield can't do everything a commerce can do. Hence I will stick to my pro-Commerce strategy versus your pro-Shield strategy.

By locating the capital in Macross City we will lose commerce from our river cities which could have been used to rush production anywhere not just the few cities on the French Highlands.

[Robber Baron]

First, let me offer some general thoughts.

The debate so far seems to distill down to two basic questions:

1) do we site for maximum trade/science/population, or for maximum production?

2) do we site for a payoff centuries down the road, or now, or somewhere in between? And if in between, then when?

As far as question #2 is concerned: Personally, I think we have established a fairly secure position for ourselves. We are competitive culturally and scientifically, and have access to resources and luxuries. We can afford to plan ahead a bit. In other words, we can figure in major terraforming in optimizing placement. (The point may be obvious, but it's worth stating. I've played in games where I desperately needed to recenter my empire, via palace relocation, in order to get competitive visa vi AI civs.)
On the other hand, I do see major challenges ahead in the mid-term. As we consolidate our position as the leading civ of Central Abananaba, the AI civs are going to grow increasingly sullen. If we keep a high profile (e.g., by dominating luxury traffic), rival civs will eventually attack, and when they do (if previous games are any indication), it will probably happen in waves. One civ will declare war on us, then several others will. We will be engaged on multiple fronts.
We should consider this scenario as we discuss timing and placement of our empire's center of gravity.

As far as question #1 is concerned: well, this issue takes us back to a more basic question, namely, what type of win are we trying to set up? Cultural, or Space Race, or Domination?
On this question, it seems to me we need to keep our continental circumstances in mind. We are centrally located in our world's biggest continent. Meaning we probably won't be able to pull off a continental-scale invasion -- either in Abananaba or abroad -- until the final stages of the game if at all. Nevertheless, we will need to maintain a strong military presence, given our central location. We are not in a position to isolate ourselves and build up a preeminent culture. The other civs won't let us.
Maybe we should "split the difference." In other words, site one palace (Forbidden or otherwise) for maximum trade/pop/culture/science, and the other for production.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Food has never been an issue, it does affect commerce, gold and science, which you conveniently "forgot" to mention and Macross City leaves the massive river valley of our heartland out in the cold. Those cities get +1 commerce for every tile that has a river, and that's a lot of tiles.

Please, give me a break... All cities, river or not, can get a +1 commerce bonus at every tile we work at. Just build a road. This isn't hard to do, as we are industrious.