Give me a basic intro to corps

[ATC1983]

Ok,

So I've never really got the hang of corporations. I know they give you a few bonuses like resources or production, but is it really better to spread a corps - and risk the cpu spreading its corps to your cities - than going state property? SP gives a great boost to money with lower corruption and a good production boost - can a corps beat this?

Also how is many calculated with a corps? I'm usually a (bad) monarch player and have recently started Earth18 games on Deity - but I tend to give myself a few mitigatory advantages to help against the computer ie 10 GGs, 3 GEs etc at start and maybe a few extra buildings in capital. This gives me a military boost and good production to grab wonders and leads to quite a fun and even game, with nice big stacks with the computer. But I tried recently taking Sid Sushis at 4000bc and it just costs me money - how do I get it to give me money and how is this calculated?

Thanks in advance dudes

 

[strijder20]

Ok,

So I've never really got the hang of corporations. I know they give you a few bonuses like resources or production, but is it really better to spread a corps - and risk the cpu spreading its corps to your cities - than going state property? SP gives a great boost to money with lower corruption and a good production boost - can a corps beat this?

Also how is many calculated with a corps? I'm usually a (bad) monarch player and have recently started Earth18 games on Deity - but I tend to give myself a few mitigatory advantages to help against the computer ie 10 GGs, 3 GEs etc at start and maybe a few extra buildings in capital. This gives me a military boost and good production to grab wonders and leads to quite a fun and even game, with nice big stacks with the computer. But I tried recently taking Sid Sushis at 4000bc and it just costs me money - how do I get it to give me money and how is this calculated?

Thanks in advance dudes

Well, founding the corporation headquarters in a city with bank + market + grocer + wall street is a good start.
Spread the corporation to AI cities too to make up for the maintenance in your own cities.
If you are the HRE (Rathaus) or the Zulu (Ikhanda), you will get DRASTICAL reductions in maintenance, so spreading corporations will usually earn you gold, if the HQ is in the commerce city I described.
And all corps are worth the maintenance - if it's courthouse reduced - because of the bonus yields. Sid's Sushi allows an extra merchant when giving 2 food - giving 6 gold in a fully improved city, and 6 beakers if in representation. Mining Inc makes building infra faster, earning you gold too by getting those banks faster build.
Aluminium Inc. and standard ethanol are some of the weaker corporations, but can save your skin if you lack alum/oil.
Corps help with culture too - but most players seem to shut research off once they hit rifling when going culture, so corps come a little bit too late.
Oh, and when you are heavily spreading corps : always adopt free market.

 

[God-Emperor]

I prefer corporations to state property.

Corporations cost money in each city due to maintenance. Courthouses cut this maintenance in half. The free market civic also reduces corporate maintenance.

The city with the corporate headquarters gets 4 gold per turn for each city with the corporation in it, including itself. That is why the headquarters should be in the city with Wall Street in it, plus a bank, market, and grocer. That way you get 12 gold per turn per city with the corp.

The more resources the corp is using the higher its bonuses, but this also increases its maintenance costs. With a low number of resources you can make a fair amount of money (from the headquarters gold) from running the corp, but get only a small benefit from it in each city. With a large number of resources you get a large benefit in each city but the maintenance may be high enough that you lose money overall.

But that is not the full economic picture. Even if you have so much seafood and rice that Sid's Sushi costs you more in maintenance costs than you get from the headquarters you may well still be making money from it. How? The extra population. In such a case Sid's Sushi would be providing food. A lot of food. Food = population. Population = more worked plots and/or specialists. More worked plots and/or specialists = more gold and commerce (and production, research, culture, espionage, or whatever - depending on which specialists you run and what wonders you have and which civics you are using). The extra population will tend to improve your economic output even if Sushi appears to have a significant direct cost, as long as you have sufficient happiness to use the extra food to have more people working - more angry people doesn't do a lot for you (although you can whip them away for a significant benefit if you are running slavery).

