Palace move?

[Optional]

I have a question: I've seen the term 'Palace move' come up every now and then, but I've never read much detail about it. When do you folks do this? What are you trying to gain?

I can think of some beneficial effects, but I've never tried it in a game myself, and I'll probably go about it the wrong way if I were to do it now. So I'm interested in your opinions. Any info will help.

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

if the map has been made in such a way that your capital city is not close to the center of your empire, then it's a good idea to move the palace to the middle so that a central city becomes the capital and corruption is reduced.

usually people do this with a forbidden palace, but sometimes your empire is really huge and you need 2 well placed palaces.

you do this by just building a palace in the desired city. eventually it gets done and becomes the new capital.

 

[civverguy]

You abandon your old capital and it move to another city.

 

[Tribute]

Civ Assist II has a feature where you can see which of your cities would become the next palace should your current capital be conquered or abandoned. It is in the miscellaneous tab and also tells you how much extra garrison would guarantee the new capital to be in that town. Of course, you'd probably make the differences more notable, highest population, highest garrison, highest culture just to ensure that the target city is the new capital. It's helpful for when you play the occasional seafaring civ that gets stuck on a long peninusula.

 

[Othniel]

The primary reason to do a palace jump is make a different area other than your starting area into your primary productive core.

For instance, if you start off on a small island or a peninsula, you can't surround your capital with many cities. Because for non-communistic governments, corruption is partially due to distance from the capital (or FP), you want to have a large number of cities spaced around the capital to keep the core from becoming too far-flung. Thus, consider moving the palace to a more central location.

Or, perhaps your starting area is resource-poor and you want a higher-potential area to become the core.

You can jump the palace a few different ways:
1. Use an MGL to rush a palace build in a new city (the palace counts as a small wonder)
2. Abandon your original capital city and the palace will flip to a new city. That new city is chosen based on a formula influenced by city size, military garrison, and possibly a few other things. Like Tribute said, CivAssist tells what city that will be.
3. Simply naturally build the palace in a new city. How many shields it takes is based on the number of cities in your empire.
4. If enemies capture your capital, the palace jumps like in #2. Not a recommended option.
5. Use an SGL to rush the palace, like in #1. Also not usually recommended because SGL's should be used for great wonders.

Using #1 or #2 is preferred if the new capital will be in a highly corrupt area because the natural build will take too long.

 

[Optional]

Thanks for your responses so far! Definitely some useful information there.

My question was mainly one of strategy. I had only come across one strategy article involving a palace move before, and the guy who wrote that article used a palace move in quite a different way: he moved the palace to the front line. I remember him talking about preventing his front line cities from flipping over to the enemy. I guess another advantage of moving it to the front is shorter military supply lines. I guess we're talking about further expansion plans here; you wouldn't want your capital to stay in a fringe position for ever, would you? The corruption in the rest of your empire would be crippling! I have to say I remember that in the article the Forbidden Palace took care of the corruption in the old core.

But from the answers so far I conclude that most people are using the Palace move in a more conservative way: moving it to a position that is already central to your empire, so that you're noticing an immediate positive effect on corruption.

Still, I would like to know: are there also people who are using that bolder front line scenario?

 

[Rising Star]

Wow, I've never heard of anyone moving their capital to the front line of a war zone before, but it makes excellent sense. It prevents flipping as you said, or at least makes it more difficult, and also decreases the corruption those frontier cities experience, allowing the creation of military units and building to proceed much faster than previously. And as you conquer enemy territory, it will no longer be on the fringe. Very similar to the Roman idea of moving the capital from Rome to Ravenna, Milan and I think Turin, to be closer to the barbarian invaders. And obviously Constantinople also counts.

 

[Tribute]

That's extremely scary to me. (I mean if it happened in reality.) But it is a sound civilization strategy since these citizens of yours don't exist. However, even if it does prevent flips, I'd rather not move my capital to the front lines. But if you're going for conquest and you started in a corner, you may as well since you'll reduce overall corruption that way.

 

[Othniel]

Optional, are you using vanilla Civ or Conquests??? Which one you're playing will have a big effect on your tactics with the palace.

In vanilla civ, a corruption exploit was discovered called the "rank corruption exploit". Without getting into the nitty-gritty (there's a War Academy article you can read <<here>> on it written by Qitai), this exploit allowed one to GREATLY reduce corruption in all your core cities. The idea was to build the FP in the middle of your core, then jump the palace to the remotest location possible. Once that happened, voila! greatly reduced core corruption.

The only real reason I can think to move the palace to the front-lines would be to utilize this exploit. The benefits of using the palace to prevent front-line flips is usually marginal at best, and your productive core that is feeding your war machine would be instantly crippled.

If you are using Conquests, the whole rank corruption exploit has been negated. For Conquests, it is recommended to just build the palace and FP in the core of your empire and let things rest.

 

[Optional]

Othniel, thanks for your well informed responses. I'm playing Conquests. I immediately understood which article you meant though, because I did once read it, and it's hard to forget that article once you've read it; it makes for a good read!
If you read the responses to that article, then you learn that quite a few people have unwittingly benefitted from the flaw in this corruption model when they Palace jumped. I think this also can easily have been the case with that Palace-to-the-front line strategy that I once came across.

However, if SirPleb - who is one of the respondents to that article - says that he has benefitted without knowing when he moved his palace to a remote location, then he will have had other reasons to make this palace move. So even if you don't play Vanilla or Play the World, and or not going for the exploit, there might still be good reasons to move your palace to a more remote location.

