A Comprehensive Proposal for Corporations and an Economic Victory

[TheSpaceCowboy]

My twist on Corporations and an Economic Victory for Civilization VI is that it’d involve heavily investing in other civilizations. It’d require an utterly dominant economy to overcome such a handicap. Here’s how it’d work:

Firstly, to found a Corporation, it’d be first necessary to construct the Business Sector district. Like the Holy Site’s worship building, there’d be multiple unique buildings to construct, each associated with a specific corporation. Each business sector could hold up to three unique Corporate Headquarters.

The Business Sector itself would share bonus gold adjacency with City-Centers and Commercial Hubs. Constructing three Corporate Headquarters in a single Business Sector would increase trade route capacity by one.

Once the Business Sector is built it’d be possible to begin constructing any corporation which the player has met the qualifications to found. For example, a Delivery Company can only be founded in a city with a Airport, Seaport, and a Commercial Hub, all in addition to the Business Sector. As soon as construction begins, this officially founds the Corporation.

Of the various Corporations, each civilization can found their own version. The naming convention would thus be American Clothing Co., British Clothing Co., German Clothing Co., etc.

Once a Corporate Headquarters is completed, the Investor unit can be bought. Like missionaries and apostles, Investors can travel across borders. Depending on the corporation they work for, they would be able to spend gold to improve certain resources or travel to districts and spend gold to construct the buildings there for the local civilization.

For example, An American Sports Bar Investor would be able to travel to a British city and improve their Tobacco or Wine luxuries or go to their Entertainment Complex and buy them a Stadium. A Publishing House Investor, conversely, would need to be in a foreign Theater Square when gifting a Great Work of Writing to that civilization.

A Corporation is considered a Monopoly if its foreign investments are greater than the combined foreign investments of every other civilization’s corporations of the same type.

To achieve an Economic Victory would require not merely a dominant economy but a highly diversified one as well. The victorious civilization would need one monopoly in every type of industry: Commodities, Food Services, Media, Transportation, High Tech, Arms.

Here are a few ideas for possible Corporations, along with the requirements to found them:


Commodities and Goods

Beverage Company

• Own tiles with improved Coffee, Tea, and Citrus in the same city or connected via trade route

Candy Company

• Own tiles with improved Sugar and Cocoa in the same city or connected via trade route

Clothing Company

• Own tiles with improved Dyes and either Cotton or Silk in the same city or connected via trade route
• Have access to the Blue Jeans luxury

Health and Beauty Company

• Own a tile with improved Incense
• Have access to Cosmetics and Perfumes

Jewelry company

• Own tiles with improved Silver and either Gems or Pearls in the same city or connected via trade route

Home Décor Company

• Have tiles with improved Marble and either Ivory or Jade in the same city or connected via trade route
• Have a Lumber Mill in the same city as one of the above resources

Food Services

Exotic Restaurant Chain

• Own tiles with improved Rice and Spices in the same city or connected via trade route
• Have a trading post on a foreign continent from your capital

Fast Food Chain

• Own tiles with improved Cattle and Wheat and Salt in the same city or connected via trade route
• Have a City with over 20 population and a neighborhood

Sea Food Chain

• Own tiles with improved Fish and Crabs different costal cities connected via overseas trade route

Sports Bar Chain

• Own tiles with improved Wine and Tobacco in the same city or connected via trade route
• Own a sports stadium in the same city as one of the above resources

Media

Antiquities Dealer

• Have an Archaeological Museum with three themed artifacts

Comic Book Publisher

• Receive a great work of art and a great work of writing as part of a peace deal and then stored in the same city or connected via trade route

Gallery

• Have an Art Museum with three great works of art

Publishing House

• Have a City with a Library and three themed great works of writing
• Have the eureka for or fully research Printing

Record Label

• Have a Radio Hall with three themed great works of music

Transportation

Car Company

• Own tiles with improved Aluminum and oil in the same city or connected via trade route
• Have at least 100 tiles worth of roads throughout all your cities

Delivery Company

• Have an Airport, Seaport, and Commercial Hub in a single city

High Tech

Electronics Manufacturers

• Have a Research Lab connected to a Factory via trade route
• Have the eureka for or fully research Computers

Internet Service Provider

• Have a University connected to a Military Academy via trade route
• Have the eureka for or fully research Internet

Social Media Platform

• Connect Universities or Neighborhoods on two separate continents via trade route
• Have the eureka for or fully research Social Media

