A New Palace for the New King!

[BigFree]

Since we are getting a new King, I think it is time to consider a new Palace.

As our Kingdom grows, so does the amount of corruption; lost commerce and shields are starting to hurt us already. The "Distance from Capitol" penalty is what is bringing us down. The closer a town/city is to the Capitol, the less corrupt it is. Madrid is on one side of our spread out Kingdom.

Madrid is certainly not in the center of our Kingdom. Pamplona is closer to the center. If we "Palace Jump", to Pamplona from Madrid it can be done in 3 turns from now (630BC), by changing the build in Madrid to 'settler' and changing Pamplona's build to 'marketplace.'

When the settler in Madrid is done; we sell of the Barracks and Temple and choose 'abandon city.' Pamplona will then become the Capitol city. It will be a size 6 where as Barcelona will be a size 4. Among other factors, this ensures that Pamplona becomes our Capitol city. Once the Palace has "jumped," Madrid can be rebuilt immediately or moved one tile, whatever the team decides.

There's also the option of making 2 settlers out of Madrid before abandoning it. We could send the first settler out to 9-9-9 from Madrid to settle a city and then build another settler right after that that would be finnished 7 turns from now (550 BC) Pamplona would have grown another size while Barcelona remained the same thus Pamplona would be our Capitol when we abandoned Madrid.

I like the second option better because it allows us to use the population we have nursed in Madrid to the fullest. We could even "hurry" the second settler with a little cash if we wanted to.

I know the idea of abandoning a city to some of you seems very wrong. But it is in the best interest of Spain in the end; we will suffer far less corruption and be able to produce far more items in a shorter period of time. Our FP can be planned for a Southern city, truly making us a powerhouse of Bob.

[Togas]

Raze and rebuild Madrid?!?

That would be a BOLD way to begin the reign of Justino.

--Togas

[Nuclear Winter]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Think of the children!!!!
Besides, MAdrid is were our ancestors are buried! Desecrating their tombs? Sacrilege! I can agree with building a summer Palace elsewhere palace, or a vice-royalty, but Razing Madrid?
I don´t know if the lords would accept this!
[ooc]This is roleplay! We cannot allow our beloved Madrid to be burned tothe ground![ooc]

[Hot Mustard]

Are you mad?

King Togas - this man must be an agent of the old Lux Invicta, who were known to destroy their own cities.

[ruby_maser]

Re: A New Palace for the New King!

The idea has some merit. Corruption is killing us.

I've never attempted a palace jump of this sort in SP games; is the size of the cities that are close to the capital all that would dictate where the new capital is located? Also, does this type of action actually put the palace in the most-appropriate city or must it be rebuilt?

[Togas]

I took this post from CFC, from a post written by DaveMcW:

When the capitol city is razed or abandonned, each city in the empire scores

1 point for each of your citizens

1/3 point for each foreign citizen

1/3 point for every neighbor city within eight squares
The city with the most points is the new capitol!

Only your cities count as neighbors. The old capitol does not count at all.

If there is a tie for the most points, the palace jumps to the first city in the database, which is usually the oldest city. After some old cities have been razed the database gets out of order and it's impossible to tell where the palace will go in a tie.

[pikesfan]

If we are worried about corruption, then we should consider building the Forbidden Palace in Santiago or Vigo or somewhere.

I would also like to point out that razing Madrid to have the palace jump to Cow Valley will be utterly useless later for the Spice City and the Ivory City and the other cities of the South. Razing Madrid will only solve today's problems at the expense of making tomorrow's problems worse.

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by pikesfan
If we are worried about corruption, then we should consider building the Forbidden Palace in Santiago or Vigo or somewhere.

I would also like to point out that razing Madrid to have the palace jump to Cow Valley will be utterly useless later for the Spice City and the Ivory City and the other cities of the South. Razing Madrid will only solve today's problems at the expense of making tomorrow's problems worse.

I concur. The city governors should put their heads together and determine what the optimal location for the FP is. I believe Señor Tamali has some experience with this...?

[BigFree]

Originally posted by pikesfan
If we are worried about corruption, then we should consider building the Forbidden Palace in Santiago or Vigo or somewhere.

The FP should be built in the Southern part of our nation; we will have many cities there in the future and if you build a FP, which can only be built ONCE, in the North, the Southern cities will fail miserably.