By the way, the exception to the "more resources past some point make it cost money" is Civilized Jewelers. That is a money machine. The combination of the headquarters money and the money it produces directly in each city you spread it to more than covers the maintenance, as long as you have courthouses in them (and maybe even if you don't).

In some respects the perfect combination of corporations is Sid's Sushi, Creative Constructions, Aluminum Co., and Civilized Jewelers. This is because they do not compete with each other so you can have all 4 of them in the same city, including having all 4 headquarters in your Wall Street city. Aluminum Co. also has a synergistic effect with Creative Constructions since the aluminum it creates feeds CC and increases its output. The total culture output of the combination can be ridiculous (3 out of the 4 produce culture). Drop all 4 into a city, like a recently captured city, and you can often increase it's culture output by 100 or more per turn (sometimes a lot more).

 

[ATC1983]

So what's the one to aim for - and what's the best way to keep cpu corps out to avoid their costs?

 

[GGracchus]

So what's the one to aim for - and what's the best way to keep cpu corps out to avoid their costs?

I prefer a mix of Sid's Sushi and Mining Inc. If there's no aluminum/oil, then go aluminium/std. ethanol respectively. State Property means corporations are null and prevents the AI's from spreading corps to you.

 

[plasmacannon]

I had this come up in a recient game.

You really want Mining Inc!
Especially, on island maps, when, production is low.
Save up a Great Engineer for years, if, you have to.
The amount of production it grants a city, can make a poor city (<10prod) into a decient city (30+ prod) and turn already decient citys into production monsters.
In an Ironworks/Moai City with Forge, Factory and Coal Plant, your production can exceed 150 per turn, without Buearcracy.

 

[elohssa]

Generally corporations are resource/strategy dependent but 80% of the time you want mining inc and sushi. The headquarters should be in your Wall Street city. You should avoid using them in cities that haven't yet built courthouses as that could make you a big loss. Corporations are always awesome but are especially awesome with Holy Rome and the Rathaus! If you combine the Rathaus with Free Market civic you can make (about) 10 gold per turn profit from spreading your corporation to a city, not to mention the city gets a huge bonus from the corporation itself.

One trick I have deployed is to make "wealth-building" cities. Simply found one anywhere (even in desert), build a Rathaus/Courthouse there and with Mining Inc spread to that city, make it build wealth. You will make a ton of money and a small amount of research as a bonus. In my recent Monarch game I had 100% research with 400 GPT profit largely due to this tactic. I even started building research once I upgraded my old units as I had so much commerce.

Save up a Great Engineer for years, if, you have to.

I do that as well. My first merchant and engineer are just saved up and don't get used, just so I can found Sushi and Mining Inc.

 

[W|M]

If you have a massive empire, and are losing quite a lot of money even at fairly low rates (aprox. 50% research), then adopt State Property. If not, the use Mining Inc. and Sid's Sushi a lot, especially on water-heavy maps.

 

[nfw]

So what's the one to aim for - and what's the best way to keep cpu corps out to avoid their costs?

Mercantilism makes foreign corps have no effect, but yours still work.

Or you can close border with just that one civ.

If you are short on $, Civ Jewelers is actually pretty good, I'm pretty sure you never lose money with that one.

 

[Sian]

If you have a massive empire, and are losing quite a lot of money even at fairly low rates (aprox. 50% research), then adopt State Property. If not, the use Mining Inc. and Sid's Sushi a lot, especially on water-heavy maps.

50% of a lot is likely more than 70% of less so invalid argument

 

[Skallagrimson]

My corps vs. SP decision logic:

1. Am I big enough to BLOCK the U.N.?
a) Yes: can run either corps or SP
b) No: can only run SP (or FM without corps if preferred). Rationale: the AI will propose Environmentalism as a global civic if they win the U.N. election and you (their rival) are running corps. They know Env will increase your costs of running the corp VERY dramatically, so they obsess over getting that civic passed (or you taking a -5 happy hit each time, they like that too).