Arms

Aerospace Contractor

• Have an Airport and a Spaceport in the same city
• Launch the Earth Satellite

Defense Contractor

• Build a Military Academy
• Train the following modern-era or later units: melee, ranged, light or heavy cavalry, and siege
• Have at least one Army

Naval Contractor

• Build a Seaport
• Train the following modern-era or later naval units: melee, raider, ranged, carrier
• Have at least one Armada

 

[clapyourhands]

Very detailed and well-thought out. A few questions spring to mind, though. For one, does the investor civ get any benefits from improvements constructed in foreign territory other than furthering their monopolies? Can the civ being invested in remove improvements placed by the investing civ? If they could it would make stopping an economic victory trivial, but if they couldn’t is there a way for another corporation to belatedly “compete” with the first Corp? Say one civ’s sports bar Corp has improved 6 of the world’s 10 tobacco resources. Are they guaranteed a monopoly for the rest of the game?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Very interesting, just a couple of caveats/thoughts:

1. Why have a new and separate District for commercialization of what is already going on in other, existing Districts? Virtually all the types of 'Corporate' businesses/trading you describe could fit into existing Districts: Campus (High Tech), Commercial Hub (Commodities), Entertainment Complex (Food Services), Harbor/Aerodrome (Transportation), Industrial Zone (Arms), or Theatre Square (Media). This would allow even more Corporate HQ per city, but only one of each Type per city.

2. The really High Value/High Volume goods and services, at least in the last couple of centuries of Global Trade, have been: Cloth and Clothing, Industrial Machinery/Machine Tools, Automobiles, Personal Electronics, Popular Media (TV shows, movies), Branded Food and Drink, Branded Food Services, Financial Management (Banking Services), Armaments (which can be divided into Ships, Aircraft, Artillery, Armored Vehicles, and Small Arms) and Commercial Aircraft. Some of those you've covered, some not.

3. There have been some Great Authors or Entertainers who, virtually single-handedly, have had Corporate-level influence on foreign trade: Charles Dickens in the 19th century, for example, had a huge American following, likewise the Beatles in the 20th century. It would be intriguing to find a way to incorporate the influence of Great People on Corporations and Corporate Profits in certain industries - including, of course, the massive Influence of what the game calls Great Merchants on the setting up and spreading of Corporations.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

Very detailed and well-thought out. A few questions spring to mind, though. For one, does the investor civ get any benefits from improvements constructed in foreign territory other than furthering their monopolies? Can the civ being invested in remove improvements placed by the investing civ? If they could it would make stopping an economic victory trivial, but if they couldn’t is there a way for another corporation to belatedly “compete” with the first Corp? Say one civ’s sports bar Corp has improved 6 of the world’s 10 tobacco resources. Are they guaranteed a monopoly for the rest of the game?

I envisioned the foreign investments as essentially gold-sinks, as per other proposals for potential economic victories, albeit with a much higher risk, given that instead of merely decreasing one's own lead it advantages one's opponent simultaneously. This would require far more strategy, as one would have to determine whether to advantage an opponent who might be placated by the investment, an ally whose success own could prove beneficial to oneself, or a third-world civilization whose rising fortune would not challenge one's own hegemony. The "benefit" is the soft power that comes from speaking softly and carrying a big checkbook. Perhaps your Defense Contractor buys some Tanks in the Capitol of a neutral civilization at war with a mutual adversary. Perhaps your Delivery Company buys a Trader in the Commercial Hub of a nearby city in the hope that they establish a trade route to oneself. Admittedly, much of the foreign investment is purely detrimental to one's own interests, but that makes having an utterly dominant economy that can absorb such blows to its lead all the more imperative.

I forgot to enumerate this point, but a Builder removing an Improvement built be a foreign Investor would be considered either an act of war in itself, or at least a very powerful casus belli. At some point, of course, competing economic interests has to make war inevitable. In the above example of the two civilizations with competing Sports Bar Chains, capturing the corporate headquarters should result in a transfer of custody - an extremely hostile takeover of sorts. Thus, the British Empire could conceivably have a Sports Bar Monopoly by owning the American Sports Bar Chain.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

Very interesting, just a couple of caveats/thoughts:

1. Why have a new and separate District for commercialization of what is already going on in other, existing Districts? Virtually all the types of 'Corporate' businesses/trading you describe could fit into existing Districts: Campus (High Tech), Commercial Hub (Commodities), Entertainment Complex (Food Services), Harbor/Aerodrome (Transportation), Industrial Zone (Arms), or Theatre Square (Media). This would allow even more Corporate HQ per city, but only one of each Type per city.

