Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[vmxa]

Well there is an article about corruption by axleman who was tester and went to work for them.

It explains the whole vanilla/ptw corruption and how RCP impacts it. In C3C the FP no longer acts like a second palace for ring placement and distance.

The net effect is that you have a small reduction on towns near the FP and the FP does a fair reduction on the city it is in. This means in practice that you are usually not going to gain enough to wait and place it in some new land.

It will take a long time to be built there without a leader and the city near it are likely to be not build up, unless it is a capture bunch.

So most will just slap the FP up in a core town to get what they can as quick as they can. This usually means it will go up with no leader and not take 50 turns.

AFAIK the only thing you can do to relocate it is to abandon the town. I guess you could let it be captured and then take it back. I am guessing the culture removing rule will have it destroyed, but I am not certain.

I would expect that it not worth all that effort in any event. It would be easier to just move the palace, never one of my favs.

 

[Tone]

AFAIK the only thing you can do to relocate it is to abandon the town. I guess you could let it be captured and then take it back. I am guessing the culture removing rule will have it destroyed, but I am not certain.

Apart from agreeing with everything you have said (as usual) I can confirm that if you let your FP city be captured you will need to rebuild it even if you recapture the city so vmxa's guess is correct.

 

[EMan]

An alternative to engineering a capture of the city with the FP, just "gift" it to the AI.

Also, if you reeeeally want to build an FP in a city in a far-off land, consider building it in a city with lots of spare food (viz. wheat/cows/floodplains). That way you can use Civil Engineers to build the FP in maybe less than 20 turns.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Civil Engineers? What's that?

So am I misunderstanding the FP? Does it or doesn't it act as a new capital for distance determination of corruption/waste? As I said in my original question I conquered a bunch of cities on a distant continent/island.

 

[Turner]

Civil Engineers? What's that?

After discovering Replaceable Parts, you have access to a specialist that produces two shields per turn. However, these are only available for non-unit builds, and if you switch you lose the shields.

So am I misunderstanding the FP? Does it or doesn't it act as a new capital for distance determination of corruption/waste? As I said in my original question I conquered a bunch of cities on a distant continent/island.

The FP was nerfed in Conquests. It reduces distance corruption, but it doesn't help with rank corruption like in Vanilla/PTW. I may have that reversed....

 

[Leowind]

Well there is an article about corruption by axleman who was tester and went to work for them....I would expect that it not worth all that effort in any event. It would be easier to just move the palace, never one of my favs.

I'll have to look up that article some evening at home.

So now I'm wondering if the FP is even worth building, unless with a leader? Does it impact corruption enough overall to be worthwhile? Building it in a core city certainly would be easier, I'll admit.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

I'll have to look up that article some evening at home.

So now I'm wondering if the FP is even worth building, unless with a leader? Does it impact corruption enough overall to be worthwhile? Building it in a core city certainly would be easier, I'll admit.

The article by alexman, called Everything about Corruption, can be found here. IMO, the FP is worth building, provided you build it in the right city (not too far away, not too close). Here's an excerpt:

The Forbidden Palace acts as a second Palace for distance corruption calculations, but not for rank calculations. The Forbidden Palace itself will have low corruption, but if there are many cities closer to the Palace than the Forbidden Palace, the cities around the Forbidden Palace will have high rank corruption. However, even though it doesn’t provide a new set of city ranks, the Forbidden Palace reduces rank corruption throughout the empire by increasing the optimal number of cities.

So, yes, Turner was right that it reduces distance corruption, but not rank. Give it a read - it's worth it.

 

[EMan]

After discovering Replaceable Parts, you have access to a specialist that produces two shields per turn. However, these are only available for non-unit builds, and if you switch you lose the shields.
...

Not sure what you meant here. You can switch builds without losing any shields (non-units of course).......maybe you meant switching to a unit build........but that would be kinda silly.

Also, there is a bug in C3C, regarding Civil Engineers. Say you are using CE's to build a Harbor. After a few turns, you cash-rush Barracks in that city.....then, in the same turn, switch back to Harbor and you will find more than 40 shields in the Production Box......you may even have enough to build the Harbor next turn! (Unfortunately, I don't think you can use this tactic to build Wonders [i.e. FP].)

 

[Abegweit]

The FP is definitely worth building for its effect on the OCN alone and it should be one of your first priorities. In some circumstances it can be worth using a leader especially if it would take a long time to build anyway and if you have limited use for (or no right to build) an army.

There are some exceptions but typically the ideal location is in a moderately corrupt city with plenty of productive potential in your second or third ring in the direction of your main expansion. This will turn the FP city into an excellent producer and provide some benefit to nearby cities as you grow.

It remains that the most important effect is to increase the OCN. As such, build it. If no city qualifies according to the criteria I laid out above, find one with lots of shields and get the job done.

As for jumping the capital, it can very occasionally be useful in C3C. Typically this happens when you have no space to build a core around your starting location. I used a palace jump to good effect in two COTMs. In one, I started on a peninsula with a nice continent to fill up in the northwest. In the other we were on a horrid hilly little island with space for about four cities and no potential for growth beyond size 2 or 3 before the advent of harbours.

