New Corporations

delete me!

RoM 2.7 has total room for 138 corporations...

Surely the problem with adding lots of corporations, with many overlapping resources, is that they'll compete and you'll essentially be unable to use more than about 3 of them?

Is that a problem? Maybe it spreads the corporations to more AI civs so its not only you and the 1-2 biggest AI civs that gets a corporation plus it gives you a wider range of selection instead of the 3 that I always pick (Creative Contstruct, Sids Sushi and Jewelry Inc.) That was the primarely reason (plus I like modding) that I wanted to make new ones.

Well corporations are needed that is for sure.

I had an idea a while back but never got around to doing it about them.

I had thought about adding more stuff in corporations but things that do not act like corporations in the normal sense. Like guilds or whatever for earlier times. I mean like a weaker version of a corporation anyway. So all of that earlier times would have something. I was looking like something art wise from Crossroads of the World for a style. It is a mod included with BtS anyway.

The Dutch East India company was really the first public traded corporation. So always wanted to do something with it. But maybe not the real name. Either way with real names we are not going to get sued. Firaxis did not have real names because of worries apparently that is why you find the symbols still there but not used.

Anyway just ideas.

My plan was, if this works out, to make arms manufacturers as corps.
f.ex. make Carlyle Group, Boing, Lockheed Martin, Heckler & Koch, Steyr Mannlicher and Colt just to mention a few. They would provide buildings which either made units available (f.ex.Boing = F18) or simple promotions (f.ex. Heckler & Koch = free gunpowder promotion +10 str)

Sounds like a good idea. Only problem I see is with the current ones then. I think they probably would need to be redone as well.

I was thinking very simple with my guild idea. There are plenty of spots for resources now as well. I thought at the beginning the guilds just make you a unique resources. For example some Paper guild would make Paper in exchange for something else. Very small amount of gold if any gained from it. And you need to build something to found the guild not a great person.

Your idea though how would the corporations be founded? With great people still?

It is just when you start adding a lot of corporations that start only at the end. It seems it would be hard to get use out of so many at that time in the game.

Just always bothered me about them kinda about the corporations beginning so late while the game needs some more work on the later part. Anyway good ideas. I don't think there is much interest guilds.

Well, here is a beta of the new corporations.

I still need the .nif files for the HQ buildings and Executives. Instead I used generic ones, so they won't have any logo's on. The only problem with that is that no logo is shown outside the city (on top of the citybar), but logos will however be shown with info inside city and on the corporation screen.

On note. I had to disable the disablement of whale and elephants as elephant riding and whale watching is part of the Adventure Tours. I left fur alone though.

I have not looked at what you sent up yet. But I wanted to let you know if you do not. The fonts are needed to show the symbols on the city bar. If you setup them up correctly I know the executive's briefcase symbols updates automatically.

There is a WoC modular example of fashion house if you want to look at it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=213968&d=1242054020

And RoM 2.7 will be using the WoC stuff so might help you out anyway.

Thanks, I hope its what I been looking for.

I just took the mod down, and I'll take a look at what you sent tomorrow (its 3 am here)
Might as well get it right the first time.

YEAH!

It was the gamefont.tga that was responsible for the missing icon on the citybar! Thanx
(Man, its hard work to get the alphas straight. I'm most likely just going to square them in the first version)

And the first HQ got a Logo on it, though it faces the wrong way when build in city.
Had to DL nifscope to get the executives and HQs working properply.

I'll hopefully get a working beta up later today.

I remember that some reason the symbol automatically appearing had to be in an atlas, and that we need something extra from another corporation. You should be able to replace everything that is fashion dds files and I think should do something anyway. But I have not looked at it in a while.

In the corporation atlas that is what I thought was important to make them appear on the briefcase. I am going to look at when I get the chance. And if you have any problems I can help out. On the fonts I can make an alpha for you if you need it.

