So it will Just balance out, if you put it back into Gold but you shouldn't do that... Corporations are NOT a way to get gold, they are a way to turn Gold into other things. (Culture, Hammers, Food, and Science to some degree)
This is the most important idea of the thread. From the calculations it seems that corporations can trade gold into these other things at a better ratio than everthing else in the game. However, with the exception of food (which can be turned into economic specialists
if you have enough slots) you can't then turn these resources efficiently back into gold when you decide you need more gold.
This leads to 3 strategies with corporations:
1) Keep them out of your territory. Maybe found a few, but don't spread any branches to your own cities, just to other civilizations. You lose out on the multiplying power of the corporations, but you have a more flexible civilization.
2) Judiciously apply them to certain cities. Apply science to your oxford city, apply production to your military/wonder cities. Apply food + Production to cities that will never get big (the maintenance will never get as big because the maintenance is tied to population).
3) Apply them widely to your own cities but bounce around between Mercantilism, State Property, and Free Market depending on which resources you want to use and when. Great for spiritual civs, but beware that the UN environmental resolution can hurt you.
But the AI is clearly *not* making intelligent choices concerning corporations. It just spams them all over the place and sinks itself into oblivian (until it wises up enough to switch to a civic that effectively nullifies corporations(?)). You consider this 'fixed'? I certainly don't. I can see that very judicious use of the corporation, plus a bit of malignent use against the AI, can make corporations less of a burden toward the end game. By less of a burden, I'm considering the benefits as well. But do you really believe this was how this was the mechanic intended for the game?
Well, I don't know how it was intended, but I'm not sure that the above strategy is neccessarily 'unwise' on the AI's part, depending on what he's planning to do. You could certainly spread production corporation everywhere in order to build all the buildings you've wanted to catch up on, then switch to a civic where that corporation is 'off' for awhile. When you want to go to war later you can then turn to a civic where that corporation is 'on' to mass produce units over a handful of turns. Again, more useful for a spiritual civ. You could also do something post war with cultural corporations. Spread the corporation to your newly conquered cities, and use civics to keep that corporation 'on' until you've gotten the culture you want out of it.
If you have a domestic production corporation and a foreign culture corporation, you can go State Property (peacetime research)-> Mercantilism (Prewar/Early war unit production)-> Free Market (end of war culture growth + efficient production in new cities-> State Property (peacetime research)
You can also have leave the production corporations 'off' until you're ready to get into the space race. Again, spiritual civs can flip them on and off, say, when they want to put labs in every city.
That gives me a sneaky idea. What if you were to found junk cities solely for the purpose of "farming" them using corporations? Found cities which you wouldn't normally, one tile or more from the coast, and don't connect them to your trade routes - which means they won't have any of the resources, and won't incur maintenance penalties! (If the above information is correct) If you found or capture the Corporate Offices of, say, three corporations (Which is a lot, but hear me out) you could get +15 gold per junk city that you founded for corporation farming, which would more pay for the cities maintenance, especially when multiplied. (Markets+Grocers+Banks=+100%, so you could really get 30 gold per turn per junk city.) If you found a corporation in your Wall Street city, you would get 20 GPT for each city you have the corporation in.
Well, what about founding cities you
intend to keep small and letting them hook up to resources? Like the 'tundra city' examples people have mentioned. Don't work any 'marginal' tile, as it will increase maintenance more than the benefits of working it. Instead put any excess population into specialists to keep your population down. Works better with representation.
Yes, but deity and environmentalism are equally fair conditions than noble and free market. The system should work on deity. Corporations shouldn't be useless on that level. And environmentalism can be forced upon you by the UN. That's why I chose it.
True, the system should 'work' on deity, but it should be harder!
The obvious weaknesses are ones that isn't fully realized yet because we are still finding them. you've dont a great job of showing the benefits but most of the additional benefits are just multiplicative of what we already know. if you want to keep up the strength of corporations you have to simply multiply what you are doing: more foreign corp spam, more tundra cities, more this, more that.
Actually, the 'obvious' weaknesses are the ones everyone finds in the first few days! It's the 'subtle' weaknesses and the 'subtle' strengths we haven't yet found!
I'm not ready to call the sytem 'perfect' or 'broken' yet. It certainly doesn't work like I thought it would, and I'm somewhat unhappy that it's cost/benefit ratio is so dependent on inflation, which I previously most ignored. But it may turn out to be a good addition to the game as is. As is, I won't argue that it will definitely take a deep understanding of the mechanics to use it well at higher levels.
Corporations the most. 
I like how the screen name lives up to the post and the post makes sense!
