[NFP] Monopolies and Corporations Game Mode Discussion Thread

[Victoria]

Yield porn is very, very titillating for me.

I find tile porn does not meet expectations. I can have fantastic yields that make little difference to my overall game.
However, I find I get excited by early tile porn, so not things with huge yields but things like early regrown jungle is just damn sexy!

 

[GinandTonic]

I had a Brail TSL run where early game the Amazon had an endless wildfire until loads of it had hit the bonus cap. Kind of cool to be delayed by fifty turns but now with god tier dirt.

 

[Karmah]

I had a Brail TSL run where early game

And you did not get blind to it !

 

[UWHabs]

I find tile porn does not meet expectations. I can have fantastic yields that make little difference to my overall game.
However, I find I get excited by early tile porn, so not things with huge yields but things like early regrown jungle is just damn sexy!

Yeah, early tile porn > late tile porn. There's a reason why if I see Roraima or Paititi or some of those wonders early on, I drop everything to get there ASAP with a settler. Or why civs that can get a super strong early UI are so cool. I'm in a Scythia game, and getting like the turn-30 +3 faith/+3 gold Kurgan is way cooler than later even when it turns into a +5/+3.

The monopolies yields are nice, although it still pains me when my best industry site happens to be within range of the Temple of Artemis. Or if I have a special bonus otherwise, like if I have Stone Circles pantheon, now I have to replace a boosted quarry with an industry.

 

[Eddie Verdde]

I tried this mode for the first time and I also noticed that the AI doesn't improve the luxury resources. Is it a problem of the mode or a problem of the base game?

i.e. if I disable the mode the AI will improve luxury resources more often?

 

[Alaindor]

if I disable the mode the AI will improve luxury resources more often?

Correct. It's a bug that appears if the M&C mode is turned on.

 

[Ordnael]

Correct. It's a bug that appears if the M&C mode is turned on.

Is it really an identified bug, like the culture industry police card in Dramatic ages mode or more like a common complain? I mean i feel like it's been happening on my 2 latest games in November/December but i don't recall from previous games such a bug occurring. And really like this mode so much...oh well if you play it on harder difficulties the bonus gold the AI gets kinda of sets their loss on not improving luxury resources I guess.
On my latest game the AI did improve luxury resources but much later in the game, i didn't noticed if the had industries set or not though. I also realized only I produced goods to boost tourism and production yields.

 

[Zaarin]

Is it really an identified bug, like the culture industry police card in Dramatic ages mode or more like a common complain? I mean i feel like it's been happening on my 2 latest games in November/December but i don't recall from previous games such a bug occurring. And really like this mode so much...oh well if you play it on harder difficulties the bonus gold the AI gets kinda of sets their loss on not improving luxury resources I guess.
On my latest game the AI did improve luxury resources but much later in the game, i didn't noticed if the had industries set or not though. I also realized only I produced goods to boost tourism and production yields.

It's a bug that has been present since the mode was first introduced.

 

[goatdeer]

However, it's a bug that I do not experience in my games. AI improves most of the resources, if not all. They also use the industry and corporations improvements. And I always play with this mode on.
So I wouldn't say this bug occurs in all games, no matter what. I guess it happens with specific settings (or maybe with certain mods, or lack thereof), that are general enough for it to affect games of many players.

 

[Alaindor]

However, it's a bug that I do not experience in my games. AI improves most of the resources, if not all. They also use the industry and corporations improvements. And I always play with this mode on.
So I wouldn't say this bug occurs in all games, no matter what. I guess it happens with specific settings (or maybe with certain mods, or lack thereof), that are general enough for it to affect games of many players.

Well it occurred in each and every game I played with this mode on (and no mods whatsoever), so despite my liking the principle, I now have to turn it off because the game becomes uplayable, as AI not improving luxuries feels like an exploit.

 

[MrRadar]

However, it's a bug that I do not experience in my games. AI improves most of the resources, if not all. They also use the industry and corporations improvements. And I always play with this mode on.
So I wouldn't say this bug occurs in all games, no matter what. I guess it happens with specific settings (or maybe with certain mods, or lack thereof), that are general enough for it to affect games of many players.

This has to be seen to be believed. What are your settings? Could you post a save or two of such a game of yours? This is the first time I see someone saying this mode works correctly without any fixes! This was never the case for me: whenever I had this mode on, AI had 0 luxes to trade and I never saw more than 1 improved luxury in AIs lands. And I only use some UI mods.
Are you sure you're not using a mod from Steam Workshop to kinda fix it (Fix AI Luxury Improvement issue with Monopolies and Corporations Game Mode - this mod moves Corporations to Currency, as the modder noticed that AI started improving resources when you reached Economics, so they brought it earlier in the tech tree).

