Introduction to the Corporation Rework Initiative

[Praetyre]

While I realise some of these have similar equivalents in C2C (even there, I think some of the ideas I outline are worth looking into for revisions and additions to the existing corporations), I figured I might as well repost this ancient stuff with a couple of edits to get the now-lost images back in;

[Snip now-irrelevant introduction]


Bluelock Industries (should have a spread rate of 10-50, so that the player has to spread it manually most of the time)
Requires: Globalization\Great General
Consumes: Aluminum, Copper, Lead, Steel, Uranium
Produces: Ammunition (0.5 per resource consumed), (0.5 per resource consumed)
Competes with: Aluminum Co, Creative Constructions, Mining Inc

Consolidated Energy
Requires: Refining\Great Engineer
Consumes: Coal, Geothermal Energy, Oil, Oil Products
Produces: (1 per resource consumed)
Competes with: Aluminum Co, Civilized Jewellers Inc, Mining Inc, Standard Ethanol

Datatech Global
Requires: Computers\Great Scientist
Consumes: Aluminum, Copper, Nanobots, Nanotubes, Semiconductors
Produces: (1 per resource consumed), (0.5 per resource consumed), (0.5 per resource consumed)
Competes with: Aluminum Co, Mining Inc

GigaSharer (Should have no Executive unit, but a spread rate of 500 or so, so it spreads quickly without player direction)
Requires: Communication Networks\Great Scientist
Consumes: Hit Singles, Hit Movies, Hit Musicals
Produces: (0.5 per resource consumed), (0.5 per resource consumed)
Competes with: Datatech Global

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this, but I'm planning on developing an addon for several new corporations and, while I can code, I am a terrible artist. There are four which I would like to see icons, executives and HQs for:

Bluelock Industries
(A big, blue semiitalicised font with a greenish-blue globe in the background, possibly combined with the fictional Starkwood company's logo on 24:

Spoiler :

(Executive unit should have black tie)

Consolidated Energy (Combine the font of General Electric or a close equivalent with a stylised smokestack background, like in this image:

(Executive unit should have brown tie)

Datatech Global (Combine the font of the Unix logo with a white Microsoft like background and a stylised computer logo, with the text in the screen)
(Executive unit should have white tie)

GigaSharer (Have several computers with dotted lines going to a center marked "GigaSharer", in a font like that of the Napster, BitTorrent or Limewire logos)
(Executive unit should have grey tie)

 

[Yudishtira]

I've been thinking that simply looking at the Nasdaq and NY Stock Exchange lists and looking from the top of those lists down to get a concept of the strongest real world corporations and duplicating their functions for game effect is probably the easiest way to end up covering most everything.

So my suggestion, in a nutshell, is look to RL to help with great examples all over the place.

However it is easy to dream ofimagine a world where the stock exchange is not so dominant, and where essential government services like health, transport, prisons, water, energy and even banking/finance have not been privatized to nearly the degree they have in (so-called) real-life.

 

[timschuett]

I've been thinking that simply looking at the Nasdaq and NY Stock Exchange lists and looking from the top of those lists down to get a concept of the strongest real world corporations and duplicating their functions for game effect is probably the easiest way to end up covering most everything.

So my suggestion, in a nutshell, is look to RL to help with great examples all over the place.Agreed, but we need to limit the scope of many RW corps

The issue with translating some of the RW corps into C2C is the fundamental role of the corp in civ. It takes in resources and produces yields and commerces. What resource would a Google use? I see that problem now with Mapster. Hit singles? Hit Musicals? Ok, but that seems... Off; Contrary to the intended purpose of a trade good, which is to trade them to allies to boost their happiness. What about an AIG? Would it consume Hopes and Dreams? On the other end of the spectrum is a General Electric, which does damn near everything, from jet engines to blenders, it exists almost everywhere, and has MANY input resources.

