Afforess
The White Wizard
I hope I am not alone in thinking that corporations (and guilds) are the most unbalanced part of RAND? When I say "unbalanced", I mean they tend to have outsized effects on cities, have strange requirements, and don't contribute much to the mod.
I think Realistic Corporation spread is probably a step in the right direction for corporations - in that it removes the minutia related to spreading corporations, but it also falls short. Corporation spread is not entirely satisfying and a bit strange, corporations might appear one turn, and disappear the next.
Then take the concept of corporation maintenance. I find this to be one of the more baffling aspects of corporations. Players have to pay maintenance to have corporation in their cities. At a purely logical level, that makes no sense. Are the corporations not producing a profit of their own? Are the maintenance costs subsidies? Are the corporations state-owned or private entities? Where is the profit going? What are the maintenance costs even for?
Guilds similarly make no sense. Why, to found a guild, do you have to build one of three national wonders, then another national wonder that is guild specific? Why build anything at all? Why don't guilds ever go obsolete? Should guilds go obsolete?
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Here's my ideas on what could be done to improve corporations. Instead of requiring a great person or buildings to found a guild or corporation, they should all found automatically. Not just automatically, but the founding odds should be primarily based on the number of resources that the corporation consumes, and your civilization has. In addition, existing corporate headquarters should decrease the founding odds.
When a corporation "founds" itself in one of a player's cities, they should get a popup allowing them to take action. The popup would look something like this:
Popup Text: Sire! A fledgling business in the local city of CITYNAME has organized itself into the CORPORATION_NAME and wishes to expand its influence throughout the globe!
Option 1: Excellent News. Let the free market take over.
Effects: Corporation HQ is founded in CITY.
Option 2: Subsidize them in exchange for rapid expansion!
Effects: Costs 250-750 gold, Corporation HQ is founded in CITY, Corporation spreads to 3 random cities in your civilization, No new corporations will found HQ in your empire for 60 turns.
Option 3: Bah, I control commerce in CIVILIZATION_NAME!
Effects: Corporation is not founded, seizes 100-250 gold from business owners, No new corporations will found HQ in your empire for 60 turns.
The idea is to present the player choices when a corporation founds, each choice being meaningful and providing the player control over the situation. Option 1 costs nothing, and lets the corporation found. Option 2 accelerates the corporation spread, but costs money, and the subsidization curtails competition, prohibiting new corporations from auto-founding in your empire for a bit. Option 3 gives the player the option to refuse the corporation and earn gold instead.
In addition to this corporation founding mechanic, I would also eliminate the concept of corporate maintenance entirely. It doesn't really make sense. I would replace it with nothing.
Corporations currently unlock some kind of unique corporate building in each city. These building effects are very powerful and all need to be brought into alignment with the current game balance. These buildings should also cause corporations to spread faster.
Corporation spread should be rewritten to be more realistic. After a corporation spreads to a city, there needs to be a "cooldown" period where the corporation can not shut down for 40-60 turns. After that, the chances of the corporation leaving the city should be zero unless the city loses access to the resources the corporation needs.
Civics should be altered to affect corporation spread mechanics, much like they affect religion spread. Coinage and Free Market civics should allow all corporations (even foreign corporations) to spread through your civilization. The Corporate civic should prevent foreign corporations from spreading further, and only allow domestic corporation spread. The Planned civic should prevent any corporation spread.
Finally, technologies. Technologies should be allowed to influence specific corporate spread rates. So a specific tech could increase a specific corporations spread rate. Maybe a tech like Mercantilism will cause the Mercer's Guild to spread 2-3x faster. Conversely, a tech could cause corporation spread rates to decrease, or go negative. This would allow for a gradual obsolete of guilds without having a hard and fast tech simply turn them off. Several techs spaced over time could slow and reverse the spread rate of guild corporations and cause them to close down.
The tech spread influence should help guilds and corporations to spread quickest when they are at their technological pinnacle and cause them to decline when they are not as relevant.
