2. Corporations and Economic Victory
2.1 General concept
- Corporations can be founded after the invention of “Economics”.
- Corporations are founded in and their branches are spread to cities.
- Corporations don't give a general bonus to the hosting city, but add a bonus to specific tiles in the city radius according to their type.
- There are 4 different types of corporations with 2 sub-types each
- Each (sub)type has a different effect on different tiles/improvements:
- Eventually, not all respective tiles in a city radius benefit by the corporation: Corporations possess an “influence range” (IR). The corporation's benefits will only effect as many tiles as the IR counts.
- When first founded, the IR is just one single tile.
- During the game, the IR can be expanded by the use of gold (see below).
- Which tiles are affected by the IR is evaluated automatically due to the highest possible tile yield and city focus.
- If the IR is larger than potential target tiles in a city radius, the surplus IR tiles are in vain.
- There will be a random list with appropriate and fancy names for all these different corporations. (I'm not so good in finding these names, unfortunately.)
Picture: Corporation-Screen; Persia managed to establish a a branch in Lyon.
2.2 Managing your corporations
2.2.1 Founding corporations
- To found a corporation, a Great Merchant and a certain amount of gold is needed. (There are no strategic resources involved.)
- In general, there is no limitation to the choice, which corporation shall be founded. Therefore, two players may very well found a “+1
Mining corporation”!
- However, the costs for every new “copy” of a corporation increases with every founded duplicate:
- The first foundation costs 1000 gold, the second 1500 gold, the third 2000 gold, etc.. (The basic prize and the increase may need adjustment due to play testing.)
- The foundation is possible in any city of the own empire, the Great Merchant can reach. There must not be a foreign corporation of the same type, though.
- The corporation headquarters has an upkeep of 12 gpt.
2.2.2 Spreading branches
- In order to spread the corporation to other cities, an “exec” unit has to be built or bought in any city with existing corporation headquaters or branch.
- The exec may establish a new branch in any city in or outside the own territory.
- This action will cost:
- In the own boarders, each branch will have an upkeep of 8 gpt.
- Branches in foreign cities will cost the hosting civs upkeep, too - but only 5 gpt. Nevertheless, the foreign host's cities will enjoy the full benefit of the corporation's effects.
- So, isn't founding branches in foreign cities harmful to the corporation's owner? Well, he has benefits in doing so:
2.2.3 Developing the corporation
- As mentioned above, all corporations have a certain influence (IR). To enhance a corporation's power, money may be spent in the “corporation overview screen”
- The costs of increasing the IR by one tile raises non-linear:
With this alteration, it might be a good idea to raise the IR level first, before spreading the corporation.
The trade off will be the risk of another corporation being spread to many cities.
- As soon as the IR is enlarged by spending gold, all corporation's branches benefit by the enlargement.
- Before enlarging an IR, it is important to evaluate, how many city tiles might benefit by this. For example, usually only 5 to 6 hills in a city radius are enhanced with a mine. If this is true for most cities, it would be useless to raise the IR over 6.
- OPTIONAL: To simulate competition between corporations, it might be possible to lower other corporation's IR, too. By all means, the costs in doing so should be higher than for raising the IR to the same level.
2.3 Visual clues
- The space below the city cartouche is already linked to trade, as it is here, where road connections are visualized. Therefore, corporations will be represented there, too.
- At the lower left side, four small circles with icons for “mine”, “farm”, “trading post” and “fishing” will be shown.
If a corporation is present in the city, these circles will be filled with the corresponding bonus symbol (production or gold, food or gold, production or science, food or science).
- At the lower right side, the corporation's influence (IR) is shown as a bar.
Picture: Cardiff with a farming (+1 food) corporation of intermediate size.
2.4 Interactions with the other game elements
- Adopting the Commerce SoPo tree (starter, finisher or a sinlge SoPo? “Trade Unions” or “Mercantilism”, maybe?) will help to sustain a corporation network. With a changed SoPo tree, upkeep for corporation headquarters and branches will be reduced.
2.5 Economic Victory
-The goal is easy to formulate, but hard to achieve:
“Gain influence over 51 % of all land in cultural boarders with corporations you own.”
- Problem 1: As each corporation will only influence a limited type of tiles, two or even three corporations are necessary to control a noteworthy part of the city radius.
- Problem 2: When playing as successful warmonger, you will control much of this land yourself. Therefore, you will have to sustain most of the necessary branches yourself - an expensive enterprise. (As you won't have many friends, international trade routes will most likely not be available.)
If you stay peaceful, you may be able to spread your branches to many foreign countries. Like this, you may even earn money in the process. The downside is, that you will strengthen your competitor and maybe allow him to win the game.
2.6 Remarks
- Generally spoken: To aim for Economic Victory, you have to play the monetary game! Sustaining corporations is expensive and without decent international trade routes it should be hard or even impossible to have more than one of them exclusive for yourself.
- The two gold producing corporations make the task easier. With enough influence, they should be able to pay for themselves, but will have no other positive effect (production or food bonus) to your empire. It is recommended, not to spread them to your competitor, though...