While Nasdaq might be a good place to farm names for our corps, I think we need to be somewhat conservative in how we define the new corps we add. Basically, I think its premature to change the underlying mechanism of the corporations as of now. As I see it, we're about to release V35, but the corps are pretty much somewhere around V25. I want to get it caught up to V35. Once that's done, I think it would be fun to start playing with the fundamentals of how corps work, so a Google or AIG or GE would be more practical and balanced.

Let's establish some common goals for this phase of the project:

1. Corporations should utilize a greater percentage of our total 381 resources, Perhaps a greater percentage of the map resources than manufactured, but that is open to debate. This will involve the creation of more corps. We will discuss this at some length, I imagine. I would also suggest that NO CORPORATION SHOULD USE A TRADE GOOD AS A RESOURCE.

2. Adjusting competition so no more than 20-30% of the other corps are precluded when selecting any one. (minimum of 3 corporations possible per city). This should somehow be reflective of the potency And yields of the corp, so that if you play "corp tetris" to maximize the number of corps, that mix would provide a comparable benefit to a city that only has the minimum.

3. Develop a wider application of the mechanism used by Ultimate Soldiers. I picture a corporation to improve vehicle (sea and land) production and xp( like a General Dynamics Corp), one for air and space vehicles (like Boeing or airbus or lockheed martin), and one that improve building speed and increases worker xp (like a combination of a home depot and an architechure/building firm).

 

[timschuett]

Bluelock is a Munitions manufacuter, as I understand it.
Bluelock Industries (should have a spread rate of 10-50, so that the player has to spread it manually most of the time)
Requires: Globalization\Great GeneralGreat engineer (its a manufacturing company, not a military training company)
Consumes: Aluminum not used in military casings, just cheap commercial ammo EDIT: It is used in the GAU 8 30mm gatling gun, but its alloyed with silver, and the limited use should probably be ignored, Copper,Brass ingots, casings are made of brass, Lead, Steel, UraniumOre? IDK if this is one of the resources, but DU armor piercing shells are processed to remove the fissile isotopes (thus the depleted in Depleted uranium)
Produces: Ammunition (0.5 per resource consumed)This'll be relevant only if we have other corps using ammo (Ultimate soldiers et al if left as-is) otherwise, (.25 per resource consumed) , (0.5 per resource consumed)
Competes with: Aluminum Co, Creative Constructions, Mining Inc

Consolidated EnergyWe should split this into a Petrochemical Corp, a la Standard Oil, and an electrical power corp
Requires: Refining\Great EngineerGreat Merchant
Consumes: Coal, Geothermal Energy, Oil, Oil Products
Produces: (1 per resource consumed), (.5 per resource consumed) energy increases productivity, after all
Competes with: Aluminum Co, Civilized Jewellers Inc, Mining Inc, Standard Ethanol

Datatech Global
Requires: Computers\Great Scientist
Consumes: AluminumWares, Copper wires, Nanobots, Nanotubes, Semiconductors,flash memory devices
Produces: (1 per resource consumed), (0.5 per resource consumed), (0.5 per resource consumed)
Competes with: Aluminum Co, Mining Inc

GigaSharer (Should have no Executive unit, but a spread rate of 500 or so, so it spreads quickly without player direction)ehh. Not sure about this
Requires: Communication Networks\Great Scientist
Consumes: Hit Singles, Hit Movies, Hit MusicalsI have a problem with using these trade goods in corporations. Mapster and the other one also bother me. I'm gonna have to think about these
Produces: (0.5 per resource consumed), (0.5 per resource consumed)
Competes with: Datatech Global

SOme good Ideas! I've included some recommendations in red

 

[timschuett]

My dream is to see someday in C2C corporate wars, totaly independent from normal nations wars. Including corporate military or mercenary units.

A great idea, Sparth. My goal, though, is to get the Corporations up to the level of the current mod under current mechanisms.

I'd love to see a future era dominated by Megacorporate entities that hold as much or more sway than their governments. Anyone Familiar with Shadowrun? Kind of like that; however, that might be the domain of a different game

 

[Thunderbrd]

A great idea, Sparth. My goal, though, is to get the Corporations up to the level of the current mod under current mechanisms.

