[NFP] Monopolies and Corporations Game Mode Discussion Thread

[Republic of San Montuoso]

Downsides. I think ICM suffers from the same problem as Secret Societies - no downsides. Corporations don’t even have any maintenance cost. I really think that’s a bit of a pity. Oh well.

Hasn't been hinted in the Update video that there would be economic risk, like possibily crashes or crisis? Has it been confirmed/infirmed in the livestream?

 

[acluewithout]

Hasn't been hinted in the Update video that there would be economic risk, like possibily crashes or crisis? Has it been confirmed/infirmed in the livestream?

Nope. FXS literally said the opposite on the Livestream. No real downside (other than opportunity cost).

There is a real lack of vicissitude with some of the game modes.

 

[Elhoim]

Downsides. I think ICM suffers from the same problem as Secret Societies - no downsides. Corporations don’t even have any maintenance cost. I really think that’s a bit of a pity. Oh well.

Yeah, it seems to a design culture in Firaxis to try to avoid restrictions or downsides, and focus on piling benefits only with opportunity cost. The moment it struck me in the stream was when Brian, IIRC, said something about a rule like this: "there's a little bit of a restriction, but you get this AWESOME bonuses". This is hugely subjective, but I felt like he was afraid of mentioning restrictions, really downplaying them and mentioning immediately the AWESOME bonuses. I know I'm biased from RPG players, but there's always this vocal subset that screams "You are taking away my freedom!" every time there are drawbacks or restrictions, and sometimes devs want to avoid looking "hardcore" and push away potential buyers.

I mean, heck, basic balance, people. This mode adds a lot of ways of heavily increasing yields. It would make a game that was already fast even faster. It needed to be accompanied with some kind of extra balance on top.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

There is a real lack of vicissitude with some of the game modes.

Haven't you see all the fusses and people complaining about Dramatic Ages and how it is too punishing?
We could beg for more challenging modes, but they did one mode that is, indeed, challenging, and the amount of complaining about it was overwhelming.
I'm all for more challenging modes, but frankly I feel that it is not a shared opinion. People would always find it too punishing. People were advocating for tweaking the Dramatic Ages mode by keeping Normal Ages, basically negating all the stakes you could have playing this mode which would then not change a lot of things. So they have a choice: either making it with actual stakes (and people will complain), making it with inconsequential stakes that the mode would bring nothing, or no stakes at all so they could really expand the fun.
The last choice is quite the most rational.

Anyway, thanks for your answer!

 

[Elhoim]

so they could really expand the fun

I share your opinion of challenges, as you may have noticed, and I really wanted to point out this sentence. Maybe you were being a bit sarcastic, but it gives me the opportunity to say something that's been bothering me for quite some time:

The idea that being handed everything, that everything being a positive is "fun", while having to deal with drawbacks or restrictions is "not fun".

I don't know, I'm more of a "without the lows, the highs wouldn't be so sweet" kind of guy. So having not things handed to me, having to work for them, getting drawbacks and recovering is appealing and fun to me. So I get kinda annoyed of this conjunction of the concept of "no restrictions = fun".

 

[Myomoto]

6. Seriously, how broken is Kilwa. Imagine having a tea corporation with tea products in every single city. Even in a small 10 city empire, this would cost you 4500 production in addition to setting up the corporation and stock exchanges / seaports. So long as there are two scientific city states in the game, Kilwa gives you the exact same bonus (and likely more) for a measly 710 production.

I'm just considering an estatic Scottish city with a science corp and Kilwa

 

[Victoria]

Seems like another front loading toy not altering the end-game.
Surely corporations should have some more profound impact in the later game?
Profound in this case does not mean more %

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I share your opinion of challenges, as you may have noticed, and I really wanted to point out this sentence. Maybe you were being a bit sarcastic, but it gives me the opportunity to say something that's been bothering me for quite some time:

The idea that being handed everything, that everything being a positive is "fun", while having to deal with drawbacks or restrictions is "not fun".

I don't know, I'm more of a "without the lows, the highs wouldn't be so sweet" kind of guy. So having not things handed to me, having to work for them, getting drawbacks and recovering is appealing and fun to me. So I get kinda annoyed of this conjunction of the concept of "no restrictions = fun".

