AnonymousSpeed
Pink Plastic Army Man
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Discuss how corporations might work if they return from Civilization 4.
My First Proposal:
My First Proposal:
Spoiler :
Corporation Mechanic Discussion
- Thread starter AnonymousSpeed
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UncivilizedGuy
King of the Universe
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The problem I have always had with Corporations is that there is a grey area when it comes to government involvement depending on the type of government you have. In a free society corporations more or less do their own thing. There would have to be different levels of control the player is allowed to have based on the government type. Maybe there could be a mechanism for nationalizing corporations versus free capitalism that would give different types of benefits. Or maybe add Corruption to the game so that the player could choose to take bribes with a chance of losing public confidence. It would need to be well thought out. Simply building corporations for gold would not be satisfying to me
I wish Corporations would return, I think it's a good mechanism that improves the end of the game, plus it could be included along with the economic victory.
I'm not sure how it could be worked, but I think there should be competing companies in such a way that there would be a chance of failure to spread a company where there is already a competitor. A competitor would be a company operating in the same field of activity
There could be 3 companies in each branch of activity (Construction (bonus of production), Technology (science bonus) and Food (bonus of culture or food)). In this way, a construction company would not compete with a technology company, but only with another construction company.
I'm not sure how it could be worked, but I think there should be competing companies in such a way that there would be a chance of failure to spread a company where there is already a competitor. A competitor would be a company operating in the same field of activity
There could be 3 companies in each branch of activity (Construction (bonus of production), Technology (science bonus) and Food (bonus of culture or food)). In this way, a construction company would not compete with a technology company, but only with another construction company.
Sostratus
Deity
When we get into these systems, it's important to note that Civ4 had a lot of balancing positives and negatives. Civ6, on the other hand, is most variously weighted positives.
Beyond building and unit maintenance, most things only have "opportunity cost." So, adding a system like corporations would need to be congruous to the other systems we have: a player chooses how much resources he wants to put in to obtain a reward.
Unlike Civ4, we also now have a lot of new systems to work off of. I'm glad you noted districts in your example!
IMO, to work off what you had proposed:
One implementation would be to make these 'entrepenuers' the late game version of great prophets, to an extent: their list picks up at the industrial once the prophets have run out. (Which end in the renaissance, iirc.) We could even use the same panel since that would be empty by industrial. You can spend your gold/faith to acquire an entrepreneur. The entrepreneurs themselves allow you to found any corporation (just like prophets not being tied to specific religions,) subject to the requirements*. Each would also have some other, unique effect, like +X gold per franchised city, HQ boosts tourism in home city, executives can spread cheaper, you automatically get free copies of the resource, etc.
* As for requirements, each corporation can be gated by where you have to found them. For example, you might need to found Meier's Mining & Manufacturing on an Industrial Zone with a factory; whereas Sid's Seafood Co. requires being founded on a harbor with a seaport. This way, we can introduce corporations thematically and tie them to technology. Corporations should probably start being unlocked in the late industrial, but with most coming online in the modern era.
As for what they do...
For those who are unfamiliar, in Civ4, you had 3 aspects of a corporation. Firstly, each city hosting it produced +5 gold for the city with the headquarters. Secondly, corporations produced a benefit to their host cities based on how many copies of their target resource it had available. Thirdly, it cost upkeep in the host cities that also scaled with the number of target resources. For example, I think "Cereal Mills" target resources were Corn, Rice, and Wheat. It gave +0.75 food for each copy of those available in your empire, to a host city. So if your nation had 8 units of those available each city hosting cereal mills would get +6 food, but incur a gold maintenance. A city could host multiple corporations, so long as they didn't have conflicting resource targets (like two corporations that both want aluminum.)
In Civ6, a similar concept could work, but will need modification.
First, I think keeping the resource-based aspect would be good. It will give players a better reason to acquire more bonus and luxury resources,have a use for surplus strategic resources, as well as trade with other players. I would remove or cut down on the gold maintenance. As mentioned above, I don't think it would fit with the spirit of the game as it stands now.
