Forbidden Palace Confusion

[Captain_Jack]

When it comes time to build the Forbidden Palace I never know where to put it. I can easily build it very near my palace in a high production city but does that dilute the benefit too much? If I place it farther away it takes much longer to build and that also has drawbacks. To further muddy the waters I think Firaxis changed the rules between Play the World and Conquests so the answer for one version of the game might be different than the answer for the other.
Does anyone have any useful guidance?

 

[CKS]

In PTW you want to put the FP far from your palace. In PTW you get a whole second uncorrupt core around the FP, so you should build it far enough away for this to be helpful. Using a GL or building it near the palace and then moving the palace are both ways to do this without taking forever. Due to the strange way corruption is calculated, you may want to build more tightly around the FP than the palace. (In fact, building very loosely around the palace is forbidden in competition as an exploit, the Remote Palace Exploit.)

In Conquests it doesn't matter a whole lot where you put the FP, as you don't get this second core. Put it in a town that isn't too corrupt (not necessarily the closest towns, but at least in the next bunch) that is on the side of the palace that more of your empire is or will be on.

 

[Lanzelot]

In C3C I usually build the FP in a "second ring" city. That's a good compromise between "having a good return on investment" and "taking forever to build". If you cash-rush a temple, market and courthouse before starting the FP and also join a few workers, then even a semi-corrupt city can build it reasonably fast.

In PtW it is usually worth it to rush the FP with an MGL, because Armies are worthless anyway (compared to a C3C Army), while the FP is very strong (stronger than the C3C FP). In C3C, however, an Army is worth much more than having the FP 20-30 turns earlier. (If you know how to make good use of that Army... )

PS: the "temple" may require a bit more explanation, as I am notorious for saying "temples is a waste of shields, never build them"... But in this case it serves two purposes:

• it allows to join one more worker, before the unhappiness kicks in, so one more tile with shields to be worked
• it provides access to the outer tiles of the BFC, which need to be worked (assuming you can push the city at least to size 10, which is required for a reasonably fast completion of the FP.)

 

[md4]

In Conquests it doesn't matter a whole lot where you put the FP, as you don't get this second core. Put it in a town that isn't too corrupt (not necessarily the closest towns, but at least in the next bunch) that is on the side of the palace that more of your empire is or will be on.

I didn't even realise this; I've been building it in far-flung places and just sucking up the massive build times.

I'm a bit confused on the placement advice. Does it impart any effects on nearby cities at all, or just a reduction across the board? If the latter, wouldn't it be best built in whatever city has the highest production output?

 

[vmxa]

The FP city will have very low corruption, not zero though. IIRC it will slightly reduce adjacent towns. The biggest thing it does is raise the OCN. That impacts corruption empire wide. For that reason I want it up soon. That means a pretty good city. As was mentioned, not going to spend an MGL on it, as that is for armies.

OCN is Optimal City (number?). The game gets an OCN based on map size. Going over that cap means more corruption. Raising it mean you can have more towns, before you reach the cap.

 

[CKS]

I'm a bit confused on the placement advice. Does it impart any effects on nearby cities at all, or just a reduction across the board? If the latter, wouldn't it be best built in whatever city has the highest production output?

I think it does reduce corruption in nearby cities a little, but it isn't a big effect. vmxa's explanation matches my understanding.
When GOTM started playing Conquests, SirPleb wrote about differences between the two versions. I find it helpful:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/conquest-01-saves-are-now-available.89805/page-4#post-1887523

If I do 20k in a non-capital city, it gets the FP. I don't notice a difference in corruption between this and placing it somewhere else. In fact, I've jumped the palace to the FP city without noticing corruption differences. I'm not that observant, but if the effect were big I think I'd notice. It is very obvious in PTW

 

[md4]

Thanks so much, CKS. That post from SirPleb (and the one below it) is pure gold. And it's buried away under a thread title I wouldn't have ever given a second glance to.

