Corporations

[Orion Pax]

In BTS the main corp play for me is Sushi if going for Diplo. Any diplo guide you read on here will talk about rushing for mass media to finish the UN. I say that's hogwash outside of HoF. I generally want to rush Sushi. Medicine also comes with Environmentalism, which is a great civic to swap into for Sushi/Diplo victory.

Kmod nerfs Sushi hard by moving it to refrigeration, and moving gold/silver out of Mining is a slight nerf. There's greater internal balance between all the corps in KMOD, but unfortunately that leads me to draw the conclusion that generally /none/ are worth it. Maybe some slight use from exporting CJ.

One thing that should be mentioned about corps, and a big reason Sushi is so dominant, is that resource clumping is advantageous. If you have a lot of the resources required yourself it obviously makes you more inclined to go that corp. Less obviously but more importantly, the AI can only trade excess corp resources. The three seafood resources tend to clump together. If there were say 10 clams on the map split between 2 AIs, that means you could get up to 8 clams - while if those 10 clams were split between 5 AIs evenly, you could get at most 5 clams. Strategic resources are evenly spread out through the map. Gold/silver are kinda rare, but they do clump up - so replacing those with aluminum and uranium makes mining a little weaker.

For a counter point though, corps can be kind of worth it if going space and SP isn't necessary. That's a more plausible endgame on KMOD than BTS, because the AI is harder to conquer but techs a little bit slower.

Very interesting.. Good call on the resource clumping, hadn't thought of that. On timing, Civ4 seems particularly sensitive to that, since multiple victory conditions means vastly different time/tech tables. Yeah I would definitely agree that corporations are most relevant in a Space Race game, due to the longevity. So slightly increased lateness isn't too much of a bother I suppose. And Refrigeration is a priority in a Space Race since Superconductors are a key Space tech. I often skip Medicine and go right for Refrigeration in Space games.

I guess I missed that the AI was actually worse at teching in KMod. Definitely noticed their better warring. Interesting.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

One thing to consider about corps is that they loose money when they are in your cities but gain money when you spread them across the world. A city set up for farming coins combined with a corporate HQ and a corp you spread across the world can be as profitable if not more than a religious shrine.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Corporations are like Factories+Power - they aren't major considerations because they come late enough that the outcome of the game is likely already decided by then, but if it isn't - or if you want a late game condition like Diplo victory or Space race - they're incredibly powerful. Really, really strong. They're especially good if you're trying for a score record - conquer enough of the world to be just shy of the territory you need for Domination, then flood Sid's Sushi Co to get astronomically high population.

I didn't see any breakdown of the actual money mechanics of corporations (apologies if I missed it!) so here it is. When you spread a corporation to a city, that city incurs a gold maintenance penalty that can often be quite steep, that much is obvious. What can be less obvious is that the Corporation HQ generates money for every city that has its corp (works identically to religious shrines in that regard). So found your corporation in your money city (with Market, Grocer, Bank, Wall St) and not only will this help to keep pace with the maintenance costs but you can actually end up turning a profit! If you're running Free Market and have a Courthouse in every city it can actually be quite a significant profit - not a ton, but since any profit whatsoever is entirely incidental to the corporation...

As others have said, Sid's Sushi and Mining Inc are by far the most powerful Corps and will turn your city into powerhouses. It can hurt to switch out of/not run State Property but if you're able to secure enough resources it's huge.

I guess I missed that the AI was actually worse at teching in KMod. Definitely noticed their better warring. Interesting.

I don't know if I'd say "worse." They don't put as much emphasis on research, but they also follow a less rigid path than they do in unmodded. It's actually one of my favourite things about KMod - Vanilla's meta of "beeline Liberalism because the AI always techs the other way so not only will you beat them to it but you'll get a ton of trade bait as well" got really tired after a while.

As for your first page post about corps in KMod, Cereal vs Sushi is a lot closer now, and indeed Cereal often ends up being better in my games. Both of them got their production nerfed - Cereal went from .75 food/resource to .50; Sushi went from .50 to .25. However, .50 to .25 is a much, much bigger change than .75 to .50 - sure seafood clumps but you also need four of it to get a single food. Which one is optimal will depend on map type, how the game's looking (particularly how many willing trading partners there are), etc, but I almost always go Cereal.

Mining Inc also got nerfed from 1 hammer/resource to .50, but even between that and losing Gold/Silver it's still generally the best hammer corp, and like you said I like that it puts an emphasis on seeking out Aluminium and Uranium.

