[NFP] Monopolies and Corporations Game Mode Discussion Thread

[bengalryan9]

I mean, the game biases towards large empires so it makes sense that the scoring would as well. Plus, there are a lot of way to "play the game well" that are mutually contradictory, just compare any two tier lists, and any scoring method biased towards certain playstyles. Not to mention that how you play game changes the higher up the difficulty levels you go.

You don't even really have to play all that well to score highly, though. One of my personal highest scoring games was a game where I was playing as Georgia (random draw). I spawned at one end of a continent with plenty of room to settle. My nearest neighbor was Cleopatra, and on the opposite side of her was Seondeok. Korea conquered Egypt early on, so all the sudden there's only two of us on the continent. For whatever reason she kept falling into Dark Ages and kept losing multiple cities to me. All the sudden I had a gigantic empire, none of which I had to fight for. Now I've got far and away the largest score in the game despite not having a tech lead, not bothering to spread a religion, and not doing anything special tourism-wise. I was basically just farting around and trying different things out, yet despite not really doing well at all I had one of my highest scores ever. This was on Deity, too!

So yeah, I get what you're saying but the scoring system still doesn't provide much of an actual indication of how you are doing. It's pretty busted.

 

[InsidiousMage]

So yeah, I get what you're saying but the scoring system still doesn't provide much of an actual indication of how you are doing. It's pretty busted.

Any kind of point based is going to have that kind of problem in my opinion. It has to give you X points per specific thing done and that's not always in your control.

 

[UWHabs]

You don't even really have to play all that well to score highly, though. One of my personal highest scoring games was a game where I was playing as Georgia (random draw). I spawned at one end of a continent with plenty of room to settle. My nearest neighbor was Cleopatra, and on the opposite side of her was Seondeok. Korea conquered Egypt early on, so all the sudden there's only two of us on the continent. For whatever reason she kept falling into Dark Ages and kept losing multiple cities to me. All the sudden I had a gigantic empire, none of which I had to fight for. Now I've got far and away the largest score in the game despite not having a tech lead, not bothering to spread a religion, and not doing anything special tourism-wise. I was basically just farting around and trying different things out, yet despite not really doing well at all I had one of my highest scores ever. This was on Deity, too!

So yeah, I get what you're saying but the scoring system still doesn't provide much of an actual indication of how you are doing. It's pretty busted.

I mean, sounds like you were doing fairly well, not falling into dark ages, and expanding to whatever you could.

 

[bonafide11]

So I haven't followed the whole thread, but I just played my first game with the monopolies and corporations on, and I was a little underwhelmed. Maybe in my particular game the corporations just didn't kick in until so late that it didn't have a chance to make a difference and I was already so close to winning, but the problem is great merchants are difficult to get, so by the time you get the opportunity to create corporations you're a bit limited with how long they're applicable. I'll have to try it again with another civ and see if it makes more of a difference, but it felt like another potential cool late game feature that will just never get used because by the time you get it the game is essentially over anyway.

 

[IsabelBraganca]

The number of monopolies you can easily get depends on the map. I played on Continents and Islands map, and Highlands map. The resources are closer together on Continents. I was going for a Cultural victory and conquered one civ in my continent. I won by turn 236, epic speed, my best time ever. The second game I played as Incan on the Highlands map. I disabled the cultural victory but I think it was not necessary. I got only one monopoly by luck. One luxury resource had only two copies and I got both in the same city. I built a good number of national parks for the amenities.

 

[Blutark]

The number of monopolies you can easily get depends on the map. I played on Continents and Islands map, and Highlands map. The resources are closer together on Continents. I was going for a Cultural victory and conquered one civ in my continent. I won by turn 236, epic speed, my best time ever. The second game I played as Incan on the Highlands map. I disabled the cultural victory but I think it was not necessary. I got only one monopoly by luck. One luxury resource had only two copies and I got both in the same city. I built a good number of national parks for the amenities.

What size maps you using? I cant help but fall ass backwards into monopolies. Do you conquer neighbours early or not?

 

[cain3456]

In my latest game, I played my first one on Emperor. Played Ethiopia with some other zealots (Arabs, Poland, Khmer, Ghandi India, Georgia, Hungary, Kongo). Was able to get a 7/7 monopoly on mercury and ride it to the win. But at least on Emperor I actually got to use corporations & products, and made it to the info age.

 

[IsabelBraganca]

What size maps you using? I cant help but fall ass backwards into monopolies. Do you conquer neighbours early or not?

The maps were standard size. I haven't conquered any neighbors.

 

[Blutark]

The maps were standard size. I haven't conquered any neighbors.

Checked out your save. I've never played a Highlands map. If I was that big on a continents map I'd usually have 3-4 monopolies with that sized empire, just FYI.

Which means an accidental CV by about turn 200-210 if you leave it on.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Something I just realized: Industry improvements provide 0 appeal; which means it's better than the -1 from an underlying mine. This just became relevant on my mercury mine next to a 3 tile (became 4 when the mine became an industry) so I got my earth goddess bonus from it. Nice

 

[8housesofelixir]

In my Victoria-England-roleplaying game today, I encountered the situation which AIs generally refused to improve more than 1 luxuries. I found the situation really unfun, so I enabled the Cheap Map Editor mod, and used it to improve luxuries within AIs' border.

It worked surprisingly well: after about 10-20 turns, AIs quickly began to use Builders to build Industries on top of those luxuries. Roughly 1 era later, most of the AIs had an Industry or two.

Moreover, during the playing, I found that Babylon forward settled Georgia (across a huge desert) in order to grab 3 Marbles that were next to each other. When I improved these Marbles for Babylon, they built a Marble Industry on them not long after. These two moves actually surprised me, since VI's AI is known for bad strategic planning.

