Going for Gold: Corporations

[Rekk]

I'm currently playing 2K Foods and Agribusiness feels like an awful building to put bonus food on. This corporation gives so much bonus by itself that I'm not bothering to work pastures or farms. I don't think 6 /turn plus the food dump on trade route completion is worth spending the hammers and GPT on.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Now, some time has past since the "big" corporation changes. Whats the result of the chanes, whats your opinion about the balance of the corporations now?

 

[Stalker0]

Here are my thoughts on Corporations currently.

Centaurs Extractors

A very solid corp. You can get a very nice production bonus overall, or you can make your capital into a science mecca by focusing on the TR to a franchisee benefit.

Civilized Jewelers

I think this one is too strong at the moment. Its bonus is insane (I can get 150-200% GP once its finished up). Even a single extra Great Writer or Great Scientist is worth a lot of extra culture and science. It is both powerful and flexible, because I can use it for various win conditions by switching up my specialists and therefore choosing my GP.

Further, if the text is to believed, this corp also increases the speed of your trade routes. That means abilities like the Ottoman's are further magnified, so its even stronger in the hands of certain civs.

Firaxite Materials
The only thing this guy has going for him is the fact that your TRs cannot be pillaged. So funny enough, I would argue this is one of the best CV corporations for that. But the base benefits aren't that great. We are already arguing in the ideology thread that 20% building production isn't that strong, and the science benefit is very weak compared to the several more GS your going to bag from Civilized Jewlers.

Giorgio Armani
I think the problem with this one is the base benefit is not that great, but the franchisee benefit is amazing for Tall civs. In fact its so good...I honestly don't think its worth spreading a lot with this corp. You just get a few franchises and then keep your TRs on them to milk that huge culture bonus on your capital. I find this corp good but for the wrong reasons.

Hexxon Refineries
This one is hit or miss to me, depending on what I'm doing. If I need strategic resources, this one can be a godsend. If I need to go into prolonged war, the military benefit can be useful. But if I keep a standing army and I've got the strategics, its a nigh waste of space...with the exception of the franchisee benefit.

Now this benefit can be very powerful for a late game focused on a single city, I can crank out spaceship parts or nukes with its raw production power.

So overall its decent, its just not as obviously good as certain other corps.

Trader Sid's
Gold is becoming more valuable at this point in the game, but I do think one could get a bump in the franchise scaler. +4 gold compared to +3 prod from centarus...the prod still wins out to me.

TwoKay Foods
By far the weakest of the corps, for the same reason that food is weak at this point. Now I think food as a base can work...but then the TR to a franchise benefit should be changed to something else (like Centaurs does prod and science, TwoKay could do food and something else).


​

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Centaurs Extractors
In my eyes a very good Corporation, getting science for faster progress and also more hammer to build what you unlock is a good combination. Hammers for sea tiles is an immidiatly, noticable effect without the time delay of generating franchises.
Always useful, no matter which victory condition you go.

Civilized Jewelers
I agree with @Stalker0 here, this is probably in most circumstances the best Corporation now. The ability to start everlasting GA which boost kinda every aspect of your economy alone is a huge benefit. Additionally and extremely increased GP generation has the potential to generate directly huge amounts of science and culture on top of the boosted yields. You are probably able to create everlasting GA by your own, maybe by GA lenth monopoly, in this case the corporation lose some of its power, but its still extremly powerful.

Firaxite Materials
Science cant be bad, but Firaxite lacks the production versatility of Centaurs, cause the modifier may increase the production for buildings to a degree Centaurs do, but for all other aspects, its worse. Not bad, but in my eyes inferior to Centaurs.

Giorgio Armani
Even after the nerf its a strong corporation, mostly by the fact Stalker0 already has mentioned. Culture is hard to gain, so any extra source is valuable.

Hexxon Refineries
Absolutly useless in my eyes. If I plan a peaceful game and start with a Hexxon monopoly luxury, I immidiatly restart. There are many other ways to come to strategic ressources, buying, CS or simply conquering cities with some by standard units.

Trader Sid's
Money works always. But I also agree, thats not as powerful as Centaurs, cause gold is less valuable than the hammers and science from Centaurs or the overall improvement by Civlized. The high versatility you can use the gold is a big advantage.

TwoKay Foods
Gazebo has already said thats totally normal and obviosly, that growth/food have to decrease in its value in the later stage of the game. While I partially agree with that, its strange that the late game TwoKay Foods only purpose is to generate more of a yield, which gets late in the game more and more useless. Personally I like this Corporation, cause I like big, highly efficient cities. Simply my flavor. Civilizations on food poor terrain like hills, tundra or desert are able to benefit from this corporation, but I agree thats more one of the weaker ones.