(It would be easy to create the ability to trade bonus resources- make a "trade agreement" diplomatic option, mechanically similar to declaring friendship, that allows bonus resource trade and maybe benefits trade routes between the civs. The existence of Buenos Aires implies they internally track bonus resources in some way.)
Alternatively to doing bonus resource trading, we could design corporations to have their resource targets split between strategic+luxury (tradeable) and bonus (untradeable) resources.
I feel that it would be best if we restrict corporate spread more than in the last iteration: a city should only be able to have one corporation at a time. If we make Corp Execs like spies (I really like this idea!) then they should be limited in number. It would help control unit spam by our well-intentioned AI friends... To allow 'dead' corps to resurrect, the HQ could be sufficient, with no need to actually have the corp as the one hosted in the city. So the HQ would be a city center building in this instance.
I also believe that each corporation should be tied to a specialty district- the Corporate Executive would need to be placed on the target city's district (perhaps with a building requirement as well!) to spread his business. This is to prevent a player from getting a critical mass of resources for e.g. Meier's Mining & Manufacturing, and then spamming it to all his tundra outposts for easy yields. This would also make it easy to have a corporation (or sometimes two!) for most districts, to further city specialization late game. There could even be a graphical representation of a little branding on the district and city center- some colored billboards, or an office building with the logo, etc...
Some spitballs:
-Industrial Zone (mining resources)
-Commercial Hub (plantation luxuries)
-Campus (strategic resources?)
-Theater Square (Some kind of entertainment themed corp, scaling on great works?)
-Harbor (Sea resources)
-Aerodrome (could do an airline themed corp that scales on Natural Wonders, World Wonders, and National parks, to produce gold+tourism)
-City Center/Neighborhood (For a +food corporation)
I'm not sure how you could fit in a holy site, although one could certainly conceive of a charity/NGO type corporation.
Finally, we would also need to think about how to address the policy/gov't system and wonders.
-Entrepeneurialism: -50% gold cost to spread Corporations (Econ)
-State Property: Corporations in your cities have no effect (Econ)
-Corporate Sponsorship: Entertainment districts produce +1 Amenity, +1 Tourism, if that City has a Corporation
-Supply Chains: +2 production, +3 gold to Trade Routes between cities with Corporations
(example numbers of course.)
It might also be fun to have a wonder like Wall Street (I mean, we do have Broadway!) that gives a healthy boost to corporate HQ profits.
May your enemies bow before the Almighty Dollar!
Beyond building and unit maintenance, most things only have "opportunity cost." So, adding a system like corporations would need to be congruous to the other systems we have: a player chooses how much resources he wants to put in to obtain a reward.
Unlike Civ4, we also now have a lot of new systems to work off of. I'm glad you noted districts in your example!
IMO, to work off what you had proposed:
One implementation would be to make these 'entrepenuers' the late game version of great prophets, to an extent: their list picks up at the industrial once the prophets have run out. (Which end in the renaissance, iirc.) We could even use the same panel since that would be empty by industrial. You can spend your gold/faith to acquire an entrepreneur. The entrepreneurs themselves allow you to found any corporation (just like prophets not being tied to specific religions,) subject to the requirements*. Each would also have some other, unique effect, like +X gold per franchised city, HQ boosts tourism in home city, executives can spread cheaper, you automatically get free copies of the resource, etc.
* As for requirements, each corporation can be gated by where you have to found them. For example, you might need to found Meier's Mining & Manufacturing on an Industrial Zone with a factory; whereas Sid's Seafood Co. requires being founded on a harbor with a seaport. This way, we can introduce corporations thematically and tie them to technology. Corporations should probably start being unlocked in the late industrial, but with most coming online in the modern era.
As for what they do...
For those who are unfamiliar, in Civ4, you had 3 aspects of a corporation. Firstly, each city hosting it produced +5 gold for the city with the headquarters. Secondly, corporations produced a benefit to their host cities based on how many copies of their target resource it had available. Thirdly, it cost upkeep in the host cities that also scaled with the number of target resources. For example, I think "Cereal Mills" target resources were Corn, Rice, and Wheat. It gave +0.75 food for each copy of those available in your empire, to a host city. So if your nation had 8 units of those available each city hosting cereal mills would get +6 food, but incur a gold maintenance. A city could host multiple corporations, so long as they didn't have conflicting resource targets (like two corporations that both want aluminum.)