And good job Always a challenge each time learning something new on modding Civ.

delete me
(double posts)

Everything seems to be working fine now
I looked at fashion house, but decided to go with the original HQ and CEO files in hope that I can trim the .Rar file later (1 mb is quite a lot on mobilephone GPRS). It was actually a minor operation with only one line being replaced in the .nifs, but would have taken days if I didnt have the fashionhouse to scope throu, and I would have completely missed the gamefont file. So again Thanx!

I thought about the East Indie Trade Company, and maybe I put it in as the first corporation (req corporation only) as it makes logic that discovering corporation actually gives the posibility of discovering a corporation. I'm thinking a little bit like spice, cotton, dye, silk OR it could be East indies plantation corp like Sugar, tobacco, coffee, cotton and spice.

Anyway, I uploaded a beta version in the first post, and I think (hope) that it is bug free.

It's true that there should be some kind of guild system for early game. Though I'm not sure if guilds (or corporations) could become obsolete when you advance to industrial era.

I've also thought about changing the whole late game eras to use corporations for just about all production types (hammers, science, food etc.) as that's how our own world works - corporations make all the goods for us. This however would require total revamp for industrial era to future era... and there's some things that would require solving (competition of corporations etc.).. so I haven't made any changes towards this but it might be something that could be done after v2.7 is ready.

@vincentz

Good job. There is some changes that will be in the WoC fonts though. There is space in the WoC stuff for 138 corporations. And yes that would be a good idea about the East India Company to me.

@zappara

I was thinking with the guilds that a different civic would be used instead of free market or whatever. I mean the idea I was thinking you have modern guilds in the form of unions maybe as well. Something like that anyway not exactly needed. So maybe you still have the guilds for example working on state property and the corporations will not. Then if you select free market with the guilds they do nothing.

Here is an example of what I had in mind initially. A paper guild could produce a paper resource for a city. Since there is enough space for many resources in the WoC not a big deal. Something unique anyway. Then if you swap to free market to use a corporation then you will lose paper as a resource.

May sound horrible but I thought that as a simple form anyway. I had more ideas with code changes but that is a whole another idea. And if not liked I understand why.

Thanks Its my first official mod, so I was pretty happy to make it work, though there is still some work to be done with the graphics (HQ build buttons and alphas), and eventually it will be transformed to fit WoC standards.

As I understand guilds (medieval) they were practially a merger between skilled craftsmen, merchants and goverment officials, providing quality products for a fixed price and having a monopoly on trade in cities, so the way I see guilds in ROM is more a civic before free market (which I personally think is a bit early) or maybe just rename Mercantile to Guilds and make it a little earlier (with guilds tech) (first merchant guilds were created around 1000 AD) and providing the Guild Hall.

Then the guild hall could be base for new early corporations/guilds like paper (boost science and trade) and masonry (architecture) (which I think is the biggist still existing guild in the world) (boost production) and perhaps even a trade guild with banking (boost trade or money).

Does this play nicely with AAranda's religion mod or does it break it? You both modify the fonts file which is why I ask.

On a side note...
Since it seems I have the attention of two of the great minds/modders of civ4 I have a couple of ideas I would like some input on :
(keep in mind that I havnt looked at 2.7 yet, so changes might already have been implented)

My biggest problem is at one point (usually in the early industrial age) I become way too powerfull, researching techs on 1 turn with 95-100% science (with a religion and some well placed national wonders setting taxes to 0 still brings a surplus) . I love the maintenaince cost of units in 2.63 but it seems to hit AIs more than human players. (I would normally have 1 unit on non threathened cities, and then a couple of taskforces doing the dirty job) However the AI have numorous units on each city and 1 city (if at peace) that sometimes have more than 50 units on (Come on! nuke me! I dare you!). My point being, that overexpansion in later eraes is without any problems economically speaking, setting the AIs behind in the techrace and therefore being able to conquerer their lands (sometimes even with tanks against archers) which just produce a rolling stone effect making you even stronger, researching faster ect ect.....