I'd love to see a future era dominated by Megacorporate entities that hold as much or more sway than their governments. Anyone Familiar with Shadowrun? Kind of like that; however, that might be the domain of a different game

EASILY done (and made significant) with the Ideas project setup as intended. Very cool!


Lots of discussion there tim... I'll have to comment later as I'm stepping out here.

 

[timschuett]

OK, I think we're done with stage 1 of this process. So I'm happy to announce:
STAGE 2: Building a list of present issues with the corporations.

I will compile these in a googledoc so I can organize and group the perceived issues.

I'd really like anyone and everyone to add their comments about problems/balance issues with the 23 CURRENT CORPORATIONS. I will address and organize ideas regarding POTENTIAL NEW CORPORATIONS LATER. I imagine this could happen within a week.

Any idea is appreciated about the 23 we presently have is appreciated. We will determine the voracity of these claims at a later time.

 

[timschuett]

EASILY done (and made significant) with the Ideas project setup as intended. Very cool!


Lots of discussion there tim... I'll have to comment later as I'm stepping out here.

Look forward to hearing about it. I take Sparth to mean that he'd like a to see entire pseudo-nations complete with armies and diplomacy arise from corporate decisions made by the player. I'm a bit skeptical that that's EASILY done, but I'm not the expert. I have no doubt that the intracity competition aspect you mentioned could be developed and expanded to do something akin to this on a small scale, in a given city. I can't picture how that would play out once corporate militias and units come into play.

 

[timschuett]

To Start the discussion on STAGE 2, here's a list of the 1st 11 corps and the issues that I see. Please note, I can already envision reasons some of these ideas may be invalid or rendered irrelevant by other decisions we later make.

Use this as a jumping-off point,

1. Adventure Tours-

• Ancient Relics are a VERY scarce resource.
• Clam?
• Mobby Meats and Sid’s Sushi use the same resources VERY differently

2. Aluminum Co.

• Should have a broader Resource portfolio
• ALCOA smelts other metals like titanium and Nickel
• gotta clarify the provided resource
• Mining Inc Produces Coal from the ground, Why cant Alum Co use that coal?
• Hall-Heroult Process was discovered in 1886, Rocketry is too late a tech. Maybe electricity or a new tech?

3. Big McDowell’s

• Competes with too many other corps (8/23) (?)
• Consumes salt . Should it?
• Doesn’t consume eggs or poultry
• Cow should be raw meat (or Carcass hehehe)
• Pig Should be sausage
• Doesn’t consume soda pop
• Wheat should be bread or flour (for buns)

4. Bullseye - Is this a send-up of Target?

• If so, Produce (fruit especially) is a very small slice of their portfolio.
• Its resource consumption is identical to MallWart, a
• Should include consumer products, hats, clothes, shoes, bicycles, and electronics, furniture, televisions, blenders, televisions etc.
• Great engineer to found

5. BurgerWorld

• Competes with too many other corps (10/23)
• Cow should be raw meat (or Carcass hehehe)
• Pig Should be sausage
• Doesn’t consume soda pop
• Wheat should be bread or flour(for buns)
• Coffee shouldn’t be a resource ?

6. Cereal Mills

• Potato is not a grain per se, and is already heavily used
• Barley is not used

7. Civilized Jewelers

• is +4 culture to high with the # of resources available?
• Gems (manufactured) vs using Amber,Diamond, Geode, Jade, Ruby, Sapphire, Turquoise (map)
• changes ores to wares or ingots
• add platinum

8. Creative Constructions

• Remove bauxite ore
• Add Obsidian (sculpture)
• Add Wood, Prime timber
• Bonus to building production (+15% to buildings)
• +2 xp to Workers
• is +4 culture to high with the # of resources available?

