Just finished my first Noble game with a win (Space Race in 2022, after degraded to #2 because old #2 conquered #3 and i was in danger of loosing the U.N.).

The point is ... i was spmming the enemies cities with corporations and i got the feeling (from the graph) that he didn't suffer a money shortage like i do when i have lots of corporations ... instea i got the strage feeling that i gave him fuel to pump out tons f units while at the same time produc lots of epsionage-points.

how could that be? he should have died from poverty. :cry:

so i ask you: is there any way to load the save game then switch to his seat and look at his inflation and stats? maybe hex-editing the savegame?

edit: after i went for the cheat allowing me to see the enemy's economic stats i saw that he (an all other AIs) have a much lower inflation that i have (148% compared to my 210%) ... can that be?

erebos

did you know what his civics were?

What you should do steal as many resources as he needs to effectively operate the corporation, like only leave him one excess piece of copper or iron then spread Mining Inc. This way I'm still getting the 5 gold per turn and they are getting minimal benefits from the corporation.

Well, leaving him with lots of resources give them higher maitenance costs.

But to answer the OP, load up an autosave about 10 turns prior and pour all your income into espionage. After a few turns you ought to be able to peek into their cities. Then you can see what their commerce sliders are at. I did it here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5747392&postcount=244)

Also, if you are playing on noble, corp. costs will not be that bad compared to higher difficulties.

He might have been running State Property or Mercantilism

I think they should do away with the -25 % maintenance cost associated with Environmentalism. It's one of the main reasons the AI falls flat on its face late game, as many AI civs like to run Environmentalism and they do so with Corporations! This is plain suicide. :(

@DrJambo & mrt144 & Da_V_Man
His Civs were: Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Emancipation, Environmentalism, Free Religion. An he does not fall flat. He got 3 Vassals and spreads MY corporation even further into his cities (excactly the way a lot of people are afraid of and he seems to know what he does and not suffer from it).

external savegame-Link (http://tinyurl.com/2muhp6) (I am playing Rome and he's that Roosevelt guy:))

@Nikis-Knight
My Esp-Ratio to him is 112547/27407 (His/Mine) ... 10 turns you said? :lol: I am glad to have a lot of spies posted aound my borders and in my cities to catch his spies (i still get them - even if some slip through). But maybe he steals a lot of my tech and i didn't recognize yet :p

Screenshots (after winning):

http://home.arcor.de/frostyboy/Bilder/Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG

http://home.arcor.de/frostyboy/Bilder/Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG

http://home.arcor.de/frostyboy/Bilder/Civ4ScreenShot0002.JPG


Thx for your answers
Erebos

PS. This was a raging-barbarian and aggressive-AI game.

Never used it, but shouldn't World Builder allow you to see everything?

I haven't done a lot with corporations but which ones did you give him? If he's using them wisely he may be making the money back. I know one actually gives you some cash and culture, to offset the cost. Another gives you shields, he may be using that to BUILD income in the city. Especially if he's got a lot of workshops and guilds running nearby to help up the production more, and thus also the income. It could be (no promises) that a decent increase in shields + decent production to start with = one city offsetting the maintainence of several branches.

No promises of course, I haven't played with it yet, my last game didn't give me the right GP so I played with SP, but it does seem reasonable.

Never used it, but shouldn't World Builder allow you to see everything?

as far a i know it allow to see the ma and stuff ... but i need to see the numbers ... the inflation ... the income ... i need to switch to his seat.

Erebos

erebos, I'm not trying to say they fall flat in terms of power or military when running corps and environmentalism. I'm meaning in terms of science! In my game on Prince, the top AI went environmentalism with tons of corps and ended up running 100% gold, 0% science and got waylaid researching Superconductors. However, he still had a big empire and could still run wars.

What were Roosevelt's settings (if you can investigate his cities or at the very least see what he's researching)?

Corporations are a tool to improve your civilization in some way by paying for it with something else...but the major point is, that they are made as tools to IMPROVE your state, not as a fancy way to do seppuku. From this reason alone corporations are not good tools to bring your enemy down, because they will cost him less than their benefits are, especially if you give him more than one, who might even cancel out their disadvantage.

(And since the AI has a computer for its brain, it will be way better than you are at the financial mathematics...micromanaging everything and calculate everything every turn is where the computer shines. It can take measures to minimize the downsides of corporations, too...like trading his resources to another AI or buying from them.)

My corporation gave me 0.5 hammers per resource under my control (4 total), and I wouldnt dream of giving that bonus to the AI so it can stamp out even more military units. Production or technologies allowing better production is admittedly the one thing I never hand to an enemy, but the other corps effects can be bad enough too.

You can see other Civ's financial advisor with debug mode enabled (Ctrl-Z with chipotle cheat). You can see exactly how much their paying (beforen inflation) under city maintence. Funny thing is when you manage to put enough corporations in civ that they go on strike they don't build wealth but more units. Since you only lose 1 unit a turn I guess thats a way to keep an army.

You can see other Civ's financial advisor with debug mode enabled (Ctrl-Z with chipotle cheat). You can see exactly how much their paying (beforen inflation) under city maintence. Funny thing is when you manage to put enough corporations in civ that they go on strike they don't build wealth but more units. Since you only lose 1 unit a turn I guess thats a way to keep an army.

thx that was the answer i was waiting for ... now let's see how they do ...:cool:

okay did it ... he has expenses (lower than i thought) but what's more important he has a 148% inflation instead of my 210% inflation! that bastard ... is this fair? isn't inflation based on turn numbers and difficulty? edit: all other civs hav 148% inflation! that doesn't seem fair to me.

erebos

I don't know if i am getting the question right here or not but if you want to play as him (even just to see stats).

Go to your civ 4 beyond the sword folder. Work your way through to the saves folder and cut and paste the game file from single and paste it into multiplayer. Go onto multiplayer and open saved game and load it (So nobody can come in) Then pick that nation so you can see everything that he could see. Once finished just replace the file in single.

@deanjack

no i just wanted to see his stats ... but i managed to do that already with that cheat. my new concern is that the AI does seem to have a significant smaller inflation than my civ whih i consider not fair as the inflation is based on tunr numbers and difficulty and not on other factors, or is it?

The AI might have had the World Bank random event which lowers inflation? I had that event in my last game and the effect is truly amazing for corps and the end game.

I have the german version, so I am not sure what level "noble" is compared to the german names. But the AI has a handicap/bonus over the human player depending on difficulty level (see handbook, advanced section, "Game difficulty"), so it may simply be that.

I have the german version, so I am not sure what level "noble" is compared to the german names. But the AI has a handicap/bonus over the human player depending on difficulty level (see handbook, advanced section, "Game difficulty"), so it may simply be that.

noble should be "equal chances for all" ... and tht random event how much does is give you? 210-148=62 ... does it give you 62% bonus?

I just noticed that the Hall of Fame mod has removed corporation maintenance from inflation calculations. As HoF is usually unaltered gameplay, I'm guessing that this is veiwed by them as a bug and could well be patched.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=235378