My guess is there are some priority issues with AIs in the Corporations mode, they probably build less Builders than usual in the early game.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I've seen the AI make a few industries, but I am not sure if I have see them make any corporations

 

[Disgustipated]

I've seen the AI make a few industries, but I am not sure if I have see them make any corporations

I seen Kongo make 2 or 3 industries my last game. Industries are not the problem. But I seriously doubt the AI will EVER make a corporation. Whenever I highlight a great merchant, the "suggestion tool" always tells me to go for commercial hubs. So it's doubtful the AI will ever use a Great Merchant for anything other than at a commercial hub. Although maybe the one that activates neutral tiles might be used, but that's an early Great Merchant. There would have to be specific AI instructions for them to use a Great Merchant in this way. If corporations were freed from the need of a great merchant, I can see them using them.

 

[Nerevatar]

There would have to be specific AI instructions for them to use a Great Merchant in this way. If corporations were freed from the need of a great merchant, I can see them using them.

I really hope firaxis bothered to do this for this mode, but given they pretty much forgot they had an AI for the last few packs I'm not hopeful it really is a shame since this pack seems really, based on reading this thread.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Something I just realized: Industry improvements provide 0 appeal; which means it's better than the -1 from an underlying mine. This just became relevant on my mercury mine next to a 3 tile (became 4 when the mine became an industry) so I got my earth goddess bonus from it. Nice

Yes, noticed that as well. Don't really like it for balance and realism (I would instead give it a -2 appeal probably), but it is worth to consider when going for NPs or other appeal-related improvements - adjacent luxuries which you would have to improve with mines/quarries are prime industry sides.

 

[Ansive]

In my Victoria-England-roleplaying game today, I encountered the situation which AIs generally refused to improve more than 1 luxuries. I found the situation really unfun, so I enabled the Cheap Map Editor mod, and used it to improve luxuries within AIs' border.

It worked surprisingly well: after about 10-20 turns, AIs quickly began to use Builders to build Industries on top of those luxuries. Roughly 1 era later, most of the AIs had an Industry or two.

Moreover, during the playing, I found that Babylon forward settled Georgia (across a huge desert) in order to grab 3 Marbles that were next to each other. When I improved these Marbles for Babylon, they built a Marble Industry on them not long after. These two moves actually surprised me, since VI's AI is known for bad strategic planning.

My guess is there are some priority issues with AIs in the Corporations mode, they probably build less Builders than usual in the early game.

I play normal games on deity and the AI is a total mess. Luxuries and strategic resources are left unimproved. They never remove features.
Their land is just depressing to look at.
They just don't train builders.
They make a crappy army, go to war, lose the army then rebuild it again.
In previous civ titles the builders didn't have charges. So they would stick around and improve their ENTIRE empire with just a few (and with speed bonuses).

I've even seen AI building units only for them to get disbanded due to lacking any income.
If I pillage an AI it will take a long time for them to fix their districts, and even longer (if ever) to repair their improvements.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Luxuries and strategic resources are left unimproved. They never remove features.
Their land is just depressing to look at.
They just don't train builders.
They make a crappy army, go to war, lose the army then rebuild it again.
In previous civ titles the builders didn't have charges. So they would stick around and improve their ENTIRE empire with just a few (and with speed bonuses).

I've even seen AI building units only for them to get disbanded due to lacking any income.
If I pillage an AI it will take a long time for them to fix their districts, and even longer (if ever) to repair their improvements.

ding ding ding!! the AI simply isn't programmed to train builders and maximize the use of their charges. This was an issue before M&C, but M&C magnified it even further. This needs to be fixed in Civ 7, or it would be best to revert back to the old Worker system.

 

[Xandinho]

I seen Kongo make 2 or 3 industries my last game. Industries are not the problem. But I seriously doubt the AI will EVER make a corporation. Whenever I highlight a great merchant, the "suggestion tool" always tells me to go for commercial hubs. So it's doubtful the AI will ever use a Great Merchant for anything other than at a commercial hub. Although maybe the one that activates neutral tiles might be used, but that's an early Great Merchant. There would have to be specific AI instructions for them to use a Great Merchant in this way. If corporations were freed from the need of a great merchant, I can see them using them.

I think they should make a change in the way you that get a corporation, otherwise, the AI will never get one.
Great Merchants don't disappear when you activate them, only when you use them to make a corporation.
Or include Executives as civilian units available after economics and you can use them to found a corporation.

 

[UWHabs]

I think they should make a change in the way you that get a corporation, otherwise, the AI will never get one.
Great Merchants don't disappear when you activate them, only when you use them to make a corporation.
Or include Executives as civilian units available after economics and you can use them to found a corporation.

Yeah, I would have rather they perhaps be a separate pool of great people. Then you could just have your industries generate one "Great Founder" point per turn, and could also just have the mode also let your CH/Market/Bank/SE generate them too in addition to regular merchants. Given that they can't be founded until a later era, it's not like it would be a 1:1 match with merchant points necessarily.

But yeah, if you don't do it that way, then having it as a project in the city to upgrade the industry to a corp would make some sense. Sucks to really have to debate - "Do I want a free trade route now, or a new corporation in 20 turns?"

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yeah, I would have rather they perhaps be a separate pool of great people. Then you could just have your industries generate one "Great Founder" point per turn, and could also just have the mode also let your CH/Market/Bank/SE generate them too in addition to regular merchants. Given that they can't be founded until a later era, it's not like it would be a 1:1 match with merchant points necessarily.

But yeah, if you don't do it that way, then having it as a project in the city to upgrade the industry to a corp would make some sense. Sucks to really have to debate - "Do I want a free trade route now, or a new corporation in 20 turns?"

Actually I think there should be more decisions like that. Doesn't the Industry give a GM point? I don't mind this.