Exactly. They may very well be broken but it's impossible to know in just a few weeks. Firaxis has had play testers go through it and until some civ experts have had more time with the game than those testers I don't listen to any superlatives about broken-ness. It's like the people who complained about Landsknecht being OP, I mean, please.
Corporate Maintenance Explained
- Thread starter OTAKUjbski
- Start date
Exactly. They may very well be broken but it's impossible to know in just a few weeks. Firaxis has had play testers go through it and until some civ experts have had more time with the game than those testers I don't listen to any superlatives about broken-ness. It's like the people who complained about Landsknecht being OP, I mean, please.
Yes it works very well. And the best target civs will be your vassals / colonies since they won't have many resources so the corp maintenance won't be so high for them (so they won't switch to state property and you'll keep earning gold with them). Plus, it can actually HELP your vassal if they have small cities (the smallest cities are those who benefit most of corporations, since the corp bonus is proportionnally greater, as the original poster said).
I still think corp maintenance (after inflation is applied) are too high, it should be lessened a bit to allow you other good strategies than spreading yours THEN switch to SP. As it is, it will be very hard to benefit from them at home.
Switching to mercantilism and spreading your corps to only a small number of your cities (where they're the most useful) and to as many foreign cities as possible should work very well too, and it gives you the corp benefit in the cities where you need them / choose to use them.
Free trade is probably much harder because the enemy corps come in your biggest cities (where they cost most and are generally less useful), which cripples your economy as it is now, and forces you into state property. Romans did this to me. They were my neighbour and they came and replaced my corp by their corp everywhere in my cities. I had to switch to state property because of maintenance costs, but I still earned 150 golds per turn because of the corp I expanded before switching.
Russians helped me a lot too when they spread my corp in all their remaining cities. It was mining corp though so it helped them a bit in the space race (but not enough to make them win).
In any case, as it is now, any forced switch to environmentalism (by the United Nations) should kill the bigger civs where corporations are expanded because of the costs. The solutions I see are defying the resolutions or lessening the maintenance costs by :
- trading most of the resources needed by the corps
- or destroying your own improvements to remove the access to excess resources (a rather strange strategy though)
It's not impossible to know. The math is easy to do (it's in this thread). The AI behavior is easy to see (I played two games to test this last night). The best corporation strategy is to insert your Corporations into foreign Civs and hit the next turn button. Rising costs sink the Corp. spamming AI. If you avoided putting more than one or two Corps in your own empire, you can afford the hilariously high price by having a huge ratio of foreign Corps as compared to domestic Corps.
The fact is that Foreign Corps can't even be carefully applied now. They are just an attack from without. And they cost so much that the only option is Free Market--you can't run Mercantilism without an effective 35% increase in cost in your domestic corporations.
Lastly, the Corps' effectiveness increases with price, yet their income never changes. Eventually, NO MATTER WHAT, a situation with growing loss and limited income will become imbalanced and economy-wrecking. This is exactly what occurs.
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
No, that's wrong, I checked it yesterday in my game. You still earn gold for the FOREIGN cities where your corp is expanded when you're in state property.
You just don't earn any money for YOUR cities where a corp is expanded, and the foreign corps don't earn anything for your cities where they expanded their corps either.
So a very good strategy is to found multiple corps in your wall street city, then expand YOUR corp everywhere, then switch to State Property. I'm not the only one to do that, I saw the Romans AI do the same too
I make tons of gold like that, without any maintenance cost.
The only small downside of this is if your opponents also switch to SP (you just stop earning gold for their cities), but in general AI doesn't, especially small civs where the number of resources is low and the maintenance small.
Wow - that's the best strategy of the lot and we've all heard how SP is supposed to be the antithesis of corps! If that is indeed the case then corp maintenance and rising inflation are probably not how they're meant to be.
Edit: Can you still build execs under SP? If so, then one could found the corp, switch to SP and then spread the corp... evil.
magicalsushi
Prince
I can understand OTAKUjbski and DrLaban's concern about people jumping to conclusions regarding new game mechanics, but doesn't the strategy above above make corporations sound pretty broken to you? The surefire way to deal with corporate maintenance is to pillage your own resources until you don't have any left that corporation can use. To me, this feels very, very wrong. They were originally touted as a way to make duplicate resources useful, not as a way to make it prohibitively expensive to have resources.