2. Am I Philosophical?
a) Yes: I will likely generate enough GPs to establish corps without hampering higher-priority uses such as bulbing Liberalism techs or rush-building GL.
b) No: I might want to reconsider running corps this game, as GP generation might not support it.

If both points above are in favor, I definitly want to run corps. If only one, it's a situational "maybe". If neither, probably not. Regardless of resource count, because when you lack resources you get more money anyway.

 

[Archon_Wing]

If I am rich enough to afford corporations, I actually will willingly accept environmentalism. Why? Because AIs like state property a lot and block my corps from spreading to them.

There is no bigger pain from being dumped from State Property to Environmentalism. If I were running FM, I'd already have set up courthouses where I could usually ignore them in SP.

The best thing about this is that people can no longer block you from spreading unless they close borders with you or try to kill you. And once it spreads into them like a disease, watch them suffer.

It hurts me, but it also hurts them. If I'm in that great of a position to afford corps, that's not usually a problem.

Reasons for SP:
- If you can finish the game. Wtf are you doing wasting all that time setting up corporations? Just win already. If you did some kind of Renaissance timing attack and took out 2 civs, you probably won't need corporations.
-You have many overseas possessions, especially on maps like Terra If you're going to invade another continent, maybe just stick with SP.
- You conquered a crapload of land and are going broke. SP without question
- You are lazy; State Property gives immediate benefits.
- Related to the above: You are still at war when you get to that part of the tech tree.
- You don't have the necessary resources. What good is Sid's Sushi if you don't even have the happy/health cap for it?

Go corporations if:
-- You didn't warmonger and are pretty small (10 cities or less). Maintenance usually isn't an issue here; and Mining Inc will give you the production you need. Trade for extra mining inc resources.
-- You have control over your continent, but have no real means of invading the other side yet. This I think is a 50/50; but usually you can have a few inner cities spread corps.
-- Your land sucks balls ; you can't even feed enough people to work many good hammer tiles. However, say you do have an abundance of iron, coal, silver, or something. Those Mining Inc boosts can help the crappiest of cities become productive. Remember that deer city you put out there to get some oil? Even if some land gets wiped out through global warming, corps can still help you going.
-- You are mostly concentrated on one land mass.
-- You capture a shrine, yay HQ spot!

Although, in reality, the only corp I usually found is Mining Inc when there's an idle engineer with no wonders to build due to ease of access.

 

[LegionSteve]

Ok,

So I've never really got the hang of corporations. I know they give you a few bonuses like resources or production, but is it really better to spread a corps - and risk the cpu spreading its corps to your cities - than going state property? SP gives a great boost to money with lower corruption and a good production boost - can a corps beat this?

Also how is many calculated with a corps? I'm usually a (bad) monarch player and have recently started Earth18 games on Deity - but I tend to give myself a few mitigatory advantages to help against the computer ie 10 GGs, 3 GEs etc at start and maybe a few extra buildings in capital. This gives me a military boost and good production to grab wonders and leads to quite a fun and even game, with nice big stacks with the computer. But I tried recently taking Sid Sushis at 4000bc and it just costs me money - how do I get it to give me money and how is this calculated?

Thanks in advance dudes

A few years ago I read a very good article about corporations on this site. I think it was called 'The Power of Sushi'. You can probably find it in the War Academy.

 

[Skallagrimson]

It hurts me, but it also hurts them. If I'm in that great of a position to afford corps, that's not usually a problem.

If you spam corps to the AI it's not a total nuke because you're also giving them bonuses (hammers, food, culture, whatever). Although in Env that could be painful, yes. It's painful enough when you have the HQ in Wall Street.

Reasons for SP:
- If you can finish the game. Wtf are you doing wasting all that time setting up corporations? Just win already. If you did some kind of Renaissance timing attack and took out 2 civs, you probably won't need corporations.

