Introduction to the Corporation Rework Initiative

[timschuett]

Please comment on the attached spreadsheet, especially category names, and if you feel any are missing or improperly classified.

Like before, comments can be left made in the spreadsheet itself.

RESOURCE CATEGORIES

 

[Rwn]

The spreadsheet seems to be locked for edition.

Anyway, I feel that the categories don't really match economic sectors - which isn't too surprising since there are few actual resources really matching tertiary sector (services).

Your categorization is more akin to 1/ Raw resource extraction (primary sector) 2/ Intermediate goods manufacturing (B2B secondary sector) and 3/ Consumer goods manufacturing (B2C secondary sector).

The categories could then be:

Textiles -> 1. This could be split in 1+2 by putting animals in 1 and leather/furs/hides/cloth in 2.
Consumer Retail Goods -> 3
Durable Consumer Goods -> 3

Raw Materials -> 1
Refined Materials -> 2
Industrial Components -> 2
Utility/Transportation Resources -> 1 (for raw energy resources: oil, coal...) or 2 (for copper wires, oil products...). There could even be some 3 in there...
Construction Resources -> 2

Medical/Drug Materials -> 1
Medical Equipment -> 3

Agricultural Products -> 1 (should also include raw fish, raw meat...)
Ingredients -> 2 (only for flour, olive oil, etc.)
Food Products -> 3

 

[Thunderbrd]

Looks like you've already reacted to Rwn's post. And yes, multiple categories are not only possible but are probably a good idea to create a hierarchy of categorizations with. Good job so far.

 

[timschuett]

The spreadsheet seems to be locked for edition. Yes, It is locked since I don't have an off-line back up. What is available is the COMMENT feature. If you think something should change or be added, you can highlight the cell and add a comment to the spreadsheet, not make an edit. Otherwise I run the risk of losing the work I've done so far. If the communiy wants a change made, I'll have to be the one to make it.

Anyway, I feel that the categories don't really match economic sectors Agreed- which isn't too surprising since there are few actual resources really matching tertiary sector (services).Refer to the Manufactured resources Spreadsheet; I am considering the resources as they ENTER each sector, not leave. Granted, this is an arbitrary set of distinctions and there's plenty of grey area to discuss

Your categorization is more akin to 1/ Raw resource extraction (primary sector) 2/ Intermediate goods manufacturing (B2B secondary sector) and 3/ Consumer goods manufacturing (B2C secondary sector).Agree


Textiles -> 1. This could be split in 1+2 by putting animals in 1 and leather/furs/hides/cloth in 2.True, but it can be interpreted a number of ways. My guideline for category 1 was anything mined, grown, hunted, harvested, or otherwise gathered or collected from nature. so while i think beavers (xml tag fur) are definitley sector 1, so too could one consider hides and furs. Leather, the 1st processing of hides, would be better fit in 2 so would cloth.
Consumer Retail Goods -> 3
Durable Consumer Goods -> 3

Raw Materials -> 1
Refined Materials -> 2
Industrial Components -> 2
Utility/Transportation Resources -> 1 Not sure I agree. Coal needs to be processed before it is burnt in a plant. The chemical leak last fall in West Virginia was from one of those facilities. Oil is also refined prior to use in a utility/ transport setting. Maybe what we need is a Refining Corp or Oil Corp that is that transition between crude and utility resources (for raw energy resources: oil, coal...) or 2 (for copper wires, oil products...). There could even be some 3 in there...
Construction Resources -> 2

Medical/Drug Materials -> 1
Could really use a #2 here. Couldn't think of one. Thoughts?
Medical Equipment -> 3

Agricultural Products -> 1 (should also include raw fish, raw meat... Disagree. Again, Sector 1 is what you harvest from nature. There aren't salmon fillets swimming upstream, there are fish. There aren't hamburgers grazing in the field, there are cows. Again, this is subjective, and not necessarily consistent with what I said above for hides and Furs, but its how I interpret it. I guess I'm making an arbitrary distinction between the relatively primitive methods needed to strip the skin off an animal vs butcher it in a way to make its entire flesh usable)
Ingredients -> 2 (only for flour, olive oil, etc.)
Food Products -> 3

Replies in red

 

[timschuett]

Also, Thanks to Newrav for commenting in the CURRENT CORPORATIONS googledoc. Some helpful stuff there. Thats exactly the type of input I benefit from.