Problems:
- Hexxons bonuses are too special. It mainly helps for domination victory, but that late in the game, you already should dominate the world, if you go for a domination victory, and have enough strategics and units. So it doesnt help. If you played peacefully for an other victory condition, Hexxon could give you an advantage to beat a runaway, but keep in mind, that other corporations could give you such an advantage, that you were able to beat that runaway without any war.
- TwoKays Bonus is too low and too much focused on a weak yield. A rise from 3 to 4 food from each franchise should be the minimum. There should be also an additional bonus for offices, which didnt increase food.
Converting food into other yields maybe, or a strong yield increase for specialists AND laborer or yields at citizen birth.
- Some trade route bonuses only increase the yields from external trade routes, but not for internal. This can be a huge disadvantage for Order players or any player which use a big portion of internal trade routes. Every trade route bonus should incrase the yields of its starting city, to stop this disadvantage.

 

[pineappledan]

With the new resource converter, I can see a good opportunity for giving 2Kay food yield converters that haven’t been taken already.

maybe 10% converted to and

 

[pineappledan]

I just finished a cultural playthrough with 2Kay as my corporation. That corporation almost cost me the game.

Not only is food low value at that stage of the game. It exploded my population to the degree that my yield efficiency per citizen plummeted. The only reason I won is because no one declared war on me. If I had to contend with war weariness, I would have been unable to even complete the Citizen Earth Protocol because of the minimum happiness requirement.

Not only is 2Kay bad. It is worse than no corporation at all.

2Kay needs to do something other than destroy your happiness. Here are some options:

• Large reductions to poverty, distress, and urbanization. At least -3 each
• As I suggested above, yield converters to turn food into something actually useful, like science or culture
• Some massive bonus to the corporation like Firaxite's immunity to pillaging.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I just finished a cultural playthrough with 2Kay as my corporation. That corporation almost cost me the game.

Not only is food low value at that stage of the game. It exploded my population to the degree that my yield efficiency per citizen plummeted. The only reason I won is because no one declared war on me. If I had to contend with war weariness, I would have been unable to even complete the Citizen Earth Protocol because of the minimum happiness requirement.

Not only is 2Kay bad. It is worse than no corporation at all.

2Kay needs to do something other than destroy your happiness. Here are some options:

• Large reductions to poverty, distress, and urbanization. At least -3 each
• As I suggested above, yield converters to turn food into something actually useful, like science or culture
• Some massive bonus to the corporation like Firaxite's immunity to pillaging.

What would have to do to get more science/culture because of the converter? Right, earn more food. So, in the end you still sit on a ton of food with exactly the same problems. (btw, why didnt you used the "stop-growth" button, if your happiness was that critical?)
I would like to see a more individual corporation with a focus on population (but not specifically food).
+5food and -1% needs for every 2 franchise
+1 for every specialist and + for every specialist/laborer
Granary, Aqueduct,Grocer, Hospital and Medical lab each give +2 and save additional 2% of food after growth

 

[pineappledan]

(btw, why didnt you used the "stop-growth" button, if your happiness was that critical?)

Maybe it's something about my install, but I literally don't have one.

Spoiler my city screen :

 

[Recursive]

Maybe it's something about my install, but I literally don't have one.

Spoiler my city screen :

View attachment 559832

It's the little checkbox immediately below "1 Citizen".

 

[pineappledan]

Oooooh.... I've been looking forever on the side with all yield focuses.

 

[Favorius]

If I want to play a tradition game I reseed the map several times if my monopoly is not Civilized Jewellers monopoly. I do not want to play without it.

 

[vyyt]

If I want to play a tradition game I reseed the map several times if my monopoly is not Civilized Jewellers monopoly. I do not want to play without it.

Careful there, you are asking for a nerf ;-)

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Perhaps 2Kay could get take the Great Person % boost that Civilized Jewellers has. Civ Jewellers should be able to survive on Golden Age bonuses alone.
Or we could give 2Kay a WLTKD bonus instead.

Spoiler 2Kay/ Civ Jewllers Office/ Hexxon Refinery :

2Kay Foods Offices provide:

• +3 Food for every Global Franchise.
• -5% from needs.
• +10% Food in the City.
• Trading with a Franchise produces +10% Food.

Civilized Jewellers Offices provide:

• +15% Great Person Rate in the City.
• +10% Great Person Rate for every Global Franchise.

• +3% Golden Age Length per Office.
• Trading with a Franchise produces +10% Gold.

Hexxon Refinery Offices provide:

• +1 Oil and Coal for every three Global Franchises.
• +15% Production towards Military Units.
• Trading with a Franchise produce +10% Production.

Hexxon Refinery Corporation provides:

• +2 Trade Route.
• +15% Production for all Units that require Oil, Uranium, or Aluminum to build.
• +3 Production on all Hydro, Wind, Nuclear, and Solar Plants.
• Every Franchise in a foreign Civ's City increases your with them by 2%

• Civilized Jewellers Offices receive +5% GA Length per Franchise. +5% Culture, Science, and Gold from Golden Ages. Loses both Great Person % bonuses. 2Kay Foods swaps the -5% Unhappiness Needs for -2 Unhappiness from Urbanization. 2Kay Foods Offices receive +10% GP rate and +5% GP rate per Franchise. Rest the same.
• Similar to the above, however, 2Kay Foods Offices give Convert 5% of Food into Science, Gold,Production, and Culture, instead of the GP stuff.
• Adds 50% longer WLTKD to the 2Kay Foods Corporation Wonder. Building a 2Kay Foods Office starts a WLTKD in the City. WLTKD's give -25% Unhappiness needs or +X% to various Yields.

