Corporations?

[jkp1187]

I don't believe you ever lose the 5 gpt per city. The AI does keep the bonuses, but now, they can't spread the corporation into your lands However, you still get to spread it into theirs....muahahahaha

Quite right. Am I seeing a mercantilism/caste system synergy here? I really wonder how the decision-making process of choosing between FM and Merc will be now.... I mean, if you have a couple of colonies/vassals, and a couple of corporations, why bother going for FM? Merc may now be more optimal than FM for overseas expansion in the renaissance, even if the player is trying to maximize gold....

[DISCLAIMER: The above is pure unfounded speculation written by some bored American who's home from work today and won't be able to obtain a copy for (apparently) anywhere between four to six more days.]

 

[Indiansmoke]

You guys sometimes ask questions like you didn't actually read a bleeping word of what is being said.

Mercantilism disabled someone else's corporations in your cities. It has no effect on your corporations in someone else's cities.

Yes excuse me!

I though since Mercandilism blocks all foreign trade routes it might block income from corporations as well.

 

[UncleJJ]

Careful, now. I think you're confusing gold with commerce in your post. It is my understanding that corporations do not cost commerce, but rather they cost gold. Is this correct?

Yes all costs and the HQ income are all measured in gold.

see these screenshots:

So a corporation office costing 20 maintenance is reduced to 10 by a courthouse in its city, and the HQ gets 5 for it and that can always be boosted by MGB to 10 by that stage of the game and to 15 if Wall Street is built. That means in this case the benefit of the corporation (food, hammers, research, culture or gold) in each city is effectively free in your own cities.

Now we just need to discover if there are any limitation of the maximum number of hammers or whatever it produces.

This is looking good.

 

[Jaybe]

Seems like : mercantilism ~= modern/industrial age protectionism.

Mercantilism refers to Napoleonic France, when trade with the British Empire was illegal -- no imports from Britain or its colonies, i.e. no tea to drink.

Not nearly as unpleasant as British rationing during (and after!) WWII, I am sure, but restricting nontheless.

 

[jkp1187]

Mercantilism refers to Napoleonic France, when trade with the British Empire was illegal -- no imports from Britain or its colonies, i.e. no tea to drink.

I gotta be honest, man, I'm not seeing the distinction other than in terms of degree and/or pure legal formalities.

 

[frob2900]

Mercantilism refers to Napoleonic France, when trade with the British Empire was illegal -- no imports from Britain or its colonies, i.e. no tea to drinkk.

Hardly napoleonic france. It goes back to the mid 17th century AFAIK.

 

[homan1983]

Zulus get an additional -20% [for a total -70%].

And one of the new civs get -75% from courthouse.

-75% is twice as effective as -50% don't forget [not 25% better]
and -70% [zulu -50% court -20% barracks] is 60% better than -50%



I think whats interesting is that mercantilism keeps corporations open but removes trade [effectively thats what it does] whereas State Property removes corporations but has trade routes intact.

 

[Eozenig]

Making some tests here and there about maintenance costs.

• It seems the maintenance cost is based on city population. The more populated the city, the more costly maintenance is. I lowered population on different specialists and didn't take out any worked tile to be sure it wasn't gold, commerce or whatever else based.
• It is also resource based. The most resources the corp uses, the more costly maintenance gets. My cities had two corps each. Mine, the standard ethanol that used three resources, and Hatty's one that used two resources. When removing Hatty's one, the maintenance cost was less lowered than when removing mine.
• Distance with HQ has no consequences on it.

One last thing, a corp doesn't take in account surplus of a resource for benefits. Having four fishes won't make the bonus better than one. So the important thing is to get all the varieties of resources the corp uses to get the most benefit out of it.

Edit : After messing around with the worldbuilder, I'm completely wrong about that last bit. Surplus are taken in account for the benefits

 

[Morgawr]

Thanks Eozenig, I finally feel like I fully understand how corporations work!

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Making some tests here and there about maintenance costs.

• It seems the maintenance cost is based on city population. The more populated the city, the more costly maintenance is. I lowered population on different specialists and didn't take out any worked tile to be sure it wasn't gold, commerce or whatever else based.
• It is also resource based. The most resources the corp uses, the more costly maintenance gets. My cities had two corps each. Mine, the standard ethanol that used three resources, and Hatty's one that used two resources. When removing Hatty's one, the maintenance cost was less lowered than when removing mine.
• Distance with HQ has no consequences on it.