- Why are there no strategic resources involved? I really thought about implementing them. But the only abundant resource would be iron. Horses maybe, but do you really want to imagine, what corporations do to these poor animals to enhance food production?
Other strategic resources are needed until modern times and even if the importance of oil decays, two resources are not enough to model a complex corporation-system upon. (Bonus resources are desperately needed for other things (see: Health!) and luxury resources are heterogeneous and don't seem to fit into the picture.)
Anyway, I like the idea, that the importance of some resources change over time. Isn't this a nice touch of history, that nations fight terrible wars to gain the control over some iron deposits - just to find them dispensable some hundred years later? And then, they fight wars to gain oil wells...
- All proposed numbers (especially upkeep and spreading/developing costs, but the victory condition, too) might need rearrangement after first play testing, of course. I simply choosed numbers that seemed reasonable for me.
- The start of corporations in the renaissance era seems to be very early. I like to see them as the early roots of something, that will grow bigger in later times. Family trading empires, for example. What would have happened, if Fugger's trading empire or the Hanse would have evaded their demise?
- By all means, so early “corporations” would stay small, as gold is sparse at this times and wouldn't allow high influence (IR) or proliferation to many other towns. It even might be possible, to allow branches in other civilizations only after the invention of “Electricity”, so nobody can bankrupt their neighbours due to excessive corporation spread.
- The reason, why I reschedule them to this early point was, that I wanted to start the struggle towards the Financial Victory earlier. I would have no problem to shift them back to more reasonable times!
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2.1 General concept
- Corporations can be founded after the invention of “Economics”.
- Corporations are founded in and their branches are spread to cities.
- Corporations don't give a general bonus to the hosting city, but add a bonus to specific tiles in the city radius according to their type.
- There are 4 different types of corporations with 2 sub-types each
- Each (sub)type has a different effect on different tiles/improvements:
- Mining corporations affect mine improvements only
□ +1 to all affected tiles OR
□ +1
to all affected tiles. - Farming corporations effect farm improvements only
□ +1
to all affected tiles OR
□ +1 to all affected tiles. - Residential area corporations effect hamlets, villages and provincial towns only
□ +1 to all affected tiles OR
□ +1
to all affected tiles. - Maritime corporations effect improved and unimproved water tiles
□ +1 to all affected tiles OR
□ +1 to all affected tiles.
- Eventually, not all respective tiles in a city radius benefit by the corporation: Corporations possess an “influence range” (IR). The corporation's benefits will only effect as many tiles as the IR counts.
- When first founded, the IR is just one single tile.
- During the game, the IR can be expanded by the use of gold (see below).
- Which tiles are affected by the IR is evaluated automatically due to the highest possible tile yield and city focus.
- If the IR is larger than potential target tiles in a city radius, the surplus IR tiles are in vain.
- There will be a random list with appropriate and fancy names for all these different corporations. (I'm not so good in finding these names, unfortunately.)
Picture: Corporation-Screen; Persia managed to establish a a branch in Lyon.
2.2 Managing your corporations
2.2.1 Founding corporations
- To found a corporation, a Great Merchant and a certain amount of gold is needed. (There are no strategic resources involved.)
- In general, there is no limitation to the choice, which corporation shall be founded. Therefore, two players may very well found a “+1
Mining corporation”!- However, the costs for every new “copy” of a corporation increases with every founded duplicate:
- The first foundation costs 1000 gold, the second 1500 gold, the third 2000 gold, etc.. (The basic prize and the increase may need adjustment due to play testing.)
- The foundation is possible in any city of the own empire, the Great Merchant can reach. There must not be a foreign corporation of the same type, though.
- The corporation headquarters has an upkeep of 12 gpt.
2.2.2 Spreading branches
- In order to spread the corporation to other cities, an “exec” unit has to be built or bought in any city with existing corporation headquaters or branch.
- The exec may establish a new branch in any city in or outside the own territory.
- This action will cost:
- 250 gold, if no similar corporation is present in the target city.
- 250 gold +50 gold for every target corp's IR, if there is already a corporation of the same type. The old corporation will be replaced by the new one. Corporation headquarters never can be replaced.
EXAMPLE: The Frensh want to spread their farming corporation “Bio-Green International” into an Aztec city. Unfortunately, this city already hots the Aztec farming corporation “Azlan Food Unlimited.” with an moderate influence of IR 4. The Frensh exec will have to pay 450 gold to displace the competitor.
- In the own boarders, each branch will have an upkeep of 8 gpt.
- Branches in foreign cities will cost the hosting civs upkeep, too - but only 5 gpt. Nevertheless, the foreign host's cities will enjoy the full benefit of the corporation's effects.
- So, isn't founding branches in foreign cities harmful to the corporation's owner? Well, he has benefits in doing so:
- Each extraterritorial branch will return 2 gpt to the headquarters.
- With ”open boarders” the return will rise to 4 gpt.