In Civ6, a similar concept could work, but will need modification.
First, I think keeping the resource-based aspect would be good. It will give players a better reason to acquire more bonus and luxury resources,have a use for surplus strategic resources, as well as trade with other players. I would remove or cut down on the gold maintenance. As mentioned above, I don't think it would fit with the spirit of the game as it stands now.
(It would be easy to create the ability to trade bonus resources- make a "trade agreement" diplomatic option, mechanically similar to declaring friendship, that allows bonus resource trade and maybe benefits trade routes between the civs. The existence of Buenos Aires implies they internally track bonus resources in some way.)
Alternatively to doing bonus resource trading, we could design corporations to have their resource targets split between strategic+luxury (tradeable) and bonus (untradeable) resources.
I feel that it would be best if we restrict corporate spread more than in the last iteration: a city should only be able to have one corporation at a time. If we make Corp Execs like spies (I really like this idea!) then they should be limited in number. It would help control unit spam by our well-intentioned AI friends... To allow 'dead' corps to resurrect, the HQ could be sufficient, with no need to actually have the corp as the one hosted in the city. So the HQ would be a city center building in this instance.
I also believe that each corporation should be tied to a specialty district- the Corporate Executive would need to be placed on the target city's district (perhaps with a building requirement as well!) to spread his business. This is to prevent a player from getting a critical mass of resources for e.g. Meier's Mining & Manufacturing, and then spamming it to all his tundra outposts for easy yields. This would also make it easy to have a corporation (or sometimes two!) for most districts, to further city specialization late game. There could even be a graphical representation of a little branding on the district and city center- some colored billboards, or an office building with the logo, etc...
Some spitballs:
-Industrial Zone (mining resources)
-Commercial Hub (plantation luxuries)
-Campus (strategic resources?)
-Theater Square (Some kind of entertainment themed corp, scaling on great works?)
-Harbor (Sea resources)
-Aerodrome (could do an airline themed corp that scales on Natural Wonders, World Wonders, and National parks, to produce gold+tourism)
-City Center/Neighborhood (For a +food corporation)
I'm not sure how you could fit in a holy site, although one could certainly conceive of a charity/NGO type corporation.
Finally, we would also need to think about how to address the policy/gov't system and wonders.
Unfortunately, Civ6 already allows us to have the 'free market' policy under communism, so the ideological links are tenuous at best. This isn't to say we couldn't create policies like:
-Entrepeneurialism: -50% gold cost to spread Corporations (Econ)
-State Property: Corporations in your cities have no effect (Econ)
-Corporate Sponsorship: Entertainment districts produce +1 Amenity, +1 Tourism, if that City has a Corporation
-Supply Chains: +2 production, +3 gold to Trade Routes between cities with Corporations
(example numbers of course.)
It might also be fun to have a wonder like Wall Street (I mean, we do have Broadway!) that gives a healthy boost to corporate HQ profits.
May your enemies bow before the Almighty Dollar!
In 4, it was basically a new "religion" in modern times, so part of me wants to have similar mechanisms. We could do that - create a list of 40 or 50 bonuses that when you found a corp, you unlock. And then instead of apostles and missionaries, you have executives and salesmen (?) who can go battle in the streets for corporation dominance.
I mean, everything else can work like religion - you have a passive spread to nearby cities, each city only hosts 1 corporation, it spreads through traders, and you can get a variety of bonuses from it. Maybe you would do it slightly differently - instead of having a single building for each corporation, each corp would instead have a main focus (Sid's Sushi vs Firaxis Mining vs whatever) that would explicitly help a certain district more than others. And then on top of that, like religion you have founder/follower/enhancer beliefs that would further enhance the corp.
