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FP Corruption Idea(s)
Here's a thought on one possible way to make the FP clearly useful but not as powerful as it was in the stock game:
1) Calculate the shields and commerce each city would produce if there was no FP.
2) Calculate the shields and commerce each city would produce if the palace were in the FP city instead.
3) If the shields or commerce with the "palace" in the FP city is higher, average the two values together. (Ideally, shields and commerce should each be tested independently since WLT?D boosts shields but not commerce.)
Thus, a FP in an area that would otherwise be totally corrupt would provide a second core that is just a hair over half as good as the original core. Similarly, building the FP near the original core and moving the palace halfway around the globe would leave the original core at essentially half strength or not much over. But two full-power cores would not be possible, so the advantage of perfect palace/FP positioning compared with bad positioning (and hence of humans over AIs) would be smaller.
I'm not sure I'd rather have that than have the FP restored to its full former power. But it's a possible compromise solution between those who want a weak FP and those who want a strong one.
One thing, though: if the FP is not restored to its former glory, there really needs to be a way to move it. Pre-C3C, it was common to have the FP centered in a good position to become the de facto capital of the original core (with an eye toward moving the palace later) and leave the palace in a less central location until moving it to a conquered area. But with the FP significantly weaker than the palace, the palace and FP are no longer interchangeable. Thus, a need is created to be able to move the palace to somewhere near where the FP is (maybe even the same city) and move the FP somewhere else. Having to disband the FP city (or conceivably let an AI conquer it and then take it back) before you can move the FP seems a bit absurd.
Looking ahead to Civ 4, the idea of a FP that provides only part of the boost that a palace does could be extended to the concept of provencial capitals, either with a limit of one per X cities or (probably better) with a global corruption penalty that grows each time another provincial capital is built. Instead of the one high-powered second core in traditional Civ 3, there would be potentially multiple additional cores with less power each. That would mirror how large real-world empires have traditionally operated more closely, and would provide AIs with a reason to keep expanding so AI domination victories might actually become a realistic threat.
Nathan
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