- If a “International Trade Agreement” is signed, the whole upkeep of 5 gpt will return.
- As all this gold goes to the corporation's headquarters, it is affected by all monetary buildings. With the whole set of market (+25%), bank (+25%) and stock exchange (+33% ), each re-flowing 5 gold will grow to 9,15 gold, and pay for an entire own branch.
2.2.3 Developing the corporation
- As mentioned above, all corporations have a certain influence (IR). To enhance a corporation's power, money may be spent in the “corporation overview screen”
- The costs of increasing the IR by one tile raises non-linear:
- 1 → 2: 250 gold
- 2 → 3: 550 gold (250+300)
- 3 → 4: 900 gold (550+350)
- 4 → 5: 1300 gold (900+400)
- 5 → 6: 1750 gold (1300+450)
- ect.
With this alteration, it might be a good idea to raise the IR level first, before spreading the corporation.
The trade off will be the risk of another corporation being spread to many cities.
- As soon as the IR is enlarged by spending gold, all corporation's branches benefit by the enlargement.
- Before enlarging an IR, it is important to evaluate, how many city tiles might benefit by this. For example, usually only 5 to 6 hills in a city radius are enhanced with a mine. If this is true for most cities, it would be useless to raise the IR over 6.
- OPTIONAL: To simulate competition between corporations, it might be possible to lower other corporation's IR, too. By all means, the costs in doing so should be higher than for raising the IR to the same level.
2.3 Visual clues
- The space below the city cartouche is already linked to trade, as it is here, where road connections are visualized. Therefore, corporations will be represented there, too.
- At the lower left side, four small circles with icons for “mine”, “farm”, “trading post” and “fishing” will be shown.
If a corporation is present in the city, these circles will be filled with the corresponding bonus symbol (production or gold, food or gold, production or science, food or science).
- At the lower right side, the corporation's influence (IR) is shown as a bar.
- All four possible IR add up. The filled bar equals all 18 workable city tiles.
- If multiple civs own corporations in the city, the bar is coloured in the respective civilization colour.
Picture: Cardiff with a farming (+1 food) corporation of intermediate size.
2.4 Interactions with the other game elements
- Adopting the Commerce SoPo tree (starter, finisher or a sinlge SoPo? “Trade Unions” or “Mercantilism”, maybe?) will help to sustain a corporation network. With a changed SoPo tree, upkeep for corporation headquarters and branches will be reduced.
2.5 Economic Victory
-The goal is easy to formulate, but hard to achieve:
“Gain influence over 51 % of all land in cultural boarders with corporations you own.”
- Problem 1: As each corporation will only influence a limited type of tiles, two or even three corporations are necessary to control a noteworthy part of the city radius.
- Problem 2: When playing as successful warmonger, you will control much of this land yourself. Therefore, you will have to sustain most of the necessary branches yourself - an expensive enterprise. (As you won't have many friends, international trade routes will most likely not be available.)
If you stay peaceful, you may be able to spread your branches to many foreign countries. Like this, you may even earn money in the process. The downside is, that you will strengthen your competitor and maybe allow him to win the game.
2.6 Remarks
- Generally spoken: To aim for Economic Victory, you have to play the monetary game! Sustaining corporations is expensive and without decent international trade routes it should be hard or even impossible to have more than one of them exclusive for yourself.
- The two gold producing corporations make the task easier. With enough influence, they should be able to pay for themselves, but will have no other positive effect (production or food bonus) to your empire. It is recommended, not to spread them to your competitor, though...
- Why are there no strategic resources involved? I really thought about implementing them. But the only abundant resource would be iron. Horses maybe, but do you really want to imagine, what corporations do to these poor animals to enhance food production?
Other strategic resources are needed until modern times and even if the importance of oil decays, two resources are not enough to model a complex corporation-system upon. (Bonus resources are desperately needed for other things (see: Health!) and luxury resources are heterogeneous and don't seem to fit into the picture.)
Anyway, I like the idea, that the importance of some resources change over time. Isn't this a nice touch of history, that nations fight terrible wars to gain the control over some iron deposits - just to find them dispensable some hundred years later? And then, they fight wars to gain oil wells...
- All proposed numbers (especially upkeep and spreading/developing costs, but the victory condition, too) might need rearrangement after first play testing, of course. I simply choosed numbers that seemed reasonable for me.
- The start of corporations in the renaissance era seems to be very early. I like to see them as the early roots of something, that will grow bigger in later times. Family trading empires, for example. What would have happened, if Fugger's trading empire or the Hanse would have evaded their demise?
- By all means, so early “corporations” would stay small, as gold is sparse at this times and wouldn't allow high influence (IR) or proliferation to many other towns. It even might be possible, to allow branches in other civilizations only after the invention of “Electricity”, so nobody can bankrupt their neighbours due to excessive corporation spread.
- The reason, why I reschedule them to this early point was, that I wanted to start the struggle towards the Financial Victory earlier. I would have no problem to shift them back to more reasonable times!
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