You have to factor in opportunity cost as well; instead of creating corp executives, you could be using those hammers for creating units and the gold used for spreading the corporations could be used for upgrading old units, then you could take the AIs cities instead of leeching them. IME the AI also likes to use mercantilism and state property as well, and here a single civics switch could cause a lot of investments you have made to have no effect. Really, while I believe you that corporations is a way to hose the AI I really think of weapons as a more efficient way.
The problems with that example is that it doesn't take the time window into consideration; it presumes time when you do nothing and the mathematics, while correct, doesn't account for the time of spreading the corp yourself and the unreliability of the AIs if you want to count on that income. I observed what you observed as well, my American colony tanked their economy by corporations and made me some marginal (at that stage) gold but it didn't help me much in winning the game.
As a summary, I still consider conventional warfare far more efficient if you want to hose an AI and I consider corporations as powerful tools to improve certain cities. If your tech rate falls from 1 tech per 4 turns to 1 tech per 5 turns or 6 turns I consider it worth it if you can turn some second rate- max 36 food- towns into production powerhouses since both space race and the military victories rely on production as soon as you have a respectable research.
If you really want to, you can kill them physically before corporations are even a concern. I see this as more of an interesting variation or as a situational tool, such as delaying competition in a space race.
marioflag
History Addict
guys anyone noticed if mainteinance costs are scaled down due to map size?because having corporation effects scaled down while not mainteinance, is IMO even worst than the inflation problem.Imagine if with only one resource a corporation give you only 0,25 food and you have to pay more than 10 gold, it would be really absurd.
Nikis-Knight
Deity
maintenance is, I believe. if not, it's a bug.
OTAKUjbski
TK421
@Roland
@Flak
@all
I think you have a valid point with somewhat invalid logic. You took a 'worst case scenario' to a bit too much of an extreme, imho.
I can also argue that REXing two cities 20 tiles away from the capital on Deity will increase maintenance to a ridiculous level capable of ending any game before it starts.
Does that mean city maintenance is broke? No ... it just means don't REX like that.
Likewise, I can easily show you how a size 28 Deity city housing 4 foreign corporations consuming 27 resources under Environmentalism with 300% inflation can cause serious detriment to any economy.
(I can then show you how with one Corporate Office founding and a Civics change its possible to reduce the corporations by 50% and the raw corporate fees by 50%. I can then show you how there is probably still a competing Corporation you can found to help replace foreign corps with your own domestic corps. Or, I'll show you how conquering the HQ city can also solve your problems
)
I find myself wondering how plausible that situation is and how many people will be foolish enough (especially Deity players) to get themselves in that kind of situation.
However, you have a valid point, and I see where you're going with that. Given certain situations, it is possible for a foreign civ to inadvertently (or maybe even intentionally) tank your economy with a few ill-placed Corporate Offices.
So, I'll contend it is certainly possible either the fees or the inflation are wrong.
I'll also contend they are right. I don't really care for espionage (read: terrorism), however, it has been designed as an integral component of BtS and therefore must be followed and utilized. It may also be the same case with Corporations -- that we must either accept the rules as they lie or be ground to dust under Corporate fees.
... but I digress back into a debate I really never intended to enter (see below).
I can also argue that REXing two cities 20 tiles away from the capital on Deity will increase maintenance to a ridiculous level capable of ending any game before it starts.
Does that mean city maintenance is broke? No ... it just means don't REX like that.
Likewise, I can easily show you how a size 28 Deity city housing 4 foreign corporations consuming 27 resources under Environmentalism with 300% inflation can cause serious detriment to any economy.
(I can then show you how with one Corporate Office founding and a Civics change its possible to reduce the corporations by 50% and the raw corporate fees by 50%. I can then show you how there is probably still a competing Corporation you can found to help replace foreign corps with your own domestic corps. Or, I'll show you how conquering the HQ city can also solve your problems
)I find myself wondering how plausible that situation is and how many people will be foolish enough (especially Deity players) to get themselves in that kind of situation.