Hexxon Refiney: There should be War related bonuses for things other than Strategic Resources and Production towards Military Units. Surely there are great ideas out there for a Corporation that seems suited for taking over the world . Some suggestions are to take any number of

• [*]+1 Movement to Units that require Strategic Resources (Coal). Most of those Units will already have more than 2 Movement.
  [*]+25 Max HP to Units that require Strategic Resources.
  [*]+2 XP to Units (Oil), a simple and appealing bonus.
  [*]+5 base Uranium, Uranium is rare.
  [*]Reduced Resistance in Cities that have this Franchise.
  [*]Offices provide +2 more Air Units in the City, Planes require Oil before Information Era.
  [*]Increase the bonus the Power Plants to +10 , you can only build one of these per City.
  [*]Increase the +15% towards Units to +25%.
  [*]Receive a Free Office in newly conquered Cities
  [*]+1 Supply from every Office.

Does the Hexxon Refinery help with establishing Strategic Monopolies for Strategic Resources?

 

[CrazyG]

I would give 2Kay a strong bonus (probably science) connected to your population. The reward for growing would help make a food focused corporation more competitive.

Currently it's pretty bad unless you just want to take a picture of a city with like 99 population. It's okay as tradition, but it still costs a lot of hammers.

 

[Gazebo]

I would give 2Kay a strong bonus (probably science) connected to your population. The reward for growing would help make a food focused corporation more competitive.

Currently it's pretty bad unless you just want to take a picture of a city with like 99 population. It's okay as tradition, but it still costs a lot of hammers.

He lives!

 

[azum4roll]

Hexxon is fine; it's an implicit strategic/global monopoly for both coal and oil, already giving war bonuses. Supply would be a nice addition though.

As for 2Kay, either a population bonus or a growth instant yield would be ok.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the Corps have gotten more balanced over time, but I still think Civilized Jewelers is top dog. As a small nerf, you could remove the "twice as fast" benefit and gives that to another corp. Maybe hexxon who I still think is on the weak side.

 

[Omen of Peace]

Firaxite is also above the others, I think.
Science is the king yield this late, and un-pillageable TR are a godsend (though the text of the corp lets me think there's one war-related condition upon which they can be pillaged, I've never understood what it is nor seen it happen).

I would give the un-pillageable trait to one of the weaker corps.

 

[Stalker0]

So I divide the corporations into two categories:

• Office Focused: This corp gets most of its powerful from teh office benefit, without a strong need for franchises.
• Franchise Focused: This corp scales very strongly with franchises.

Office Focused

• Centaurus: TRs from your science capital to a few franchises is the optimal play here, the franchise scaler doesn't matter much.
• Two-Kay: The needs reductor is what makes Two-Kay, the food scaler is alright but not the main benefit.

Franchise Focused

• Civilized Jewelers: Really good GP scaling with additional franchises.
• Firaxite: The better science scaler is a focus on franchises over just maintaining a TR to a franchise. The building bonus is nice, but its still not why I take the corp.
• Trader Sids: The TR bonus is pretty weak, the franchise scaler is generally much better.

Both

• Giorgio: Its a good culture scale on the franchise, though its probably a bit more office focused, as 10% culture in even a moderately good cultural capital can easily outdo the bonus of 20-30 cities for a franchise.
• Hexxon: Depends on what you needs. If you need the resources its better to focus on franchises otherwise the straight up prod bonus to your capital can be nice

I feel like Giorgio is a bit of the odd duck here. It seems to get good scalers in both directions, its franchise scales well and its bonus is amazing. Hexxon can be both, but its more I am going in one direction and then the other, where Giorgio is MORE culture followed by EVEN MORE CULTURE.


Top Corps

• Civilized Jewelers: Incredible scaler bonus, GP are always useful, and its flexible as you can shift your GP focus on what you need.
• Centaurus: The TR science bonus is really good out of your science capital. This thing can easily net you an extra +100 SPT with just a few franchises.
• Giorgio: Centaurus for culture but with a more focused franchise scaler.

Middle Corps

• Two-Kay: You can eliminate unhappiness in your civ entirely, and just go crazy on growth. This one doesn't scale well at all but its immediate bonus is good which makes it competitive.
• Firaxite: Used to be at the bottom, but immunity from Trade Plunders is HUGE. This one is probably the perfect middle corp now, its has a decent immediate bonus, a decent scaler....and because you can never plunder them it will just steadily amass its franchises.
• Trader Sids: Its at the bottom of my middle. I never dislike having Sids, but I also don't ever really like it either. It just does the job.

Bottom Corps

• Hexxon: The thing with Hexxon is its very on or off. If I really need the Hexxon bonuses, it can be a solid corp, but there are many games where I simply don't, and then the corp just goes to waste. There is never a game where I go "oh darn, centarus, what am I going to do with all of that science?" So ultimately I wish it was more flexible.