 

[justanick]

The FP city will have very low corruption, not zero though. IIRC it will slightly reduce adjacent towns.

Indeed.

There is a potentially huge reduction of corruption in the city itself. It is reduced to 20% at most which can be reduced further to 10% with a courthouse or 0% with courthouse and policestation.

There is a global reduction of corruption that is small near the actual capital and increase as the number of cities nearer to the capital increases. This tends to be the main effect of the FP.

Also the FP serves as second capital for distance corruption only. Given that both courthouse and police station cut distance corroption in half this effect will be small in the long run, but it can matter in the short run.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/everything-about-corruption-c3c-edition.76619/

All in all having the FP (somewhat) soon is more important than having it at the best possible spot. Choosing the city with the highest production potential in the first or second ring(it does not need to be an actual ring) tends to be the best choice.

The investment of 200 shields will net you about 10 shields per turn and 10 to 20 commerce per turn. Multiplyer buildings come on top of that. The FP is nice little extra, but not a huge deal.

 

[Dragon1965]

I've read most of the stuff above and I just wanted to offer my advice/observation on the Forbidden Palace. The Forbidden Palace is, essentially, a second Palace and has identical effects (from my observation). It reduces corruption at a similar level in a ring similar to the Palace.

The placement of the FP is crucial to future development if you are going to have a huge empire (I always play on the largest world size). Ideally you want the FP to be completely outside the "ring" of the Palace's anti-corruption effect. If your country is well located (centrally located) it may be a good idea to go ahead and build the FP in the same city as your original Palace, because you can always move the original Palace to a new location, and when you do the old capital and it's "ring" will still be unaffected by corruption. Hope that makes sense. In my current game my capital city (Paris) ended up being on the east coast of a massive Pangaea type continent, so I build the FP about halfway between the Palace ring and the coast, so I can move the capital later and not get eaten up by corruption. Depending on your continent(s) the strategy may have to change. Hope I made sense. I've been playing this game since it came out.

 

[justanick]

The Forbidden Palace is, essentially, a second Palace and has identical effects (from my observation).

That is not true since C3C. For older versions your observation does apply.

 

[Dragon1965]

That is not true since C3C. For older versions your observation does apply.

I only have the original version of Civ 3.

 

[Fergei]

The vanilla Forbidden Palace works more intelligently in my opinion. Can you revert to that via any settings in the Conquests Editor?

 

[tjs282]

The vanilla Forbidden Palace works more intelligently in my opinion. Can you revert to that via any settings in the Conquests Editor?

No, (un)fortunately not. It's part of the hardcoded corruption model.

 

[Dragon1965]

The vanilla Forbidden Palace works more intelligently in my opinion. Can you revert to that via any settings in the Conquests Editor?

How does the "new" Forbidden Palace work? It's not just another Palace like in Vanilla?

 

[justanick]

How does the "new" Forbidden Palace work? It's not just another Palace like in Vanilla?

No: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/everything-about-corruption-c3c-edition.76619/

It only works as a second palace for distance corruption, but no longer for rank corruption. Rank corruption does depend on distance to the real capital. Rank is the amount of cities closer to the real capital. It is one of the reasons why in the late game metropolises are superior to a larger amount of smaller cities.

The FP lowers rank corruption by a mediocre amount and this is one of the reasons why it is sensible to have the FP reasonably early if built by regular means. Using an MGL for it is no longer is worth it. An army will be of greater worth.

That is unless you run into the threshold of needing 4 cities per army. If you cannot use a MGL for an army, then you might as well use it to rush something useful. But by the time your run out of uses for a MGL you are llikely to already have the FP.


PS: If for some weird reason you have a capital and a second capital far away and another town near each of them, then the FP will still work almost like a second capital. But once your amount of cities grows beyond 4 things will chance. Rank corruption near the second capital will rise till there is no second core. The city with the FP will however still have low corruption.