Feedback: Corporations

[Nightstar]

Note that Sid's Sushi provides 1 food per resource on Standard maps

I thought Sushi gave 0.5 food and 2 culture on Standard maps?

We may want to consider a resource cap for corporations, if possible. (Say, no more than 30 resources on Standard size.)

If this is possible at all, then raising or lowering the cap could be an interesting alternative for the late Economic civics (say, cap doubled with Free Market, but halved by Environmentalism).

 

[Azoth]

I thought Sushi gave 0.5 food and 2 culture on Standard maps?

You're right! My mistake. It's been a long time since I played BtS; I must be remembering a game on a different map size. In that case, even 0.5 per resource might be too much...

If this is possible at all, then raising or lowering the cap could be an interesting alternative for the late Economic civics (say, cap doubled with Free Market, but halved by Environmentalism).

Agreed. Very interesting indeed.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Whatever it is for Sid's Sushi currently, it should be between 1/3 and 1/2 that, in my opinion. In other words, the amount of food granted by Sid's Sushi currently is too high, assuming the current type of benefit formula.

Presumably there should be the same type of scaling for map size as currently for number of courthouses you need in order to build the Forbidden Palace.

A more fundamental issue, is that currently, the total impact of a corporation goes up as approximately proportionally with N^2, where N is the number of cities in an empire. Bigger empires have more resources (as well as can trade for more resources) on the one hand, and can put the corporation in more of its own cities on the other hand.

I think the benefit formula should be changed if possible.

Let R be the number of a given resource you have and let N be the number of your cities with a corporation that uses that resource.
Just as an example, the benefit in each city could be proportional to:
Max[3, 1 + 2R/N].

So if for example you have 2 corn and 2 cities with corporations that use corn, then the benefit in each of those 2 cities is proportional to 3.
If instead you have 2 corn and 5 cities with corporations that use corn, then the benefit in each of those cities is proportional to 1.8.
If you have 2 corn and 10 cities with corporations that use corn, then the benefit in each of those cities is proportional to 1.4.
If you have 5 corn and 10 cities with corporations that use corn, then the benefit in each of those cities is proportional to 2.
If you have 10 corn and 10 cities with corporations that use corn, then the benefit in each of those cities is proportional to 3.

Under this formula, or some similar formula, larger empires which have more of a given resource and also can have the corporation in more cities, will get approximately the same benefit per city as do smaller empires. Also the benefit per city has a hard cap, regardless of how many of a resource you have.

Under the current system, larger empires which have more of a given resource and also can also have the corporation in more cities, get approximately a proportional higher benefit per city than do smaller empires.

I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on 'yield per resource' numbers for corporations, particularly how they scale with mapsize. I have something in place but I'm curious to see what your expectations are without me biasing it. Remember that cities can now have 3-4 corporations in them - in most cases up to 1 food corp, 1 production corp, and 2 commerce corps.

How many resources do you feel it should take to grant 1 yield on a Standard map? A Huge map? Or whichever size you play most?

 

[Xyth]

I cannot change the formula or add a cap to it. I could possibly add more and the higher the yield produced though, and change Social Welfare and Environmentalism to reduce rather than completely mitigate the ill effects. It's a bit complex to code though, as there is no easy way to detect when a city has obtained or lost access to a resource. I want to see how the existing code works first; I had to code an entire 'civic change detection' system to make it work, and we need to play test the corporations a bit to get an idea of their power.

I've currently got yield per resource set to 0.34 (1:3) on Standard maps.

 

[Eucalyptus]

...
A more fundamental issue, is that currently, the total impact of a corporation goes up as approximately proportionally with N^2, where N is the number of cities in an empire. Bigger empires have more resources (as well as can trade for more resources) on the one hand, and can put the corporation in more of its own cities on the other hand.

I think the benefit formula should be changed if possible.

Let R be the number of a given resource you have and let N be the number of your cities with a corporation that uses that resource.
Just as an example, the benefit in each city could be proportional to:
Max[3, 1 + 2R/N].

...

This is a good analysis of a real issue! It's a pity that Xyth says that it's uncodeable. I hope that there is another way to address it ...

 

[Simon_Jester]

Having the corporation create sickness as a function of resource availability would work well for a lot of the 'industrial' or 'economic' corps.

For the food-producing corporations it's not so useful. Food creation is desirable precisely because it lets you have very large cities (or to grow existing small cities quickly, which is less of an issue in a built-up industrialized world). Sickness and unhappiness act as caps on the size of a city. So don't bother adding sickness to a food-making corporation (even McDonalds, heh); just reduce its food production until it comes into line with what you want.