 

[Kool Keith]

I typically choose I random land mass for my games. Is there a way to know specifically how much water my map has? I would like to know just for evaluation purposes to better understand how I performed, after the fact.

 

[Tone]

Is there a way to know specifically how much water my map has?

Both MapStat and CivAssistII give this information. In fact Mapstat can tell you how much of each terrain type as well. It is 'spoilered' but at the end of the game that's not an issue. Do you need links to these or are you OK?

 

[Kool Keith]

I'm all set. Thanks.

 

[cjamblues]

hi,
I have won several times diplomatic victory as Emperor, sometimes not by building UN but capturing it.
It has worked in some games but in the last, elections were not called immediately after I captured UN, as I expected, and not even after 10 turns. In the end I lost to Babylon who got 100.000 culture points.
The reason why I had to capture the UN was that Babylon, who owned it, was way ahead in culture, power, tech and all the rest.
I could not find out why this strategy worked sometimes, and not in other games. Anyone knows?

 

[Tone]

Welcome to CFC, cjamblues!

An election is called every 13 turns and my understanding is that this cycle does not change if someone else captures the UN. This probably means that you captured the UN just after a voting opportunity came up.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Tone, I think the election is every 11 turns. Nonetheless, I think you're right - he came just after a vote.

 

[cjamblues]

thanks that would explain a lot. But in other games, I got the impression that capturing works like building UN, i.e. you get an election immediately after. It matters when its your last straw, as here.

 

[Tone]

Tone, I think the election is every 11 turns.

You are quite right. I should know by now that I always remember this incorrectly and I should look it up first.


(or be vague!)

 

[Hubb]

There are just a few things I'm unsure about...

Firstly, is it possible to prevent the limit on the number of turns you have in one game, only I recently ran out of turns?

Secondly, why am I often stuck in the early industrial ages at the start of the 21st century? Am I generally being crap at the game, or is it just that sometimes it works out that way when there are very few civs?

Finally, how do the civ specific abilities impact on the game? I noticed that when I was America, they had industrious as one of their traits and when I reached this era, production seemed to explode and I gained a significant advantage over my competitors; I'm guessing this was more than a coincidence, but I'm not sure.

 

[MAS]

Firstly, is it possible to prevent the limit on the number of turns you have in one game, only I recently ran out of turns?

You can set number of turns at game creation, the max is 1000 if i recall correctly... Changing it mid-game would require a save-game-editor, and would certainly be cheating. 540 turns ought to be more than enough.

Secondly, why am I often stuck in the early industrial ages at the start of the 21st century? Am I generally being crap at the game, or is it just that sometimes it works out that way when there are very few civs?

Define "stuck!" You mean you are getting behind the AI in the tech race? Or do you mean the turns run out before you can finish the tech tree past that point?

In any event, if you have a problem in a later age, it is usually because of errors made in earlier ages. You can solve both falling behind the AI and running out of turns before you finish the tech tree by expanding more aggressively in the earlier ages. More land, more cities, more power, more research, earlier, faster...

Finally, how do the civ specific abilities impact on the game? I noticed that when I was America, they had industrious as one of their traits and when I reached this era, production seemed to explode and I gained a significant advantage over my competitors; I'm guessing this was more than a coincidence, but I'm not sure.

The industrious trait just makes it so your workers improve tiles faster, so in vanilla, (200%) they will take 2 turns to irrigate a tile instead of 4, in conquest, (150%) it takes them 3 turns to irrigate a tile instead of 4.

This will help you in the earlier turns, but by the time you reach the industrial age you should have so many workers that it only saves you worker upkeep cost, (since you need less workers to do the same) but not turns to improve tiles.

Also, an industrious civ gets +2 shields in the city center of a metropolis. (size 13 and larger) But this is peanuts. I'm sure the industrious trait has nothing to do with what you noticed.

 

[Hubb]

You can set number of turns at game creation, the max is 1000 if i recall correctly... Changing it mid-game would require a save-game-editor, and would certainly be cheating. 540 turns ought to be more than enough.



Define "stuck!" You mean you are getting behind the AI in the tech race? Or do you mean the turns run out before you can finish the tech tree past that point?

In any event, if you have a problem in a later age, it is usually because of errors made in earlier ages. You can solve both falling behind the AI and running out of turns before you finish the tech tree by expanding more aggressively in the earlier ages. More land, more cities, more power, more research, earlier, faster...



The industrious trait just makes it so your workers improve tiles faster, so in vanilla, (200%) they will take 2 turns to irrigate a tile instead of 4, in conquest, (150%) it takes them 3 turns to irrigate a tile instead of 4.

This will help you in the earlier turns, but by the time you reach the industrial age you should have so many workers that it only saves you worker upkeep cost, (since you need less workers to do the same) but not turns to improve tiles.

Also, an industrious civ gets +2 shields in the city center of a metropolis. (size 13 and larger) But this is peanuts. I'm sure the industrious trait has nothing to do with what you noticed.

Yes, I meant stuck as in my turns run out before I get very far in the tech tree, although I'm often at a similar or better level to rival civs, so I'm thinking I just need to expand quicker in future games and I guess they will do likewise.

Thanks for your help, it's cleared up a few grey areas.