I mean, everything else can work like religion - you have a passive spread to nearby cities, each city only hosts 1 corporation, it spreads through traders, and you can get a variety of bonuses from it. Maybe you would do it slightly differently - instead of having a single building for each corporation, each corp would instead have a main focus (Sid's Sushi vs Firaxis Mining vs whatever) that would explicitly help a certain district more than others. And then on top of that, like religion you have founder/follower/enhancer beliefs that would further enhance the corp.
AnonymousSpeed
Pink Plastic Army Man
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- Messages
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On the note of having competing corporations, I think some limitation on the number of corporations which can be in a city is fine, but I don't feel like there should be a limit of one per city. Most religions are mutually exclusive, or at least are treated as that, so it makes sense that units of population are of one religion (though if a city is multi-religious, extant mechanics do deviate from reality). However, people can patronize multiple businesses in a single day, and often do.
My particular suggestion was because I envisioned a single civilization being able to found multiple corporations, and so I split them and their bonuses apart because they'd be like separate entities, rather than a single collection of such entities. Conglomerates, however, do give the idea a basis in reality.
Interesting suggestion. Would there be a district generating "Entrepreneur" points, or would it just be Gold and Faith buying them?
That would be sensible. Going back to my Carnegie Steel example, those two ideas would mesh very well. A way to limit the number of corporations in a city without having it be hard capped would be for each district to only be able to hold one corporation. Or, as in Civ4, it could be based on the availability of resources.
I can see your point about Civ6 not generally giving moves inherent negatives. With regards to accumulating resources, I think that was also the point in Civ4, to try and balance out resources more by giving you ways of getting modern strategic resources, while turning older strategic resources like iron in something useful well after you don't need them for units.
You flatter me.
I think an idea like this, having more than one corporate executive you can build in a city, would go well with having multiple corporations.
Encampment seems appropriate for strategic resources. If the corporations all have unique effects, we might not need to worry about that, they simply have an affect and a corresponding district. Like with Great People, you'd have a model similar to the above but not need to be that consistent with it.
I myself have always wanted a Horse Racing corporation that provides happiness / amenities. I don't think Horse Racing is that profitable for the host, but it would provide a use for horses in the late game which is less macabre than a glue factory.
An airline corporation like you proposed might be a nice way to make the late game tourism win more interesting, as well as make aerodromes more useful.
State Property doesn't seem to offer much of an advantage. Maybe if it was only foreign corporations, so you could deny them the money from your cities.
I had been thinking about a corporations mechanic when I saw the Great Merchants with unique luxuries they had in Civ 6, though I was thinking something a bit different, a sort of 'supply' and 'demand' mechanic:
1) establish a corporation with a great person that creates a unique luxury.
2) Create 'demand' for that luxury (setting up physical branches like you suggest would create demand, maybe also great artists etc. could do 'advertising' campaigns in specific countries, sort of like a great musician). Demand would sort of be like idealogical pressure, where you get increasing unhappiness if you don't have the luxury
3) 'Supply' that luxury, by manufacturing it (a factory/manufacturing center in the IZ district could my X) and distributing it (distribution center in a commercial district could distribute X). Physical branches necessary, or a 'black market' (set up by a spy if demand is high enough and that civ refuses your luxury).
Something along those lines. Get into every civ to win an 'economic victory' or something. I didn't really get much beyond that (or think about strategic resources).
Reading the ideas on this thread though has sent my brain in another direction. Building off the suggestions you all have posted: instead of a separate corporate 'entity' in a district, that say requires a factory, what if the corporations actually creates 'branded' version of the existing buildings. I.e. "Sumerian Factories", "American Harbors", etc. And then the benefits you chose is on top of the in addition to the 'vanilla' benefits of the building. The maintenance for those buildings gets paid to your civ (and other benefits). A civ can have multiple buildings in the corporation (though expanding to a new type has a cost) and multiple civs can 'brand' the same type of building. So the corp execs can be taking over a vanilla building, doing a 'hostile takeover' of another' civs building (probably an increased cost), or possibly even just setting up a new building if it doesn't exist. 'Nationalizing' something reverts it to the vanilla building (with some sort of penalty)
1) establish a corporation with a great person that creates a unique luxury.