Specifically, anything in the doc with a ? by it I'd like more opinions on.

 

[Thunderbrd]

No prob... there's a lot there so I'm taking it one mouthful at a time.

 

[Nimek]

When i think about corporations than i think they should produce special resources ex

McDowels
- produces hit meals
Starbucks
- produces hit drinks

I thik we should go that way. What other modders think about that ??

 

[Yudishtira]

When i think about corporations than i think they should produce special resources ex

McDowels
- produces hit meals
Starbucks
- produces hit drinks

I thik we should go that way. What other modders think about that ??

What kind of 'hit meals' did you envisage being produced by fast food cartels? The "Americanization" of pizza (the addition of more and more varied toppings - don't know when it happened) I think made it much more of a 'hit' than it would otherwise have been.

Other "hit" fast-food meals I can think of (that could potentially be produced by a 'chain') are the "doner kebab" or "gyros" roll, sushi, "yum cha" dim sum, and the readymade "food court-style" pasta (Italian), South Asian and East Asian dishes.

No I keep thinking of more (Mediterranean 'mezze', vine leaf rolls, cabbage rolls, falafel, kebbeh; Spanish 'tapas'; Mexican tacos & empanadas or whatever) so I agree it is a viable idea. I'm still curious as to how you envisaged it...

As for drinks, I can't think of a hit drink produced by Starbucks or its ilk. Hit drinks would be like cola, the clear mass-produced version of lemonade, maybe sarsparilla (can't stand the muck personally), etc. Generally came long before Starbucks, at least in my experience.

There are also hit alcoholic drinks to consider (martini, pina colada, daiquiri, possibly even vermouth, gin, retsina etc. themselves - I'm not exactly an expert...), although they might need their own corp.

 

[timschuett]

2 Things:
1. I don't have an issue with corporate "hit" products as long as they are not being considered as resources for other corporations; rather new trade goods. I'd just want to make sure they make sense in the context of a trade good as intended by DH; to have a resource that can only be acquired through diplomacy, thus giving that feature some meaning. Can you reasonably send a happy meal to China? ehh... We can argue it, but it seem the corporation should probably make it there, so at some level those additional "hit " food resources seem a bit tenuous.

2. The intent of this corporation rework is 3 fold:
a. to make use of more of the current 367 resources we have in C2C.
b. to properly balance corporate usage of those resources in a logical and equitable fashion.
c. to introduce new corporations to achieve a and b; and new resources as necessary to maintain the logical progression of the aforementioned.

An example we've discussed of a new resource that is relevant to the goals of this project is a "refined coal" resource. This resource would act as an intermediary between coal as mined by Mining Inc and as used in power generation, steel plants, and other corps like Aluminum Co. This creates opportunities by removing the competition over coal since, logically, the 2 corps are using the resource differently, and by making a slot for another corporation , like a power utility, to use this new resource.

As I see it, the "hit" foods and drinks that were mentioned wouldn't be a part of the resource supply chain b/c they are the end products consumed by the customer, so irrelevant to the reworking of the corps. AS a trade good, I question their merit/RL feasability; but you do raise a good point in considering whether each corporation could produce a unique trade good. I'd like to see those with effects similar to the early "achievement" wonders, so you could , for example, trade healthy food" to an ally and boost their health per city and reduce disease.

 

[Harrier]

When i think about corporations than i think they should produce special resources ex

McDowels
- produces hit meals

Should also provide unhealthyness.

Starbucks
- produces hit drinks

Should significantly reduce gold to the nation they operate in, per turn. As they {allegedly} try very hard to avoid paying taxes in the countries they operate in.

Evidence.