9. East West Traders

• Add Bonus to gold
• Sheep to wool
• Beavers to pelts, hides
• Add Salt
• Add Seasoning
• Add Indigo
• Add Henna
• Add Tea

10. Emperor’s Clothing

• gold bonus
• Beavers to Pelts
• Sheep to Wool
• add cloth
• add Flax Fibers (linen)
• add Hemp Fibers (belts and laces)
• Add Hats, Shoes, Clothing

11. Fashion House

• +5 culture too much
• gold bonus
• Beavers to Pelts
• Cow to Leather
• Sheep to Wool
• add cloth
• add pearls
• add gems
• add goldwares,silver wares (jewelry, buttons, other ‘flair&#8221

 

[Thunderbrd]

However it is easy to dream ofimagine a world where the stock exchange is not so dominant, and where essential government services like health, transport, prisons, water, energy and even banking/finance have not been privatized to nearly the degree they have in (so-called) real-life.

Well... I'd say civics have a lot to do with the empowerment or dis-empowerment of corps. Some nations do as you dream of and because they do we consider them dangerous. (And they us.)

The issue with translating some of the RW corps into C2C is the fundamental role of the corp in civ. It takes in resources and produces yields and commerces.

Seems to me what an RL corporation generally does...

What resource would a Google use?

Personal Computers (the competition being for people's time ON them and of course the more of them there are the more successful the corporation!)

In response, a Google game corp would provide culture (directing people to find ways to express themselves), research (directing people to the information they're looking for), gold (directing people to the goods they're looking for and reporting search behaviors to marketing companies who compile those into sales lists and market research data), Espionage (as Google also may report a host of tracked search and other online behaviors to governmental officials looking for suspicious patterns) and even a little education and crime as it can enable both(I wonder how the property modifiers are setup to interface with corps... hmm...)

I see that problem now with Mapster. Hit singles? Hit Musicals? Ok, but that seems... Off; Contrary to the intended purpose of a trade good, which is to trade them to allies to boost their happiness.

If production companies didn't support the production of new music regularly we would never have new music. They do it because it makes them money. What makes them money makes the nation money in corporate taxation. The 'resource' for this is called Hit Singles (and there could and should be more or some considered rewording like Music Album perhaps.)

What about an AIG? Would it consume Hopes and Dreams?

They manipulate currencies, stocks, futures (predictions) and package those as products (resources they've manufactured) that can then be purchased by investors that by so doing indirectly channel currency into other businesses supported by these ones.

So they'd produce Financial Investment Packages as a resource and consume Investment Opportunities (which almost all corporations would produce). Those resources could be prereqs for some special upper class housing, dining, vehicle facilities, perhaps used by other Banking Corps etc...


This is just to give a conceptual example.

Mind, I'm not saying we should stretch to make RL companies fit so much as we should use them to identify the various major industries and give more than a couple companies capable of competing in those spaces.

On the other end of the spectrum is a General Electric, which does damn near everything, from jet engines to blenders, it exists almost everywhere, and has MANY input resources.

Sure. Later game corps can very much try to become masters of many things and compete in many spaces at once. With overlappable competition for resources this is quite possible. Now... GM is a manufacturer more than a retailer. It would take raw materials and convert those raw materials to numerous 'goods'.

Perhaps what we may need to build into the system are ways for a corporation to buyout another so that it can begin to perform the role of the bought corp in addition to the one it begins with. Certainly GE didn't start out the gate doing everything there (I think they started with light bulbs didn't they?)

While Nasdaq might be a good place to farm names for our corps, I think we need to be somewhat conservative in how we define the new corps we add. Basically, I think its premature to change the underlying mechanism of the corporations as of now. As I see it, we're about to release V35, but the corps are pretty much somewhere around V25.

Don't think they've been messed with since the beginning of the mod so v1-3 perhaps.

I want to get it caught up to V35. Once that's done, I think it would be fun to start playing with the fundamentals of how corps work, so a Google or AIG or GE would be more practical and balanced.

