Corporate Maintenance Explained

[mrt144]

They both are similar in that spreading them too much is counterproductive. It's just that corporations hit you with a bigger stick if you do that and you must therefore be more reserved.

and as i keep saying you can avoid this entire stick and make the stick still hit other people using state property and espionage for yourself.

 

[mrt144]

But, it's not the optimal strategy, as you will ultimately force them in to SP, thereby losing the benefit of having been more sparing in spreading it to their cities, and depriving yourself of a way to offset the cost of having the corp at home.



I've definitely heard of AIs spreading corporations to other civs...I see no reason why they wouldn't spread them back at the founder...

it doesnt matter if you force them into SP if they are too stupid to do that before the damage is done. also the AI should realize that not even allowing corps in the first place would be the optimal strategy if they arent going to manage them in a smart way. and is the AI currently doing that?

 

[aelf]

and as i keep saying you can avoid this entire stick and make the stick still hit other people using state property and espionage for yourself.

And not enjoy the main benefits of corporations? Suit yourself, then.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

On a related note, the Inflation rate is Inflated in BtS:

Inflation & Corporations

I'm eager to see now if this is WAD.

 

[eric_]

driving them to SP means that you are taking a huge net hit on your investment too. Which means you will likely go SP.

Exactly

But here's the problem with not over'running them; they will do it themselves. They aren't applying any modicum of strategy that we are figuring out to make corps work well.

OK, well, that's a problem...if they're invariably running themselves into the ground and/or SP, that's not good...but sounds like an AI flaw rather than a feature flaw.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I don't know what you mean by directing this question at me and in this manner.

Do you really have no clue about how to use corporations? Do you really think they are broken?

Sorry, I don't want to sound snippy. What I mean is, I wasn't able to use corporations in my cities in a way that they seemed better than ignoring them entirely, standard oil excluded due to the godly powers of oil resources. I know you are a better player than me (seriously, I usually play a mod) and wonder if you have played out til late game using corporations and could say they beat the alternative most of the years you had them.

I just don't see why people want to make every aspect of the game so idiot proof. Some have already stated that they think corporations should = lots of cash. They seem to be looking for some sort uber religions, which they can mindlessly spam (like mammoth tanks). They think that more must be good. Why can't less be good?

Idiots are paying customers, too! But seriously, corporations come with so many costs (GP start up, civic oppurtunity cost, executive hammer & money fee, THEN maitenace + inflation), imo the benefits should be obvious.

 

[eric_]

it doesnt matter if you force them into SP if they are too stupid to do that before the damage is done.

But, as we've both pointed out, if you do that, you're shooting yourself in the foot. So why would you do it? I mean, sure, you might tank their economy, but they're not the only player on the board, and I suspect it takes quite a few resources to spam a foreign civ with corps.

 

[eric_]

I'm eager to see now if this is WAD.

WAD? (sorry, new one for me...)

 

[Yakk]

Me too.

The first instinct of a new player who was excited to try out the new concept of religions in Civ4 was to found as many as he could and build as many shrines as he could and spread the religions as much as he could. But more advanced players realised that it's often not worth the effort building more than 1-2 shrines or spreading more than 1-2 religions extensively. Now, isn't that counterintuitive? You are the first to research a tech and you found an awesome religion, you get a prophet and you can build an awesome shrine, but there is a catch? What the heck is this? This is broken!

Civ4 is a thinking game. If something doesn't work the way you think it does, it does not mean that feature is broken. Try changing the way you think. If you don't wish to do so, then go and play Command and Conquer and build 50 mammoth tanks as quickly as you can or something.

However, what you describe is an effective strategy. The effort put into spreading a religion generates a positive reward: it lets you build more religions buildings in your cities, and with a shrine it earns you 1 gold per city per religion per turn.

There may be better uses for production than missionaries, better uses for great person points than shrines, but the effort doesn't generate a negative return on investment.

Corporations are generating a negative return on investment in many cases.

Things in Civ4 that generate negative returns on investment:
City growth past happy cap. It consumes 2 food and doesn't produce anything.

Extra cities with primitive economies. The maintenance costs go up, while the benefits don't.

The first of these two cases is a drastic improvement over previous versions of civ4, where your city would stop working if it got too large. The AI city governor is smart enough to avoid this, and you can convert these unhappy citizens into productive ones by generating more happiness in a number of ways.

The second is an explicit design decision to reduce the amount of management the game takes.

I don't see a reason that corporations need the same kind of punishment from being spread... Maybe at the higher difficulty levels it could be made to be questionable, but as it stands, it is pretty questionable even at Prince/Monarch.

 

[eric_]

Just read that thread, Otaku...makes it seem like there was possibly a mistake in implementing the new inflation math, rather than an issue with anything else (like corp maintenance)...

