Corporations problem

[paragonae]

In a pull system, the services corporations provide would be so desirable that countries would agree to pay money to have those corporations come into those cities and provide services.

Say for example Aluminum Co. Say you are playing as the Greeks and have no aluminum. But the Russians built Aluminum Co. So you go to corporations screen or something and ask Aluminum Co. to build an office in one of your main production cities. You pay that corporation money each turn to provide that city with aluminum (you can set amount based on corporation and make sure it's high enough/low enough based on the benefits of the corporation). The nation that hosts the HQ gets tax revenue for that (say the same 5 gold that it is now).

This would solve the nonsense system of using corporations to try to bankrupt other countries, while corporations' benefits are reduced to random side effect. The system that results would be driven by demand for the corporation's goods and services, just as it is in the real world. And the nation that is host to the corporate headquarters would benefit in form of tax revenue.

This pull system sounds fantastic.. who'll mod it?

The inflation was prolly increased to stop the rich civs from getting even richer in the late game. A different way to implement this would be to not tie inflation-% to turns played, but instead to the amount of gold in your Fort Knox at the time. So spending money decreases inflation, while hoarding gold increases inflation. Make sense, no?
(oops, sorry about being off topic)

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I feel like I'm on a soapbox, because I keep posting the same thing in a number of threads basically saying the same thing:

We've only had this game a week (some of us less than that). How can we say after only a handful of games that Corporations have a "problem"?

Personally, I've had great success with Corporations and really enjoy them. In fact, I started digging into their fees to see if they really are as insurmountable as some of these threads suggest and quickly discovered they are far from a "money suck" ...

... unless you compare them on a : level. Corporations aren't necessarily for making in BtS. They are far better suited to converting into other values (such as /// and especially ).

I even started a thread about my findings (the first thread of my signature): Corporate Maintenance Explained.

The only problem with Corporations is that we think they're religions that must be spread to every city, which is actually the very worst thing you can do.

As was mentioned previously, you have to consider the Corporate Benefits and weigh them against the fees.

What remains to be seen is just how effective the AI is at utilizing Corporate Strategies. Since it's possible different leaders have different Espionage / Corporate propensities (just as we've already seen with Religions), I'm not going to let one stupid AI mistake fool me into believing the entire AI is a Corporate imbecile.

Who knows ...


-- my 2

 

[phungus420]

OTAKU you had some good points, but your own math, after corrected showed that by the late game inflation starts pushing corporate payments into the 60-100+ range in the 2000s. I agree with you, if this oversight was removed, corps would be cool, but they do (in the late game) just become a money suck, and not a converter of resources. True you can finish the game early, but what we are saying is that as far as a mechanic goes, in the last 50 or so turns, they are completely broken, and even your own math shows that.

 

[paragonae]

The AI seems unaware of the inflation that's going to hit badly in the end, since it's happily spreading my corps into all of their towns.

Then later on AI got an HQ and started spamming everyone around with executives. This is a good strategy of course, but the only way to combat this and still have free market is to have my own executives push the rival company out. This way I will end up having my corp in every one of my cities and by the way, the "corporate war" is boring as hell.
This makes free market unusable in late game when inflation grows too large.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

OTAKU you had some good points, but your own math, after corrected showed that by the late game inflation starts pushing corporate payments into the 60-100+ range in the 2000s. I agree with you, if this oversight was removed, corps would be cool, but they do (in the late game) just become a money suck, and not a converter of resources. True you can finish the game early, but what we are saying is that as far as a mechanic goes, in the last 50 or so turns, they are completely broken, and even your own math shows that.

I guess it's all in how you interpret the data, because I interpret the data with extreme optimism that there really is a way to make Corporations profitable that doesn't involve mindlessly spamming Missionaries across the globe.

Corporations actually require conscious effort and understanding for us to truly reap their rewards.

Even at 300% Inflation, my example city is able to generate a positive cashflow of +10 simply by spreading my two corporations to two foreign cities (which is ridiculously easy now with Colonies).

In addition to this positive cash flow (granted, b/c I founded the Corporate HQ), my "Tundra Town" was able to convert the Corporation's 5.25 into 70 by way of working 5 Towns on Tundra tiles I would otherwise not have been able to benefit from.

Even if I had not founded the HQ, the total Corporate Fees at 300% Inflation in my city would have been -80 . Personally I think even this is a fair trade for 70 , +2.5 population points (thus more votes and/or better trade routes), and 9 raw (18 w/ Powered Factory) in a city that otherwise would've been a backwater fishing town.

