XP Issue: Palace and FP costs

nbarclay · May 25, 2003, 07:09

One thing I've found very annoying in Civ 3 is that it can be next to impossible to get good palace and forbidden palace placement through peaceful means. Warmongers can usually get their palace and FP where they want them with leaders, but players desiring peace tend to be stuck either building their FP uncomfortably close to their palace or taking half of forever to build it. To me, that situation seems more than a little ridiculous; why should warlike civilizations be so much better at such things than peaceful ones?

The situation is made worse by the inability to rush palaces and forbidden palaces and the inability to assist them with forest chops. I can understand disallowing those speed-up techniques for building wonders, and since wonders can be built in core cities, it's not that big a deal. But the best places for palace moves and forbidden palace builds are often very highly corrupt, and that can make the inability to speed up their production through anything but leaders crippling for players who do a good job REXing and don't want to fight (or don't want to fight yet).

Do other players agree with me that it would be better if it were easier to build forbidden palaces and move palaces through peaceful means? Or am I unusual in that regard?

WarpStorm · May 25, 2003, 07:56

I find that since palaces are fairly cheap (assuming you are builing in a low corruption zone) and can be rebuilt at will I build my FP at the core of my empire and move my palace repeatedly towards where it needs to be at any given moment. This can give me advantages for culture bombing and pacifying conquered cities. The thing to keep in mind is that this won't work if you are trying to build it outside of the low corruption area.

nbarclay · May 25, 2003, 10:15

Fairly cheap? It doesn't take a huge number of cities before palace moves get as expensive as the Pyramids or Great Library, or even more expensive. If moving the palace from Point A to Point B would require two hops, that makes a leader who rushes the job in a single hop worth as much as two great wonders. Except he's really worth a lot more than that, because he gets the job done right now, not in another hundred turns.

And the situation on archipelago maps can be a lot worse. Sometimes there's a land mass that would be well worth setting up a second core on, especially for a builder-style player, but that's so far away from the original core that it's totally corrupt or nearly so. And building a palace in the middle of the ocean to go part of the way at a time is not an option.

Spiffor · May 25, 2003, 11:16

I concur that I don't understand why it is impossible to rush-build a palace. Since rush-built buildings can't be turned into wonders, I don't see what the exploit from rush-building the palace can be.

I also think palaces are generally too expansive. I like them getting more expansive with the amount of cities, but the current price is overkill IMHO. I almost never relocate my palaces in my games, except if I have a leader for whom I have no use.

WarpStorm · May 25, 2003, 11:24

Quote:

Originally posted by nbarclay
Fairly cheap? It doesn't take a huge number of cities before palace moves get as expensive as the Pyramids or Great Library, or even more expensive.

Yes, fairly cheap. If you have that many cities, you should have production going. In addition, you can bail out of your move if a good wonder comes along.

Konquest02 · May 25, 2003, 12:02

Yes, production should be going really well. The only problem is that you don't want to build your palace in one of your core cities, it would just be a waste of time.

Moving the palace is nice when you move it to a corrupt area, not just move it one city at a time in your core...

--Kon--

nbarclay · May 25, 2003, 12:20

If you bail out for a wonder, you have to start the palace move all over again, so that's hardly a factor in making palace relocation more practical. And the cost issue is as much a matter of time as it is of raw shields: the high shield cost, coupled with the fact that a palace move to a city without significant corruption accomplishes little, tends to make palace moves take a long time. That's especially painful for players who set a fast research pace, for whom the same number of turns is a significantly higher fraction of an era.

The fact is that a palace move that would take two hops, a hundred turns, and a thousand shields for a player who is not fighting (or who is unlucky trying to get leaders) can be done instantly with a leader. That is a disparity of truly gargantuan proportions, and rewards warmongers on a scale far beyond what seems reasonable to me. Consider not just the thousand shields total (give or take) for the two palace moves themselves, but also all the extra commerce and shields generated during the hundred extra turns with the palace relocated, and the extra gold and science generated even beyond that time because cities in the new core have had a lot longer to build improvements.

Nathan

WarpStorm · May 25, 2003, 19:55

It's true that a lucky warmonger will generally do better in Civ3 than a peaceful technologist, but that's a totally different issue. I feel there should be a way for peaceful players to get the benefits of leaders also. This has little to do with how much a palace move costs IMHO.

Kuciwalker · May 25, 2003, 20:09

The Palace can be relocated for free if the Capitol falls, so why should it cost so much when moving it manually?

Randolph · May 25, 2003, 20:55

It would be nice if the game was generally rebalanced a bit to favor more peaceful tactics, this is a good example. Another option would be to remove the ability of leaders to completely rush wonders (maybe 50%?).

