Great Engineer for Mining Inc.

[IncanCanuck]

Hi everybody,

I have recently been trying to improve my use of corporations and even - with limited success - can see the incredible power of them, but I have a question.

How are people getting their Great Engineer for Mining Inc.?

I am generating a lot of Merchants and Scientists but am reliant on chance to get an Engineer.

Thanks!

 

[drewisfat]

EIther get one early from forge/pyramids and hold onto it a while. Or build Ironworks in a city with no gp pollution and you can get it pretty quickly from four engineers (3 with IW 1 with forge).

 

[Gumbolt]

Corporation vs state property? Hmmmm. Most on here probably love state property. I guess depends on the game.
Will take an age to spread the corp to 10-20 cities. Also set up court houses and wall street. Not to mention the gold and 100H for each exec.
Also the issue of merc and SP when the AI use these civics.
Guess it depends what you want to do. Also if you have a GE too.

Just so much easier going the workshop/state property route. Of course on a cuirs map I likely stick to slavery and spamming cuirs.

 

[Lennier]

I think the consensus is that corps are only worth it for a space victory. And not a slam-dunk for them over SP even then.

 

[coanda]

They're absolutely essential for any attempt at a high score. You can't get anywhere near the same total population without them.

 

[Lennier]

So essential for HOF space and time victories, situational if you just want a fast space race.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I assume the OP means "with minimal effort" and "not get in the way of doing other things". In that case I suggest Hanging Gardens followed by a forge. After you get your GE, you can relax your gene pool. Pyramids takes too much effort.

Why the OP wants to found Mining Inc who cares?

 

[drewisfat]

And Sushi for diplo victory.

Can envision corporations being good on huge atypical map scripts. Archipelago = unlikely to have room for a lot of workshops but there's probably still a minimum amount of metals available and enough rexing to pressure you into early courthouses.
Also if you're unable to close domination out before AI space victories, you can get caught having to juggle multiple wars rushing AI capitals, pushing you way past even a space victory date. Further, if nukes are present the fallout/global warming means corps become the main part of your economy.

 

[jmas]

And Sushi for diplo victory.

I don't know a lot about diplo victory, only what I have read here, but why Sushi? For more pop = more votes (for you, and I suppose for vassals you spread the corps to)?

 

[pi-r8]

You can also run two engineers from a factory, so that's often faster than waiting for ironworks to finish.

I'm not a fan of the "save an early GE for a long time" strategy. Better to just use them, probably for a wonder like Taj Mahal or State of Liberty. Otherwise you're losing so much time value from letting them just sit around unused for too many turns.

 

[Anysense]

Usually SP > Corps on normal speed. You need to connect at least half of the resources on the map to make corporations useful. Then you need that GE for Mining, which can be a bit problematic. GM for Sushi is easy but Sushi itself isn't that good without strike (are you up to it?). You also need to spread corps at 1-2-4-5-5 and so on rate. Corporations are immensely powerful if you can conquer everybody very early, quickly connect resources and spread corps and enter controllable strike. Naturally, best HoF space games are played using corps but outside HoF they aren't used too frequently because stars rarely aling so to make them profitable, let alone game-changing. Epic speed does not differ very much but marathon is completely broken and allows you to do crazy stuff even on a random map.

 

[jmas]

You also need to spread corps at 1-2-4-5-5 and so on rate.

I'm not sure what this part means, does it relate to the strike economy?

but outside HoF they aren't used too frequently because stars rarely aling so to make them profitable, let alone game-changing.

Are there any mods that have tried to tweak / buff corps to make them more useful? I've looked at a number of mods (including but not limited to K-mod; just starting getting into Realism Invictus and considering Civ4 Reimagined as well) but I don't recall any mods I've seen emphasizing corps changes.

 

[Anysense]

I'm not sure what this part means, does it relate to the strike economy?

It means that you spread first from your headquarters to city A, then from HQ and A to cities B and C, then to four other cities, then to 5 cities. You can't have more than 5 executives so 5 spreads per turn is the maximum.

I don't know about mods concerning corporations. I suppose there are so many things used only very ocasionally that people apparently don't feel that corps need a boost very much.

 

[lymond]

Are there any mods that have tried to tweak / buff corps to make them more useful? I've looked at a number of mods (including but not limited to K-mod; just starting getting into Realism Invictus and considering Civ4 Reimagined as well) but I don't recall any mods I've seen emphasizing corps changes.

Well, really the power of corporations are more about the map than anything else, and the victory you are trying to achieve. Really best for some space wins or HOF max score dominations. But really corps only work well on certain maps with lots of resources like Big and Small where you can make even one tile islands into powerhouses with Sushi and Mining. Outside Sushi and Mining, I really see not much value in other corps except maybe Cereal on a Rainforest map.

I think some major modpacks have tweaked corps a bit but don't know a specific mod for corps itself. Corps as designed - again, specifically Sushi and Mining - can be very powerful on the right map. Also, some ere specific mods have reimagined the mechanic like Pies Ancient Europe.

In most cases you really can't go wrong with State Property.

 

[IncanCanuck]

Apologies, I should really have given more context but thank you for advice nevertheless.

I think I might have to generate an early Great Engineer and then hold on to him, because otherwise I am reliant on chance and often get Great Scientists/Merchants.

I am surprised by the State Property comments, I thought that debate between that and corporations was pretty much settled. I find corporations immensely powerful; the basic strategy of using Sushi and Mining domestically to provide food and production to every city, then spreading a combination of 3 of the other corporations internationally from your Wall Street city generating near infinite wealth to run universal suffrage.

Taking another look at State Property and can see the value, for sure. I think that for the particular save I have in mind, Corporations will beat it as I have lots of resources but my empire isn't that big. I'm able to run at 100% science with a large profit and the corporations are doing well, but I need to work on getting them earlier.

Getting much better at getting the pre-requisite technologies early enough, but often tripping over by not having the right Great People at the right time.

Thanks again