 

[mrt144]

It's refreshing to have extreme optimism with corporations, and as you know I am really looking forward to using them (so far i've only played a few hundred turns between work and school) but I can't help but notice the caveats to them.

and 70 commerce is only useful if the other infrastructure is in place to harness it. and that takes production which wont have been fully realized unless you are outright paying for it with either population, or gold. there is no free lunch

 

[DrJambo]

It's refreshing to have extreme optimism with corporations, and as you know I am really looking forward to using them (so far i've only played a few hundred turns between work and school) but I can't help but notice the caveats to them.

and 70 commerce is only useful if the other infrastructure is in place to harness it. and that takes production which wont have been fully realized unless you are outright paying for it with either population, or gold. there is no free lunch

You've not even played using corps yet? Wow and you're one of the most ardent anti-corps people here. I suggest you try them out first and then let us know what you think.

What I will say, however, is the AI's (ab)use of corps is slightly worrying for the late-game, as some of them (e.g. Mansa) do have a tendency to spam corps across all their cities, even if they don't have the HQ. My hope is that they have bonuses to help with the maintenance and inflation...

 

[klokwerk]

You CAN benefit from your corporations even if you spread your corp to your cities... You'll earn money if you manage to spread it to other civs, even with our high inflation.

HQ gold is 15 golds (with wall street and everything needed in the HQ city) for each city where you spread the corp, so the more resources you have, the more you need to spread your corp to earn money on the corp (and remember you get the corp benefits too !). Basically, if you're a small civ with few resources, spreading your corp to a few foreign cities will be enough to earn money AND have the benefits of your corp in your cities. If you're a big civ with many resources, you'll have to spread it more (something like 2 foreign cities for each of your city you spread the corp to).

It can be acceptable for the civs you spread the corp too IF they don't have many of the resources needed by the corp, because as such the maintenance will be low.

Remember other civs will do the same though. In the end, unless they decrease the maintenance cost or the inflation costs on the maintenance costs (which I think they'll fix soon), it's likely you'll get at least one or two corps with big maintenance costs in your civ if you're not on state property or mercantilism.

 

[mrt144]

You've not even played using corps yet? Wow and you're one of the most ardent anti-corps people here. I suggest you try them out first and then let us know what you think.

What I will say, however, is the AI's (ab)use of corps is slightly worrying for the late-game, as some of them (e.g. Mansa) do have a tendency to spam corps across all their cities, even if they don't have the HQ. My hope is that they have bonuses to help with the maintenance and inflation...

I want corps to be good though! I want them to be fun! I want to play with corps and use them well!

But this is a bit like running a prospectus! I want to point out the possible flaws, risks, liabilities, and competition before going forward with them.

 

[homan1983]

I have no problem with the cost - I agree the corporations should have cost and they do both in real life and in civ.

But just because they have a cost, it doesnt mean that they are not beneficial.
If I go to my local shop and purchase a can of Coca Cola then it has a cost of say £0.50. But that doesn't mean I don't benefit - in this case we both benefit: otherwise I wouldn't have made the purchase.
For example, if I were to make my own can of coke, I would have to pay £200million for a factory and £0.10 for the can so if I just make 1 unit, it would cost me £200'000'000.10. If I make 2 cans it will be £100'000'000.10 per can of coke.

The difference is that the coke factory make billions of cans over its lifetime, and hence the unit cost for them is much lower.

In this case we both benefit: They can make a can for £0.25 and sell it for £0.50 and I can have my can of coke without spending £200million and 10 pence.

Likewise if I build houses, then I have the "artform" and the tools and contacts required to do so.
It would not be worthwhile for the Coca Cola owner to spend 10 years learning architecture and another couple of thousand to buy the equipment just to build his/her own house: he will then pay me to build his/her house for them.

So it is possible that there are situations which are win-win, in fact most of the daily trades we do in real life are win-win scenarios: we do what we do for a living, we are very good at it, and we use the money we earn to buy things we want from people who are very good at those things.

Corporations CAN be a bad thing, in many poor countries they can sometimes have a devastating effect and they DO, and for local shops and local business they may also not be so great, but I also know that they can have very profitable results - especially in already developed (read: Rich) countries.

Now I'm not happy about this either, because I'm more of a socialist (or as you americans/republican-regurgitating=zombies would say "liberal lefties") but I'm not going to lie that they do have their uses.

 

[homan1983]

You've not even played using corps yet? Wow and you're one of the most ardent anti-corps people here. I suggest you try them out first and then let us know what you think.

What I will say, however, is the AI's (ab)use of corps is slightly worrying for the late-game, as some of them (e.g. Mansa) do have a tendency to spam corps across all their cities, even if they don't have the HQ. My hope is that they have bonuses to help with the maintenance and inflation...

Yes they do, especially commercial civs like Mansa Musa. But that is because the AI was designed by them as well, and their intent was never to have corporations bankrupt rich commerce civilizations (like Mansa). You could say that its not beneficial if you are running too many farms for a SE city, or if you don't have many resources - but atm its so ridiculous that even capitalist civs go bankrupt running even 2 corps.