 

[drewisfat]

KMod suffers from, *put politely*, the balance changes being mostly made by one player who was not a deity player. Some hit the mark, but other ones are questionable, even backwards. For example, I usually assign GGs to troops in BTS where they're worth 20 exp. KMOD *doubles* their bonus to 40XP if you spread them out over 11+ units.
I still play the mod frequently. The added difficulty makes even strong starts challenging. AI techs a bit slower, but unless you're isolated, you should be teching slower by an even larger margin. This is because you can't diplo lock the AI outside of war. You need a large standing army even in peacetime, otherwise the AI will opportunistically attack you, and then other AIs will dogpile. Plus the AI seems stingier when it comes to giving GPT for resources, and you can't subsidize.
But yeah back to the topic, probably not a good idea to get corps in KMOD

 

[MilesBeyond]

Yeah exactly haha. There's a lot of areas where KMod's balance changes could be better and a few things I dislike about the mod but, like, there just aren't any better options. The smarter AI outweighs most of my criticisms. I was hoping that there'd be a modmod with better balance.

I think KMod also illustrates why intelligent AI is harder than it looks for devs to implement - it's not always a question of "is it possible," but a question of "is it what people want?" Opportunistic AI that plays to win and leaps when they see an opening is something that, I think, would be a really tough sell for a game. Reviewers and new players would hate it. I mean as someone who's been playing Civ IV for ages I absolutely love KMod AI, but if it had been what the base Civ IV AI had been like when the game first came out, I probably would have played a couple games, gotten frustrated, and never picked it up again.

 

[Trout]

I know. But in the lategame, whatever benefit you get from corps is not worth the raw beakers from commerce you lose from having to turn back the slider. What I mean is that for corps, the net GNP in hammers/commerce is less than the net GNP in state property, output of cities - total costs. I've tested this across hundreds of games to arrive at this conclusion.

Fish Man - does your answer include map scale?? In other words, I would think that huge maps which have huge numbers of resources results in a better statistical outcome for corps as compared to SP. Also, I assume you are comparing the two with WS and courthouses accounted for in a corporation game??? In a corporation game, those two things (along with running FM civic) are essential to combat the drain on your commerce from the severe maintenance costs.

 

[Pangaea]

Think the above quote's accuracy depends on map type and game speed to a certain extent. I would certainly argue that in some scenario, probably quite many, corporations blow SP out of the water. It takes more time for them to gear up, though, because you need to spread them first, while for SP the benefit is instant (at least if you have some workshops already). But the benefits of corporations really is out of this world. Sushi means an exploding population (>> Rep scientists) and Mining means very high base hammers, which then get multiplied by factories etc, which also helps when building Wealth/Research. The end result is an empire with very, very high research rate in the late game, and cities that can produce space parts pretty quickly. In general I'd say corporations are more powerful on slower speeds and with bigger empires (despite the speed it takes to spread them), because then you control more resources that boost the corporations. On normal speed it can go both ways, while on Quick SP is probably stronger.

The issue is then usually: Can you get to corporations fast enough, and do you have enough time for them to pay off (become super powerful). My best space games have been with corporations, but that isn't to say that SP isn't good. It's great, especially on continents types maps where colony maintenance can become brutal (unless you have vassals off in the settings). However, in my mind the corporations route is in general the strongest. It does greatly depend on getting a Great Engineer for Mining Inc, however, which is typically very difficult and often comes down to luck. A "safe" way is to get him with Pyramids+engineer and get it as the 1st or 2nd GP, but that doesn't always pan out. Requires early MC, which I like to get from trades, and obviously requires Mids too. Maybe it goes early on the other side of the world, and maybe HG goes early too. It can often be out of your control and you have to cross your fingers for a 15% GE in 5 cities or something.

 

[drewisfat]

An Ironworks city gets 1GEpoint and means that city can run a total of 4 engineers. Combined with pacifism and/or GA is a relatively quick way to force the mining GE through.

 

[Pangaea]

Aye. But if you've already had a golden age or two by then and put out 12 or so great people, it would still take a long while, and there are other cities with points too, probably surpassing the relatively few points from 4 GEs. It's why many get out a GE early and then hold on to it. And if I'm in a golden age (where I could do the thing you mentioned), I probably want to get out as many GPs as I can, which means a lot of other cities may well pop GPs before the IW city. In my experience at least, the timing is often difficult unless you get an early GE.

A little easier with Germany, though, because their unique factory can hire 4 engineers on their own.
(Although it should also be said that typically you want Mining Inc before Assembly Line, so maybe the whole thing is a moot point.)

 

[elitetroops]

Maybe build mids and HG and run an engineer, but make sure other cities beats it to the early GPs. This way you could at least get out a few GSs first while keeping a clean GE pool that is somewhat close to completion.

 

[Trout]

Maybe build mids and HG and run an engineer, but make sure other cities beats it to the early GPs. This way you could at least get out a few GSs first while keeping a clean GE pool that is somewhat close to completion.

This is the strategy I pursue in a corporations game. Works perfectly IF you are able to build HG / Mids / Forge for the specialist. Much easier to do with an Industrious leader with their faster wonder-building and cheap Forges

 

[Seraiel]

I only found Corporations in Space-Races and High-Score games. Which Corporation is the best depends on the map and its Resources.