Mechanics of Cereal Mills...

[blitzkrieg1980]

I don't think I ever understood how to leverage corporations for myself, always opting to send my execs overseas to avoid corporate maintenance. But now, I'm playing with a strong hybrid economy and want to get more specialists into my GP Farms / oxford city, but have run out of food.

I keep hearing that Cereal Mills gives + for resources. How does that work? If I have 6 different sources of corn, 6 of wheat, and 6 of rice, do I get 18*.75 = 13.5 more food in that city? 6 more specialists?!?!

Or am I waaaaaay off?

 

[LegionSteve]

If I have 6 different sources of corn, 6 of wheat, and 6 of rice, do I get 18*.75 = 13.5 more food in that city? 6 more specialists?!?!

Yes, that's it

If I do corporations (meaning not State Property) I normally go for Sushi, even though you only get .5 per resource, because of the abundance of seafood. On a non-watery map you would obviously go for Cereal instead.

EDIT: Don't do what I did when I first started using corporations, and trade your extra corporation resources with the AIs. If you have traded one of your rice resources to an AI your corporation can't use it, so cancel that deal. Do trade your other extra resources to the AIs to get more of your corporation's resources off them. This is one of the few times when vassals can be useful, because you can demand their resources.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Oh, does Sid's Sushi give per turn, too? I thought I read that it gives . I could be very wrong, I have to do quick looks b/c my boss always walks in unannounced

 

[MattX]

Corps are great. Can grow your cities much bigger than other civs if you can afford the fees. You almost don't want to spread them abroad unless necessary. Or maybe use one for yourself and found another weaker one to seed to other civs just for the gold!

 

[LegionSteve]

Sushi gives food and culture. Awesome for cultural wins. But useful in any situation.

The only time I wouldn't try to get Sushi is if I was going for a domination win. The reduced maintenance from State Property in a large empire on several continents is just too good.

 

[Iranon]

Sushi gives 0.5 per seafood or rice and some .

On most non-Pangaea maps, Sushi will give more total food. If they are close and you don't need the culture, pick Cereal Mills because corporation maintenance depends on the number of resources used - at the same output, Sushi is more expensive.

Unless you're going for culture wins, Mining.Inc + one of Sid's Sushi, Cereal Mills and Standard Ethanol is usually the best choice.
Standard Ethanol is slightly less impressive than running Representation-boosted scientists with the food corps, but scores with lesser cost (larger cities also make corporations more expensive), no additional health/happiness trouble and making it nigh-impossible to cut you off from oil.

 

[Joshua368]

I keep hearing that Cereal Mills gives + for resources. How does that work? If I have 6 different sources of corn, 6 of wheat, and 6 of rice, do I get 18*.75 = 13.5 more food in that city? 6 more specialists?!?!

Keep in mind though that insane benefits like those come at a price, even when running Free Market. If your economy isn't in great shape you may need to settle with more modest results, even if that means trading away some of your resources.

Most people enjoy going with the combo of Mining Inc. and Sid's Sushi for super cities. Mining Inc. tends to be really great, certainly better than the 10% production bonus of state property.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Well, I'm asking because I'm nearing the Medicine tech in my current Elizabeth game and I've saved a GM to found either Sid's or Cereal Mills. I've got some awesome GP farms to utilize her PHI trait and I'd like to give them a mega-boost in the late game. Not so much for the extra GPP, but more so to have upwards of 12 merchants in my Wall Street city (along with 3 settled) and I'd found Cereal mills there. I'd spread it to my Scientist GP farm/Oxford city for another 4 scientists and to my other merchant heavy city. Then I'd spam it to my less than advanced Pleased and Friendly civs (there are about 4 on my huge 15 civ map that are running Free Market). They each have something like 12 cities and I'm thinking 48 * 4 = 192 gpt plus the +215% from buildings = 605 gpt just from corporations.

That would fund my intercontinental domination run.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Well, I'm asking because I'm nearing the Medicine tech in my current Elizabeth game and I've saved a GM to found either Sid's or Cereal Mills. I've got some awesome GP farms to utilize her PHI trait and I'd like to give them a mega-boost in the late game. Not so much for the extra GPP, but more so to have upwards of 12 merchants in my Wall Street city (along with 3 settled) and I'd found Cereal mills there. I'd spread it to my Scientist GP farm/Oxford city for another 4 scientists and to my other merchant heavy city. Then I'd spam it to my less than advanced Pleased and Friendly civs (there are about 4 on my huge 15 civ map that are running Free Market). They each have something like 12 cities and I'm thinking 48 * 4 = 192 gpt plus the +215% from buildings = 605 gpt just from corporations.

