So I played a 3.13 game, and founded Sid's Sushi and Creative Constructions.

The maintenance costs were so low that they were extremely profitable. I pushed my science slider to 100% and was still cash positive, even though I never spread any corps or religions to the AI civs. What a huge change from 3.03.

This makes corporations extremely overpowered. Now there's no downside to them.

I think the changes made in 3.13 were a step in the right direction. They still need a little tweeking though.

Pre-patch I'd only played a couple games with corporations. First one didnt go so well but the others I managed the corps well enough that I was glad for the balancing of the elevated costs. I've not yet reached a post patch corporation but I am concerned that they are way to overpowered now. I wonder if corporation headquarters shouldn't receive any commerce bonus at all. Perhaps banks could be given some extra percentage points for each corp instead of the +4 commerce. Or something else?

I'm also a little concerned that corporation maintenance has been shoved too low. I've finally got a game to the final phase under 3.13, and I'm seeing cities picking up 20 hammers from Mining Inc and maintenance costs of at most 30gpt. In small cities, with the 12gpt from the HQ, the corporation is essentially free. Similarly with Sushi I'm getting about 20 food, and maintenance is never more than 50gpt (and that's in size 40+ cities). Admittedly this is under Free Market, but that isn't that unusual to be able to run that for much of the game.

It's at the extent where I practically can spam a domestic corporation indiscriminately to my own cities, which previously was economic suicide. Even under Enviromentalism, random corporation spam seems merely marginally unfavourable rather than completely destructive.

I don't use corps for the reason that the AI does not know how to spam it correctly and it basically becomes a bit of an exploit for the human.. wish there was a 'no corporations' checkbox for custom games. How about 'no spies' too to remove that other annoyance.

I don't use corps for the reason that the AI does not know how to spam it correctly and it basically becomes a bit of an exploit for the human..

Except that with the changes in 3.13, you essentially can just spam it, as long as you have courthouses. In an average size late game city (25), if Sushi has enough resources to give 20 food, it's only costing 30gpt. Even if you don't have the HQ to reclaim 12gpt back, it's a very good deal. Take the simple merchant comparison. 10 merchants is 30 gpt, and thats pre modifiers. I haven't even touched on the 60+ culture Sushi's giving or GPP, let alone the fact there's usually better things to do with extra food than running merchants.

The AI certainly doesn't seem to suffer any longer as a result of corporation spam, though I do tend to restrict their resources so they get little benefit and little cost.

this is exactly what my concern was. i think maybe it should be a half inflation cost. I think since they eliminated the inflation mechanism, they should up the base maintenance cost of corps, and the cost to set up branches.

Corp. Maintenance should be subject to inflation, but starting at a base of 0% when the branch is established. Do that by reducing the branch maint. by the current inflation rate at the time branch is established.

The amount of money a religious shrine can generate early in the game is essentially on par with Corps. IMO. You still need to spread the Corp. and pay maintenance. Of course they can be extremely powerful but then that's pretty close to reality I would say. Capitalism is governing the world after all.

lol maybe improve the AI spies to destroy Courthouses.

It'll be interesting when you (OP) get Christo Redentor to switch between State property and Free market. It sounds like there will be a big advantage to Free market now , even Environmentalism.

The AI also places too low of a priority on founding corps. I am rarely able to build any late game Wonders, the AI builds them first. But I was able to found all the corps I wanted by stockpiling the appropriate Great People in advance.

^ well you stockpiled GPs, I would guess the AI will use late game GPs to found any corps they can (ie have tech for and still available).

If the base costs are still 4 and 1, and Inflation is totally removed, I would probably suggest they change it to 4 and 2 (or 3 and 1 so the HQ gets less bonus)

funny you should mention this . . . .

my current game i just wanted to experiment with corporations, I managed to found all but Civ Jewelers (@#$@ you Churchill). Anyhoo, large map lots of cities, islands etc. At last count my city with Sids Sushi & Creative Constructions had a total of 180 franchises and growing.

On a side note to all above, if you think corps are overpowered just wait until someone cramholes Environmentalism onto you, helloooooo great depression.

The AI also places too low of a priority on founding corps. I am rarely able to build any late game Wonders, the AI builds them first. But I was able to found all the corps I wanted by stockpiling the appropriate Great People in advance

I agree on this one. I've never had much trouble getting Sushi and Mining Inc, and it's rare for the AI to found more than two of the others by the end of the game. I don't think I've ever actually seen Standard Ethanol or Aluminium Co in the AI hands.

