Huge inflation

[magicalsushi]

With workshops giving equivalent +12 and a fully completed cottage giving +10 It is definately broken, the only saving grace was that corporations were supposed to be a HUGE part of the game.

How on earth did you calulate that workshops give the equivalent of +12 commerce? They increase production, not commerce. An increase of 4 or 5 hammers cannot be turned into 12 commerce. It doesn't get the multipliers from libraries, marketplaces, etc. It can, at best, be turned into 4 or 5 beakers, or 4 or 5 gold, etc. Sure, the 10 commerce from a cottage might translate into substantially less than 4 or 5 production, but that's irrelevent - cottages are still much better if you want *actual commerce*.

As for corporations, why on earth do you even need 2 branches in every single city? Wasn't it obvious to you that increasing the raw maintenance cost of each city by at least 40 gold was going to be painful?

Prior to the release of BtS, there was a thread debating the content of a screenshot of the corporations screen. I said that I wouldn't be using them if they really did cost 20 or more gold per city to maintain. Almost everyone else was like "what are you talking about, Sushi? It's totally worth 25 gold to get 5 extra hammers in a city, that's a fantastic ratio!". Erm, sure guys. Whatever.

 

[sneaky]

How on earth did you calulate that workshops give the equivalent of +12 commerce? They increase production, not commerce. An increase of 4 or 5 hammers cannot be turned into 12 commerce. It doesn't get the multipliers from libraries, marketplaces, etc. It can, at best, be turned into 4 or 5 beakers, or 4 or 5 gold, etc. Sure, the 10 commerce from a cottage might translate into substantially less than 4 or 5 production, but that's irrelevent - cottages are still much better if you want *actual commerce*.

As for corporations, why on earth do you even need 2 branches in every single city? Wasn't it obvious to you that increasing the raw maintenance cost of each city by at least 40 gold was going to be painful?

Prior to the release of BtS, there was a thread debating the content of a screenshot of the corporations screen. I said that I wouldn't be using them if they really did cost 20 or more gold per city to maintain. Almost everyone else was like "what are you talking about, Sushi? It's totally worth 25 gold to get 5 extra hammers in a city, that's a fantastic ratio!". Erm, sure guys. Whatever.

This men speaks the truth. You only spread corporations to cities that can use the bonuses and if your economy can handle it. From what I hear you can, most of the time, come up even, if the maintenance is below or around 20 gold and you have a courthouse in the corporation city and a Wall Street, Bank, Grocer and Market in the HQ city. Nevertheless, there will be situations when the maintenance will remain too high. It will take carefully planning and strategic spreading to counter this. Putting two corporations in every city is not careful spreading.

 

[azaris]

Also note that in cases where a rival spreads a corporation into your city, your best choice is to spread your own competing corporation into that same city. The rival corporation will then vanish from your city.

This way you still have to pay upkeep, but the +5 will go to you, not your rival.

 

[mrt144]

the other big problem is you need to expand corps overseas at a ratio of greater than 2:1 for domestic corps when the multiplier exceeds 1.

the issue isnt that you pay extra maintenance. its that you get charged twice for it. and if the point of corps is to spread them overseas more than at home, and selectively choose how many at home you have, youve eliminated any positive based corporate strategy. you're simply better off not even dealing with them at home if it involves active managment for so little gain.

i thought that corporations were among other things intended to provide an alternative to the late game sp and make free market useful. it hasnt because of the way they calculate cost and how they change it.

 

[mrt144]

This men speaks the truth. You only spread corporations to cities that can use the bonuses and if your economy can handle it. From what I hear you can, most of the time, come up even, if the maintenance is below or around 20 gold and you have a courthouse in the corporation city and a Wall Street, Bank, Grocer and Market in the HQ city. Nevertheless, there will be situations when the maintenance will remain too high. It will take carefully planning and strategic spreading to counter this. Putting two corporations in every city is not careful spreading.

the cost wll always exceed the benefit simply based on the inflation mechanic. thats the issue. coming up even isnt a huge issue, most people i believe agree that there should be some kind of upkeep for corps. the problem is that at 20 gold per turn with a 1.75 multiplier on inflation you're paying 55 for that corp in your own city. youd have to have at least 3 overseas to make it even. 3!

 

[mjs0]

There are still situations where corporations can be very useful.

In my latest game I was going for a cultural win.
I founded Sid's Sushi Corp (in my wall street city of course) since I had access to, either directly or through trade, many relevant food resources (fish, crab, clam, rice)
(Note:I had also built the Sistine Chapel and was running Representation, free speech, caste system, free market and free religion.)

