Corporations

[oranges]

(...) you get +50% most of the time from being on an island.

-- get the hill comment (+25% defensive bonus for applicable defenders - i.e., not siege/mounted) but island? Walls give you 50% unless your cultural defense is higher, but during the time of corporations this is (most likely) obsolete.

I think it means that attackers rarely have amphibious promotion, and thus suffer 50 percent penalty.

 

[Polobo]

Ah OK. If you settle a 1-tile island, probably with seafood, then you can get a high population but need corporations for hammers. That island is fairly defensible (amphibious penalty, possibly on a hill), especially if you rush an airport so you can drop in reinforcements as needed.

 

[Mik1984]

Screw you allies and vassals by spamming corps into their cities. You will get and they will suffer.

 

[ndtim]

I can't help but be feel totally conflicted about corps as they now function. I've had the game since it came out but still haven't tried using them. Initially, the numerous posts I read about how they affected gameplay convinced me they weren't the trouble. Now that the game has been somewhat patched, it seems like using corps is more workable and they sound intriguing...That said I don't know if I'd want to spend the time and effort trying to work them into my games (marathon, huge = lots of time) if: 1) building a couple of them is such an advantage that it could virtually guarantee a win. 2) The concept as currently implemented means that developing your corps within your borders kills your economy (?bizarre) and that the best way to mitigate this involves spreading the corp to foreign land. And at this point the opponent's economy is drained by corps they didn't ask for (and can't easily stopped?) while concommitantly providing an income stream for you.

I know there is a difference between gameplay and how corps function in real life, but I don't know if I can get past its seeming backwardness or even if I would be interested in winning with a strategy that involves creating units to make sure the AI is too broke to compete reasonably.

 

[Bob-san]

Seems like a waste of great people (and unlikely to occur anyway). Once you get a couple of key corporations golden ages come in very handy (although they don't affect the corporation effect). I can't imagine a monopoly being that useful but would be interested to understand under what conditions it could be.

Culture gives you control of the tiles surrounding your city, a very important benefit of culture.


-- get the hill comment (+25% defensive bonus for applicable defenders - i.e., not siege/mounted) but island? Walls give you 50% unless your cultural defense is higher, but during the time of corporations this is (most likely) obsolete.

For the island comment--I mean that nearly EVERY island invasion pre-Marine will double your unit's strength, iirc. The AI doesn't know how to prioritize the Amphibious promotion.

As for culture--it doesn't matter much if they're on a different continent, now does it? They may have a land advantage over a few other civs on that continent, but the defense added can be taken away within a few turns as it is, by using siege weapons.

As for corporations--I try to make sure that my enemy cannot displace my own corporations. I've popped a few branches in smaller cities and my production cities--and it really does help to spread the corps there. If I can found every corporation, I have little to worry about when the AI starts using them. Alum Co is helpful to tax everyone else--trade your coal to them and spread the corporation, then cancel the deal when it's everywhere or they find their own source. I like it especially to cramp their late-game... I play on Marathon most of the time, and decide if the game goes well or not to quit after I get Industrial. But you have to get them off Merchantilism or State Property to make it work. I can usually do just that with the UN.

I usually spend about half a game before I decide if I want to quit or win. I would estimate that probably 70% of games I'll ditch because I didn't start effectively or I'm getting my rear handed to me. Even on Marathon, that's about 3-4 hours. I've spent 16+ hours on a Marathon game before winning or at least getting bored (too bored to put together a new invasion force and destroy everyone else). Marathon games on huge, usually playing as Roosevelt for the late-game UU and UB, as well as early-game wonders.



As for corporations--choose which ones you want spread to your land. Some of them are very useful and don't compete--for example, you can put together a draft city on an island with a lot of seafood. Drop in Sid's Seafood and Creative Constructions and you have a virtual fortress. Others are useless--mainly Aluminum Co. Aluminum Corp consumes Coal and produces Aluminum--and by the time you get it, you either dearly need the aluminum (dying from a lack of aluminum--similar to lack of oil) or it's just a nice way to tax other civs. As I said before--if they lack coal, trade it to them as well as force them to adopt a foreign-friendly economy. You can spam dozens of your corporation executive, so it's very easy to spread and cheap in the long-run. Spending 150+gold may be a problem initially, but each branch provides you with several gold per turn. If you have the cash reserve to spread it everywhere, simply cancel the coal trade and they can neither build coal units nor receive aluminum from it, until they find a source for one or the other. The corporations that we find useless are perfect candidates to tax opposing rivals--and usually will set the game in your own favor. Imagine being able to pop hundreds of units--one from each turn--because you're overflowing in profits. Add in the Kremlin and Wall Street in your HQ city and you're really cooking with fire. You have enough gold to bribe any remaining warlords and still enough left over to continue to buy your forces.

 

[Atwork]

In my current game, I founded "Mining Corp" in my wealthiest city, which is also my Confucian Holy City. By spreading Mining Corp throughout my large empire, I am gaining about 300 base gold per turn to the corporate HQ. Overall, the city is pumping out about 1400 gold per turn. Also, Mining Corp is providing 30 base hammers to every one of my cities. When you add factories, forges, etc. -- those 30 hammers really add up!! It is incredible the extent to which Mining Corp. has allowed me to dominate through production. Yes, the corporation is costing me a hefty chunk of change, but the cost is more than offset by the benefit in gold and production.

