I'm working my way through Beyond the Sword, after a year of not playing I was rusty enough it took me two tries before I could win on Noble. Noble of all things!

I'm still not clear on what Corporations do and what value they have. Could someone fill me in on their use and misuse?

Think of it as trading Gold for other benefits. Spread them around your cities and get specific benefits, or spread them to your allies (or colonies) to speed them up in various ways. It will cost you, but it may well be worth it, depending on the situation...

Corporations are especially useful if you're going for a Space Race or Cultural victory.

In my last game I got up to 56 :culture: from Sid's Sushi and 8 :culture: from Civilized Jewellers. That's pretty significant if going for a Cultural victory or if you're trying to push your borders out in newly conquered cities.

Aluminium Inc can provide you with Aluminium if you don't have a source and Mining Inc is especially useful in Space Race victories too.

Is there a particular advantage to settling your Corporate Headquarters in a particular city?

Or sending your executives to AI cities?

Is there a particular advantage to settling your Corporate Headquarters in a particular city?

Or sending your executives to AI cities?

My rule of thumb is always put them in the Holy City with shrine with Wall Street. The good thing about Wall street and Corporations is that you control where they are built/incorporated so obviously follow the $$$.

I don't send Executives to AI cities unless:

1. They are permanant allies.

2. There's a quest to spread your corporation to a number of new cities and you need to fill up that number by spreading to AI cities.

There is no good reason to have your headquarters anywhere else but in your Wall Street city. You gain 4 gold for every branch and you want it multiplied as much as possible. The cost of running the corporation in your cities depends on the number of resources used, meaning that the more you have the more maintenance you pay. Having HQ in Wall Street city helps make up for these expenses. Spreading it to a another civ means you'll gain the gold in the HQ with no cost to your other than building the executive, but the question is if and when you want another civ to enjoy the benefits of the corp in question.

Spread useless corporations to other civs to suck the money out of their economy and enrich yours, e.g. spread Aluminum Inc. to civs that already have aluminum.

Also, beyond the culture and hammer bonuses, as well as the money (or costs) of them, I've often successfully used Sid's Sushi to turn paltry cities into quite the powerhouse:

all that extra food from Sushi meant taht those tundra cities could grow, or that grassland cities could see a lot of their farms turned into workshops etc, since the food was covered by the corporation and there was less need to work the land to feed the people. Therefore, huge pop + lots of production.

Or keep the farms and watch the city grow insanely = lots of specialists...

Only thing is that requires a lot of resources, and sometimes the AI isn'T willing to keep trading them, if you spread that same corp to their land, or if they go to war..

Also note that you no longer get the profits from corps in Civ that switch to state property or mercantilism, so it's a good thing to keep espionnage high to keep them with other civis, or use the UN to get environmentalism accepted as universal civic (which a lot of AIs will defy, in my experience, if you spread corps to them and they switch to Merc or SP, so they can keep their economy from tanking).

Patrix

Is there a particular advantage to settling your Corporate Headquarters in a particular city?

They should go in the city with Wall Street. This may as well be a holy city with a shrine, if you have one.

Or sending your executives to AI cities?

Yes. With full modifiers you get 12 gold per turn per city that has your corporation present. While there is good reason to be selective about spreading corporations, you should still spread it too the weaker civ (i.e. backward irrelevant AIs), colonies, vassals and civs that have only minimal resources for the corporation. You get 12gpt regardless, so the aim is to minimise the AI benefit from the corporation.

Not only do you get profit from corporations you spread in foreign civilizations, THEY are losing money (somebody's gotta pay for it! ;) ). That's why many AIs will often switch to Merc or State Property, and defy any UN resolution aiming to change that...

Patrix

Corporations changed a little over time; initially they were a very double-edged sword that could be used to cripple opponents. Now they are largely beneficial.
I wouldn't spread production corps to anyone but close allies; the others are fair game (sometimes the AI doesn't seem too adept at dealing with the additional food from Sushi or Cereals, but it doesn't harm them. They simply fail to capitalise on an advantage). It's also worth noting that encouraging the cities of your trade partners to grow will affect your trade revenue.


The trade-offs are usually fair to slightly favourable, unless culture is involved (in which case they are excellent on paper, but you do not usually need culture everywhere). Add the income from corporate headquarters (acting similar to a more powerful shrine) in your city with the highest gold modifiers and the fact that you can cut the costs by building courthouses, and they are quite profitable. In the late game, Shaka and Charlemagne have arguably the strongest economy of all because corporation maintenance can account for most of your expenses.


They are the most powerful per-city-bonus you can have; in a short time even a 1-tile-city on ice can become a valuable asset with Mining.Inc + 1 of Sid's Sushi, Standard Ethanol or Cereal Mills.
Corporations are the final touch that makes an old-school Infinite City Sprawl broken, far more so than the maintenance saving of State Property (of course, running State Property and going for a win might be quicker than creating an economic monstrosity),

QUESTION: Why would you found Corporations you don't need in the first place? :confused:

For a space race victory, I've founded Mining Inc or Aluminium Inc and maybe Sid's Sushi.

For a cultural victory, I've founded Sid's Sushi and maybe Civilized Jewellers.

I've always had Oil so I don't need Ethanol and I think the other two Cereal Mills and Creative Constructions are just poor versions.

I'd rather use that Merchant, Engineer or Scientist to settle in a city.

Try combining Sid's Sushi, Creative Constructions and Civilized Jewelers. I do it just for fun, and to get the most benefits in my cities.

In my last game i finished my first superior emperor victory largely due to corps. *proud*

I had mining corp en sushi en spread it to all my cities, spread mining corp also to AI for cash. both HQ in wall street city. then build broadway/rock n roll and traded the resources for massive ammounts of seafood & rice with the other civs for a +25 food bonus from sushi.

my cities ran away to 35+ while my ecnomy was running at 10% science but the huge ammount of specialists alone gave me 2000 science/turn. add a lot of commerce from the huge cities to that and you have a corporation economy.

i wanted to win by spaceship, which was build in no time due to mining corp
bonus but won a cultural vic 4 turns before it arrived :lol:

Corps are great :D