Need Some Advice About Corporations

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CivMcNut

Having Fun At It
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I'm still in the middle of my first game with BTS. I've enjoyed the new features but it's getting kinda hard to decide what to do as I approach the late game. I discovered Corporations and then later on Railroads, and wouldn't you know it on the turn I get railroads a Great Engineer pops up and I decide to found Mining Inc.. Only problem is I'm running State Property with a huge empire bent set on taking over enough land for a domination win. Would it be a big mistake to revert back to Free Market so I could make use of the Corporation and perhaps go for another, or would it be better just to say that the engineer kept that corporation out of an opponents hands. I've read here you can make some nice profit from spreading your corporation to other civs and I have 2 peaceful neighbors I could easily spread it to. I'd kinda like to see what these corporations do now, but I'd hate to mess up and do something bad.
 
My advice on corps is that you found them for the benefits to your empire and they are not worth the trouble of spreading them to an AI (Why give them that nice benefit).

If you are seeking domination and can build the army you need, I am not sure if getting out of SP is worth it. You will lose 10-20% on the science slider, food for watermills and workshops, plus that 10% production.
 
Yeah I suppose next game I'll have to try going for a smaller empire and doing a space or diplomatic win, try running free market and see what these corporations are all about. Seems like a good way to really beef up certain key cities.

From what I read about corporations, if a foreign city has your corporation's branch in it, you get the profit but not the maintence cost of it, so a lot of foreign branches will make you rich (and beef up the civ you're spreading it, so hopefully a good ally that it would be advantegeous to help).

It's too bad that the corporations come so late in the game. Ever since I've been reading these forums a lot my games have usually been concluded by the early early 1900s, so you only get a few turns with them.
 
If you dont spread corporations to the AI the might become very costly to you.

I.E. Sushi - it adds to city size, city size adds to the costs of corps. If you spread it heavily (and have ressources for it) it will run on a significant net loss, even with the Headquaters beeing Wall Street boosted.

I try to single out opponents, who dont have many instances of the needed ressource, and spread to them, so i can get the Headquarters money, while they benefit is limited. Another option is Vassals - i think spreadinc corps to them, to make me able to pay fo my own is the best use i found for vassals so far.
 
Another thing I thought of was that I didn't completely waste that engineer in building that. It at least keeps the HQ from being founded in a rival territory.
 
CivMcNut said:
Another thing I thought of was that I didn't completely waste that engineer in building that. It at least keeps the HQ from being founded in a rival territory.
Click to expand...

This is a valid point although sort of a poor use for a GE but not a waste. Understand though that the AI can found the other GE corp (Creative Constructions).
 
Count up the number of Copper/Iron/Coal/Gold/Silver (I think that's the full list -- include resources you can probably trade for), and see how many hammers each city would get. It's almost certainly more than the 10% SP bonus, and probably makes up for having to convert some workshops back into farms. Mining Inc can be obscenely powerful -- I consider it easily the best of the corps, and work rather hard to get the GE for it. The food corps can be useful too, but usually I've adjusted my tiles for food balance, so it would just mean a few more specialists. Unless I want to keep drafting....

peace,
lilnev
 
madscientist said:
My advice on corps is that you found them for the benefits to your empire and they are not worth the trouble of spreading them to an AI (Why give them that nice benefit).

If you are seeking domination and can build the army you need, I am not sure if getting out of SP is worth it. You will lose 10-20% on the science slider, food for watermills and workshops, plus that 10% production.
Click to expand...

Don't underestimate the power of Sushi and Mining inc. Try a game where you run corps and free market instead of State Property and compare your research/production power.

State property is only useful if you put workshops/watermills all over the place. It's not necessary just to keep maintenance away. (I've never needed SP ever in my domination games, in fact most of them are over before i can switch to it)
 
Staate Property also removes your distance/colonial maintenance, which can be worth a lot in a Domination Game.
 
Sushi/Mining is very powerful. But to spreading it to a large empire requires a sizeable amount of gold, which you may be struggling to get without running SP.

I have used both approaches equally well and seams to be game dependent.

The ideal method is to establish a decent mid-sized empire with FM while maintaining a tech advantage or parity. Pop the 2 corps at RR and medicine, spread it arround, then mobilize at Industrialization/flight. You immediately have a massive production edge even if at tech parity.
 
I'd have kept him for CreateCon, but that's just me. I prefer it to Mining because Mining gives only hammers and competes with CivJewels. CreateCon, on the other hand, gives fewer hammers, but also gives culture, and coexists with CivJewels. I want CivJewels in every one of my cities, eventually, and especially in my commerce cities, where I've got the right setup to leverage it best. Those commerce cities are often the ones that benefit the most from a production corporation, since it either allows me to reconfigure them to squeeze out more commerce or lets me use them as quasi-production cities at the same time. Mining does a better job of that, but doesn't let me put CivJewels in the cities where I'll benefit most from it.

Plus, if you're aggressive about getting resources, CreateCon+CivJewels+Sid's Sushi is simply amazing for expanding borders after conquest or diverting a few cities for a cultural win. It also allows you to move away from Free Speech, if you wanted to. When the +100% means your tiny border town goes from 150 cpt to 300 cpt, you can easily do without that bonus and still win the cultural border wars.
 
Solomwi said:
I'd have kept him for CreateCon, but that's just me. I prefer it to Mining because Mining gives only hammers and competes with CivJewels. CreateCon, on the other hand, gives fewer hammers, but also gives culture, and coexists with CivJewels. I want CivJewels in every one of my cities, eventually, and especially in my commerce cities, where I've got the right setup to leverage it best. Those commerce cities are often the ones that benefit the most from a production corporation, since it either allows me to reconfigure them to squeeze out more commerce or lets me use them as quasi-production cities at the same time. Mining does a better job of that, but doesn't let me put CivJewels in the cities where I'll benefit most from it.