Originally posted by pikesfan
I would also like to point out that razing Madrid to have the palace jump to Cow Valley will be utterly useless later for the Spice City and the Ivory City and the other cities of the South.

I've run many scenario's; I guarantee that the Palace will "jump" to Pamplona if my plan is followed. The 'rules' governing the "jump" follows what Togas has posted.

Originally posted by pikesfan
Razing Madrid will only solve today's problems at the expense of making tomorrow's problems worse.

Actually this will fix Spain's long term problems. Right now corruption isn't above 25% accross the board because the most corrupt cities have a low population. This will soon change and corruptionwill become more apparent. Moving the Palace is not some shortsighted attempt to mask current problems, it is meant to alleviate a problem that will only continue to grow as Spain grows and expands. We need to have our "Center of Empire" in the center of our lands.

Originally posted by ruby_maser
The idea has some merit. Corruption is killing us.

I've never attempted a palace jump of this sort in SP games; is the size of the cities that are close to the capital all that would dictate where the new capital is located? Also, does this type of action actually put the palace in the most-appropriate city or must it be rebuilt?

The new Palace in Pamplona would not have to be built; it would appear immediately after Madrid was abondoned.

[OliverFA]

I'm completely against razing our lovely city!

Moving the Palace to a different place is one thing. Racing the city. Well... That's terrible!

Currently Madrid is the city most suitable for production. Look at all the hils near Madrid. These could be mined and improve the already big (OOC: 10 shields at size 5) production that Madrid has. The only city that has a similar placement is Barcelona, but we would need a temple before being available to use those shields.

Even if we rebuild Madrid it will be a long time until we reach the actual amount of production, and Madrid (with palace or not) it's the most suitable city to build big projects (like the Sistine Chappel), or simple build military units quickly.

Corruption is bad, and we must set a medium-long term plan to fight it, but currently it's only 18% in production and 23% in commerce for the whole kingdom. If we start working in such plan now, this will be ready just in time corruption gets too big.

In adition to this, what about the cities that will be built north and East from Madrid? This cities would be too far from the new palace! We might end building the Forbidden Palace at the new Madrid!

Any solution seems better to me; moving palace, building the FP or even building courthouses (remember that we are a commercial civ and it's like if we already had a corruption reducer building in every city, so the courthouse would add its multiplicative effect).

[BigFree]

We really need to do this.

Originally posted by OliverFA
Currently Madrid is the city most suitable for production. Look at all the hils near Madrid. These could be mined and improve the already big (OOC: 10 shields at size 5) production that Madrid has. The only city that has a similar placement is Barcelona, but we would need a temple before being available to use those shields.

Pamplona will be the powerhouse that Madrid once was. The cattle there, once both are irrigated will supplement our mining the gold at Pamplona also and the surrounding mountains. Pamplona has 2 bonus grassland tiles plus 7 tiles with a river! A little better off than Madrid is.

Originally posted by OliverFA
Even if we rebuild Madrid it will be a long time until we reach the actual amount of production, and Madrid (with palace or not) it's the most suitable city to build big projects (like the Sistine Chappel), or simple build military units quickly.

Madrid does have one wheat and one cattle; with these tiles Madrid will grow very fast; we could build a settler at Barcelona, or keep both that we build at Madrid there; one to re-build Madrid, the other to add to it. But I don't think that will be neceesary. The production we lose at Madrid will be immediately gained (and then some) at our other cities accross our Empire. Madrid is a very fine site for a high production city, but it is not ideally suited to be the "Center of Empire."

Originally posted by OliverFA
Corruption is bad, and we must set a medium-long term plan to fight it, but currently it's only 18% in production and 23% in commerce for the whole kingdom. If we start working in such plan now, this will be ready just in time corruption gets too big.

We will lose much more production to counter corruption than it would be to simply build the Palace in Pamplona without abandoning Madrid. Four Courhouse's in Santiago, Zaragoza, Leon and Vigo would cost (80x4=320 shields.) A "new" Palace would cost 300 shields. It would take the two Eastern most cities longer to build the Courthouses than it would for Pamplona to build a Palace. Pamplona doesn't have a high corruption rate and it's production can be helped along by concentrating on improving the land around it to emphasize production and by adding workers to the city. I'm sure we could have a plan worked out to have it finnished in ~36 turns, including the shields in the production que now.

Originally posted by OliverFA
In adition to this, what about the cities that will be built north and East from Madrid? This cities would be too far from the new palace! We might end building the Forbidden Palace at the new Madrid!