2) Create 'demand' for that luxury (setting up physical branches like you suggest would create demand, maybe also great artists etc. could do 'advertising' campaigns in specific countries, sort of like a great musician). Demand would sort of be like idealogical pressure, where you get increasing unhappiness if you don't have the luxury
3) 'Supply' that luxury, by manufacturing it (a factory/manufacturing center in the IZ district could my X) and distributing it (distribution center in a commercial district could distribute X). Physical branches necessary, or a 'black market' (set up by a spy if demand is high enough and that civ refuses your luxury).
Something along those lines. Get into every civ to win an 'economic victory' or something. I didn't really get much beyond that (or think about strategic resources).
Reading the ideas on this thread though has sent my brain in another direction. Building off the suggestions you all have posted: instead of a separate corporate 'entity' in a district, that say requires a factory, what if the corporations actually creates 'branded' version of the existing buildings. I.e. "Sumerian Factories", "American Harbors", etc. And then the benefits you chose is on top of the in addition to the 'vanilla' benefits of the building. The maintenance for those buildings gets paid to your civ (and other benefits). A civ can have multiple buildings in the corporation (though expanding to a new type has a cost) and multiple civs can 'brand' the same type of building. So the corp execs can be taking over a vanilla building, doing a 'hostile takeover' of another' civs building (probably an increased cost), or possibly even just setting up a new building if it doesn't exist. 'Nationalizing' something reverts it to the vanilla building (with some sort of penalty)
Mr Jon of Cheam
Emperor
- Joined
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- Messages
- 1,358
Some cool ideas here. I was thinking it would be interesting if the type of corporation you could found was tied to the type of government you have (a communist state would only have state owned national corporations), so switching governments would have temporary negative effects on your corporations.
Obviously you can change governments in Civ VI quite regularly at the moment so perhaps if they bring back different ideologies, they could also tie the types of government you can found to your ideology (you couldn't have a Fascist government with the Freedom Ideology), meaning you'd have to choose your ideology very carefully since it would affect both your government and corporations.
If you wanted to change your government and corps, you'd need to switch ideologies, perhaps by using a spy to incite a revolution which leads to some lost turns, a bit like Civ games of old.
Obviously you can change governments in Civ VI quite regularly at the moment so perhaps if they bring back different ideologies, they could also tie the types of government you can found to your ideology (you couldn't have a Fascist government with the Freedom Ideology), meaning you'd have to choose your ideology very carefully since it would affect both your government and corporations.
If you wanted to change your government and corps, you'd need to switch ideologies, perhaps by using a spy to incite a revolution which leads to some lost turns, a bit like Civ games of old.
dunkleosteus
Roman Pleb
On the point of whether Corporations should be a government-controlled feature, I think it would be interesting if you COULDN'T control corporations, ie based on certain conditions or circumstances, corporations might spring up on their own. Rather than managing it yourself, the corporation would do it's own thing. You'd have control over taxation and regulation though. Increase taxes to bump up your gpt. Lower taxes and corporations will grow faster, spreading to more cities and increasing their influence. In each city they exist in, they can increase production in the city. The more cities they're in, the more money they make for the civ they're based out of.
Over time though, corporations start doing some less-than-pure things to cut corners or make a profit. Maybe they start dumping waste in rivers. Maybe they have unsafe work practices. The appeal of your tiles might decrease, or you might take amenity hits, or even housing problems if things get really bad. If you regulate them, the production and profits go down but the negative effects start to go away. If you deregulate, you can make all that sweet, sweet cash and production at the expense of perhaps your people's well-being.
Over time though, corporations start doing some less-than-pure things to cut corners or make a profit. Maybe they start dumping waste in rivers. Maybe they have unsafe work practices. The appeal of your tiles might decrease, or you might take amenity hits, or even housing problems if things get really bad. If you regulate them, the production and profits go down but the negative effects start to go away. If you deregulate, you can make all that sweet, sweet cash and production at the expense of perhaps your people's well-being.
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