'corporation' tips?

[Capello_Moderno]

Hello-hello

First I would like to say: what a great mod!

Then there is my questions (I haven't played corporations much in BtS as my games tend to be over when they come in):

How do you play corporations in RFCE?

I am playing France and founded Knight's Templars as I have tons of all the right resources. Now, from what I recall of corporations in BtS, the thing to do was to put your corp. in your biggest, baddest commerce city and then spread like crazy into AI land destroying their economy while boosting your big bad commerce city.

My problem then, is this: I founded KT in Saumier (in Orleans) and the net result is +7 , - 11 . Looks like a poor tradeoff yes, but - aha - each city with KT adds 4 to the corporation capital, so once I've spread to three cities I'm making a profit.

Or will I? Setting up KT in another of my own cities (and taking a bigger commerce hit than science gain on it) costs me 55 gold, in a foreign city it costs me 110 gold. Now, while Saumier is my best commerce city, it really isn't much to speak of because of the different buildings in RFCE. With a market, a weaver and a brewery, Saumier has a 40% commerce bonus. But that's just 1 extra gold per city with KT, so it looks as if it'll take me (110/5) 22 rounds before I'm breaking even for setting up KT in a foreign city. This is quite different from BtS, in which my commerce city would have a 200% or higher commerce bonus.

Am I missing something or doing something wrong? How do you play corporations - is it the thing to do to spread to AI country or do you spread it to select cities of your own? When is that ever worthwhile? Are there a bunch of commerce bonusses coming up (I see a bank with a further +25% bonus) and I'm just too early in the game?

Thanks

 

[Nintz]

The knightly orders give units as well, making them more valuable.

The other corporations tend to be much more valuable in terms of raw yield, thus solving the problem.

As for foreign spread, that's really up to you. They could provide an income boost, but you are also helping them in various ways through said corporations.

 

[steampunk1880]

Get the Hanseatic League and Bank of St George and spam them everywhere, you'll get huge cities with a ton of gold. I could care less about other corporations because of this powerful combo. I'm at 100 percent research for most of the game.

 

[Nintz]

Hanseatic is only good on coastal cities though, so make sure to plan accordingly.

 

[ezzlar]

Mostly you get something good from the corps to an economic cost:

Knights Templar: Science and Knight Templar unit
Teutonic Knights: Production, Relic resource and Teutonic Knight unit
Knights Hospitallier: Culture, Knight of St Johns unit and Infirmary building
Hanseatic League: Food!

The rest I dont find so interesting. The Hanseatic executive is a naval unit but if you build forts they can sail to inland cities. Then raze the forts.

 

[merijn_v1]

If I am a catholic civ, I try to get Hanseatic League, Knights Templar and Augsburg families. This is the only combo of 3 corporations without competing. This makes them able to have their HQ in 1 city. This makes the Amsterdam Beurs more effective when you build it in this city. (The Amsterdam Beurs is a MUST in a HQ city)
Hanseatic League and Bank of St. George is also a combo I often use. I hardly ever found 2 competing corporations.

Ofcourse you also need to build courthouses in all cities where you spread your corporation to.
(The message still says: +7, -11, but the amount of gold you actually pay is halved)

If you have the right economic buildings in your HQ city and a courthouse in the city you spread your corporation to, you'll get a profit.
HQ gets 4 for each city with that corp. With the right buildings (and civics), this will be doubled or even tripled. (A'dam Beurs, Market, Bank, Jewish Quarter, all the buildings that provide a goldbonus with resources) Making it 12+ for eacht city with your corporation. The corporation payments will be between 3-8. (Rough guess, didn't play the mod for a while)

Even if you have a loss of gold, the bonus you get from the corps is often way bigger. (food, production etc.) Making it still usefull.

My problem then, is this: I founded KT in Saumier (in Orleans) and the net result is +7 , - 11 . Looks like a poor tradeoff yes, but - aha - each city with KT adds 4 to the corporation capital, so once I've spread to three cities I'm making a profit.

You making a mistake in your KT example. The +7, -11 is in each city. That means you loose 33 gold in total for all of your cities. So the 12 gold you get from the HQ isn't enough to make a profit. It's only enough to equalize 1 city's loss.

 

[Spirictum]

Normally I ignore the corporations (I know they can make the game easy, but I always prefer other ways), just a few times I make them.

But usually I get most or all of them, because I conquer the HQs from others.

So instead of making a corp game and lots of money, I like to use all corps in the right cities to boost them nicely. With this, I normally skip the Orders corps because after I take the HQs, hardly I'm able to make a Master.

So I may say what I think about those 4 other corps:

Medici Banks: That's your way to win by gold: Make it (or conquer it), spread to any city you have (or if you're using other corps, spread to those cities that don't produce, and have no reason to keep growing - or are not coastal). This is the gold corp, it competes with the other 3 (not sure about the orders), so it's your gold earning machine.

Hanseatic League: That's your way to grow: It can only be used in coastal cities, so put in all of them. Augsburg or St. George can be combined with it. That will allow you to have cities with 30+ pop, or those "Specialistpolis" to make GPs.

Augsburg Families: That's your way to produce: It combines with Hanseatic League, so if you feel a coastal or other city need production, put it there. Only cities that don't need to produce should use one of the 2 banks.