To each their own, I guess. A lot of player want to have fun without necessarily too much challenge (that's why a lot of player do not go over Prince difficulty). You can be annoyed as you want, but your notion of fun is personal and not shared with everyone. For some people, already having to attract Great Merchants and having to choose between his special ability or founding a corporation is already a low enough in itself, without needing a crash or crisis mechanic put in it. As I said, they tried to add modes with stakes in it (Apocalypse and Dramatic Ages), and on both, there is a large part of the fanbase complaining that it has lows and it isn't fun anymore and they will definitely disable them because they find no fun in it, because of the drawbacks.

I'm in the middle. I find a lot of fun in "no-drawback" modes, like Secret Societies or Heroes&Legends (even if some people might argue that they have drawbacks: having the diplomatic penalty for choosing a SS is one, and being in competition with other civilizations for Heroes is another one), and I have a lot of fun with "drawback" modes (Apocalypse and Dramatic Ages). But a lot of player also want to play and toy with the new modes in a casual and laid-back way. Measuring accordingly the challenge is difficult (just look at how Apocalypse and Dramatic Ages are still target to complaints, even from players liking challenges, because the challenges feel wrong). There is a thousand ways to fail to make a correct challenge, but theyre is no way to fail in not making a challenge if it's not the purpose.

You can be annoyed as you want, but the fact is that casual players are a large part of a fanbase, and that devs cannot (and shouldn't) make games only for hard-core players. Hard-core players are the most likely to use mods, so you always have this possibility, while casual players, not diving too much into the fanbase, might not be aware of which mods are good or not and are then stuck with a modless game.

I welcomed every of the 5 modes (6 if you count the Tech/Civic reshuffle) because some have challenges, some have not, yes some might have been polished or hardened but overall I found everyone of them fun. Making everything harder with challenges harder than one that might already exist but that you do not see yourself might have lessen the fun. I am lucky to be one of the people happy with all the modes, and this should show you than everyone cannot be fulfilled, and they decided to fulfill a part of the population you are sadly not a part of.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Just imagine what this mode could have been with a full expansion behind it. You could have policy cards that affect industries, corps, and products, as well as WC resolutions that could benefit or hinder all three of them. And the possibility of a civ that could exploit the features would be delicious.

 

[TreVor_ish]

Just imagine what this mode could have been with a full expansion behind it. You could have policy cards that affect industries, corps, and products, as well as WC resolutions that could benefit or hinder all three of them. And the possibility of a civ that could exploit the features would be delicious.

And perhaps separate window just for Products. It's gonna get really packed inside Great Works UI ;/

 

[Kupe Navigator]

And perhaps separate window just for Products. It's gonna get really packed inside Great Works UI ;/

I do believe there will be a mod for it soon.

 

[kryat]

Seems like another front loading toy not altering the end-game.
Surely corporations should have some more profound impact in the later game?
Profound in this case does not mean more %

Might be a bit of front-loading, but it could be a profound difference on how you achieve one of the victory types. Rather than building theater districts early, you could instead do a commercial-focused CV, sort of like how you could do a religious-driven CV, though in practice, only Khmer really achieves it.

Just imagine what this mode could have been with a full expansion behind it. You could have policy cards that affect industries, corps, and products, as well as WC resolutions that could benefit or hinder all three of them. And the possibility of a civ that could exploit the features would be delicious.

Hopefully they're using this as beta testing for the next iteration of Civ, like how VI started with religion and espionage that came in V's expansions.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

though in practice, only Khmer really achieves it.

What about Ethiopia?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Might be a bit of front-loading, but it could be a profound difference on how you achieve one of the victory types. Rather than building theater districts early, you could instead do a commercial-focused CV, sort of like how you could do a religious-driven CV, though in practice, only Khmer really achieves it.

Now cultural victories without building theater squares and wonders could be a viable strategy.

What about Ethiopia?

You don't really need to found a religion as Ethiopia. You just need to generate a lot of faith.

As Khmer you need a religion at least in order to train missionaries with the martyr promotion.

 

[Victoria]

but it could be a profound difference on how you achieve one of the victory types

I said profound does not mean +%

In reality that’s what we are talking about with this change, another %. It might alter play up to the end game.
But could you bankrupt a civ using corporations?

it seems just another +, where is the -, the yang for the yin, as some people said, is there a crash?

 

[tedhebert]

6. Seriously, how broken is Kilwa. Imagine having a tea corporation with tea products in every single city. Even in a small 10 city empire, this would cost you 4500 production in addition to setting up the corporation and stock exchanges / seaports. So long as there are two scientific city states in the game, Kilwa gives you the exact same bonus (and likely more) for a measly 710 production.