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, I felt that with the workshop mod, things were generally better. Still not ideal given what bonuses the AI has, but it wasn't as bad as it was without the fix where they would seemingly go out of their way to not improve the tiles.

 

[E.man]

Just getting into Civ VI and find it ininteresting to see how well Corporations was received.
Having turned it on for a game or 2 it seems like a pointless pain in the bum.
Wandering about, checking the resources list trying to work out which resource I can Corporatise and where it is. Haven't even tried to Monopolize.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Wandering about, checking the resources list trying to work out which resource I can Corporatise and where it is. Haven't even tried to Monopolize.

As long as you own two of the same luxury resources you can build an Industry improvement on one of them. Industry unlocks at Currency
You unlock corporations at Economics in the Industrial Era. You then need to send a Great Merchant to an Industry in order to upgrade it to a Corporation. Note that you need three copies of the same luxury for a Corporation.

 

[UWHabs]

As long as you own two of the same luxury resources you can build an Industry improvement on one of them. Industry unlocks at Currency
You unlock corporations at Economics in the Industrial Era. You then need to send a Great Merchant to an Industry in order to upgrade it to a Corporation. Note that you need three copies of the same luxury for a Corporation.

I find too often I just assume that I can create the corps for it later with a merchant, so every now and then it takes me a second sometimes when I don't see the action available and have to start to go hunting.

Once you get mercantilism, the resource tab is your friend. Before then, it's more of a guess when I place a plantation down and whether I see my gpt jump by more than would be reasonable or not, or using the map search if I feel I have seen the whole continent to know where all the resource copies are. I do wish that the info was a little easier at hand. Like, it would be awesome if the mode was active, and I could click on a luxury resource and it would bring me up a little popup info about it, showing me where the industry is, where the known copies are, how many I own are, etc... Even if you only got that tab when you created your industry, it would be a nice little "balance sheet" for the industry to see potential targets.

 

[E.man]

I find too often I just assume that I can create the corps for it later with a merchant, so every now and then it takes me a second sometimes when I don't see the action available and have to start to go hunting.

Once you get mercantilism, the resource tab is your friend. Before then, it's more of a guess when I place a plantation down and whether I see my gpt jump by more than would be reasonable or not, or using the map search if I feel I have seen the whole continent to know where all the resource copies are. I do wish that the info was a little easier at hand. Like, it would be awesome if the mode was active, and I could click on a luxury resource and it would bring me up a little popup info about it, showing me where the industry is, where the known copies are, how many I own are, etc... Even if you only got that tab when you created your industry, it would be a nice little "balance sheet" for the industry to see potential targets.

This exactly.
Also what's the benefit of all this finding where the stuff is by manually looking all around the map?
I get to make Products which I think adds money and Tourism? If I didn't have it turned on I would still be competing with Economics and Tourism just without Products. So what? No loss. Just less detail to deal with.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I get to make Products which I think adds money and Tourism? If I didn't have it turned on I would still be competing with Economics and Tourism just without Products. So what? No loss. Just less detail to deal with.

Products also give cities the corporation bonuses to the cities you place them in. But yes it is essentially another way to easily generate tourism for a cultural victory.

 

[Zaarin]

This exactly.
Also what's the benefit of all this finding where the stuff is by manually looking all around the map?
I get to make Products which I think adds money and Tourism? If I didn't have it turned on I would still be competing with Economics and Tourism just without Products. So what? No loss. Just less detail to deal with.

You mentioned you just got the game, which I think is the key detail here. The modes were designed as new little extras for people who have already exhausted everything the game has to offer. It may also have been an experiment for Civ7--both Corporations and Monopolies and Barbarian Clans were good ideas badly implemented (Civ6's theme song ) so they may well have been "proofs of concept," so to speak.

 

[kaspergm]

Curiously, in my current game, I could suddenly build Corporations on resources I only had 2 of, which were the only 2 existing of those resources in the world (i.e. I controlled 2/2 of those resources). I reckon perhaps some mod allowed this without me being aware.


Anyway, I have a question, I assume I know the answer, but wonder if anybody ever confirmed this to check: If I place a product in the city that also has the corporation tile, I won't get double the bonus - right?