I'm saying that as a complete Palace jump virgin though, I've never even attempted it. But right now I'm playing a game where I started off in a bit of a corner, and my empire has developed into a kind of an L-shape. The hook of the L is then the old core, and the both end bits of the L are areas that I'm developing; it's good land there. Halfway both legs of the L is desert; I haven't even built cities there. So it's an untypically shaped empire, it misses bits in the middle because of the desert. One of the legs of the L that is my empire ends in the middle of the continent. I find that spot particularly promising, because of it's central location, and because it's got everything you can wish: food, forest, a river, luxuries nearby...it's better than my starting area. So that's why I'm considering moving my palace there. It might be on the fringe of my empire right now, but I see every reason to try and change that and make it into my new core. I need a good military for it, because other civs are moving in as well, not surprisingly.

I don't fancy the idea of abandoning my old capital. I see the practical advantage: a cheap new capital, but I feel it's an exploit. Ok, technically perhaps not; Firaxis put that 'abandon' button there deliberately, but I wonder why. I don't see the historical justification. The Romans? They will have given high status to other important centres within their empire, but abandoning Rome? Never! They were Romans!
So some question marks from me there, but I wouldn't want to dictate how other people are playing: you might be more pragmatic than me.

 

[Rising Star]

The Romans did abandon Rome. The allowed the Huns to sack it while they marshalled their forces elsewhere. The Athenians abandoned Athens to the Persians. There are other cases of this happening throughout history. While most occasions weren't voluntary, there are a few cases of it being so.

 

[Optional]

Ok, if I'm giving it another thought, I can also think of examples of civilizations abandoning cities. The scorched earth technique that the Russians used springs to my mind. Although in most cases we're probably talking about a 'let's save our skins and get outa here' technique, inspired by an oncoming enemy that is stronger.
I'm not sure whether these historical cases can serve as a comparison to the technique of abandoning your own capital to make your palace jump, as is now and then advocated on the pages of this site.

 

[Othniel]

@Optional

I scanned the thread where Sir Pleb replies to about the rank corruption exploit. He seems to have jumped the palace to make a new core in a higher potential area, but I could be wrong in that interpretation.

One other possible reason to jump the palace would be to instantly teleport one's army to the front lines. All you have to do is make a new palace on the front lines, stick all your army in some city on the fringe of your old core, then gift that city to another civ. Again voila!, all of those units reappear in your new capital city right on the front lines of the conflict. This tactic, though, is also considered an exploit and is banned for any official CFC competitions.

Anyhow, these are just the reasons that come to my mind why one would jump the palace to a remote location/front lines of war. I'd also be very interested in learning if there are other solid reasons to do palace jumps, and I'm sure I have plenty more to learn about this area of tactic.

 

[Rising Star]

Ok, if I'm giving it another thought, I can also think of examples of civilizations abandoning cities. The scorched earth technique that the Russians used springs to my mind. Although in most cases we're probably talking about a 'let's save our skins and get outa here' technique, inspired by an oncoming enemy that is stronger.
I'm not sure whether these historical cases can serve as a comparison to the technique of abandoning your own capital to make your palace jump, as is now and then advocated on the pages of this site.

Of course, we're both missing the most obvious and famous example of this, and I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it earlier: The Maya.

 

[ecuwins]

The only time I would move my palace is if I was on an island and found a bigger un-occupied island right next to mine. If you can do this early it is cheap and may be worth it. Later in the game though, as stated above, it will make your core corrupt -- which is a very bad thing.

 

[Aramazd]

The Romans did abandon Rome. The allowed the Huns to sack it while they marshalled their forces elsewhere. The Athenians abandoned Athens to the Persians. There are other cases of this happening throughout history. While most occasions weren't voluntary, there are a few cases of it being so.

It wasn't the Huns. Perhaps you mean the Visigoths or the Vandals. Although by that time the capital was Ravenna.

 

[Rising Star]

I wasn't referring to them actually moving the capital when the Huns came, as I was stating that they had moved their capital from Rome to Ravenna. This allowed the Huns to sack Rome, as it was undefended, which would have been unthinkable if it were still their capital. And I'm pretty sure it was the Visigoths who caused that move.

 

[Lanzelot]

I wasn't referring to them actually moving the capital when the Huns came, as I was stating that they had moved their capital from Rome to Ravenna. This allowed the Huns to sack Rome, as it was undefended, which would have been unthinkable if it were still their capital. And I'm pretty sure it was the Visigoths who caused that move.

In which year was this supposed to be? I'm pretty sure, that the Huns never sacked Rome: Attila was beaten by an alliance between Roman General Flavius Aëtius and a few Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains 451 AD in Gaul (Gallia). The following year, Attila led his forces across the Alps and sacked a few northern Italian cities, but stopped before reaching Rome. (According to the legend, Pope Leo the Great met Attila and convinced him to not enter Rome, but I think that is doubtful considering Attila's need to make booty...)
Are you perhaps confusing the Huns with the Visigoths, the Vandals or the Ostrogoths? All three of these Germanic tribes sacked Rome during the time of the Migration Period. The Visigoths in 410, the Vandals in 455 and the Ostrogoths in 546 and 550.

 

[wazzbot]

Moved my palace to the front with germany on picking up a MGL about 10 turns ago (as a result of this thread).... whilst at war, had Salzburg (two towns to the east) flip after that, after the palace move, was able to re-invade, and since then it's all been good.

Persepolis became a shadow of its' former self. Kinda sad actually.