Where should I put my FP?

[TruePurple]

I was going to upload you guys a save so you can see for your self. But its on a Xlarge map and the save is at 600k. The forum will only allow up to 500k attachments.

Anyways I'm trying to decide whether to put the FP in the city with 4 gems around it (+4 gold bonus resource) and a river flowing nearby (alot of potential commerce from this city) or a bit further down. If I put it in the rich city I can get most all of that commerce income unlost by corruption. But that city is closer to my regular capital. About 10 squares down would put the FP palace closer to more cities and maximize the general range corruption reduction for the most cities. Some of those cities have there own bonus resources but nothing like the gem city. Is there a way to use civ assist or some other tool to decide which place is the best place for my FP?

BTW I have a Smith's Trading Co GW, which means free markers banks stockmarkers harbors and I can't remember what else. Which means more pain free ability to put those items in more cities.

 

[Theoden]

If you use civassist, it can give an assumption of how much the corruption will be reduced depending of your chosen FP location.
If you want to attach the save, you can make it a zip file, that will make it under 500k.

 

[Gato Loco]

Generally, put it wherever it'll get built fastest. That's the only consideration in C3C, since the OCN effect of the FP is much bigger than the distance effect. Since those rubies are probably on mountains, I have a feeling that city has a pretty high production. Are you building it from scratch or getting it from a MGL?

 

[TruePurple]

I can build it instantly anywhere with my MGL,

The gem city isn't fully developed and I haven't captured all of the cities yet either so its hard to tell what the effect would be, nor does civassist tell you about shield corruption it seems

Oh, and I can't post it zipped either. Zipped its 550k.

 

[SJ Frank]

Here is the instruction on how to use the "upload" feature. It should allow you post game saves of any size.

If you are playing vanilla civ3 or PTW, then I'd advice putting it where it benefits the most cities. The only reason to put it in the gem city is if you can also build Cop and Newton's there for the "super science city" effect.

If you are playing C3C, then the choice will depend on where your palace is. If the palace is in a good place already, then the location of FP won't matter, building it in the gem city is a good choice. If palace is off in the corner somewhere, then building the FP in the middle of all the cities is the best choice, though you still don't want to build it too far away from the palace.

 

[TruePurple]

Why do you want the FP to be close to your palace? Doesn't that rather neutralize the distance effective of the FP? BTW its conquest.

My empires rather misshapen partially due to the misshapen nature of the starting landmass and stretches from the top of the Xlarge map to the bottom. Ill read through these instructions and see about posting the save.

Both super science wonders have been built, one in my cap. The other by AI

 

[TruePurple]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Yet_another.SAV

I'm at war with pink and have them mostly defeated, shortly the cities at the bottom will be mine. But these cities and the ones off on a small island are very far from my cap, which isnt badly placed but because I'm so spread out and the map is so very large..

The two places I was thinking of was the ruby city which is too close to my cap I think. Want to maximize the distance effect. The other place I was thinking of was the place where the conquired GW is, where i've already started building it (only another 200 turns to go but np, I got a MGL)

Little tidbit about this map. Half the nations were isolated from the other half through a majority of the game till I finally was able to travel safely through ocean squares and just beelines through the black, when I finely did encounter them I encountered all 4 or so in one small area and was able to sell alot of communication

 

[Cuivienen]

In Conquests the FP does not act like a second Palace to the cities around it, but only reduces corruption in the single city at about the level of a Courthouse and the overall corruption of all of your cities by increasing the OCN. It does not provide a greater benefit farther from the capital. The FP should always be built in a city not terribly far from the capital that has strong production or trade potential like the city you describe.

 

[TruePurple]

Well I created it in several cities as a test and it had a different effect on distant cities depending on which city I put it in. So I think your wrong about that cuivienen.

 

[Own]

Put it in the best terrain place. The location doesn't matter, it only increases your # of optimal cities, not distance corruption, so you won't a "no corruption" city to have excellent terrain.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

I may be mistaken BUT... doesn't the FP also create a 2nd city rank list for cities nearer it than the capital? The problem however is that city rank corruption is significantly less than distance corruption which is still calculated to the capital.