 

[mrt144]

aelf, stop using circular logic. you dont need the benefits of corps to achieve any victory because the ai is too stupid to use them correctly, and part of the problem is the inflation cost. you can make the AI crumble if they use corps and you dont even need to have them and you actively sabatoge them. you are trying to win against your opponents, arent you?

you dont need to outshine opponents using corps if you can make your opponents suck worse for less effort.

 

[Steiner-Davion]

Quick question:

I just finished my first Game of BtS. I found most of the Corporations, as I was way ahead in Tech compared to everyone. I was playing as Churchill,k and I had HAty and Hammaburi as my Vassals. I also had the HRE, Native Americans and Alexander to contend with. I was able to successfully spread Sid's Sushi Co (my first Corporation) to everyone but Alex (I didn't have Open Borders with him). When I went to try and spread other Corporations (Ceral Mills, Aluminum Co, and Creative Constructions, I could not spread them. I checked everyone's civics as best as I could, and it did not appear that they were running Mercantilism (most of them didn't even have the pre-req Techs).

Any ideas as to why this was so?

 

[jkp1187]

Quick question:

I just finished my first Game of BtS. I found most of the Corporations, as I was way ahead in Tech compared to everyone. I was playing as Churchill,k and I had HAty and Hammaburi as my Vassals. I also had the HRE, Native Americans and Alexander to contend with. I was able to successfully spread Sid's Sushi Co (my first Corporation) to everyone but Alex (I didn't have Open Borders with him). When I went to try and spread other Corporations (Ceral Mills, Aluminum Co, and Creative Constructions, I could not spread them. I checked everyone's civics as best as I could, and it did not appear that they were running Mercantilism (most of them didn't even have the pre-req Techs).

Any ideas as to why this was so?

You may not have had enough cash on hand -- there is a several hundred gold fee to establish a new corporate branch.

Or they may have been running State Property.

 

[Steiner-Davion]

You may not have had enough cash on hand -- there is a several hundred gold fee to establish a new corporate branch.

Or they may have been running State Property.

Well I had plenty of Cash, I was loaded. Forgot about State Property, but I'm pretty sure none of them had that either, as they were all real backwards when it comes to tech. I sold them all Alphabet in the ADs because they still didn't have it. I swear I think the AI forgot to research Techs in this game after about 2000BC.

 

[bardolph]

WAD? (sorry, new one for me...)

Working as Designed/Intended?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

They didn't have the required resources.

 

[aelf]

Sorry, I don't want to sound snippy. What I mean is, I wasn't able to use corporations in my cities in a way that they seemed better than ignoring them entirely, standard oil excluded due to the godly powers of oil resources. I know you are a better player than me (seriously, I usually play a mod) and wonder if you have played out til late game using corporations and could say they beat the alternative most of the years you had them.

I just posted some screenshots in the other thread.

Idiots are paying customers, too! But seriously, corporations come with so many costs (GP start up, civic oppurtunity cost, executive hammer & money fee, THEN maitenace + inflation), imo the benefits should be obvious.

If you refer to the screenshots, I think the cost can be worth it. I don't see any other way I could gain 23 extra hammers (before multipliers) while maintaining all those specialists (23 extra hammers worth of workshops and watermills would decrease the city's food output by a large margin, even under State Property) without using a corporation. Settling a GE would give 3 extra hammers (before multipliers). Why not use him for Mining Inc., then?

 

[seasnake]

wait, hold the phone:

If I don't have open borders with someone, can they force their corporation on me?
Since each corp tells you where it was founded, can't you just cancel open borders with the jerk who has cereal mills so he can't profit from you in exchange for food benefits? Needs an executive to get in, doesn't he?
Well...

 

[mrt144]

wait, hold the phone:

If I don't have open borders with someone, can they force their corporation on me?
Since each corp tells you where it was founded, can't you just cancel open borders with the jerk who has cereal mills so he can't profit from you in exchange for food benefits? Needs an executive to get in, doesn't he?
Well...

They wont be able to put a corp down on your territory but you will sacrifice international trading and you will still pay them fees under free market.

 

[seasnake]

Maybe I missed something, but I've traded techs and resources without open borders on the diplomacy screen. Sure, I take a commerce hit on the foreign trade routes, but that may be a bigger hit if he could actually foist his money-grubber on me.
I doubt anyone would spread a corp who didn't own it, seems silly to profit one player in exchange for messing with another (if it is messing, the person you're attacking may like the exchange of money for benefits and you paid for the privilege).
I just want to keep free market/environmentalism without fear somebody will make me pay through the nose. If I don't pay maintenance for corps not in my cities, free market won't hurt me if I don't have open borders with the founder.