Stockpiling Great People = Madame Tussauds ?

Corps were fine before except the fact that you could choke AIs with them. The solution would have been to give the AI the presence of mind to switch to Mercantilism or State Property and to try to choke the player with corps, not to make them massively profitable in every way.

There was definitely a lot more strategy with the original corps.

The new corps are a no-brainer to found and spread. But the AI civs have no brains, because they don't bother founding any.

I played another game, and founded my favorite three corps to win a cultural victory: Sid's Sushi, Creative Constructions, and Civilized Jewelers.

On the other hand, I was unable to build various wonders because the AI beat me to them. Like the Count of Monte Cristo thingamabob, Broadway, both stolen from my by the AI while I was in the middle of building them.

I have to agree with the critics here. I never minded the old corporations too much because I figured they should be costly. Now they seem extremely profitable and there is really no downside to them. I don't think this was the solution to the problem. Not to mention that the AI still spams corporate executives even when it has nothing to do with them.

I disagree, I like the 3.13 corp system much better. Corps are supposed to be useful!, they were described as late game religions, and by the analogy, religions have no downside to found and spread. But they both have lots of opportunity costs. To get benefit from a corp, you have to research the right technology, then you need to spend a :gp: on founding the cor. Opportunity cost: you could use the :gp: to start a golden age or lightbulb instead. Then you have to spend :hammers: building each executive. Opportunity cost: you could be building tanks or :science: instead. Then, after the executive is built, you have to spend 100 :gold: to actually spread it to a new city, or more if it's a foreign city. It takes quite a few turns to recoup that investment.

So, if you go to all that trouble, there should be a benefit in the end.

One thing that surprised me about 3.13 is that corporation payments are still subject to inflation, it's just that inflation increases at a much slower pace. So, even without corporations my economy was doing a lot better than before the patch! I now put each corp. that I found, usually Mining and Sushi in every city and experience no financial problems. I don't send them to the AI. Why would I want an AI competing for the same resource trades? One odd behavior that I experienced in the game I did not found Mining, was the AI sent lots of mining execs to my territory and did not open any branches in any of my cities. I had Sushi in each city, but that does not compete with Mining.

^ The AI behavior with execs seems wierd, probably they just did not have the money (assuming you weren't Mercantilist) They don't seem to consider that when spreading them.

I think the general idea of how corporation should work is that they should be useful to the HQ owner, but not for every city all the time, so there's a choice to be made. Also a corporation that you don't own in your cities should usually be more costly than its effect is worth, otherwise keeping foreign corps out wouldn't be necessary. The easiest way to "calibrate" the cost is probably be with Civilized Jewelers because it directly counters its own cost. Now a civ that doesn't own the HQ of CJ should probably only show a profit under near ideal circumstances i.e. free market, courthouse, and the three gold increasing buildings. There are also unique buildings and traits that would affect this, but we should just assume a generic civ for a base. Of course there are only so many assumptions that can be made before variables start becoming too variable. Population I'd just assume people would be near 20 by that time but the number of resources available is unpredictable. There are too many maps configurations to know how many are available on the map or how many a given civ could get for themselves, so the whole plan of mine to establish some kind of baseline for corporation cost falls apart there. So, anyone know how to determine what a reasonable amount of resources to expect someone to have? Or is my reasoning flawed from the beginning, and balancing cost based on one corporation not going to apply as well to the rest of them and just as likely create to create problems?

By the way, I used the calculator spreadsheet found here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=233508
to figure out costs. I think it's still accurate if you set inflation to zero.

i wish i could dig up the link where I created a general basis for how corps should work in terms of macro economic benefit

2:2 for owning an HQ and putting branches in your own cities (they are dead even in terms of benefit and cost)
0:x for owning and HQ and putting them in foreign cities
2:2-x for not owning the HQ and putting them in foreign cities

where x is HQ income. right now we are not balancing this enough, it was too hard before to carry them into the late game and now it seems there is no downside to corps post patch.

i believe this requires a rebalance of corporation maintenance costs (so that the HQ income is balanced exactly to the benefit and costs of the corp) and that spreading the corp abroad will then have a benefit to the HQ owner but not kill them.

