Foreign corporations

[dorkynorky]

I'm pretty comfortable with the dynamics of corporations that I found and spread to myself to gain the various benefits. However, I haven't thought much about foreign corporation spread. The following are the ideas that I've held concerning foreign corps.

1. It costs more to spread them
2. You still get the coin benefit in your headquarter city.
3. If you spread them to a civ with only a few of the resources you can put a little extra maintenance pressure on the foreign city for only a little benefit to them.
4. You can displace an already established corp with a competing corp that, due to resources will yield a lesser benefit to the foreign nation.

In my current game a circumstance has arisen which causes me to wonder about whether I'm missing something. Mansa founded Mining Inc and has been religiously spreading it to me. I've got a lot more of the mining resources, locally than he does and all I can say is 'thank you for wasting your gold and hammers to give me more hammers'. Sure, he's getting the coins in his founding city, but is that a great enough reason for him to give me a 10 hammer per city boost (before multipliers)?

 

[shyuhe]

It costs a lot for you. Having the HQ helps offset the heavy cost of corporations.

 

[dorkynorky]

Do I pay more maintenance in my city for a foreign corp than I would if I had founded the same corp and spread it there myself?

 

[shyuhe]

No, the cost is the same. But having less offset (HQ) means it "costs" more for you.

 

[dorkynorky]

At this point in the game, I'm hoping the extra hammers will insure that one day I do have the headquarters.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nobody in their right mind would spread mining to an opponent who had any sort of threat margin. But, we're talking about the AI here.

Jewelers is pretty good to spam, especially to allies who aren't going culture. Generally I might consider giving the AI a corp and hoping they self-spread it if I don't view them as a hindrance to winning (aka I'm going space, this guy is backwards, won't declare on me, and I can profit if he spams the execs to all his cities).

 

[UncleJJ]

A disadvantage of spreading corps to the AI is that they then compete for the same resources. I've had them cancel trade deals with me and cut my corps effect just to boost their own... AIs can be so inconsiderate

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A disadvantage of spreading corps to the AI is that they then compete for the same resources. I've had them cancel trade deals with me and cut my corps effect just to boost their own... AIs can be so inconsiderate

Yeah, that is an issue. It's hard to pick and choose corp spread targets.

Of course, if they do that with jewelers and we're not going culture we'll barely care .

 

[mirthadir]

The best corp to spread to the AI tends to be SE if you are peaceful and CM if you are a war monger. AlCo is a generally good shot.

SE gives the AI science which is not particularly bad as you will use the gold to gain more science. Very appealing is the option of running to computers, take the internet and then spreading around AlCo/SE. Even if the AIs won't trade, you will quickly acquire tech from their bonuses and can even swap over to full mode to kill anyone with too great of a tech lead or to just win outright. The downside here is that you almost certainly don't want this in your core territory (though a few cities with high food will do best with it).

CM is a good pick for warmongering as it doesn't compete with Sushi (if you are running that in your core) too much and it gives no culture so conquests near that AI don't get hammered by Sushi's culture and require massive garrisons. If you've managed to stay in slavery, this just makes the whip-away starving rioters more effective. SE is dangerous here as then you can no longer nerf AI oil access and stop them from building navies and air forces. Alternatively you can run it in your core and get the WS bonus on all CM cities.

AlCo is good, but AIs appear to spread it less readily (particularly as its benefits are marginal enough without CreCon that many AIs will elect SP as optimal civic). Also this works well if you opt to go CreCon/CivJ/AlCo in your core.

CivJ works well as you can run this in your core and your exports, the downside is that the AI gets free culture and that unless you are running Mining in the core, it drasticly reduces how easily you can leverage CivJ yourself.

 

[mrt144]

I agree with SE being the one to spread to other civs;

If you're running any other corps, trade them all your excess corn and sugar in exchange for every resource you need.

 

[Yxklyx]

You know, the other Civs aren't always your rival, at least on Monarch. So spreading your corporation to such a Civ is a no-brainer.