That would be a far more elegant solution! I'd probably map it slightly differently:

1. Campus = High Tech
2. Theater Square = Media
3. Encampment = Arms
4. Commercial Hub = Transportation
5. Industrial Zone = Commodities and Goods
6. Entertainment Complex = Food Services

The challenge would be altering the designs of the districts to incorporate room for a Corporate Headquarters, but I'd welcome a slight redesign, especially if districts were no longer color-coded. It helps with readability, to be sure, but the aesthetic trade-off is not worth such.

2. The really High Value/High Volume goods and services, at least in the last couple of centuries of Global Trade, have been: Cloth and Clothing, Industrial Machinery/Machine Tools, Automobiles, Personal Electronics, Popular Media (TV shows, movies), Branded Food and Drink, Branded Food Services, Financial Management (Banking Services), Armaments (which can be divided into Ships, Aircraft, Artillery, Armored Vehicles, and Small Arms) and Commercial Aircraft. Some of those you've covered, some not.

My own list was certainly far from exhaustive. I'm sure there are many other types of Corporations that could and ought to be added. At the same time, I wasn't trying to simulate or replicate a real economy. I was trying to conceive of thematically appropriate gameplay challenges. It's very mush inspired by the Eureka system and the design mantra of active instead of passive play. Completing many mini-challenges seems far more interesting to me than merely having a large gold reserve, as per past Economic Victories (I'm specifically thinking Civilization Revolution).

3. There have been some Great Authors or Entertainers who, virtually single-handedly, have had Corporate-level influence on foreign trade: Charles Dickens in the 19th century, for example, had a huge American following, likewise the Beatles in the 20th century. It would be intriguing to find a way to incorporate the influence of Great People on Corporations and Corporate Profits in certain industries - including, of course, the massive Influence of what the game calls Great Merchants on the setting up and spreading of Corporations.

Some of my proposals already require Great Merchants to generate Luxuries such as Cosmetics, Perfumes, and Blue Jeans. Others require Great Artists, Writers, and Musicians to generate their respective Great Works. But more could certainly be added. I didn't particularly like my mechanic for a Comic Book Publisher. Perhaps it could instead require a great work of Art by Jack Kirby and a great work of writing by Stan Lee in the same city or connected via trade route.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That would be a far more elegant solution! I'd probably map it slightly differently:

1. Campus = High Tech
2. Theater Square = Media
3. Encampment = Arms
4. Commercial Hub = Transportation
5. Industrial Zone = Commodities and Goods
6. Entertainment Complex = Food Services

The challenge would be altering the designs of the districts to incorporate room for a Corporate Headquarters, but I'd welcome a slight redesign, especially if districts were no longer color-coded. It helps with readability, to be sure, but the aesthetic trade-off is not worth such.

I was throwing off combinations based loosely on the buildings already assigned to the Districts. The Corporate HQ could be the 'Apex Building' of a District, buildable only after a suitable 'feeder building' is already there, like a Research Lab, Military Academy, Broadcast Center, etc.

My own list was certainly far from exhaustive. I'm sure there are many other types of Corporations that could and ought to be added. At the same time, I wasn't trying to simulate or replicate a real economy. I was trying to conceive of thematically appropriate gameplay challenges. It's very mush inspired by the Eureka system and the design mantra of active instead of passive play. Completing many mini-challenges seems far more interesting to me than merely having a large gold reserve, as per past Economic Victories (I'm specifically thinking Civilization Revolution).

One 'Corporate Item' that occurred to me after my first post, and a better fit for the Commercial Hub, would be International Financial Services. I am thinking specifically of the relatively early International Banking 'Family Corporations' of the later Renaissance - the Fuggers, Rothschilds, etc. They had an enormous effect on governments, since they virtually financed both the French monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire (Anton Fugger practically single-handedly put the Hapsburgs on the throne of the HRE). And today, of course, being a Banking or Financial Center is hugely lucrative in both Gold and Prestige - Geneva, London and New York have all made a Very Good Thing out of it...

This would be an earlier Corporation available in the Renaissance Era, possibly only from a number of specific Great Merchants like Anton Fugger. Setting up Branches in other Civs OR City States would allow the International Bank to draw Gold and possibly grow influence in those places.

Some of my proposals already require Great Merchants to generate Luxuries such as Cosmetics, Perfumes, and Blue Jeans. Others require Great Artists, Writers, and Musicians to generate their respective Great Works. But more could certainly be added. I didn't particularly like my mechanic for a Comic Book Publisher. Perhaps it could instead require a great work of Art by Jack Kirby and a great work of writing by Stan Lee in the same city or connected via trade route.