For the cities "East from madrid"? Where, in GS territory?

For the cities North of Madrid

For the "Lake City": It will be the same distance from Madrid as it is from Pamplona (8 tiles.)

For the city that is to be (9-9-9) from Madrid: It is going to be 7 tiles from Pamplona, hardly a candidate for low corruption even.
The number's in parenthese's are keypad directions; 8 is North 2 is South, ect...

For the city planned for (9-9-9-8-8-8) from Madrid: This city will have corruption levels somewhere near where Zaragoza has them now. (Zaragoza is 9 tiles from Madrid and this new city will be 10 tiles from Pamplona) It may need a Courthouse if we want corruption below ~25% for this city.


We would not build the FP in Madrid. That would be silly.

Originally posted by OliverFA
Any solution seems better to me; moving palace, building the FP or even building courthouses (remember that we are a commercial civ and it's like if we already had a corruption reducer building in every city, so the courthouse would add its multiplicative effect).

I'm in favor of simply "jumping" the Palace over to Pamplona, to save the time and shields that would be neccessary to build it.

With the cattle tile of Madrid irrigated, Mardid can grow in this pattern:

Size 1 --> 2 in 4 turns (5 extra food produced)
Size 2 --> 3 in 3 turns (7 extra food produced)
Size 3 --> 4 in 3 turns (8 extra food produced)
Size 4 --> 5 in 3 turns (7 extra food produced)
Size 5 --> 6 in 3 turns (7 extra food produced)
Each city, up to size 6, needs 20 food in it's storage bin to grow to the next size.


So Madrid can be back at it's original Size 5 (after it produces 2 settlers for the cities mentioned above, and is abandoned) in 13 turns. This whole thing will take 20 turns; 7 to build 2 settlers, then the new Palace is formed, then 13 turns till Madrid is back to a Pop 5 city. This is a very good trade off for Spain. To me this is not a question of if, but when? The sooner we do it, the sooner we reap the benefits of lower corruption and become indendent from the "Tech Pimp's" in the game. It's time for Spain to control it's own destiny.

[astrologix]

OOC :

We should carefully consider how our roleplaying could prevent us to win this game.

Some questions :

1. our capital always must be Madrid ? Could we change it by building a new palace in, let us say, El Escorial (the new city at the south of Pamplona could be the ideal site for this.

2. Until when do we intend to continue under the Monarchy ? Other nations are already under Republic (i.e. ND). If we do not switch soon to Republic, our corruption will remain important and we will lose the tech race, for exemple.

I think we should consider to change somewhat our historical views. If not, if we continue to play under the monarchy until, say 1900 AD, we will certainly be behind the most powerful nations of our world.

Needless to say that currently we do not follow the historical facts since the true spanish monarchy occured for the first time roughly at 800 AD (the first spanish kings were there with the "Reconquista" against the arabs). Before that they were Wisigoth kings in "Spain" And we should wait until 40 AD to have the first Pope.

If we intend to continue this way, we should develop clever ideas to win the game anyways, but I'm not very optimistic....

We need a brainstorming to find these ideas.

[OliverFA]

[OOC]
Honestly, I didn't favour monarchy because of RP reasons. I did that because it seemed for me the best option due our religious trait. At that moment we lacked (and we lack) the infrastructure to change to Republic (mainly marketplaces and temples) and being religious it wouldn't be for us a problem to go for monarchy first and republic later. I think we did the apropiate at that moment.

Said that, Astrologix makes a very valid point in this, but I don't think that any member takes it too seriously to the point of preventing us to take some decissions just because "our characters can't do it".

And about the government forms, RPing isn't a problem. We just become a constitutional monarchy like the real Spain or the United Kingdom.

About the capital: Madrid was not the first Spanish capital, and in fact it was the city where the capital moved. So we already have broken the historical accuracy. We can move our capital everywhere, but with a good reason!!!!
[/OOC]

[astrologix]

Originally posted by OliverFA
[OOC]
Honestly, I didn't favour monarchy because of RP reasons. I did that because it seemed for me the best option due our religious trait. [/OOC]

I don't understad how the religious traits could fit better under Monarchy than under Republic.

Perhaps do I miss something ?

Please explain...

[GeneralTacticus]

He meant that our religious trait makes it easier for us to switch to Monarchy while we build up for a switch to Republic.