 

[Astat]

*edit* i've found my answers here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237717
(The Power of Sushi)

 

[Hammurbabble]

Great writeup by Sisiutl. I have only three comments to add.

I would be very careful spreading Sid's Sushi to other civs. Avoiding putting branches in the border cities only delays the inevitable, as the AI builds corporate execs and spams the corp everywhere. This is nice for purposes of making money off them, but not so nice for avoiding the culture squeeze with Sid's. What I like to do whenever possible is to create a third corp, a not-so-good corp like Aluminum Co. (although in one game I actually USED that one -- I was stuck with no aluminum). This gets you the money for minimal benefit to the AI.

Second, if you know you will be pursuing a Domination victory, don't even bother with corporations. As you get really huge, you will at some point need to switch to State Property and stay in it the rest of the game, and that renders corporations useless, so your corps will provide only a temporary benefit until you get to that point, making them a waste of Great People that could be better used in some other way.

And third, it's true that Free Market reduces corporation cost. However, there's a trade-off between it and Environmentalism that makes the latter preferable once your cities get to a certain size, which I find to be about 25 or more. The reason is the way health penalties work in the game. They cut your food production, so that some of the food you produce is lost. To make up for this, you end up working farms when you could be working mines, cottages, or specialists without the health penalty. Switch to Environmentalism when your cities are at the right size, and you'll actually improve your economy, despite the extra corp cost and loss of the Free Market trade routes. I always use this civic in the late game unless I'm going for Domination, in which case State Property is a superior trade-off.

 

[Kranden]

The gods of Mining Inc Demand your ore! Hand it over or DIE!


Enough said.

 

[truetom]

I can't find the answer to this question: when you build missionaries and have it on automated you can't produce them anymore if there's no more cities left to spread into - once 3 of them are "unemployed" their production stops. Is it the same with executives or can you build 1000+ of them?

Another question: in one mod (I'm not sure about vanilla) the number of aircraft in a city/fort is limited to 4. Is there an easy way to increase that number/limit? Where do you keep your airforce ?

TT

 

[LegionSteve]

Is it the same with executives or can you build 1000+ of them?

You can build 1000+ of them, and the AI often does though it's not as bad if you have 3.13 + Bhruic's patch.

 

[GIO888]

I thought the idea of Corporations was to build them in the OTHER guys cities?

I don't extend them to any of my own since the first time I built them and my economy promptly went to hell in a rowboat, as I recall.

Plant them in the AI cities - isn't that the (Slightly politically dubious, IMHO) idea?

 

[Sisiutil]

I can't find the answer to this question: when you build missionaries and have it on automated you can't produce them anymore if there's no more cities left to spread into - once 3 of them are "unemployed" their production stops. Is it the same with executives or can you build 1000+ of them?

Another question: in one mod (I'm not sure about vanilla) the number of aircraft in a city/fort is limited to 4. Is there an easy way to increase that number/limit? Where do you keep your airforce ?

TT

It's not a mod necessarily, it's a change that was made in BtS. You can double the number of air units you can base in a city by building an airport there. You can also build Carriers, though you can only base Fighters on them.

I thought the idea of Corporations was to build them in the OTHER guys cities?

I don't extend them to any of my own since the first time I built them and my economy promptly went to hell in a rowboat, as I recall.

Plant them in the AI cities - isn't that the (Slightly politically dubious, IMHO) idea?

To an extent, yes. See the discussion above. Some corporations are so powerful that it's best to keep their effects to yourself (Mining Inc. is probably the prime example). Weaker corporations like Aluminum Inc. can certainly be spread to other civs for the income.

 

[Iranon]

If you get culture and have a use for it, corporations are always a benefit. Otherwise, the conversion is mostly fair before modfiers.

After modifiers and especially courthouses, corporations tradeoffs are usually favourable. The AI likes to cripple itself with them though... they will happily pay through the nose to spread a foreign food corporation even when operating at their happiness cap.

If you found the lot of them, you could reserve production for yourself, spread food to yourself and your allies (larger cities = better trade routes), and have the others for foreign use only.

I generally prefer to found only 2; production for domestic use only and food for everyone.

 

[truetom]

Originally Posted by Truetom:
I can't find the answer to this question: when you build missionaries and have it on automated you can't produce them anymore if there's no more cities left to spread into - once 3 of them are "unemployed" their production stops. Is it the same with executives or can you build 1000+ of them?

Another question: in one mod (I'm not sure about vanilla) the number of aircraft in a city/fort is limited to 4. Is there an easy way to increase that number/limit? Where do you keep your airforce ?

TT

Originally posted by Sisiutil:
It's not a mod necessarily, it's a change that was made in BtS. You can double the number of air units you can base in a city by building an airport there. You can also build Carriers, though you can only base Fighters on them.

I meant by editing some file, like:
Max number of planes in a city/fort = 4

change to:
Max number of planes in a city/fort = 12

I'm not a programmer so you have to write in huge letters...

TT

P.S. Need to learn to use this quoting...