Let me throw in a serious critique of your entire Media category here, because I worked in bookstores for over 20 years and know a little bit about the 'industry'. Book publishing as a whole has, of course, been hugely influential, but it's never really been a huge wealth producer: certainly not in the same category as, say, Oil Production, Financial Services, or Arms Production. On the other hand, Media in the form of Music, Television, and Movies bring in lots of Gold (most Hollywood 'blockbusters' bring in more money from non-USA release than from in-country release) and produce not-inconsequential Influence as well (Bollywood productions are popular all over the Middle East and Asa, and the popular TV shows produced in Egypt and Turkey dominate the airwaves all over the Islamic World). Also, while DC and Marvel graphic novels/comic books may be enormously popular in book form (BUT represent only a small fraction of total book sales), the really massive Profit/Gold production came when they were made into hugely popular Movies...

Therefore, I would modify your Media Category as follows:
Publishing House - as an outlet for 'special' authors (Great Writers) as well

Record Label - Great Musicians get extra influence from this

Production Studio - for both TV and Movies, since they are hard to separate any more

Auction House - for art or antiquities. Depending on how intricate we want to get, this could 'siphon off' Great Works into Private Hands, bringing in a mass of Gold but removing them from the Cultural Influence niches in the various Museums.

Electronic Animation Studio - because the one 'specialty' modern entertainment that is hugely popular, influential, and profitable is Animation, ranging from Walt Disney to Warner Brothers to Pixar - and there could be a tie-in here with the 'regular' Production Studio or a National/World Wonder like Hollywood, Bollywood or Broadway or even the Publishing House's Great Writers: after all, Disney built a Billion-Dollar Empire based on 'classics' converted into animated movies, then animated movies converted into live action stage plays Franchise Symbols, ice follies, etc., and in the process invented the Theme Park to capitalize on all of them...

 

[Sostratus]

See also this recent thread on corporations...

1. Why have a new and separate District for commercialization of what is already going on in other, existing Districts? Virtually all the types of 'Corporate' businesses/trading you describe could fit into existing Districts: Campus (High Tech), Commercial Hub (Commodities), Entertainment Complex (Food Services), Harbor/Aerodrome (Transportation), Industrial Zone (Arms), or Theatre Square (Media). This would allow even more Corporate HQ per city, but only one of each Type per city.

Most Districts have visual space after 3 buildings for us to insert a corporate office structure of some kind, to visually signify who's set up shop. The global HQ could be a city center building, whereas the 'local office' could be in districts; that way, if the city is converted to the competition, you could still have a way to resurrect it.

Normally, people think we should reintroduce corporations because the mechanics of resource control, bonus yield, and profit & cost.
As in the other thread, I strongly think Corporations need to be limited in how many can exist in a city, if this were being introduced that way.
However, if paired with an economic victory, this would change things. As hinted at by Mr. Gudenuf, having a corporation class for most specialty districts, and limiting corporations to one per district type in a city, might be a neat idea so we can demand 3 corporate monopolies or what have you.

But we'd also want to make sure that the benefits of founding a corporation are well defined enough that players would pursue them even if the economic victory was disabled. Like religion; it is a way to win, but also has a lot of potential benefits outside of faith (like culture, amenities, etc.) And, we want to ensure that players going for other victories have enough means to effectively fight back without fully devoting to econ victory.

 

[Hanaboshi]

I have to disagree that there should be separate victory system as an additional content, because culture is essentially the sign of how economically successful you are. However, I have to agree that Civ VI needs more in-depth economic and political system.
Just some additional ideas if there are more additional game content for the politics and economics :
1. Trade wonders such as silk road, dutch tulip bulb market, spice trade and wall street, which would lead into trade secret espionage system.
2. Lifestyle additional contents :
a. Crown Jewels options as a bonus artifact in the museum and/or palace /tower of london that would be generated when changing type of government.
b. Crowning / Doge-Presidential Inauguration tradition events & choosing the national myth using the great writer
c. Titles
d. Disaster and Discovery events
e. Food invention events based on local agriculture source (ie: Margherita Pizza event) and Levee/Palace tradition events
f. Approvement ratings system that would start on industrial era
3. Papacy & Religious Wonders (Vatican, Mecca, Jerusalem, etc.) that would create political influence for diplomacy and a casus belli for holy war.
4. Religious branches, such as Judaism has to be found first before the founding of Christianity and Islam, Daoism before Confucianism, etc.