 

[lindsay40k]

I'm quite looking forward to testing the new Corporate system - despite being a proper pinko IRL, I love playing BTS as a robber baron

In fact, whilst out on a jog, it occurred to me that the Corporate system could not only be a tool with which to leverage towards existing victory conditions, but might also present a couple of interesting new victories (assuming previous discussions on making a public vs private sector will bear fruit in a later version).

Then, I typed my ideas up, and realised that they blatantly constituted 'win buttons' for anyone who knows how to organise GP production, and so instead let's call them a couple of new Quests in a similar vein to Hostile takeover, with as-yet unknown rewards for success - and Nimoy-style flavour quotes ready and waiting:

Corporate Hegemony: Over 50% of Corporations must be founded; over 50% of existing Corporate HQs must be under your control; all of your Corporations have at least one foreign branch. "The trade of the world must and shall be ours." - U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge

Quest can initiate when: You found a foreign branch of one of your Corporations.

Reward for success: Easier propagation of your Corporations in foreign cities?

Planned Economy: You are filtering every non-obsoleting resource in the game through at least one Public Sector corporate branch, somewhere in your Empire. - "Socialism as such cannot be considered the solution to all social problems, but merely as a framework within which such a solution is possible." - Albert Einstein

Quest can initiate when: You have a Public Sector Corporate branch, OR you have every non-obsoleting resource in the game on your network.

Reward for success: Public Sector Corporations yield as if they were Private Sector?

 

[Howard Mahler]

The corporation system seems OK based on the one game I have played (still in progress.)

I am finding that the most powerful corporation is Taiyo.
This is because I am playing as usual on an Archipelago map with plenty of water and seafood. Good thing that fish are not a resource used by any corporation.

I am finding that Rio Tinto is the next most powerful. On a Giant Map I am currently getting 5 hammers per city from Rio Tinto, although this requires some trading.

I think that requiring in addition the building of branch in a city before you get the benefit of the corporation in that city would be an improvement. If any tweaks are made, the whole system will need to be rebalanced.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Just a slight nitpick: It's not Hudson Bay Company, it's Hudson's Bay Company. You need to add the apostrophe and s to it.

 

[Howard Mahler]

The Bombay corporation in its headquarters seems to give culture rather than money per city in which the city exists. I assume this is intentional.

I do not play with Cultural Victory.
For any one who does, does this create a potential problem?

 

[Howard Mahler]

Making the corporate mechanic somewhat more like the religion mechanic.

The idea is that in order to get the advantage of a corporation in a city there needs to be branch built. Not applicable to corporate headquarters.
Alternately, without the branch you only get a small benefit.
In any case, without a branch (or the home office) you can not build an executive.

This would slow down somewhat the rapid spreading of the benefits of a corporation.

Currently an executive costs 100 hammers.
I would think a corporate branch would cost 250 or 300 hammers (for example a bank is 200 hammers.)

Step one: corporation spreads to the city via executive as currently.
Step two: owner of the city builds the corporate branch.

Assuming the current corporate bonus are appropriate, they would need to be raised somewhat since there would be more investment required than currently. Maybe they need to be increased by 1/3 or 1/2 in cities with branches compared to currently.

Now that there are corporate branches as buildings there may be ways to change the mechanics of how corporate bonuses work that were not possible in the current scheme.

In the headquarters city the bonuses for other cities with the corporation might kick in half upon the corporation spreading and the other half when a branch office is built.

 

[Nightstar]

The Bombay corporation in its headquarters seems to give culture rather than money per city in which the city exists. I assume this is intentional.

Yes. The HQ city will get either gold, science, or culture depending on the corporation. Check the Civilopedia to see which corporations give what types of commerce in the HQ (and how much).

Making the corporate mechanic somewhat more like the religion mechanic.

The idea is that in order to get the advantage of a corporation in a city there needs to be branch built. Not applicable to corporate headquarters.
Alternately, without the branch you only get a small benefit.
In any case, without a branch (or the home office) you can not build an executive.

This would slow down somewhat the rapid spreading of the benefits of a corporation.

Currently an executive costs 100 hammers.
I would think a corporate branch would cost 250 or 300 hammers (for example a bank is 200 hammers.)

Step one: corporation spreads to the city via executive as currently.
Step two: owner of the city builds the corporate branch.

I don't think I like the idea of having to rebuild such an expensive building every time the AI displaces one (or more!) of my corps when it spams its own to my cities.

 

[Howard Mahler]

One can have the chance of replacement of a corporation be lower if there is a branch office.
Secondly, it is not necessary to destroy the branch office if there is a mechanism to allow it to be useless, at least temporarily.