Conversely if you're on a roll conquest wise you probably don't need every city to be a unit pump late-game. One at least can be an executive pump (though I often go with 2 or 3 to spam 'em faster).

-You have many overseas possessions, especially on maps like Terra If you're going to invade another continent, maybe just stick with SP.
- You conquered a crapload of land and are going broke. SP without question
- You are lazy; State Property gives immediate benefits.

Agreed on all that, although even far away a courthouse can make a corp'ed up city profitable.

- Related to the above: You are still at war when you get to that part of the tech tree.

Golden Artists much?

- You don't have the necessary resources. What good is Sid's Sushi if you don't even have the happy/health cap for it?

Specialists?

Although, in reality, the only corp I usually found is Mining Inc when there's an idle engineer with no wonders to build due to ease of access.

Situational, yeah. I like rush-building something like Christo Redentor when I'm not spiritual, so when I play a non-philo leader I'm more prone to keep that engineer in reserve for it rather than go corps. SP via golden age or post-Christo.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I used to think that a shrine was a useful place for wall street for corps, but I've found that it often is irrelevant.

If you are spreading corps, the amount of gold spent on corporate maintenance and the amount of gold received from them so far outweighs the money you can get from a shrine that I think you should concentrate your wall street on a city that can A) build it quickly (600 hammers is a lot) and B) can handle running a bunch of merchant specialists. If there's a shrine there, great. A double shrine that the AI spread a lot (Isabella and Gandhi get these a lot), that's a good target.

Sushi that gives even a few food can help smaller cities grow faster - with a lot of food - I've had cities founded late grow a pop a turn with sushi added to them, adding a building every other turn or so with mining. You can get pretty well developed cities very quickly with corporations.

 

[Archon_Wing]

If you spam corps to the AI it's not a total nuke because you're also giving them bonuses (hammers, food, culture, whatever). Although in Env that could be painful, yes. It's painful enough when you have the HQ in Wall Street.

They'd need access to their own set of resources for it to work well. You on the other hand, will be hoarding up multiple copies of same corp resource. Then again, you probably don't want to give this benefit to people you intend on fighting I guess.

Conversely if you're on a roll conquest wise you probably don't need every city to be a unit pump late-game. One at least can be an executive pump (though I often go with 2 or 3 to spam 'em faster).

Yea, any city with any kind of production can serve as the dirty work city.

Golden Artists much?

It's not really the turn of anarchy, but just that you'll have higher priorities at this point.

Specialists?

I didn't even think of this. I guess it'll enable you to not have to work that many food tiles and use them as specialists so you'd keep under the cap. Under representation that might give healthy yields. What specialists do people use late game?

Situational, yeah. I like rush-building something like Christo Redentor when I'm not spiritual, so when I play a non-philo leader I'm more prone to keep that engineer in reserve for it rather than go corps. SP via golden age or post-Christo.

Cristo's definitely something I'd love to get my hands on, but considering the time between Railroad and Radio usually, I can probably pop another GE out by then. By that point, I'd usually have a city that could pound it out in a dozen turns or so, but if the tech race is tight...

 

[Skallagrimson]

Cristo's definitely something I'd love to get my hands on, but considering the time between Railroad and Radio usually, I can probably pop another GE out by then. By that point, I'd usually have a city that could pound it out in a dozen turns or so, but if the tech race is tight...

GE's are the hardest GP to generate prior to the late game without wonder-whoring, because prior to Assembly Line (factories) you can only flip one Eng. And prior to Lib the GP priority is scientists. A further complication is that if your mid-game conquest is successful you'll be inheriting a lot of artist pollution from cities that also have high food (flood plains). In some strategies I've focused on building GE wonders in my GP farm (pyarmids, hanging gardens, hagia sophia) to boost the engineer GPPs, and this primarily so I can have my late-wonder cake and eat it too. Sometimes that causes me to miss the liberalism race though, as I can't bulb philosophy or education. It's a trade-off.