Well, yes. Agreed. This approach also buys me time to set up some fundamental underlying things that will be necessary to move forward. My end of things wouldn't be able to happen overnight here and usually these kinds of projects take a lot longer than I intend or anticipate and I also have about 30 other projects to work on too so smoothing out the structure as it is first sounds reasonable.

Let's establish some common goals for this phase of the project:

1. Corporations should utilize a greater percentage of our total 381 resources, Perhaps a greater percentage of the map resources than manufactured, but that is open to debate. This will involve the creation of more corps. We will discuss this at some length, I imagine. I would also suggest that NO CORPORATION SHOULD USE A TRADE GOOD AS A RESOURCE.

What would a retail corporation use if not trade goods? I always felt trade goods were specifically going to become a useful element in the game BECAUSE of corporations beginning to utilize them.

If you're just talking about 'phases' then starting with the raw goods producers, refiners, and manufacturers (pretty much where our corps are only covering now) would seem fitting for a first start sure.

Wait... I'm not 100% sure I understand the category of a trade good ... but would tools be among them? Certainly some more basic companies at the beginning of the commerce network would use tools and some refined goods to generate what they do don't you think?

2. Adjusting competition so no more than 20-30% of the other corps are precluded when selecting any one. (minimum of 3 corporations possible per city). This should somehow be reflective of the potency And yields of the corp, so that if you play "corp tetris" to maximize the number of corps, that mix would provide a comparable benefit to a city that only has the minimum.

I think you're probably approaching that right yes.

3. Develop a wider application of the mechanism used by Ultimate Soldiers. I picture a corporation to improve vehicle (sea and land) production and xp( like a General Dynamics Corp), one for air and space vehicles (like Boeing or airbus or lockheed martin), and one that improve building speed and increases worker xp (like a combination of a home depot and an architechure/building firm).

[/quote]
Some corps could provide for the ability to generate buildings that then in turn generate special promos...

And we have a lot of combat classes to work with for special XP awards rather than just xp overall (if we need a tag to convert directly from resources consumed to xp by combat class that should be easily done.)

I do really like this thinking here!

 

[Thunderbrd]

Look forward to hearing about it. I take Sparth to mean that he'd like a to see entire pseudo-nations complete with armies and diplomacy arise from corporate decisions made by the player. I'm a bit skeptical that that's EASILY done, but I'm not the expert. I have no doubt that the intracity competition aspect you mentioned could be developed and expanded to do something akin to this on a small scale, in a given city. I can't picture how that would play out once corporate militias and units come into play.

You've played with Rogues and Crime in the game right? Kinda like that - corps would have their own units that would deploy to spread their own corporation's influence and defend corporate interests, including dispatching those attempting to spread competing corporate influences and interests. Corporate entities wouldn't be separate players but a player would certainly represent the interests of selected corporations in whatever manner the player believes will most benefit him. Many corporate units would exist on a layer of invisibility that only corporate units can 'see' so they don't interact with other units and the corporate wars are all played out on their own battlefields.

Others may actually have more military style units that CAN interact with other nations but we may establish special rules of interaction for those. Still... it's not like some militarized corps would not support one government or another, particularly when those governments support them! But units of the same corp wouldn't be able to engage each other in battle at least.

For the most part these corporate wars would be a matter of: Get in position, perform the mission, and all in all achieve competitive dominance - and do so at the direction of a player who has ulterior motives the members of those units would never be able to guess at.

 

[timschuett]

Well... I'd say civics have a lot to do with the empowerment or dis-empowerment of corps. Some nations do as you dream of and because they do we consider them dangerous. (And they us.)


Seems to me what an RL corporation generally does...Very True; I realize I was thinking too narrowly about the role of input resources


Personal Computers (the competition being for people's time ON them and of course the more of them there are the more successful the corporation!)and personal electronics, similar more futuristic equivalents

In response, a Google game corp would provide culture (directing people to find ways to express themselves), research (directing people to the information they're looking for), gold (directing people to the goods they're looking for and reporting search behaviors to marketing companies who compile those into sales lists and market research data), Espionage (as Google also may report a host of tracked search and other online behaviors to governmental officials looking for suspicious patterns) and even a little education and crime as it can enable both(I wonder how the property modifiers are setup to interface with corps... hmm...)