In the UK, last year (or the previous one, can not remember which) they made more money (profit) than a competing UK chain. The UK chain payed Millions of pounds in tax. Starbucks - nothing.

Due to {allegedly} exploitive accounting practices. Although it only came to light recently - it must {allegedly} have been going on for years.

They eventually made an exgratia payment, (about 10 - 20% of the amount they should have paid for that year only) because when it was mentioned on TV, lots of it's customers were going elsewhere.

 

[Praetyre]

I think this is taking the "RL-equivalent" thing a mite literally; the purpose should be to take something from the company's *function*; there is nothing (at least far as I can tell) about a coffee vending corporation that would make it more likely to engage in such practices than any other type. Now, practices specific to a line of work (like Bluelock or Ultimate Soldiers robbing your military or pushing down relations with other nations or staging false flag attacks, or to take a less dramatic example, Construction Co cutting costs and consequentially increasing the likelihood of collapse disasters (I think Hydro suggested something like a building stability mechanic ala the City Building Series a while back, but I don't think it went anywhere) are a different matter, and those could make for very interesting late-game mechanics (especially if the player themselves could exert some control over them).

Further, the reduction in would only make sense regarding the income that would be generated by MoonBean/Starbucks/etc.; for that, you could have some mechanic (like a unique Crime Building or something) that reduces or even eliminates corporate-generated for a city, maybe even only for single corporations or single branches of corporations in single cities.

 

[timschuett]

I think this is taking the "RL-equivalent" thing a mite literally; the purpose should be to take something from the company's *function*; there is nothing (at least far as I can tell) about a coffee vending corporation that would make it more likely to engage in such practices than any other type.

Now, practices specific to a line of work (like Bluelock or Ultimate Soldiers robbing your military or pushing down relations with other nations or staging false flag attacks, or to take a less dramatic example, Construction Co cutting costs and consequentially increasing the likelihood of collapse disasters (I think Hydro suggested something like a building stability mechanic ala the City Building Series a while back, but I don't think it went anywhere) are a different matter, and those could make for very interesting late-game mechanics (especially if the player themselves could exert some control over them).

Further, the reduction in would only make sense regarding the income that would be generated by MoonBean/Starbucks/etc.; for that, you could have some mechanic (like a unique Crime Building or something) that reduces or even eliminates corporate-generated for a city, maybe even only for single corporations or single branches of corporations in single cities.

Again, my goal is to make the corps make sense within C2C, not match RL corporate transgressions. Some of the above suggestions (previous posts) might provide some ideas for fun additions to certain corporations, but they don't address the underlying mechanics, which is what needs fixin.

If you'd like to be helpful (referring to the community at large, not any one person), please read through the 4 documents linked in the very 1st post of this thread and comment on the current state of affairs in corporations (will help identify problems), or the suggested categorizations I've put into the resource spreadsheets (my first step in creating consistent corporations with reasonable competition, bonuses, yields, and input resources).

If, however, you want an activity that is a real-life corporation simulator, watch the news.

 

[timschuett]

OK, I have Made Edits to the resource spreadsheets. They now list my first attempts to assign each resource to a general "category." Many belong to more than 1 category, so I made a hierarchy of "primary" "alternate" and "extension."

I also made a list of each resource's "flavor," which is a grouping based on which Yield each resource primarily affects food:, , ). For resources yielding commerce, I further broke it down into ,, &.

This will provide us 2 tools tool to organize resources and identify groups of resources that existing corps SHOULD use, as well as categories that are itchin for a new corp or 2 (or 7 or 8).

Please be aware that these categories are preliminary and completely arbitrary based on my sole opinion. If you disagree or have different idea, you owe it to the c2c community to let me know so we can change it.

HERE is the spreadsheet describing the different categories. I got the idea from a description of economic sectors on Wikipedia. I wanted to have 3 for each "family," one fore each sector, but I got stuck on the medical stuff, and there's 5 in the Production family. If you have other category ideas, please let me know. The doc is open for comments but not editing.
MAP RESOURCES can be found here. They are all Primary economic sector and only fit into 1 resource category. Again, open for comments, not editing.