I built branches only in the other cities aiming for legendary culture.
I was getting +14 food and +54 culture in each branch city. I used the extra food from Sid's Sushi Corp. to feed, in each city, four merchant specialists generating a base of 3 gold + 3 research (rep.) + 2 culture (Sistine), and 3 artist specialists generating a base of 4 research (rep.) + 6 culture
After building/civics bonuses this netted to a gain per city of at least (some cities had additional bonuses like Oxford U, Hermitage etc) 39 gold (with 15 from HQ rolled in), 56 research, 360 culture and tons of GPPs.

The expense for all this was, including inflation, 190 gold per turn total.

So careful use of this corporation netted me...overall per turn...actual numbers from all bonuses...-61 gold, 192 research, 1160 culture and tons of GPPs.
That still seems like a good trade off since moving the research slider down to cover the expense is more than offset by the research points gained (at about a 3 to 1 ratio!), and all that culture got me to my victory much sooner.

Oh...and as an added bonus...I got lots of good diplo modifiers for all the trading I was doing to get the resources!

Edit: Reality Check...of course there were other expenses...a Great Merchant, gold to found the branches, and less gain during the ramp up period while the cities population grew to match the new food levels but it was still well worth it.

Edit2: Whoops messed up the inflation calculation and forgot I had observatories so research gain was higher.

 

[klokwerk]

I agree it's rather strange (inflation is probably too strong OR corp maintenance cost is too high), but the problem is there only if you have many resources required by the corp.

If you have only say 2 resources (total, not 2 of each, and I agree you're more likely to have more), the maintenance cost after inflation (which depends - like the bonus provided - on the resources ) can be less than what you get in your corp HQ city (15 golds after bank, wall street and everything else)... In that case you'll really EARN money by spreading your own corp in your civ.

So one solution is simply to trade the corp resources away or destroy your improvements to loose your corp resources

Et voila, problem solved. But ok, I agree it looks like a bug. Yesterday I had to switch to state property, the romans spread creative constructions to my cities and even at 30 % science I was in the red

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I suggest you to reread the concept of corporation. You got the concepts all wrong. The designers clearly stated that corporation is there to screw your opponents. You create a corporation and spread it to OTHER CIVILIZATIONS, they pay the maintenance cost, you get the gold in your HQ. If you want to get the benefit of corporation in your own cities, then you have to be prepared to pay the price. If the price is too high, well don't spread it in your own cities.

Then why have them give benefits at all? Why make them into counter-intuitive and unrealistic noob traps?

So one solution is simply to trade the corp resources away or destroy your improvements to loose your corp resources

Eh, but weren't corps. touted as a way to make gathering resources MORE important?

 

[azaris]

If spreading corporations to your own cities would be a guaranteed profit, what would be the point? It would just mean endless corporation spamming where the civ with the most corporations would end up like super strength Financial.

Just because you don't fully understand the implications of something doesn't mean it's broken.

 

[The Navy Seal]

Oh my goodness the most I've ever had was 127 and I had three vassals!

 

[Nikis-Knight]

If spreading corporations to your own cities would be a guaranteed profit, what would be the point? It would just mean endless corporation spamming where the civ with the most corporations would end up like super strength Financial.

No one said it should be garunteed profit. But it seems to me that IF you run free market, build courthouses everywhere, and have the HQ, there should be garunteed [net] benefits. After all, it requires an investment in a great person, gold, micromanagement, not running SP, and carefully choosing your tech path.
After all that, inflation should not remove the benefits that you do get. Otherwise, what's the point?

I am happy to wait and see if people's observations are correct or they are missing something.

 

[mrt144]

If spreading corporations to your own cities would be a guaranteed profit, what would be the point? It would just mean endless corporation spamming where the civ with the most corporations would end up like super strength Financial.