If production companies didn't support the production of new music regularly we would never have new music. They do it because it makes them money. What makes them money makes the nation money in corporate taxation. The 'resource' for this is called Hit Singles (and there could and should be more or some considered rewording like Music Album perhaps.)Agreed, I still think that hit singles, hit movies and hit musicals are not the appropriate resource



Sure. Later game corps can very much try to become masters of many things and compete in many spaces at once. With overlappable competition for resources this is quite possible. Now... GM is a manufacturer more than a retailer. It would take raw materials and convert those raw materials to numerous 'goods'.

Perhaps what we may need to build into the system are ways for a corporation to buyout another so that it can begin to perform the role of the bought corp in addition to the one it begins with. Certainly GE didn't start out the gate doing everything there (I think they started with light bulbs didn't they?)actually, they started as the manufacturing company for everything that Edison held a patent on (I believe over 1400 patents). But electric light was their game-changing product, yes.



Don't think they've been messed with since the beginning of the mod so v1-3 perhaps.... ...




Well, yes. Agreed. This approach also buys me time to set up some fundamental underlying things that will be necessary to move forward. My end of things wouldn't be able to happen overnight here and usually these kinds of projects take a lot longer than I intend or anticipate and I also have about 30 other projects to work on too so smoothing out the structure as it is first sounds reasonable.





What would a retail corporation use if not trade goods? Manufactured Goods I always felt trade goods were specifically going to become a useful element in the game BECAUSE of corporations beginning to utilize them.

If you're just talking about 'phases' then starting with the raw goods producers, refiners, and manufacturers (pretty much where our corps are only covering now) would seem fitting for a first start sure.

Wait... I'm not 100% sure I understand the category of a trade good ... but would tools be among them? Certainly some more basic companies at the beginning of the commerce network would use tools and some refined goods to generate what they do don't you think?When I refer to trade goods, I mean the 14 resources that are produced by certain wonders and provide +1 . They are listed in a separate spreadsheet and include, but aren't limited to: Hit singles, Hit Musicals, Emu Eggs, Jade Death Masks, Wine - Champagne etc. I believe DH said the intended purpose of those was to ensure there wold be a reason to trade resources in the diplomacy screen. If they are consumed by a corporation, then no AI civ will trade them if they have that corp, and a player wouldn't likely want to trade them. This is why I think they shouldn't be used as a corporate INPUT resource, although I could envision corporations that GENERATE trade goods.

I refer to the goods sold by retail corporation as "Consumer Goods" which are still part of the Manufactured Resources Spreadsheet and in no way distinguished from the other Manufactured goods.

It would probably be a good idea to add a column labeling a "general type" of each manufactured and Map resource. Raw Materials (ores etc), Refined Raw materials (ingots etc), Components (parts, wires etc), Food products (bread, flour, soda, canned food etc) Military/Strategic resources (Mechs, jet engines, ammunition etc), Agricultural products (nuts, seasonings, carcass etc), Cultural resources (instruments, statues etc), Building Materials (certain wares, Wood, Bamboo, Alloys, etc), and Consumer Goods (refrigerators, phonographs, televisions, automobiles, personal electronics etc) are some ideas I have for categories. Corporations would specialize in consuming resources from 2 or 3 of these categories, which gives us a way to organize and categorize different corporations.

I think that this step is probably somewhere in stage 3 or 4 of the plan I laid out, so we can discuss the matter for the next several days.




I think you're probably approaching that right yes.




Some corps could provide for the ability to generate buildings that then in turn generate special promos...

And we have a lot of combat classes to work with for special XP awards rather than just xp overall (if we need a tag to convert directly from resources consumed to xp by combat class that should be easily done.)I'm with you here. I could see a corp specializing in Aircraft, one in land and sea vehicles (like General Dynamics) and one for workers/civilians. Maybe even have a religious-type corporation that improves the potency of missionaries and give a boost to religions? This might be farfetched; I can't think of a RW example.