Sollution : Maintenance on buildings.... Having a state controlled factory, airport, port, garrison etc etc. actually cost money. putting maintenaince on a lot of buildings would maker the smaller nations stronger. the larger nations that likes big armies would suffer to much if instead of buildingmaintenance the overall maintenance was increased. the big humanplayer civs (like me, building practically every building on the list and therefore getting a lot of bonuses) would suffer bigtime (maybe even to a point of 50%/50% science/tax) balancing the game, and putting the modern techs back to modern ages (1900+) instead of early 1800.
With that said I have to admit that I'm "only" a monarch/emperor player at epic speed, and balancing could be tricky. But overall I think its the best sollution for all kind of civs.

Another thing I thought about was to put some early unhealthy bonuses on some buildings, as the early cities population wasn't limited by how much food could be produced, but rather sanitarian and polluting factors like diseases and waterpollution, and, believe it or not, when the car was first introduced it was a VERY clean personal transportation method compared to the horseshitting carriages. I usually end up building aquaducts when I build factories. When I think about aquaducts I think ancient Rome....

Just to name a few new buildings that could get an unhealty bonus :
stable (horses in cities, bad thing)
brothel (no need for explanation ;-)
harbour (sailers bringing in diseases from around, visiting the above mentioned....)

(NO, not the stables fool!)

On the same page, when I think industrial age, I see thick yellow/green smog over cities as the industries was placed inside the city. Factory should be much more polluting, same with airport (especially the later versions) and a lot of other buildings. Maybe even put some unhealth on some techs.

Another way to deal with it was to give 1 unhealthy to any workshop build in cityradius same way the shaftmine gets 1 angry. That way you would also promote building lumbermills which is to weak compared to a proletarian workshop. And talking about workshops, they could be replaced/upgraded by factories/industrial parks (the graphic from the waste refining factory) making the world look more industrial/modern. Maybe scale down the workshops or make new improvment factories (not building factories) more powerfull. Also giving workers something to do instead of just hanging around where the sailers go too ;-)

One more small idea :

instead of the axeman carrying a combined stone/bronce/iron axe (I wonder how that would look like) I'm thinking :

Hunting : spearmen

Stonetools : U: axemen req : stone,obsidian,bronce or iron, B: Toolworker/Toolshed/Toolcrafter building providing a stone/obsidian promotion (Stone Weapon) giving +10% to 15% strenght bonus for axemen, scout, spearmen, you name it

Bronceworking : U: light swordsmen (shortsword), req bronce or iron , B: Bronceworker/Broncesmith/Bronceforge replacing the forge, upgrading the Toolshed giving a 15% to 20% production bonus and a promotion (Bronce Weapon) giving +20% to 25% bonus (have to remove the stonebonus in upgrade process) The cities without the bronceforge would still produce wood or stone weapons.

Ironworking : U: swordsmen (Longswords), req iron, B: Ironsmith/Ironforge upgrading the bronceforge and toolshed giving a 25% to 30% production bonus and a promotion (Iron Weapon) giving a 30% to 40% str bonus for any Iron wielding unit.

The important part would be that it would be the forge/smith/shed that provided the weapons (and therefore upgrades) making a ironwielding axeman stronger (but not superior) to a stonewielding axeman. plus it would give some variation on the 3 or 4 early units that takes up most of the game (in years and turns)

Anyway. those are just ideas that I have, and would love some input before I put them to work.

nope, unfortunately its uses a LOT of files (almost enough to make my head explode when modding them)

The following common files used is :
gamefont.tga (with all the small logos)
building files (infos,classes and art defines) for HQ
unit files (infos, classes and art defines) for executives and build commands for great people (engineer,merchant,artist and scientist)
corporationinfo
and bonusinfo (for cancelling obsoletion of ivory and whale)

so as it is now, it is for vanilla bts3.17 rom2.63 only. (unless the mod dosnt use any of those files (which is highly unlikely))

But hopefully when 2.7 comes out with the WoC standard, it will (if I understand it correctly) be truly modable adding only new stuff instead of having to replace above mentioned files.

Maybe I'll add a copy/paste version, so people with limited wordpad knowledge can put it to work with their already installed mods.