Another unorthodox build...

[obsolete]

I am wondering, what do you think about building corporations, even though you have no plans to use it. E.G. You want to run civics all game that will prevent you from spreading and using it altogether.

Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but wouldn't nabbing the Jewlers Co, be something not too bad in this spot to at least prevent an AI from getting an early cultural victory? Or am I a little too paranoid over the culture power of corps?

I've had problems in the past almost losing culture vics to civs who go after this, or maybe it's just a coincidence.

The non-culture Corps I don't really care about as I know there is still arguement that some of them are even worth while at all.

 

[r_rolo1]

I've done it once or twice with the Al corp when in space race....

About cultural victories and Jewelers corp.... maybe it is worth the shot. But I think that Sushi is far more dangerous: it comes earlier and normally sushi resources are more abundant than the Jewelers one. It would not be the first time that I had spreaded sushi to a civ just to see it enter almost automatically in culture victory mode.....

 

[Refar]

The culture power of corporation is not that bad - Jewelers+Sushi+CreativeCon (can be in same city) can give quite a lot culture.

However founding a corp uses a GP, who might have give you other benefits, so i think it's not too good move. If you decide to found a corporation - to keep it of AI's hands or whatever, you probably should rethink your desision about staying in StaateProperty and found some more corps instead.

Also - from my experience - the AI is not that good with corporations. They will found one, if they happen to pop a GP, but i do not see any 'big picture' strategic planing behind AI's corporate activities.


Another idea that comes to my mind... If you are in state property and see a AI founding a Copr that you deem dangerous... Why not just go there and bribe/spy the AI to go into SP as well ?

 

[MrCynical]

I have to say that the AI are generally so incompetant that they won't do anything useful with a corporation. It's not even that common they manage to found a decent corporation. Sushi always ends up under my control one way or another, and I rarely lose Mining Inc either. Civ Jewellers is quite a late corp to start with, and the AI always takes forever to found it even if I ignore it. They only found corporations if they happen to draw the right GP for an available corporation and hence can have a very long wait (frequently longer than the remainder of the game) even if they have the right tech. Creative Constructions is the only culture corp I regularly see in AI hands, and even then only if I've decided to go with Mining Inc instead.

I just don't think it's worth a GP to found a corporation you aren't going to use. If their culture's that much of a problem you could force them into State Property, or just drop a competing corp into the city (Mining Inc is an excellent way to wreck the Cutural quartet).

 

[obsolete]

Hmm, my last game I had a chance to get the Sushi, but since it was nearing the end of the game, I skipped it.

In any case, if you have a very large empire, switching out of SP seems to cause a lot of extra debt, not to mention I lose all that big production bonus that SP gains me.

 

[Spaced out]

I have to admit i haven't used SP much in bts but it was always my standard in vanilla. If you have a very large empire then your get a very big bonus from sushi/mining. This combo i tend to get every game.

I may try SP in my current game just so i don't have to waste time spreading the corporations, another drawback of a large empire. Auto spread function is dumb.

If you have a vassal and go the sushi/mining route then each of his cities is + 24gpt for you, assuming you found in your WS city. Generally they won't get nearly the benefit you will from them. Spread to their production city and they might just spam some executives for you. When i found these corps in my cities i don't notice a change in the GPT value in the top left.

Free market and size 30 cities gives some pretty trade routes.

You would have to go into world builder and place the corporations to see if they are better/worse then running SP in a particular game.

 

[obsolete]

Well, you're simply never going to get size 30 cities on Immortal/deity. I guess this means the higher level you go, the weaker corps become?

 

[futurehermit]

Late game I don't see why you couldn't get size 30 cities on immortal deity unless you're still trying to use slavery and are managing the with maxed out luxury slider. Otherwise, the sheer surplus food from sushi would get you over size 30 in most cases.

 

[obsolete]

Well that would have to be one hell of a lot of food. Because each succeeding growth pop not only takes that much longer to fill the food bin, but you gain more growth penalties due to poor-health for each pop pt up the way. It only gets worse.

And we haven't factored in yet that the AI just loves to repeatedly poison your water. One poison and unhappiness mission combo is catastrophic.

 

[futurehermit]

It's pretty easy if you are expanding your empire very large *ahem* to have piles of seafood. You can also trade with the AI for their surplus seafood. That's a lotta food...

 

[qwertz]

You don't need a size 30 city for the corporations to be effective, IMO the corporations are much more powerfull in small cities as the boost will effect them more and they also pay less maintenance.

 

[MrCynical]

Well, you're simply never going to get size 30 cities on Immortal/deity. I guess this means the higher level you go, the weaker corps become?

I don't understand this comment. Health and Happiness caps don't get any worse once you get to Monarch level, so difficulty is of minimal relevance to city size. Even at Immortal it isn't that hard to get 15-20 food out of Sushi, and with that it isn't exactly challenging to get to size 30 cities. It'd be a rare BtS game where I don't have several 30+ cities, and I often have a couple of size 40+ cities.