I do really like this thinking here!

Just a few clarifications

 

[Yudishtira]

Well... I'd say civics have a lot to do with the empowerment or dis-empowerment of corps. Some nations do as you dream of and because they do we consider them dangerous. (And they us.)

My point is that putting exactly those and only those corporations in-game allows you to recreate this world and makes a lot of alternate worlds impossible.

Examples:
1. The corporations that dominated the stock exchange 100 years ago were somewhat different ones from today.

2. East Asia tends to have more generalist corporations.

3. If the Maori culture was dominant on a planet, one or more of the top ten corps could be a tattooist...

Etc.

So I'm not talking about corps or no corps. I'm talking about allowing for as much variation in corporate evolution as possible, rather than forcing every game with corps to go down the same track as (present-day) rl.

 

[Thunderbrd]

When I refer to trade goods, I mean the 14 resources that are produced by certain wonders and provide +1 . They are listed in a separate spreadsheet and include, but aren't limited to: Hit singles, Hit Musicals, Emu Eggs, Jade Death Masks, Wine - Champagne etc. I believe DH said the intended purpose of those was to ensure there wold be a reason to trade resources in the diplomacy screen. If they are consumed by a corporation, then no AI civ will trade them if they have that corp, and a player wouldn't likely want to trade them. This is why I think they shouldn't be used as a corporate INPUT resource, although I could envision corporations that GENERATE trade goods.

I refer to the goods sold by retail corporation as "Consumer Goods" which are still part of the Manufactured Resources Spreadsheet and in no way distinguished from the other Manufactured goods.

It would probably be a good idea to add a column labeling a "general type" of each manufactured and Map resource. Raw Materials (ores etc), Refined Raw materials (ingots etc), Components (parts, wires etc), Food products (bread, flour, soda, canned food etc) Military/Strategic resources (Mechs, jet engines, ammunition etc), Agricultural products (nuts, seasonings, carcass etc), Cultural resources (instruments, statues etc), Building Materials (certain wares, Wood, Bamboo, Alloys, etc), and Consumer Goods (refrigerators, phonographs, televisions, automobiles, personal electronics etc) are some ideas I have for categories. Corporations would specialize in consuming resources from 2 or 3 of these categories, which gives us a way to organize and categorize different corporations.

I think that this step is probably somewhere in stage 3 or 4 of the plan I laid out, so we can discuss the matter for the next several days.

I wouldn't patently write out trade goods. I quite like how Red Curtains works at the moment for example.

Added capacity for categorizing ANYTHING is an IMMEDIATE project for me after release so that should help. How to then make it work with a game effect would be the next thing to consider but at first it can simply be a helpful organizational tool if nothing else. There's already a number of game effect usages that are being considered elsewhere for this Generic Categories project (including the Ideas project! So this means Generic Categories is really a precursor to Ideas...)

I'm with you here. I could see a corp specializing in Aircraft, one in land and sea vehicles (like General Dynamics) and one for workers/civilians. Maybe even have a religious-type corporation that improves the potency of missionaries and give a boost to religions? This might be farfetched; I can't think of a RW example.

Religions are a combat class as well... We might also have Non-Profit Corporations At that point one can begin to see some religion/corporation interactions...

 

[Thunderbrd]

My point is that putting exactly those and only those corporations in-game allows you to recreate this world and makes a lot of alternate worlds impossible.

Examples:
1. The corporations that dominated the stock exchange 100 years ago were somewhat different ones from today.

2. East Asia tends to have more generalist corporations.

3. If the Maori culture was dominant on a planet, one or more of the top ten corps could be a tattooist...

Etc.

So I'm not talking about corps or no corps. I'm talking about allowing for as much variation in corporate evolution as possible, rather than forcing every game with corps to go down the same track as (present-day) rl.