Finally, I'd get rid of the Realistic Corporations game option and make this all mandatory.
I think Realistic Corporation spread is probably a step in the right direction for corporations - in that it removes the minutia related to spreading corporations, but it also falls short. Corporation spread is not entirely satisfying and a bit strange, corporations might appear one turn, and disappear the next.
Then take the concept of corporation maintenance. I find this to be one of the more baffling aspects of corporations. Players have to pay maintenance to have corporation in their cities. At a purely logical level, that makes no sense. Are the corporations not producing a profit of their own? Are the maintenance costs subsidies? Are the corporations state-owned or private entities? Where is the profit going? What are the maintenance costs even for?
Guilds similarly make no sense. Why, to found a guild, do you have to build one of three national wonders, then another national wonder that is guild specific? Why build anything at all? Why don't guilds ever go obsolete? Should guilds go obsolete?
--------------------------------------------
Here's my ideas on what could be done to improve corporations. Instead of requiring a great person or buildings to found a guild or corporation, they should all found automatically. Not just automatically, but the founding odds should be primarily based on the number of resources that the corporation consumes, and your civilization has. In addition, existing corporate headquarters should decrease the founding odds.
When a corporation "founds" itself in one of a player's cities, they should get a popup allowing them to take action. The popup would look something like this:
Popup Text: Sire! A fledgling business in the local city of CITYNAME has organized itself into the CORPORATION_NAME and wishes to expand its influence throughout the globe!
Option 1: Excellent News. Let the free market take over.
Effects: Corporation HQ is founded in CITY.
Option 2: Subsidize them in exchange for rapid expansion!
Effects: Costs 250-750 gold, Corporation HQ is founded in CITY, Corporation spreads to 3 random cities in your civilization, No new corporations will found HQ in your empire for 60 turns.
Option 3: Bah, I control commerce in CIVILIZATION_NAME!
Effects: Corporation is not founded, seizes 100-250 gold from business owners, No new corporations will found HQ in your empire for 60 turns.
The idea is to present the player choices when a corporation founds, each choice being meaningful and providing the player control over the situation. Option 1 costs nothing, and lets the corporation found. Option 2 accelerates the corporation spread, but costs money, and the subsidization curtails competition, prohibiting new corporations from auto-founding in your empire for a bit. Option 3 gives the player the option to refuse the corporation and earn gold instead.
In addition to this corporation founding mechanic, I would also eliminate the concept of corporate maintenance entirely. It doesn't really make sense. I would replace it with nothing.
Corporations currently unlock some kind of unique corporate building in each city. These building effects are very powerful and all need to be brought into alignment with the current game balance. These buildings should also cause corporations to spread faster.
Corporation spread should be rewritten to be more realistic. After a corporation spreads to a city, there needs to be a "cooldown" period where the corporation can not shut down for 40-60 turns. After that, the chances of the corporation leaving the city should be zero unless the city loses access to the resources the corporation needs.
Civics should be altered to affect corporation spread mechanics, much like they affect religion spread. Coinage and Free Market civics should allow all corporations (even foreign corporations) to spread through your civilization. The Corporate civic should prevent foreign corporations from spreading further, and only allow domestic corporation spread. The Planned civic should prevent any corporation spread.
Finally, technologies. Technologies should be allowed to influence specific corporate spread rates. So a specific tech could increase a specific corporations spread rate. Maybe a tech like Mercantilism will cause the Mercer's Guild to spread 2-3x faster. Conversely, a tech could cause corporation spread rates to decrease, or go negative. This would allow for a gradual obsolete of guilds without having a hard and fast tech simply turn them off. Several techs spaced over time could slow and reverse the spread rate of guild corporations and cause them to close down.
The tech spread influence should help guilds and corporations to spread quickest when they are at their technological pinnacle and cause them to decline when they are not as relevant.
Finally, I'd get rid of the Realistic Corporations game option and make this all mandatory.