Optimal FP Placement

[ducki]

Here's the FP+Palace Placement Thread.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59349&highlight=Palace+Placement

[aaglo]

I played this game trying out the oscillating wars - system. And my next target would have been the greeks and Indians (the small gray mass), but the game ended on domination after I wiped out the americans (Cyan)...

[Arrian]

aaglo,

I would have attacked the Green civ up north (Greece?)and moved the palace to the city where their culture is jutting eastward into yours. That should cover the entire northern bulge, and your coastal cities along the bay (SE of my proposed palace location). That way you would have 1 gigantic, productive continent (the grey civ - Zulu? - could be wiped out easily).

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

With just the lower half of the contienant, orignal Palace & FP locations look ideal.

The addition of the the northen part of the contienant would have made a lot more cities FP centric than Palace centric. The lopsideiness remains after capturing all small islands on the map.

On the new contienant, the western part of it was old Palace centric, but the south central portion was FP centric.

The main reason that the overall economy improved after moving that original palace, is that under the new palace location, the cities are almost exactly evenly split between being FP centric and New Palace centric.

[aaglo]

In my recent game:

my original palace was in the city with black circle.
my fp is in the city with red circle
my new palace is in the city with blue circle (far away in the other continent)

I had less than 5% corruption&waste in the broad lower part of my original continent, so building palace to new continent really helps your economy and production.

[Dominae]

This question has probably been answered eons ago in the FP thread, but here goes: if you build the FP, does the Palace jump still work? In other words, will the Palace always jump to the FP city (due to higher culture, assuming you haven't built any other cultural improvements)?


Dominae

[Arrian]

When I build the FP manually but far from the capitol, I will use the following:

temple
courthouse

As I usually play religious civs, the temple is usually done very early (10 turns, rush). The courthouse may be forest-chop assisted and then bought. I allow the city to get to size 6, and turn 1 citizen into an entertainer. That should get the city into WLTKD (of course this depends on the luxury situation). Most of the time, this results in 3-4 shields in a non-GA situation. More if in GA.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

When I get Great Leaders, there's always something I can build that's better for them, so I always normal build the FP following the rushing of pre-builds.

In this particlar case, I got as many luxaries as possible (which was only 4 because the dumb Astecs didn't have a Harbor built.) Calculations showed that even combined 10% luxaries and Colossum wouldn't have caused a WLTPD, so I didn't bother with either. (Catherdrial was in fact needed to ensure order maintaigned while building it without entertainers.) The FP was built somewhat closer to my palace than I would have chosen had a WLTPD been feasible. (Second ring out with fresh water and lots of flood plains & hills instead of third ring out with lots of plains & hills. Tiny map.)

If you expand equally in all directions from your palace, then a city next to your existing Palace may in fact be the best location for a FP, but such equal expansions are rare.

[Jawa Jocky]

I've never tried to get a WLTPD to build the FP or P. I assume you use the luxury slider too? And max the # of luxuries too? I will have to keep this in mind.

I always use a GL to build these projects, so I don't have much experience building them. Other than build the FP next to my capital (which is harder challenging).

[joncnunn]

On the Emperor level, you often need the Catherdrial on a FP with a natural aquaduct to ensure it reamins in WLTPD throughout the build. Without a natural aquaduct you often need an aquaduct to use some more tiles with shields. (If it wouldn't the city probably isn't a good choice for a FP anyway.) Having a WLTPD is usually very important to ensure the FP gets built in a reasonable timeframe.

And you don't wait for all those structures to finish naturally, you rush all of them as fast as possible because you'll make the money back very quickly.

[Jawa Jocky]

joncnunn - that is an aweful lot of pre-builts on you list. I'll take your top 3 but the rest are putting off build for to long IMO.

I've also been told that FP flipping is not very likely since 1.29. It would still be a gamebreaker or at the very least a good reason to quit.

[joncnunn]

FP and Palace dont' have overlapping zones of control.

Every city is ranked by order of distance to both the Palace and Forbiden Palace with the lowest rank chosen.

So what you want to do is pick a FP location that roughly splits the empire in half when the cities are ranked by distance from each of them.

If your building the FP with a normal build you will want the following structures pre-built first. (Rushing after 1 turn normal build is a good idea)

1. Temple
2. Court House
3. Market Place
4. Catherdrial.
5. If needed an Aquaduct. (But natural aquaducts are highly prefered)
6. Perhaps a Collosum if it means the difference between having a WLTPD and not having one while the FP is under construction.

Size of the map matters, because optimum number of cities varies by map size.

[Jawa Jocky]

Originally posted by vmxa1
One other tactic that is not unheard of, is to slap the FP near the palace. This lets you move the palace as often as you wish. It also has the advantage that you can build the FP in a city that has good production. The palace can be built with a leader later.

Dido on what Arrian posted. I'd also like to mention that the FP city can be flipped, but the Palace can't.


Here is the only valid arguement against this strategy.
You end up with less culture in the long run.

And the stock rebuttle.
Good, I don't want a cultural victory

[Arrian]

I too like building the FP close to the original capitol and then using a leader to rush a palace elsewhere. There are times when I have been able to merely rush a FP in a perfect spot, with the palace also optimal, but those are relatively rare.

In the game I was playing last night, I built the FP two cities over from my capitol. It was roughly the center of my empire at the time, and later, when I moved my palace to occupied Egypt, it took care of my original core cities well enough.

Flip,

Check out a thread called "FP + Palace Placement" or something like that (use the search function). It's all about this type of thing, and has some screenshots and stuff.

-Arrian

[aaglo]

In most of my games I have placed the FP to relatively close to my capital. Then in later phase I have moved my capital to further places (rushbuild with a leader). This won't damage very much the production in former core cities, because they are fully developed, huge and happy (WLTKD).

In my current game My homeland is huge continent. The americans on another continent declared a war against me. So I captured some of their cities and rushed palace to the new continent... My income (gold production surplus) increased 50%!!! (I had several other cities in that new continent already).
When I checked the old capital and cities near to it, there was only very little corruption/waste (less than 5% corruption)...