Bank of St. George: That's your way to spy: It combines with Hanseatic League, so if you feel the coastal city don't need to produce, you may put this with Hanseatic. The bonus to espionage is so huge that you'll hardly need to spread it a lot.

So I like to make this way: St. George to make EPs, Augsburg for those cities that need to produce, Hanseatic should be used in all coastal cities (more pop means more GPs and less unit maintenance cost) and Medici to control your economy.

BTW, that combo Merijn said is nice indeed, I never did the full combo, but just Augsburg and Hanseatic is already a master combo (Food + Production), specially for coastal empires (Genoa, Venice, Portugal, Netherlands, Cordoba and Arabia).

 

[iOnlySignIn]

- Knights Templar: Not very useful, because Research in RFCE is irrelevant due to tech cost rescaling. Templar Knight is somewhat useful because it's cheaper than normal Knights, but not if you're Burgundy (Paladin > all other Knights).

- Knight Hospitallers: Useless. The only thing it's good for is the Infirmary building, which is not very good at all.

- Teutonic Knights: Best knightly order by far. Teutonic Knight is the best mounted unit in the game (except Paladin of course) for a very long time (1200~1600). It also boosts , which is always essential in any Civ game. The Relic resource it provides gives great boost, especially with Catholic Reliquary.

- Hanseatic League: Awesome corporation. Food, that's all. Combine this corp with the English UP and you will be invincible, as you have more than the rest of the world combined. Shame that it competes with both Teutonic Knights and Medici Banks, and only works on Coastal cities. By far the best corporation for England, Vikings, and Sweden.

- Medici Banks: Best Gold corporation. Its yield vs. maintenance ratio is far superior to any other corp, and its resources don't depend much on colonies. Especially overpowered with Turkey/Byzantium/Arabia due to the large amount of accessible resources.

- Bank of St. George: Excellent for 4 reasons: (1) you can get a lot of Wheat as most civs (such as France). (2) this is the best colonial corp because you get a lot of Gold and Sugar from colonies. (3) Espionage is very useful if you like Domination. It allows you to both steal techs and soften up your targets. (4) It doesn't compete with Teutonic Knights OR Hanseatic League. This is by far the best corporation for Spain and France.

- Augsburg Families: Looks good on paper, but it's very hard to boost its yield because (1) its yield is inherently low and (2) all of its resources are rare except Sheep. But if you have lots of Sheep you should get Medici Banks instead anyway.

 

[ezzlar]

I just want to point out like I mentioned earlier, if you build a row of forts to your inland cities you can spread Hanseatic League there.

Edit: Knight Templar used to be more useful since the knights could enter foreign territory without declaring war.

 

[Nintz]

They changed it then since I last had the Hanseatic.

In my last game, I couldn't spread it to Florence despite having the correct resources and a fort leading to it.

 

[merijn_v1]

The main reason I use corporations is to get the gold from the HQ. I don't really care much about the other bonus they provide. (With the exception of the food bonus of the Hanseatic League.) That's why I try to get as many corps HQ in a city as possible. There is only 1 possible combo to get 3 HQ in one city. (Knights Templar, Hanseatic League, Augsburg Families) And only if you are catholic.
So if I'm not catholic, the max amount of HQ in one city is 2. The Hanseatic League and a banking corp. As the Medici competes with the Hanseatic League, I don't find it very often. (Only if the Hanseatic League is founded already. Then, this is the best of the banking corps) And because I think the Bank of St. George is better than the Augsburg Families (now I do look at the bonus'), I found that one more often than the Augsburg Families. (And it's also earlier available)

 

[Capello_Moderno]

Thanks for all the advice!

I see now that, yes, Hanseatic league with Bank of St. George really rocks. I kept the Knight's Templars going anyway - and it really isn't all that shabby either: what I did was expand into all the German cities, then Austrian and Polish. Now they're suffering heavy gold drains each round and my corp. centre nets 4 gold + 100something per cent per city (of course you can do that with any corporation, and the upside to Hanseatic league and Bank of St. George is that you can offer spreading them in your own cities - particularly Hanseatic league)

The first UHV for France was pretty tight, but now I'm set on a surefire victory course.

 

[kiwitt]

All my games so far (about 10), I have never had the opportunity to create a corporation. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Capello_Moderno]

Well.. do you have the required techs and great people?

Knight's Templars, Knight's Hospitalliers and Teutonic Knights needs a great theologian (and a different tech each), which you use to 'settle' the corporation in one of your cities.

For the banks and Hanseatic League you need a great merchant and different techs.
Hanseatic League does look as if its the best (provided you've got lots of coastal cities), Bank of St. George on a close second, and the rest are all economically viable if you settle them in your best commerce city and spread mostly to foreign cities.

The difficulty of getting corps probably varies greatly depending on civ and starting date. I had no trouble getting 3 corps with either France of Venice, which, of course, both start early and grow mighty powerful.

 

[Nintz]

Certain nations will have more of an opportunity.

If you play a Cordoba game, for example, after surviving the reconquista, the opportunities for corporations should still be fairly large. If you manage to get the Hanseatic as Spain/Portugal/Cordoba and unite the peninsula, you are unstoppable. Mostly because food is usually the Achilles' Heel of Iberia.

Other nations that often can get corporations are France, Genoa, Venice, and Germany. Other nations have to specifically plan for it, and hope no one beats them usually.