JPGray · May 25, 2003, 21:10

what if there was a chance for leader production when a wonder is built that matches a civ-specific trait? In the high levels, wonders are mostly captured by human players, not built, and leaders are hard to come by in any case.

dexters · May 25, 2003, 21:19

Provinces.

I absolutely think it is a disgrace for a 4X game to encourage players to move their capitals just to achieve optimum corruption fighting power.

The capital has historical and emotional significance and I am really reluctant to move it.

They should have implemented a provincial system with multiple provincial capitals.

peterfharris · May 25, 2003, 22:41

I NEVER move my Palace. (Only London can be the English capital). I heartily agree with dexters.

The cost of the Forbidden Palace can be edited. You can also use the editor to create additional second capitals. (The Double your pleasure mod has four, Summer Palace, Winter Palace, supreme Court and Forbidden Palace and that works well. It further advantages the human player as the AI now has 4 FP's to put in useless places).

I think the FP is so costly as to reward aggression.

bongo · May 26, 2003, 04:43

Maybe we could resurrect the caravans from civ2? Apart from setting up trade(and food!)routes caravans could also add shields to a wonder in production. This feature allowed almost instant wonders and weren't used at all by the AI.

So, enter the 'worker caravan'. Cost: 100? Special ability: when disbanded in cities it will return 50% of shields(normal units have 25%) to anything getting built except for Great Wonders.

dexters · May 26, 2003, 05:30

No caravans please.

It gets too bogged down in the late game and they are annoying to move around and to keep trade routes in your head and have the optimal route for each.

For Civ 4, we need provincial capitals. Unlimited FPs with much smaller effects. But this will make the need to move capitals less attractive.

Panag · May 26, 2003, 06:02

Quote:

Originally posted by skywalker
The Palace can be relocated for free if the Capitol falls, so why should it cost so much when moving it manually?

hi ,

imagine the same when in the real world , ......

its also a great place holder for wonders , .....

have a nice day

Panag · May 26, 2003, 06:02

Quote:

Originally posted by dexters
No caravans please.

It gets too bogged down in the late game and they are annoying to move around and to keep trade routes in your head and have the optimal route for each.

For Civ 4, we need provincial capitals. Unlimited FPs with much smaller effects. But this will make the need to move capitals less attractive.

hi ,

seconded , no caravans , they would seriously undermine the game

have a nice day

Tiberius · May 26, 2003, 06:24

The most elegant solution (one that probably we won't see) would be the introduction of peaceful leaders.

A peaceful player should be rewarded for his skillful leadership in his own specialty: building and development. I can imagine a bunch of possible conditions: his civ is no. 1 in culture, science or economy, has built a great wonder, has the literacy rate over xx %, whatever; it shouldn't be too difficult to find some well balanced prerequisites for a peaceful leader.
The resulted leader could rush any building (including the palace and the FP), but could not build an army.

Reducing the cost of Palaces could be also a solution. Unfortunately the disadvantage of this solution is that it'd make culture-bombing too easy. Culture-bomb a city, move the capital, culture bomb again, move again, etc. I have however an idea how could this be avoided: make the cost of the palace dependent on the distance from the frontier. The closer to the border a city is, the more expensive building a palace there would be (which is also realistic; moving all those resources to the far end of an empire is difficult, expensive and time consuming).

Tiberius · May 26, 2003, 06:29

Btw, what's the problems with caravans? Who said they would work like in civ2? If we could use them to relocate food and shields, then I support the idea (but if the relocation could be done in a better way, go for it).

bongo · May 26, 2003, 06:38

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I intended the 'worker caravans' to be built for the single purpose of disbanding in cities that needed some help with production. No civ2-like trade-routes or anything like it. Maybe calling them caravans was a bad idea.

Tiberius, the introduction of peaceful leaders is a good idea

I've been thinking of a similar model where traits are not given at start but granted when certain goals are met. If you are the first civ to eliminate another tribe you become militaristic, if you are the first to build libraries in 50% of your cities you become scientific etc.

statusperfect · May 26, 2003, 06:39

I 100% support Tiberius proposal.

Peaceful leaders would add a LOT to the enjoyment of the game.

cheers

dexters · May 26, 2003, 06:48

I like the peaceful leader idea.

If caravans exist to relocate food and shield to "direct" production, then I have no problem with it.