Just because you don't fully understand the implications of something doesn't mean it's broken.

no one is saying guarenteed profit. no one. there should be maintenance costs. no one is arguing that.

the fact that corp spam internationally while ignoring domestic corps is the single most profitable and least risky (you arent paying for anything at home or other people's corps using mercantilism, although you do lose out on international trade) makes the entire system counter to every other game mechanic and system in the game. in fact if people went SP on you and you had no domestic corps you would only be out what you paid to set up the corps overseas. which would most likely be recouped at this point.

also the way free market works doesnt provide enough benefit because the maintenance costs are so absurdly high for inflation. it should be -50% at least. I'd say that enviromentalism shouldnt cost +25%, rather just be flat. and that mercantilism should be -25%

FM and corps simply arent competitive because the counters are so easy and repercussion free, and the costs of maximizing corps are counter productive/intuitive (like consuming LESS resources to reduce maintenance).

also, why impliment this entire system if you are only supposed to have 3-4 corps for your entire civ to be sustainable. this seems like creating a huge system of risk for little to no gain. also to maximize your own domestic corp production, you have to make yourself vulnerable to other civs who would happily spread their corps to you then go SP and just let you pay to replace them with your own and maintain the costs.

and SP has no risk to corps and has a lot of upside on it's own. you can also use it to exploit FM civs simply by setting and forgetting your own corps. its an exploit.

 

[mrt144]

I agree it's rather strange (inflation is probably too strong OR corp maintenance cost is too high), but the problem is there only if you have many resources required by the corp.

If you have only say 2 resources (total, not 2 of each, and I agree you're more likely to have more), the maintenance cost after inflation (which depends - like the bonus provided - on the resources ) can be less than what you get in your corp HQ city (15 golds after bank, wall street and everything else)... In that case you'll really EARN money by spreading your own corp in your civ.

So one solution is simply to trade the corp resources away or destroy your improvements to loose your corp resources

Et voila, problem solved. But ok, I agree it looks like a bug. Yesterday I had to switch to state property, the romans spread creative constructions to my cities and even at 30 % science I was in the red

which highlights how insanely broken the feature is. if you're having to destroy or trade away the things you need for a corp to break even, then what is the point of going on this route to begin with.

 

[mrt144]

No one said it should be garunteed profit. But it seems to me that IF you run free market, build courthouses everywhere, and have the HQ, there should be garunteed [net] benefits. After all, it requires an investment in a great person, gold, micromanagement, not running SP, and carefully choosing your tech path.
After all that, inflation should not remove the benefits that you do get. Otherwise, what's the point?

I am happy to wait and see if people's observations are correct or they are missing something.

seriously! you are paying a huge opportunity cost to go corp, with huge risk, and a payoff that isn't that great.

 

[klokwerk]

which highlights how insanely broken the feature is. if you're having to destroy or trade away the things you need for a corp to break even, then what is the point of going on this route to begin with.

Seriously, yes the maintenance cost / inflation is crippling, but the benefit is nice too. The way I see it, you must spread it to every foreign civs and then yours. That way you will actually gain money AND the huge corp bonus (science / prod / food)...

I'll test this feature further before commenting more, just used it a few hours... (and YES I agree the cost is very high with such inflation)

 

[mrt144]

the other awful thing is that the only hedge against foreign corps in your cities under free market is to put your own down there! now let me ask you this; how is that strategic and careful planning? how does that gel with your strategy how does that not cost you money (albiet less money, but still not breaking even)

furthermore if the answer to that is found all corporations, you've just spent 7 great people to hold all the cards in a game no one has to play.

you would need 2 corps in every city meaning you need at least 6 corps around the world for that one city to break even. and if people go SP on you, well you're left with no income stream and huge costs domestic. and you're already running free market!

 

[acuoio]

I suggest you to reread the concept of corporation. You got the concepts all wrong. The designers clearly stated that corporation is there to screw your opponents. You create a corporation and spread it to OTHER CIVILIZATIONS, they pay the maintenance cost, you get the gold in your HQ. If you want to get the benefit of corporation in your own cities, then you have to be prepared to pay the price. If the price is too high, well don't spread it in your own cities.

This is really all that needs to be said on the matter. It's how Corps were designed and this is how you use them.

 

[mrt144]

This is really all that needs to be said on the matter. It's how Corps were designed and this is how you use them.

then it's a useless feature because it's easily countered by SP which has no downside. in fact why make corps have any benefits at all if they are designed to screw opponents? also why impliment this entire system of screwing opponents when you could dedicate far more resources under SP to espionage?

 

[Shylock]

There is a screenshot for BtS that shows an event that allows you to establish a Central Bank - which reduces inflation.

Nonetheless, that is ridiculous!

Even though central banks tend to make fiat currencys which inflate like all get-out.

I find it odd that there is inflation at all in this game. The currency is not only metal backed but is metal itself. Inflation should be negligable.

Although gold was until a couple hundred years ago the standard between nations. It is possible for day to day stuff the citizens use a fiat currency.

 

[Aeven]

I find it rather strange that corporations cost you money, rather than gaining commerce from them. It doesn't make sense.