The overall benefit from increasing the OCN and the minimal rank benefit are the reasons the best players have suggested building it close to the core early and not worrying about optimal placement which would normaly take longer.

Ideally, as truepurple has dicovered, the FP would be placed in a high potential commerce city in a SEMI corrupt area to get SOME benefit from the 2nd rank list. If you try it in a fully corrupt area, the new rank list may have no noticable effect and all you get is the increased OCN and one good city.

It should be noted also that a FP city with both courthouse and police station will have 0 corruption just as the capital has.

 

[Theoden]

I may be mistaken BUT... doesn't the FP also create a 2nd city rank list for cities nearer it than the capital? The problem however is that city rank corruption is significantly less than distance corruption which is still calculated to the capital.

Actually it works exactly opposite. It creates another center that cities can measure distance corruption towards. Also, rank corruption is usually making up a larger part than distance corruption.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

OK, i got it backwards. The point however is still the same. The benefit received is the lesser benefit and therefore not noticable if you try to build it in a fully corrupt area. I might have worded it wrong as well.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

The point remains: it will help corruption around it, but not enough to consider leader-rushing it in a very distant place. best built (at most) inside ring 8 in most cases, in a good prod/comm town.

 

[SJ Frank]

Well I created it in several cities as a test and it had a different effect on distant cities depending on which city I put it in. So I think your wrong about that cuivienen.

At the top of this forum, you can find a thread called Civ3 Conquests Additions & Changes List. It lists all the changes that were made in Conquest, and there were a lot of them.

Scroll down the page and look for the heading "Other Significant Changes", that's where Arathorn detailed the changes to the FP.

One thing that you do have to be careful of is that the effect of the FP changed a lot with each C3C patch. So, you do need to make sure that you have the latest patch for any of this discussion to be relevant.

 

[TruePurple]

I have the latest .22 patch.

Well would any of you be willing to please load up the save and tell me where you think the FP would best go to? The second lower spot does have a noticable effect even out to the small island. But the game spot is the most productive and closer to more fully developed cities (verses cities not yet even conquered yet)

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

I personally would put it in Ollantaytambo for the high potential commerce there.

 

[SJ Frank]

My, what an odd shaped empire you have

Earlier in the game, I would have put the FP in either one of the NE or NW wings. It won't help corruption that much, but the fact that it is early and that it speeds up development of those cities makes it worth it.

Right now, both of those regions are well developed, especially since you already put courthouses in all of those cities, corruption in that region isn't an urgent issue anymore. You original choice, the gem city, looks like the best site among all current cities.

I say all current cities, because you do have an Ironwork site. There is a regular grassland tile that's surrounded by BG's, mountains, hills, and of course, an iron and a coal . A FP city at that site would be a super shield city. Depending on your victory goal, having a good shield city may be more important than a good commerce city.

What you do with that Ironwork site and the FP may also have to do with your choice of government. Under Republic, the best way to make that Ironwork city worth-while is to make it the FP city, otherwise it would suffer from too much corruption and become just like an average core city. However, if Communism is in your plans, then you could put the SPHQ there. The SPHQ plus courthouse and police station will completely eliminate corruption in a city.

So, my line of thought is, if you're going for a domination/conquest win, then put the FP in the gem city, build the ToE and Hoover, switch to communism, build the SPHQ in the Ironwork city, and go conquer the world; if you're going for a space win, then put the FP in the Ironwork city, and stay in Republic.

I don't put the FP in the gem city for a space race, because I don't think commerce will be the determining factor in this space race. If you allow either the Dutch or the Mayans to stay in peace, then it will be a tough race. But if you can keep them constantly at war, preferably with each-other, and turn them into Fascist, then your Republic should have no problem beating them in tech.

There is also the third option of not building the Ironwork city, because there is already a pair of decent cities occupying that space, and simply rushing the FP in the gem city. I don't like this option, because it's too bland