Oh I see, well I completely agree with you and was hoping from what I'd said all the points you just made could be equally extrapolated (I was going to mention much of that too but I was already beginning to get into a novel so decided to keep it short(er).) So yeah, couldn't agree more!

 

[timschuett]

Question: Is it possible to use terrains in a city radius in addition to resources? certain terrains seem more appropriate than resources like clam or whale for the AT and MHTI travel corps: Peak (skiing, mt climbing), coral reef(scuba), river/hill (kayaking), coast (beaches)

 

[timschuett]

I wouldn't patently write out trade goods. I quite like how Red Curtains works at the moment for example.I still don't think the the 3 trade goods are a wise choice. What if Theater buildings and Wonders made a new resource(s) like "Plays," or "Sets," and Red Curtains consumed those? We could do something similar with Hit Singles; make Rock n' Roll produce a secondary sesource like "songs" or "music albums"? Again, if we use the Trade goods, it undermines the purpose of those trade goods that DH stated.

Added capacity for categorizing ANYTHING is an IMMEDIATE project for me after release so that should help. How to then make it work with a game effect would be the next thing to consider but at first it can simply be a helpful organizational tool if nothing else. There's already a number of game effect usages that are being considered elsewhere for this Generic Categories project (including the Ideas project! So this means Generic Categories is really a precursor to Ideas...)Ok. I'm starting that organization process as we speak, so do you have category names you want me to use?


Religions are a combat class as well... We might also have Non-Profit Corporations At that point one can begin to see some religion/corporation interactions...Or like a Doctors-without-Borders Healthcare unit corp? We could call the Religion Corp "Falwell International"

More consensuses

 

[timschuett]

CURRENT CORPORATION ISSUES

Anyone can comment in this doc. Feel free to add whatever you think is missing, change what is there.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Question: Is it possible to use terrains in a city radius in addition to resources? certain terrains seem more appropriate than resources like clam or whale for the AT and MHTI travel corps: Peak (skiing, mt climbing), coral reef(scuba), river/hill (kayaking), coast (beaches)

Not at the moment. Of course, autobuildings CAN but resources aren't currently setup to be local access only (something else I've been meaning to enable.) If they were an autobuilding that gives a local access resource would then work into this just fine.

I still don't think the the 3 trade goods are a wise choice. What if Theater buildings and Wonders made a new resource(s) like "Plays," or "Sets," and Red Curtains consumed those? We could do something similar with Hit Singles; make Rock n' Roll produce a secondary sesource like "songs" or "music albums"? Again, if we use the Trade goods, it undermines the purpose of those trade goods that DH stated.

I suppose other approaches could be taken if thought out sure.

Ok. I'm starting that organization process as we speak, so do you have category names you want me to use?

No... whatever you determine works fine I would assume.

Or like a Doctors-without-Borders Healthcare unit corp? We could call the Religion Corp "Falwell International"

Right... or church outreach organizations. Like we have a christian based food kitchen with a major and growing brand name here, 3 Square.

 

[timschuett]

OK, I had a new idea about organizing resources. I'm going to split each into one of 3 economic sectors; Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. Map resources, by definition will all be primary. I'm then going to fabricate some general families each of the resources falls into, understanding that some or all may be in more than one of these families, or even more than 1 sector. This will help me see which resources corporations would compete over more logically.

Here's the breakdown of sectors from wikipedia:
The classical breakdown of all economic sectors follows:[1]

Primary: Involves the retrieval and production of raw materials, such as corn, coal, wood and iron. (A coal miner and a fisherman would be workers in the primary sector.)
Secondary: Involves the transformation of raw or intermediate materials into goods e.g. manufacturing steel into cars, or textiles into clothing. (A builder and a dressmaker would be workers in the secondary sector.)
Tertiary: Involves the supplying of services to consumers and businesses, such as baby-sitting, cinema and banking. (A shopkeeper and an accountant would be workers in the tertiary sector.)


In the 20th century, it began to be argued that traditional tertiary services could be further distinguished from "quaternary" and quinary service sectors.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_sector