Sorry if I closed the door on it too early, but the Civ2 caravan system didn't exactly left me wanting for more. I was quitr happy when I first heard trade in Civ3 would be abstracted.

bongo · May 26, 2003, 07:05

I guess using the word 'caravan' brought back more memories from civ2 than I intended too. I don't want the old trade model back, the current model is much better

Tiberius · May 26, 2003, 07:09

Quote:

Originally posted by bongo
Tiberius, the introduction of peaceful leaders is a good idea

I've been thinking of a similar model where traits are not given at start but granted when certain goals are met. If you are the first civ to eliminate another tribe you become militaristic, if you are the first to build libraries in 50% of your cities you become scientific etc.

Hey, that's not bad, either. Maybe it could work not for primary traits (I mean, if you know from the beginning that you will build libraries, you choose scientific and you build libraries; why would you do it reversed?) but for secondary-traits. These "secondary-traits" would be based on your decisions as events unfold, have a lesser effect than the primary ones but would help in differentiating civs even more.
One example that comes to mind: maritime (there's no point to choose maritime from the beginning, and then find yourself on a big continent).
Maybe there are not so many such traits and the secondary traits list should include the basic ones, too (but having less effect this time).
Not a bad idea but needs some work.

Panag · May 26, 2003, 08:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Tiberius
The most elegant solution (one that probably we won't see) would be the introduction of peaceful leaders.

A peaceful player should be rewarded for his skillful leadership in his own specialty: building and development. I can imagine a bunch of possible conditions: his civ is no. 1 in culture, science or economy, has built a great wonder, has the literacy rate over xx %, whatever; it shouldn't be too difficult to find some well balanced prerequisites for a peaceful leader.
The resulted leader could rush any building (including the palace and the FP), but could not build an army.

Reducing the cost of Palaces could be also a solution. Unfortunately the disadvantage of this solution is that it'd make culture-bombing too easy. Culture-bomb a city, move the capital, culture bomb again, move again, etc. I have however an idea how could this be avoided: make the cost of the palace dependent on the distance from the frontier. The closer to the border a city is, the more expensive building a palace there would be (which is also realistic; moving all those resources to the far end of an empire is difficult, expensive and time consuming).

hi ,

, why not just let the reputation of the peacefull one go up , ....

have a nice day

DaveMcW · May 26, 2003, 11:46

*Cough*Free Palace Jump*Cough*

WarpStorm · May 26, 2003, 13:00

Kind of a cheesey exploit, but...

Randolph · May 26, 2003, 13:40

Wasn't the game going to have "peaceful leaders" (or the equivalent), but it was latter cut? I certainly like the idea. The whole leader issue is IMHO is one of the big unbalancing factors between builder vs. warmonger.

I don't like the idea of further specializing civs. The character of your nation should depend on what you do in the game, not which civ you pick.

nbarclay · May 28, 2003, 02:09

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveMcW
*Cough*Free Palace Jump*Cough*

I regard "free" palace jumps far more as part of the problem than as a solution. The idea that a capital can be moved for "free" if it is deliberately destroyed by its owners, but not otherwise, makes absolutely no sense. And the logistics of getting the palace to jump to the right place are far more complex (and undocumented) than can possibly be justified for a legitimate, intended feature of the game.

I've had a couple ideas for possible changes that wouldn't upset the game design too much.

Idea 1: Have the production for palaces and forbidden palaces come from the capital instead of from the target city, or perhaps come jointly from both the capital and the target city (i.e. both cities are set to build the palace or FP). That would keep the number of shields a civ has to sacrifice the same, but would make the target city's production capacity (and, hence, corruption level) either less of an issue or not an issue at all in how quickly the palace/FP can be built. The rationale behind such a mechanism would be that the logistical groundwork for shifting the seat of government (or setting up a second one) is a significantly bigger consideration than the buildings themselves, and such logistical costs center around the existing capital more than they do the new one.

Idea 2: Add a provision through which a city where a palace or forbidden palace is being built has its waste greatly reduced, but keep track of the production difference so that the extra shields will be lost if the city changes its production away from a palace or forbidden palace. That could dramatically reduce the number of shields a civ has to give up for a palace move or FP build, since the majority of the shields used would often be shields that would not exist otherwise, but it would keep time as a fairly significant issue.

Neither of those changes would be particularly difficult to code, and neither would have much effect on overall game balance beyond giving players without great leaders essentially the same flexibility in palace/FP location that players with great leaders have. Great leaders would remain valuable for their ability to speed up the process, but it would no longer be the case that great leaders make it trivial to build palaces and forbidden palaces in places that would be ridiculously impractical if not outright impossible (e.g. taking 500 turns to build a palace when only 300 turns are left in the game) without them.

Nathan

bongo · May 28, 2003, 03:59

I like your idea #2. May I suggest a small change? When you build a palace of FP little or none corruption/waste are experienced in that city but shifted to other cities in your empire. That way your total production(after waste) stays the same but build speed goes down.