One last thing, a corp doesn't take in account surplus of a resource for benefits. Having four fishes won't make the bonus better than one. So the important thing is to get all the varieties of resources the corp uses to get the most benefit out of it.

Edit : After messing around with the worldbuilder, I'm completely wrong about that last bit. Surplus are taken in account for the benefits

Sounds like Firaxis realized the power of Corps and pre-nerfed it with compounding maintenance based on the amount of benefit...still seems like Corporate Imperialism is a great strategy though.

Additionally, although it came in the form of a honest retraction, I'm happy to see that there is now in-game data to back up my assumptions concerning the multiplicative properties of the resource-related benefits from corporations

 

[Eozenig]

Sounds like Firaxis realized the power of Corps and pre-nerfed it with compounding maintenance based on the amount of benefit...still seems like Corporate Imperialism is a great strategy though.

Additionally, although it came in the form of a honest retraction, I'm happy to see that there is now in-game data to back up my assumptions concerning the multiplicative properties of the resource-related benefits from corporations

I really like how it is implemented too. It's not a no-brainer for every situation and it requires thought to rip benefits from it.

My only grief is that they come too late in the game. The first corp is mining inc, available with the railroad tech. It would have been nice if they expanded the concept to resources like dyes, spices, sugar etc.. in the form of XVII-XVIII century companies to emulate colonial mercantilism of the time too.

 

[UncleJJ]

I don't understand why maintenance cost should increase as the city gets bigger. The benefit to each city is a fixed amount of hammers or food or whatever and doesn't depend on city size. I can understand why the cost should increase with more resources available and hence more benefit. Anyone have an idea why they should have it work like this?

 

[LordGek]

Edit : After messing around with the worldbuilder, I'm completely wrong about that last bit. Surplus are taken in account for the benefits

Okay then, that really throw me as all of the previews have stated "Finally, a benefit to having multiples of your relevant resources..."

 

[UncleJJ]

My only grief is that they come too late in the game. The first corp is mining inc, available with the railroad tech. It would have been nice if they expanded the concept to resources like dyes, spices, sugar etc.. in the form of XVII-XVIII century companies to emulate colonial mercantilism of the time too.

I think it will be useful for games that go well into the modern age for domination (I want to use all those sexy new units ) and obviously for the Space Race as that is very resource and research intensive. I expect it will depend on the map size and type. Continents and Archipelago are usually "slower" games than say Inland sea or Pangea and you need to get further through the tech tree.

 

[eoghammer]

Thanks for the precisions...
This is clear that there will probably be several mods about the previous great corporation like the British East India Company for dye, the Hudson's Bay Company for furs,...

 

[Eozenig]

I think it will be useful for games that go well into the modern age for domination (I want to use all those sexy new units ) and obviously for the Space Race as that is very resource and research intensive. I expect it will depend on the map size and type. Continents and Archipelago are usually "slower" games than say Inland sea or Pangea and you need to get further through the tech tree.

Sure it will be useful, but it would have been even more if they also emulated the competition for Indian spices and the english colonial economy in america by making companies available for that era. Players would have more time to enjoy the concept. Surely something to come with mods

 

[homan1983]

Still seems like Corporate Imperialism is a great strategy though.]

AHAHA capitalist SCUM, just try to spread your corporations to my empire, I'll nationalise so many companies in my empire that my citizens will need my signed permission just to buy some toilette paper.

 

[Martinus]

Hardly napoleonic france. It goes back to the mid 17th century AFAIK.

Yup, it was the hallmark of French trade policy during the reign of Louis XIV and is essentially what today is called Protectionism.

 

[bardolph]

Can someone explain exactly what is meant by a corporation "consuming a resource"?

Once a branch of a corporation is built, does that branch actually remove that resource from the trade network? Do multiple branches of a corporation remove multiple copies of a resource? Can you starve a civilization out of its resources by "consuming" them with multiple branches of a corp?

Or, are resources only a prerequisite for building a corporation branch? Meaning that a corp branch can only be built if the city has access to the required resources, but building the branch has no impact on the availability of that resource to the rest of that civ's trade network?

If the latter is true, then it would still mean that multiple copies of a resource are irrelevant, since the first copy can feed an unlimited number of corporate branches, anywhere in the civ.

Can anyone who's played BtS explain how this actually works?

 

[goonie61]

So if one of your rivals adopts mercantilism and blocks the corparations that you have put into his/her land, do you still get the +5 GPP for each city in his/her borders with your corporation??