I make the assumption that
a. costs are with a courthouse
b. we are running free market
c. costs are not taken into account by inflation

if sushi converts 12 seafoods into 6 food the cost of sushi should be (12+6*3)=30

the assumption of course being you can convert that 6 food into 3 merchants that generate 3 gold, so you have 9 gold. multiply that by building (market grocer banks so *2.5) and you are looking at 22.5 gold

so the costs to benefits at this point is roughly 2:1.5 and this is if you don't have the HQ. this means that the hq income after multipliers should be 7.5 gold to break even. the hq income should roughly be 2.14 gold then before multipliers (2.14*3.5(wallstreet, market, bank, grocer)) = 7.5

lets look at another hypothetical;

40 seafood = 20 food = 40+20*3 = 100.
10 merchants * 3 gold * 2.5 = 75 gold again, we have a 1.5:2 ratio
HQ income should then be 7.14 gold (25/3.5)

therefore I think that HQ income should be 5/28ths of resources consumed. as a starting point.

i like this because the other benefits of corps are in play but you arent making any money from them by owning the HQ and spreading them to yourself, you are only gaining the perks. if you spread them abroad it's all profit, but it also depends on how many resources they have, so you wont horde all the resources or you might make good trades with the AI. finally if you dont have the HQ and it's a foreign corp, you will be paying for the perks at 33% premium.

this is a per branch basis too.

also i think that any population modifiers should be removed from the entire equation. you're already paying more in terms culture slider/resource trading to keep people happy. that is it's own form of maintenance.

Corporations should only cost you if
1. You don't have the HQ
AND
2. You are converting them directly back to money
AND
3. You are in Environmentalism (or Mercantilism but that revokes #1)

converting
Science -> gold with Slider
Hammers->gold with Wealth
Food->gold with Merchants
Ignoring Culture
and assuming Banks

The values are

Mining: 2 Gold
Creative: 1 Gold
Sushi: 1.5 Gold
Cereal: 2.25 Gold
Ethanol: 4 Gold
Aluminum: 6 Gold
Jewels: 2 Gold

so besides the science, they are about 2 gold max
The cost... well first the multipliers
* (pop+17)/18... assume ~2 (pop 19)
* courthouse ... 1/2
* Environmental... 5/4
comes to a cost of *1.25 * 0.75 for a Free Market

The base Cost is
4+1 per bonus granted so for 1 bonus its 5, 2 its 6
so the per bonus level under Enviromentalism and Free Market are

6.25 : 3.75
3.75 : 2.25
2.92 : 1.75
2.50 : 1.5
2.25 : 1.35
2.08 : 1.25
1.96 : 1.18
1.87 : 1.125
1.80 : 1.083
1.75 : 1.05

So Free Market becomes profitable with between 2-4 resources
Environmentalism becomes profitable with between 5-10+ resources

Now you can get even more benefit if you use Corps to replace Farms+Lumbermills+Mines with Free Speech US Towns (or are Running Representation).. although those take long while to get going
Those can give you a benefit of

Mining: 7 Gold (FS US town v. mine/Lumber)
Creative: 3.5 Gold ""
Sushi: 3 Gold (Representation) 3.5 (FS Town v. Farm)
Cereal: 4.5 Gold "" 5.25 ""
Ethanol: 4 Gold
Aluminum: 6 Gold
Jewels: 2 Gold


And then there is the HQ
A big problem is the major boost the HQ gives with Wall Street, etc. since it charges a total of about 5 - 3 base per branch (base cost of 4 modified) but it gives a total of 8 or 12 per branch


So I think it the HQ should only give 1/2 of the base gold taken (still charge 4 per branch but the HQ only gives 2 per Branch [To become 4-6 with Banks/Wall Street)

And the charge per resource I Might change to 2
making sure you want Foreign corps under Free Market, but Not Environmentalism. (Cost if the per resource is 2)

7.50 : 4.5
5.00 : 3
4.17 : 2.5
3.75 : 2.25
3.50 : 2.1
3.33 : 2
3.21 : 1.93
3.12 : 1.88
3.06 : 1.83
3.00 : 1.8

If you have them under Environmentalism, you need to convert to lots of Towns and Specialists.
Free Market they would be Profitable for Direct Transition, once you had enough of the resource, and even More Profitable with Towns.