Hmm honestly hadn't thought about that one. I often forget about Kilwa, to my shame ;-( You are right, this might just be close to breaking, having kilwa in a corp city with many CSses suzerainty ;-(

 

[Myomoto]

Just imagine what this mode could have been with a full expansion behind it. You could have policy cards that affect industries, corps, and products, as well as WC resolutions that could benefit or hinder all three of them. And the possibility of a civ that could exploit the features would be delicious.

Yeah, I really shook my head when reading the initial big interview with Anton and Ed, where they were talking about how they thought this piecemeal solution of little bits and bops was a much better choice than a full expansion, because they were worried adding too many more fundamental system to the game would overwhelm it and bog it down.

I mean, what..?

 

[anonxanemone]

Yeah, I really shook my head when reading the initial big interview with Anton and Ed, where they were talking about how they thought this piecemeal solution of little bits and bops was a much better choice than a full expansion, because they were worried adding too many more fundamental system to the game would overwhelm it and bog it down.

I mean, what..?

I'm more overwhelmed with the NFP than the previous XP's for having to learn something new each month. Haha

 

[TreVor_ish]

Yeah, I really shook my head when reading the initial big interview with Anton and Ed, where they were talking about how they thought this piecemeal solution of little bits and bops was a much better choice than a full expansion, because they were worried adding too many more fundamental system to the game would overwhelm it and bog it down.

I mean, what..?

It's like CIV is not for CIVFANATICS?? (that's how it sounds)

 

[ShakaKhan]

it seems just another +, where is the -, the yang for the yin, as some people said, is there a crash?

As it's about to drop, I read through the 15 pages here as I think this is a game mode that makes it crucial to have a complete understanding before playing, whereas SS is more "plug and play." There is one key element of my initial interpretation of the material that I'm not sure of - maybe someone can clarify.

Initially, I thought that the player has the option of EITHER:

1.) placing a standard improvement on the lux, thereby increasing the yields of the tile by that of the applicable improvement and granting a copy of the host tile's luxury, usually the first copy of which you keep for yourself for empire-building purposes (amenities), and duplicate copies can be traded/sold/gifted to other civs as they have no effect on your empire. The way you treat the duplicate copies allows the player to choose to further increase their per-turn yields (selling for GPT, great works, etc), further increase your empire-building capability (trading for resources that are unavailable in your territory), or use them as a positive diplomatic tool (gift/sell-for-cheap to another civ to increase their disposition towards you and working towards both appeasing them to pick a different military target and developing a relationship that leads to friendship and alliance.)

OR:

2.) placing an industry on the lux, which gives better yields than the standard improvement and provides 1 of 8 percentage modifiers to the city controlling the tile, which can be doubled by burning a great merchant on it (and I assume it's one merchant per resource tile, not one merchant per resource group) and the great merchant upgrade also allows the controlling city to make products through a city project. However, a copy of that resource is NOT granted to the civilization, which has the opportunity cost of not getting the amenities (and potentially additional amenities through trade) as well as having a negative diplomatic modifier against any civ that doesn't have a copy of that luxury: if they already have it in their territory they don't care, and if you're already trading it to them, they don't suffer from your decision to not make more happy-thingys for the world. But if they don't have access to a copy of that luxury and you've decided to maximize your yields over having a copy to trade to them, they get really mad at you and you're putting them in a position where the only way they can access that luxury is by declaring war on you, which you've now incentivized them to do.

If this interpretation is correct, then there is a ying to the yang, as you've stated, though it is heavily weighted towards the industry/corporation/product option. It seems that it's necessary for the copy of the resource to not be granted unless you build the standard improvement instead of the industry option, otherwise it's a no-brainer to just make the industry on every single luxury tile. It also seems necessary to have that diplomatic penalty against civs without access to a copy of that resource, otherwise it's a no-brainer to just make one standard improvement and all the rest are industries. But if placing the industry gives you a copy of that luxury AND gives the host city a percentage boost AND is the first step to unlocking corporations and products, then yes, there is no downside and its just bigger (and at this point, sillier) yields.

If I am wrong about the industry not providing a copy of the resource, then I hate to take the mindset of "my way would have been better" but it really would as it creates a strategic decision to be made, instead of having no downside.