However, you have a valid point, and I see where you're going with that. Given certain situations, it is possible for a foreign civ to inadvertently (or maybe even intentionally) tank your economy with a few ill-placed Corporate Offices.
So, I'll contend it is certainly possible either the fees or the inflation are wrong.
I'll also contend they are right. I don't really care for espionage (read: terrorism), however, it has been designed as an integral component of BtS and therefore must be followed and utilized. It may also be the same case with Corporations -- that we must either accept the rules as they lie or be ground to dust under Corporate fees.
... but I digress back into a debate I really never intended to enter (see below).
@Flak
In short, I don't doubt the abilities of any of the programmers & modders in this community. I've seen some ridiculously good stuff come out.
But I also know none of that stuff came out overnight. How long after the release of Warlords did BetterAI come out?
In the end, no matter how good our deductive reasoning is ... no matter how good our programming abilities ... if we were not part of either the design or testing team, then we ultimately do not know what Firaxis' true intent was for Corporate Fees and Inflation.
Again, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not saying I'm wrong. I'm not saying Firaxis is right. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not really saying anybody is right or wrong.
But I also know none of that stuff came out overnight. How long after the release of Warlords did BetterAI come out?
In the end, no matter how good our deductive reasoning is ... no matter how good our programming abilities ... if we were not part of either the design or testing team, then we ultimately do not know what Firaxis' true intent was for Corporate Fees and Inflation.
Again, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not saying I'm wrong. I'm not saying Firaxis is right. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not really saying anybody is right or wrong.
@all
Somehow, I have found myself arguing in favour of a game mechanic I ultimately don't support or reject.
The original intent of my post was merely to shed light on Corporate Maintenance (not so much Inflation) and very briefly how to utilize the current system for gain and to make the most out of Corporations.
My nature is to accept the mechanic just as it is and to make the most of it, which is why I don't bat an eye when somebody talks about the high costs of Corporations or Inflation. Instead, I have chosen to accept the model and play within its bounds.
In the midst of it, though, I got caught up and was sucked into arguing the validity of the current model and whether or not it's wrong or should be changed.
Quite honestly, I don't care. I'll continue (ab)using the current system to the best of my abilities until whatever patch may come -- at which point I'll re-evaluate the game mechanics and post whatever I find.
My ultimate goal is only to help explain the Corporate Maintenance mechanics and formulas -- not to argue whether it's right or not.
So, on that note, I'm not going to debate who's right, who's wrong or who has the credentials to critique the system and when they're allowed to critique it.
Win, Lose or Draw, the system is what it is right now, and I'm not going to let it keep me from getting my money's worth.
The original intent of my post was merely to shed light on Corporate Maintenance (not so much Inflation) and very briefly how to utilize the current system for gain and to make the most out of Corporations.
My nature is to accept the mechanic just as it is and to make the most of it, which is why I don't bat an eye when somebody talks about the high costs of Corporations or Inflation. Instead, I have chosen to accept the model and play within its bounds.
In the midst of it, though, I got caught up and was sucked into arguing the validity of the current model and whether or not it's wrong or should be changed.
Quite honestly, I don't care. I'll continue (ab)using the current system to the best of my abilities until whatever patch may come -- at which point I'll re-evaluate the game mechanics and post whatever I find.
My ultimate goal is only to help explain the Corporate Maintenance mechanics and formulas -- not to argue whether it's right or not.
So, on that note, I'm not going to debate who's right, who's wrong or who has the credentials to critique the system and when they're allowed to critique it.
Win, Lose or Draw, the system is what it is right now, and I'm not going to let it keep me from getting my money's worth.
sneaky
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2005
- Messages
- 540
I hope you keep improving this thread and the explanation of the Corporate Maintenance mechanics and formulas so we can get a better view on how they function and how they can and must be used. Hopefully eventually this article will be fitting for the war academy.
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
marioflag,
Corporation maintenance is also similarly scaled to map size. Check the CIV4WorldInfo xml file for the information.