That would fund my intercontinental domination run.

 

[Crighton]

Personally I prefer Cereal Mills over Sushi, mainly due to my inability to get along well with other civs and their preference for pillaging my fishing boats.

I really do recommend using the Mining Inc + Cereal Mills combo for growth and production or Creative Construciton + Sushi for some massive culture.

On a side note: Standard Ethanol, I do love you. This corp can save your tail if you don't have ANY oil access.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

On a side note: Standard Ethanol, I do love you. This corp can save your tail if you don't have ANY oil access.

I usually build up a sizeable force while teching towards SciMeth with the express purpose of capturing oil if I don't have it.

 

[Crighton]

If you do future starts chances are you have three wars you have to fight right off the bat. The war for oil, the war for aluminum and the war for uranium. Worst case scenario Standard Eth. can eliminate one of those wars which can be a major benefit. If not doing the future or modern starts Standard Eth is probably not going to be that useful since you should have pleanty of time from being able to see Oil and being able to utilize oil.

Cereal Mills just rocks the house all the way though.

 

[Joshua368]

I definitely prefer Sid's Sushi over Cereal Mills, but I guess its just a personal thing that comes with varying experience.

For starters, it comes earlier in the tech tree, which is already an advantage because by that point in the game I usually want my corporation as soon as possible to begin reaping the benefits. Secondly, I can easily get about 12 of each fish expecially by trading around for foreign resources. Sure it's costly but if I'm dominating the tech tree and just want size 25+ size cities everywhere you can't beat the sheer numbers.

 

[GatlingGun]

...
The only time I wouldn't try to get Sushi is if I was going for a domination win. The reduced maintenance from State Property in a large empire on several continents is just too good.

Maybe I'm just addicted to Sushi, but I use it even in a domination scenario... in fact, it's awesome for domination because you can easily steal cities from the AI without going to war with them. I just plop a settler next to their border, expand sushi there and build a courthouse... within 20-30 turns, that AI city is usually mine... and I don't get negative diplo penalties for declaring war on their friend. And... once I have that city, I now have access to their next border

Even if the city doesn't revolt, the ~70 culture per turn you can get on a decent sushi map overwhelms them and you get credit for most of their land anyway. Combine it with the Eiffel tower and it's totally unfair

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

Cooporations are amazing.

by the time you get to the late game, you should have at least 2-3 cities with high production for units (i do anyway) and have no immediate need for mining inc/creative cons. I have found that the most powerful corporation for late game domination wins is CivJewlers. Why? Because it ALWAYS runs at a profit in EVERY city and you get a BUTT LOAD of culture in new cities for those essential border pops.

if there is one corporation i get annoyed at not having it is definately CivJewlers. the AI can grab all the others, but not this one. this one is mine!

 

[Iranon]

Larger empires also mean more resources which makes corporations very competitive. Trade isn't always a reliable way to get them, especially if you want to invade your suppliers or their allies. They also make newly aquired cities productive right out of the bat and the whole thing snowballs very quickly.

Generally, corporations are much stronger, but State Property has the advantage of needing no investment and no fiddling around so I often choose that route when on my way to winning anyway. I'd say Mining.Inc is at least as powerful though and it comes earlier... so I make the decision between State Property and corporations before Sushi is available.


***

@ SenhorDaGuerra: All corporations give a very handsome return on your gold if you have a courthouse in the city, so worrying about the cost is short-sighted unless it threatens to crash your economy. Well-supplied corporations can mean you have to reduce your science slider from 100% to 40% but still having a higher science output. If you look at what you gain for your investment, Civilized Jewellers is actually one of the weakest corporations.

If you run merchants with the additional food, Sushi and Cereal Mills will typically give you more gold than Civilized Jewellers (and an equal amount of science if running Representation)... and this is assuming you have nothing better to do with it.
Heck, Mining.Inc + building wealth is almost as good although that's a horrible horrible waste.

 

[Crighton]

I can't ever recall founding civ jewelers, I think I conquered it once though.

 

[GooglyBoogly]

Mechanics of corporation maintainence

 

[brades]

Found the corporations in your wall street city and expanding them into other cities will end up not costing you anything. My last game I had a combo of sid sushis and mining inc getting an extra 8 food per city and a whopping 17 hammers.

 

[Roxlimn]

Civ Jewellers comes very late and its benefit is less flexible than that of the food corps. On the other hand, its culture boosting is quite impressive, especially when you combine it with CreateCon and Sushi. If you can get those three corps online, a midgame shift to cultural victory can win faster than Space Race or Domination, especially if your domination bid is bogging down for some reason.