1. I like the simple implementation. The one-per-civ rule seems logical and gameplay oriented, and the "spreading via the diplomacy" screen is quite easy to explain and would (probably) accept ideological differences. (On that note I expect those would be open to any ideology, i.e. IG Farben or Lada Cars)
2. Any mechanic this late in the game that doesn't lead to a victory may be very superfluous. After all, we criticize religion already for being more of a distraction (if you don't tool it to your strategy...). And Religion can be very powerful and long lasting.
3. A 'corporation' yield would be too much complexity I'd say, but I get your complaints about 'first to research tech x'. The mechanic should not offer the frontrunner the best chance to get it. Instead, why not pick a idea from the Ancient World Scenario and have 'contests' (+ tech researched) as triggers. I.e. First to get 5 factories may found IG Farben if the player has a Great Merchant available.
4. Another question is if the yield should be tall (% per city) or wide (x per city).
5. Other types I can see are: Production (i.e. Shell), Unit Experience/production (i.e. any arms producer in the US), tourism/culture (i.e. Boeing), Great Person yields (may be better than giving each a bonus on a certain Great Person type).
As you see, the big question in the end would be the first: What is this concept supposed to achieve? I can see
- Catch-up helper (may be contra-historical, but if it works for gameplay that the last in the ranking get the best corps, so what?)
- Helps Diplomatic Victory greatly (pro: victory that needs help, con: system more set up for major nations than city states so far, but that can be adressed)
- Helps the respective victory a little, but is also not a big investment. (A single focus on other victories doesn't make sense per se as those are all quite well set-up I'd say; also would give many points for the ranking)
- Is prereq to getting to a new economic victory (pro: might be a 'allrounder' victory if a good 'how we get the corp' is included; con: another victory needed?, system set up as aid so far)
So what is it for you?
I think an Economic victory is the overall goal of adding corporations to Civ V, given the right conditions (of which there is still much room to ponder on those conditions). While gold, currently, is just more or less set up as an aid at this point, it shouldn't preclude the option of an economic victory. I think there are several ways to include the new VC, that wouldn't compromise the current systems, it'd just take some trial-and-error. It would certainly have to accommodate both the serious-strategic player and the casual-fun player. But that's where adding a completely new VC would require lots of thought. But to get to that point we'd need to figure out the small goals of corporations first, of which the discussion here (and the one on the 2k forums) have quite a bit of varying ideas on how they would be implemented. At this point we have the "wonder" style of tech and build, tech and build, but also some more intricate ideas involving a religion/great works hybrid type that involves consumers, corporations going belly-up if certain conditions are met, bonus resources tied to meeting conditions and having certain strategic and luxury resources. There's lots to talk about to get to a new VC point.
But even without an economic VC, we're talking the added fun of displaying the natural world's evolution from constant military dominations of the past times to the currency and corporate dominations of present times. A corporations feature would illustrate our natural world's evolution quite nicely. Without an economic VC, corporations could still lend themselves to diplomatic, science, and cultural victories (and even though all of these VCs are already represented quite nicely) there's always room to improve the representation of our worldly advancements (can you imagine our world today without corporations?) With the new great works/buildings feature (the one with choosing different great works in your buildings to maximize tourism), this could be added with different luxuries and strategic resources to maximize your corporation's influence, income, happiness, or science output.
For example, if you have created a consumer goods corporation, putting dyes and whales in your building's resource slots would maximize gold/happiness benefits from your corporation while stagnating your science benefits (or something to that nature)and output cosmetic products, but you'd have to have both resources at all times to continue gaining benefits from having cosmetic products.
Here is my take on corporations:
Corporations become available after you research economics. You may found a guild by spending a certain amount of money, 500 to start with. You may start multiple guilds, but the cost goes up for each, and the max amount is four. Guilds work like pantheons, where you pick a starter practice, and later on you expand it to a corporation. There are four branches of guilds, which is why there is a limit to four. Guild practices are mostly centered around specific resources, luxuries, and products. For example, if you have three silk luxuries around you, you may want to start a weavers guild. Later, a Great Merchant transforms your guild into a corporation.
Corporations get a little more general with their practices, maybe adding a resource or two more into their business. Corporations benefit from having more of a particular resource, and it enhances their benefits, like it did in civ 4. As your progress in the game, new corporations choose from a bigger list of things to sell, like electronics or oil, so it's beneficial to save some corporation slots for the mid-end game. Later on, corporations can come into competition with foreign corporations that have similar products. Corporations sort of spread like religion, but in a more intentional way, and if two corporations are dissimilar enough, only one can be in a city. This would illustrate competition to obtain certain markets. Once a corporation becomes large enough and its founder country owns most of the resources it needs, it achieves a monopoly. Economic victories happen when three out of four of your corporations have monopolies. Things that can impact corporations are availability of trade routes, large populations, ideologies, and religion too a little bit.
There are a lot of gaps here, but this is the general framework corporations that I have.
I really like the idea of it progressing from guilds, to company, to corporations over time. Question - Why not open after researching "Guilds" at the start of the medieval era? It seems fitting, now that your empire has a working knowledge of Mathematics and Currency, mastering the markets, trade routes, and "city connections" by this time. Of course it is also aptly named Guilds, after all. This leaves Economics open to start transforming into companies, just before the start of the industrial era. Then Electricity, with the inclusion of stock exchanges to allow for evolving into corporations, just as you get ready to enter the modern era. Then as you research telecommunications and globalization, evolving into fully globalized corporations.
Also, how about this, using the great works/slots feature, your corporation's slots are filled with resources, that you either have in your empire or have traded to get. If you make the correct combinations to create "products", it produces bonus goods that the public would want even more. Thus increasing your influence over other competing corporations.
For example, you have a consumer goods corporation in mind. Let's say you have dyes, incense, and truffles in your empire. Your corporation has two slots. Putting dyes and incense in these slots wouldn't help your influence over the public too much, because it wouldn't create a "product", you still just have a couple resources that give a base corporate benefit. But say you trade your truffles for whales and you put dyes and whales in your corporations two slots, you would then create cosmetic products, and your influence over the population is increased along with your income and maybe happiness benefits from your corporation. (if your 30 turn deal for whales isn't renewed and you lose the whales resource, your jewelry product are halted, and your benefits and influence go back down to normal)
Your "corporate" yield, if included, could be used to purchase corporate tenets (much like religious beliefs), where some add slots to your corporation, or increase influence over the population for creating products from resources, or maybe even some that increase the bonuses to happiness/science/gold etc benefits that your corporation normally yields.
The amount of influence your products exert would be tied to the combinations of resources you put in your corporation's available slots. Gold/Gems combo could create influential jewelry products, while Silver/Gems combo would create a less influential jewelry product.
Cotton/Dye least influential clothing products, Cotton/Fur more influential clothing products, but with a chosen corporate tenet that gives a third slot to your corporation, Cotton/Fur/Dye combo creates the most influential clothing products. And so on.
Basically, you end up using existing game resources (luxury and strategic), to create the bonus resources "products" that yield extra influence over the population and increase gold income/happiness/food/science/culture etc based on what type of resources/products you have in your corporation's slots. This would determine how well your corporation is standing up to the competing corporations, and would give a tiered effect so that just merely creating a product out of silver/gems wouldn't be as great as creating a product out of gold/gems.
)
(this is a wall of text kinda topic!)