Yes. The HQ city will get either gold, science, or culture depending on the corporation. Check the Civilopedia to see which corporations give what types of commerce in the HQ (and how much).



I don't think I like the idea of having to rebuild such an expensive building every time the AI displaces one (or more!) of my corps when it spams its own to my cities.

 

[Xyth]

Most of what you describe isn't possible as most of the mechanics are tied to the presence of the corporation in a city and can't be attached to buildings instead. If we feel corporation spread is too rapid (more feedback please!), the simplest and most effective solutions are to increase the cost of Executives and/or increase the cost of spreading/replacing corporations.

And yes, some Corporate HQs provide culture or research instead of wealth.

 

[Boggy]

Most of what you describe isn't possible as most of the mechanics are tied to the presence of the corporation in a city and can't be attached to buildings instead. If we feel corporation spread is too rapid (more feedback please!), the simplest and most effective solutions are to increase the cost of Executives and/or increase the cost of spreading/replacing corporations.

And yes, some Corporate HQs provide culture or research instead of wealth.

Well, you can spread your corporations very fast if you want. I always try to have a production overflow (slavery is very helpful for this) in the headquarters city (before the corporation is founded) so I can build the first executive in one round. He goes to a production city, the next to another, and in a short time, I can build 3-5 executives per round. You could increase the production cost of executives, yeah (increasing the cost wouldn't help - you pay more money, so you will save more money beforehand. But the corporation would spread in the same time). Or you could increase the cost by the number of executives the player owns at the moment ("iInstanceCostModifier" in the UnitClassInfos, I think). You can set it to a high value, like 50, so an executive costs 100 if you have none, 150 if you have one, 200 if you have two... Of course, executives already used don't count any more (you build one, spread your corporation [the executive disappears] and build another executive - it would cost 100), so spreading your corporation very fast will cost more hammers than spreading it slowly. [I hope that's understandable, it's a bit hard to explain]

 

[Azoth]

I agree that corporations can be spread too quickly in 1.18.
The simplest solution is to reduce the number of Executives allowed at one time to two or three, from five.
Another solution is to allow Executives to be built only in the city with the corporate headquarters, but that would prevent players from spreading foreign corporations.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I agree. I think putting the limit at 3, which I believe is the limit for missionaries, would be an important step in the right direction.
I am not sure more should be done, but also increasing the hammer and money cost a little probably would not hurt.

I agree that corporations can be spread too quickly in 1.18.
The simplest solution is to reduce the number of Executives allowed at one time to two or three, from five.
Another solution is to allow Executives to be built only in the city with the corporate headquarters, but that would prevent players from spreading foreign corporations.

 

[Xyth]

Well, you can spread your corporations very fast if you want. I always try to have a production overflow (slavery is very helpful for this) in the headquarters city (before the corporation is founded) so I can build the first executive in one round. He goes to a production city, the next to another, and in a short time, I can build 3-5 executives per round. You could increase the production cost of executives, yeah (increasing the cost wouldn't help - you pay more money, so you will save more money beforehand. But the corporation would spread in the same time).

Or you could increase the cost by the number of executives the player owns at the moment ("iInstanceCostModifier" in the UnitClassInfos, I think). You can set it to a high value, like 50, so an executive costs 100 if you have none, 150 if you have one, 200 if you have two... Of course, executives already used don't count any more (you build one, spread your corporation [the executive disappears] and build another executive - it would cost 100), so spreading your corporation very fast will cost more hammers than spreading it slowly. [I hope that's understandable, it's a bit hard to explain]

Interesting, I hadn't noticed that parameter before. Opens up some possibilities. It's a pity it doesn't exist for buildings as well.

I agree that corporations can be spread too quickly in 1.18.
The simplest solution is to reduce the number of Executives allowed at one time to two or three, from five.

I agree. I think putting the limit at 3, which I believe is the limit for missionaries, would be an important step in the right direction.
I am not sure more should be done, but also increasing the hammer and money cost a little probably would not hurt.

Note that both a hard limit or a increasing cost per instance will only apply to Executives from the same Corporation, not all Executives types. Both very good ideas though, what is everyone's preference?

Another solution is to allow Executives to be built only in the city with the corporate headquarters, but that would prevent players from spreading foreign corporations.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't want to disable spreading of foreign corporations.

 

[Boggy]

Putting the limit for executives at 3 would slow corporation spread down, of course. But unfortunately, the unit limit doesn't scale with the map size. I would prefer higher cost. Or you could increase the chance an executive fails to spread his corporation - but this is already a bit frustrating, you plan exactly how many executives you need and where you build them, and then they just fail their job.

 

[kiwitt]

What additional Corporations are you planning ?