Corporation maintenance is also similarly scaled to map size. Check the CIV4WorldInfo xml file for the information.
Roland Johansen
Deity
I only changed the civic and the difficulty level in your example and got a 120 upkeep for your two corporations in a single city. I really didn't do anything extreme or go for a worst case scenario. I could have increased the inflation rate to 250% (already observed by players at noble level near the end of the game, at deity level it is higher), I could have removed the corporate headquarters from your civilization, I could have increased the number of resources in the city to increase the cost, I could have changed the corporations to culture producing ones (usually culture is valued less by players), I could have increased the size of the city to increase the upkeep. No, I only changed one civic and the difficulty level. It's not a worst case scenario.
I deliberately didn't go for a worst case scenario, because that wouldn't have had any value as an example.
marioflag
History Addict
thanks drjambo
Nikis-Knight
Deity
Right, and a civic that can be forced on you, or else you get enough happy faces to negate the gain in food!
jkp1187
Unindicted Co-Conspirator
A slight divergence:
Is the rate of inflation increase affected by the presence or absence of corporations?
In other words, if you do not found any corporations nor possess any corporate branches, will you still end up with the 200%+ inflation by the year 2000AD?
Is the rate of inflation increase affected by the presence or absence of corporations?
In other words, if you do not found any corporations nor possess any corporate branches, will you still end up with the 200%+ inflation by the year 2000AD?
Don't forget not to spread corporations to civilizations you're planning on annexing. Unless you possibly plan on shifting them into colonies. I'd hate to make the mistake of nailing someone like Monty with corps and then find myself having to kill him and have the choice of razing his cities or demolishing my econ.
drhirsch
Warlord
OTAKUjbski, did you actually ever play a game at emperor level (monarch is probably almost the same) and mess around with corporations? I did, and I learned the "benefits" the hard way.
Currently some good strategy dealing with corporations are:
- Spread them to your neighbours, possibly to the ones you want to cripple
- If your neighbour spreads some offices in your big cities, destroy your overflow resources or trade them away
- Switch to state property, to negate the effects
Ok ok, of course this is not broken or buggy. I understand, this is fully intentional and the way it's ment to be played
Currently some good strategy dealing with corporations are:
- Spread them to your neighbours, possibly to the ones you want to cripple
- If your neighbour spreads some offices in your big cities, destroy your overflow resources or trade them away
- Switch to state property, to negate the effects
Ok ok, of course this is not broken or buggy. I understand, this is fully intentional and the way it's ment to be played
Where are people getting these crazy inflation numbers from?
Playing at Standard speed on Noble difficulty, I had four corporate HQs with corporations spread into several enemy civs. I had about something like 12-15 corporate branches within my own empire. Well past 2000 AD and I was pulling in 150 gold per turn at 100% science. I didn't appear to have crippled the AI economies, since they were all still researching at a fair clip, maybe less than otherwise but really not that bad. And it's true that I'd have had more gold to spend less the corporations... but at 100% science rate (I was going for a science victory) I can do without in exchange for supporting more science specialists and so on.
Is the problem one of game speed scaling?
EDIT: and just pointing out that many of the major problems have been reported at Noble diff, not just higher difficulties.
Playing at Standard speed on Noble difficulty, I had four corporate HQs with corporations spread into several enemy civs. I had about something like 12-15 corporate branches within my own empire. Well past 2000 AD and I was pulling in 150 gold per turn at 100% science. I didn't appear to have crippled the AI economies, since they were all still researching at a fair clip, maybe less than otherwise but really not that bad. And it's true that I'd have had more gold to spend less the corporations... but at 100% science rate (I was going for a science victory) I can do without in exchange for supporting more science specialists and so on.
Is the problem one of game speed scaling?
EDIT: and just pointing out that many of the major problems have been reported at Noble diff, not just higher difficulties.
marioflag
History Addict
i have now seen in gamespeedinfo.xml and it appears that the only difference (on marathon setting) is InflationiPercent which is 15 while in CIV4 was 10.Both inflation were set at -200.What does it mean?
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