MANUFACTURED RESOURCES are here. They cover all 3 sectors and most have 2 or more categories they fit into. Also open for comments, not editing. There will be the most to discuss here.

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO COMMENT, SUGGEST, CRITICIZE, BERATE or whatever you're feeling. Once I feel we have a healthy consensus that this step is solid, I can move on to establishing guidelines on how to use this tool (eg how many resources should corps use a a minimum or maximum? What % of resources should be unutilized by any corporation etc).

At that point, we'll be pretty close to phase 3 and I'll ave to start thinking about learning xml better.
Thanks in advance, gang.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've quickly looked it over and made a few comments where I noticed things to comment on. Overall I think this is an outstanding analysis and a great way to start aligning for deeper corporation structure evaluations!

 

[Faustmouse]

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).

1) I'd say it should be MOSTLY manufactured resources because you can produce them and with corporations you actuall have a benefit from having more then 1 resource each. This would make factories more then just "build once then forget" buildings.

2) Very good! I was afraid you'd add so much resources to each corporations that corp-tetris won't be possible anymore. I'mglad youaregoing to leave this awesome part of it

3) Cool ideas!

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

We have the ability to obsolete corporations still, don't we? It is just that I would like to use them for some early religious cults sort of like Pie_At uses in the PAEV mod.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Not sure... as for cults... why not use religions but more like negative ones (they'd spread without missionaries and may autobuild buildings in response to other buildings or crime levels etc...) Then they could be removed by Inquisitors.

For 'negative corps' I was thinking we'd use those for organized crime entities.

Either way, hold off a minute on those and I'll get to work on the Ideas project VERY soon which would greatly help with both types of developments.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Not sure... as for cults... why not use religions but more like negative ones (they'd spread without missionaries and may autobuild buildings in response to other buildings or crime levels etc...) Then they could be removed by Inquisitors.

For 'negative corps' I was thinking we'd use those for organized crime entities.

Either way, hold off a minute on those and I'll get to work on the Ideas project VERY soon which would greatly help with both types of developments.

Because they act more like corporations than religions and they are not negative either. It is part of the evolving religions I am working on. Don't forget that Christianity started out as a Judean cult.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Oh I see the connotation you mean to use.

I have no idea at all if corporations can be obsoleted. I suppose there'd be remnant coding from the old guilds methods.

 

[timschuett]

Sometime in the next week or so I'm going to start working on stage 3 of the rework: Proposing adjustments to current corporations and suggesting new corporations to fill in the many perceived gaps. Before that happens, I'd like input on the following:

1. There are a few manufactured resources that I can't figure out; mostly from future eras. Can someone clue me in to what the following are?

• Alcohol - is it booze or industrial (methyl- ethyl- groups) or both?

• Organic Photonic Cells

• Cybernetic Chloroplasts

• Digitized Membranes

• Nanogenerators

No Idea what these last 4 are intended to mean, and I have a few ways of interpreting them.

2.Is there a general idea for how many total corporations we want in the mod? ie. I don't want to suggest 80 if 40 would do

3. Is there a general guideline we can agree on as to how many resources a given corporation can use? Ie. Any corp consuming 20-30 different resources (5-8% of total) IMPO would be stupendously overpowered, but a corp using only 2 or 3 would probably not be worth the trouble. Let's agree on a reasonable range.

4. Do we want to have exact duplicate corporations like how Bullseye and MallWart are currently set up? There are some benefits to this, like two civs being able to duke it out over the same resource set in a corporate shadow war. However, it is fundamentally redundant. Thoughts?


I have a grad class that runs til Friday. After that, I'm hoping to getting this next stage squared away by early July. I'll be on holiday (vagabonding) the remainder of July, so I'd like to get things to a reasonable break point by then.

ANY AND ALL COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED AND WILL BE CONSIDERED, REGARDLESS OF THE SOURCE. NEW PLAYERS AND SENIOR MODDERS ARE BOTH HEAVILY ENCOURAGED TO COMMENT.

Cheers.
Tim