Plus, if you're aggressive about getting resources, CreateCon+CivJewels+Sid's Sushi is simply amazing for expanding borders after conquest or diverting a few cities for a cultural win. It also allows you to move away from Free Speech, if you wanted to. When the +100% means your tiny border town goes from 150 cpt to 300 cpt, you can easily do without that bonus and still win the cultural border wars.
Click to expand...

Good point about corp compatability. I frequently take Mining because RR comes first, often to regret it later. Also, one of the scientists corps also fits in with Creative inc and Sid's I think.
 
AlumCo does, and actually complements CreateCon nicely (since it turns coal, a Mining Inc resource, into aluminum, a CreateCon resource, thus boosting CreateCon in cities with both). When I play a corporate strategy, my overriding goal is to get those four founded in my Wall Street city.

I can easily see situations where your concern is only production, and Mining is, therefore, a better choice, but generally I prefer the way that group works together. CreateCon gives a pretty good production bonus (in my latest game, +16 hammers with AlumCo, +13 without), just not the insane one possible with Mining.
 
I'm thinking I'm gonna have to give free market a try tonight when I rejoin this game. I really wished I had played a spiritual civ as many times as I've switched civics around in it. I'm not overly laden with workshops, have next to no watermills and have been building a lot of those customs houses that would probably benefit from an extra trade route.

I'm glad they added stuff to make free market more appealing, and it not always coming down to State Property being the only appealing solution for the economic category once Communism was discovered. I used to play Alpha Centauri (another of Sid's games very much like Civ) and Free Market was my favorite civic in that game. You could jump out to a huge tech lead with it on there.
 
Refar said:
I.E. Sushi - it adds to city size, city size adds to the costs of corps. If you spread it heavily (and have ressources for it) it will run on a significant net loss, even with the Headquaters beeing Wall Street boosted.
Click to expand...

I've had a game where I spread Sushi everywhere (I was getting +23 food from it) to try to see how much population would affect my score. (was at 63% or so land mass) When the city grows to max output and you are running Representation, it more than makes up for the extra costs. I had really insane maintenance costs that game too, up to -60/-80 in costs.

And this was overseas empire too, no colonies ;)

madscientist said:
Sushi/Mining is very powerful. But to spreading it to a large empire requires a sizeable amount of gold, which you may be struggling to get without running SP.
Click to expand...

Larger empire means more cash overflow, means easier cash. As I said earlier, SP is not needed. Down your slides for the 10-20 turns it takes to spread it, in the end it will boost your empire more than enough.
 
I spread corps to Civs who are behind the rest of the pack. If I have a powerful corp like mining inc or sushi I'm obv not going to spread it to the most powerful civs and give them a production/food bonus, even if I get money out of it. Instead, I'll spread to the civ(s) on the bottom of the score board. Vassals and colonies also make excellent corp targets - and for another reason as well: if a vassal or colony adopts mercantilism or state property you can easily get them to change back to free market. Although, someone on here said that a colony under mercantilism will still trade with you...I'm not sure if that's true.
 
The perks of Sushi and Mining are pretty good, and as has been said, if you're running a SE you'll get tons of specialists that ought to more than offset the costs each branch inflicts on your cities. But before then... it can be pretty expensive. In my current game, I've started spreading Sushi to the more backward AIs - they'll never be a threat to me, and the branch offices help pay my internal corporate costs.

Beware the helpful little message that says "get more of (resource consumed) to increase the bonus!". I went and traded my excess Movies/Musicals/Singles to everyone for their extra Fish/Clams/Rice, and almost bankrupted myself. Ended up canceling all of those trades.
 
Ok, after last night's time with the game my verdict is I'm a big fan of corporations. I appreciate all the advice y'all have given thus far. I see what people mean about that Sushi corp. I managed to get a great merchant next and saved him up. I had a lot of rice, fish, etc. and lots of cities that were nearing their maximum size, it was nice to pop that corporation guy down and watch those cities start growing again. The mining one came in handy for changing some fairly slack production and making them great at builing troops and key buildings they still lacked.

I do see about the money part, there is a lot of upfront expenses with those starting fees and increased maintanence costs, but having those extra benefits is a good way to help you win the game. Like I read about, seems like the way to get that money back is spread your corporation to other empires that you're not worried about getting stronger.
 
CivMcNut said:
Ok, after last night's time with the game my verdict is I'm a big fan of corporations. I appreciate all the advice y'all have given thus far. I see what people mean about that Sushi corp. I managed to get a great merchant next and saved him up. I had a lot of rice, fish, etc. and lots of cities that were nearing their maximum size, it was nice to pop that corporation guy down and watch those cities start growing again. The mining one came in handy for changing some fairly slack production and making them great at builing troops and key buildings they still lacked.

I do see about the money part, there is a lot of upfront expenses with those starting fees and increased maintanence costs, but having those extra benefits is a good way to help you win the game. Like I read about, seems like the way to get that money back is spread your corporation to other empires that you're not worried about getting stronger.
Click to expand...


Glad you got corps going!!

One word of caution about spreading the corps to other AIs I am not sure was covered.

If the AI switches to State Property, you can unexpectedly lose ALOT of income. Worse yet, the corp branches in those AI cities are lost and you need to send more executives, costing more money.
 
Madscientist said:
If the AI switches to State Property, you can unexpectedly lose ALOT of income. Worse yet, the corp branches in those AI cities are lost and you need to send more executives, costing more money.
Click to expand...

Nitpick: Not true. The corporation labels by each city may be removed when the civ switches to state property, but the branches are still present. Flipping the civ out of State property will restore all branches to normal functionality.
 
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