 

[Aurelesk]

Anyway, I have a question, I assume I know the answer, but wonder if anybody ever confirmed this to check: If I place a product in the city that also has the corporation tile, I won't get double the bonus - right?

Yes you do. If you managed to get a Corporation and 6 Products, you can stack an absurd modifier like +120% Science or +200% Gold.

Spoiler Just a regular +215% Faith modifier :

Also: just a regular Petra city. Nothing to see here.
It is +215% for : +50% (Corporation) + 6 × +25% (Products) + 15% (Kilwa Kisiwani). Quite impressive.

For those who want to know more about the Monopolies and Corporations mode, here I tried to summarize it:

To make it simple, the Monopolies and Corporations mode allows to establish national Industries over a Luxury resources to enjoy additional yields and modifiers, founding international Corporations for better yields and modifiers, create Products for even more yields and modifiers (and some Tourism), and securing Monopolies to generate Gold and Tourism.

There are some key points:

• The Currency technology: it allows to establish Industries. You need a Builder charge, and control at least 2 luxury ressources of the same kind. You can only have 1 Industry per city, but all civilizations can have an Industry of the same Luxury resources. It gives some yield (2 Food, 2 Production, 1 Gold, 1 Great Merchant point) and a modifier, which can be either +15% Science, +20% Culture, +20% Growth & +3 Housing, +25% Faith, +25% Gold, +30% Production (military) or +30% Production (building) depending on the Luxury resource.
• The Economics technology: it allows to found Corporations. You need a Great Merchant over an Industry, and control at least 3 luxury resources of the same kind. You don't need a Monopoly in order to create a Corporation, but there can be only 1 Corporation in the world. It is possible to remove an opponent Corporation if you happen to have a monopoly on that resource. Corporations give some better yields (4 Food, 10 Production, 3 Gold, 2 Great Merchant points) and a modifier which is the double of the Industry, so either +30% Science, +40% Culture, +40% Growth & +6 Housing, +50% Faith, +50% Gold, +60% Production (military) or +60% Production (building) depending on the Luxury resource.
  • With a Corporation, you can now do Create a new Product projects. Once done, it will generate a Great Work "Products" that can be slotted in a Stock Exchange or a Seaport building. Those buildings have 3 slots each, and a Corporation can generate up to 5 different Products. They each generate 1 Tourism, 2~6 yield, and a modifier equal to an Industry. They stack: it is possible to achieve +120% Science or +200% Gold in a city with a Corporation and 6 Products.
• The Mercantilism civic: it allows to know how many Luxury ressources exist in the world, therefore know if you are close to a Monopoly or not. A Monopoly allows to gain Gold and Tourism modifier, and you do not need to wait to unlock the Mercantilism civic to enjoy from Monopoly's bonuses: the Civic just allows to know how many Luxury resources there are in the world.
  • A Monopoly is reached when you own at least 60% of the Luxury resources, and will start to generate Gold or Tourism:
    • Gold: you will gain 5, 10 or 25 Gold per turn and per Monopoly if it is a 60%, 75% or a 100% monopoly.
    • Tourism modifier: It is applied to all players and depends on how many Luxury resources you own, and how many opponent doesn't own the luxury resources inside their territory. A monopoly of 5 Amber resources against 7 civilizations where 5 of them don't have it is a 5 × 5 = +25% Tourism modifier, applied to all 7 civilizations. That Tourism modifier is tripled (→ 75%) if you own an Industry or a Corporation.

Personal thought:
As you can see, the yield modifier from Products are quite borderline, but are at least limited at 1 per city and 5 Products per Corporations. Meanwhile, the Monopoly effects are completely broken.
Gold-wise, if you happen to start alone on your own small island/continent might give you a full Monopoly of 4 different kind of Luxury resources. It means you will enjoy +100 Gold per turn at the beginning of the game without much effort.
Tourism-wise, since it scales with the number of opponent, the bigger the map is, the bigger the Tourism modifier becomes. Owning a single monopoly of 6 resources on a Huge map against 11 opponent means you will enjoy +198% Tourism against every civilizations. Many people ends up winning a Cultural victory by accident.

The Monopolies and Corporations is a great idea, but poorly executed (as stated by @Zaarin). It is also a "rich gets richer" game mechanic. When the game generate a map, it puts 4 kind of Luxury resources per Continent. Taking over the continent, either because you started there alone or through war, means you will own 4 full monopolies, meaning you will enjoy 100 GPT and an absurd Tourism modifier until the end of the game.