12-12-2001 17:19									#1
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Does the placement of the Forbidden Palace matter ? I ask this because so far it seems to me that it's a universal effect rather than local to the FP, but then I've not had a really large empire yet.

If placement is crucial, can it be knocked down and rebuilt if you empire expands further ?

	12-12-2001 17:46									#2
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Wow... something I can actually help with!

FP has a radius effect and certainly doesnt provide a universal reduction of corruption.

Depending on the map, the FP is useful to either consolidate your empire on a single stretch of continent by placing it 3/4 of the distance away from your Palace to your furthest reaches... or it can be used to establish a secondary base on a far-flung continent/area.

I've been using mine as a beach-head into a new island/continent so I can wage a war from there rather than from my homeland. Even then you need a Leader to build it cos your production in that city prior to it is useless anyway.

Hope this helps

	13-12-2001 09:36									#3
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There was a good deal discussion about the FP in the beginning, and I think Velociryx first thread had some nice tips on the subject. Spearthrower is correct about how the FP works, but there are several ways to use it depending on your style of play. If you are to place it most effectively, you should see your empire as the number 8, with your capital and the FP city in the middle of the rings. Yes, xane, building a FP is often time-consuming due to the corruption, but if you know your game is going to be among the long ones, it pays off well since the surrounding cities also benefites.
Often, when your culture is rising high compared to the other civs, moving your palace to the frontier of your empire can be a good strategy to pick up some of the culturally weak cities around you, (which is unreachable without moving your "home address"). This is often referred to as palacejumping When the game decides whether you should culturally acquire/lose a city, one of the most important factors is proximity to the two capitals. I have several times personally experienced to lose cities to rivals having below half my total culturevalue (according to the histograph) because they were next to his capitol.
But first, build the FP in one of your core cities. (Use this opportunity to perfectionize the placement in the middle of your core cities, especially nice if you start on the fringe on a peninsula, and suffer from a bad initial palace placement.) The FP are built a lot quicker than usual, but of course the palace is going to take a while if it's far away. If you don't have a leader to waste on the palace, try to keep it in the neighbourhood and away from the 1-shield-cities. If you do have a leader, that's a great way to wake a whole small continent from the dead and actually contributing something to your empire. The new palace site should also be in a position which gives more closeness to the cities you want to defect, than their own capital.
If you manage to pull this off, watch the cities drop as flies, as your magnificent culture lures them over to your side...

	14-12-2001 21:56									#4
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What I did, and it seems to work, but you need to think of this as a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG term investment. Once you build your first settler, make him build a city REAL close to your captital (without overlaping tiles). Then, when you have that magic number of cities to build the Forbidden Palace, build that in the city that is right next to the capital (it may sound dumb, but read on!).

What you do next is wait for communism, and then switch to it as soon as you do. For some reason, I only lose like one shield instead of somthing like 3 or four, since corruption is communal, and the Forbidden Palace is doing its vodoo on your capital. The two side by side really double things up. Now just pop a police station in your capital and you're all set.

Be it my luck, I found a little glich .