Corporations don't significantly vary in strength depending on difficulty level (the only real issue is that they cost slightly more maintenance at high level). The fact that they are generally accessible at all difficulty levels means they if anything have more of an impact at high level.

 

[obsolete]

I may experiment some more with this in the future, but it just seems to not be worth it.

In every regard, it seems SP owns over corps in my games, for the following reasons (cumulative).

* SP prevents any fees from you going to other AI's due to their corps.

* SP actually gives you free food, much food in fact. All my water mills gain +1F and all food penalties by Workshops are removed.

* SP gains +1h per workshop (big for me), and 10% bonus each city IIRC.

* SP makes owning a very large empire CHEAP (increase gold earnings to be blunt)

* SP works IMMEDIATELY! (All benefits across continent go into effect immediately, no need to grow suits and spam them all over till the end).

* Too many more to list here, but it just seems for me at least, SP owns.

 

[obsolete]

Alright, my next game I will TRY to found as many corps as come available and see how it goes. However, even when I've captured multiple corps in the past, and had to switch out of SP for even just 1 turn, I've always regretted it.

 

[shyuhe]

try spamming mining inc. It's a very powerful corp. and the only one that I really use. You can get an increase of about 10-15 base hammers if you trade for the right resources - this turns all of your cities into production monsters. You can chain spam the executives to speed up the spreading but it will take about 100 coins per city. If you have vassals, I think corps. are more worthwhile as you can fearlessly spam them in to your vassal's cities. The AI gets the corp. bonus and you get the gold so it helps both sides.

 

[MrCynical]

Alright, my next game I will TRY to found as many corps as come available and see how it goes. However, even when I've captured multiple corps in the past, and had to switch out of SP for even just 1 turn, I've always regretted it.

As commented earlier, founding a corporation simply because it is there is not sound - that's an AI activity. It's rarely even necessary to found a corporation to keep it out of AI hands. Just pick the one which suit the conditions (Whichever food corp is appropriate to your map type, and either mining inc or the culture combo).

SP prevents any fees from you going to other AI's due to their corps.

See above comment.

SP actually gives you free food, much food in fact. All my water mills gain +1F and all food penalties by Workshops are removed.

Sites where you can run 15-20 watermills are to put it mildly rare. The workshops aren't really free food - they merely become neutral in that respect with SP.

SP gains +1h per workshop (big for me), and 10% bonus each city IIRC

Try Mining Inc for 20+ hammers - it has a similar effect.

SP makes owning a very large empire CHEAP (increase gold earnings to be blunt)

Here you have a point. As you approach the domination threshold the value of corporations relative to SP diminishes, since there are fewer foreign cities to offset maintenance costs to. For an empire that is some way from domination though, the income from foreign branches is more than you'd save in maintenance from SP - and that's after offsetting your domestic branch costs. With corporations running at a huge profit with 100% science is the norm, not the exception. That's kind of hard to do with SP.

* SP works IMMEDIATELY! (All benefits across continent go into effect immediately, no need to grow suits and spam them all over till the end).

Correct - but as I've said I find the SP benefits much inferior unless I'm almost at domination anyway.

 

[Refar]

Corporations are good where you want to win with - relatively - few cities. A culture win, or a Spacerace win.

For military Victories - Domination/Conquest - where you have to take and hold lots of Land, probably on the other continent - nothing beats SP.

 

[popejubal]

Have lots of cities? State Property is enormous. Good bonuses in nearly every city (if you design your empire for State Property of course).

Have just a couple of cities and wish you had more? Corporations are good. Mining Inc and Sid's Sushi Corporations turn a city into about 1.3-1.5 cities effectively. If you are squeezed for territory, corporations are the way to go.

Also, Sid's Sushi is outstanding if you are invading a neighbor. The extra culture means you pop borders pretty much immediately and the extra food means you don't lose population due to starvation when you come out of revolt if you have pillaged food tiles for the city.

 

[Gliese 581]

I'm playing a game as Frederick where I started out surrounded and has been forced into almost constant warfare with one civ or the other, doesn't help that two of the neighbours is Monty and Shaka. I've got about a dozen cities and I founded mining inc and spread it to all of them. Running free market the costs are about break even (I took a city of my continent on a small island which cost almost twice the maintenance as the main-land cities). I have with trades 8 resrouces right now so it's +8 base production to all my cities. I'm finding that I'm definitely getting an upper hand in the fighting and it's no longer a struggle to fight a two front war with all of my cities able to contribute to the war effort.
It was my first try with a corporation and I really like the effects of mining inc. for this game.

 

[futurehermit]

SP gains +1h per workshop (big for me), and 10% bonus each city IIRC.

It is caste system that gives the +1h bonus!

Sushi + Mining Inc. is pretty solid, but SP can also be good depending on how many workshops/watermills are in your empire.