The state of corporations

[The Fool King]

Right now, corporations feels like a massive nuisance for little gain.

For a small, neglegible bonus you get tons of additional unhappiness and unhealthiness, not to mention you have very little control. Public Welfare is like a drop of water on a hot stone when combating the problem.

A big part of the problem imho is the complete lack of late game (Global Age) health buildings. I really can't understand the reason for that design choice - it certainly does not make the gameplay in late game fun.

Just my 2cc for what it's worth.

 

[LikeNothing]

A few points to add to this, about arguably perverse incentives resulting from the way Corporations are currently in game:

(1) As OP mentioned modern Corporations are a massive nuisance. This gives a strong extra incentive to adopt State Property because State Property limits Corporation to one per city. Especially for resource-rich civs (like France, where the problem is probably worst) this is a far more effective cure to the nuisance than Public Welfare. For similarly large but less resource-rich civs (like Russia, ironically) this incentive to adopt State Property is less.

(2) Each Corporation can only use a maximum of 12 resources (of different kinds, combined). This results in a sort of optimal size for late game civs, which is the size large enough to cover 12 resources for each corporation but not much bigger, because Corporations' benefits (meager as they are) abruptly stops growing when a civ reaches this size but a civ's maintenance costs grow nonlinearly (I think quadratically) with number of cities.

Perhaps by coincidence, this (soft) optimal size is very close to the size of America with only Core and Historical areas and optimally placed cities.

(3) Compare the modern Corporations with Trading Company which doesn't add or , Trading Company is far superior. Silk Route is less relevant here because it only spreads to cities low on and routinely ravaged by nomads. I am not aware of talk of Trading Company being overpowered - is anyone?

(4) Combining the points above, the optimal economic playstyle for a European colonial civ (and to a lesser extent, other resource-rich civs like America) currently is to go for Free Enterprise early on to reap the benefits (most importantly Trading Company), and then switch to State Property when the modern Corporations kick in to limit the damage.

 

[borhap88]

the optimal economic playstyle for a European colonial civ (and to a lesser extent, other resource-rich civs like America) currently is to go for Free Enterprise early on to reap the benefits (most importantly Trading Company), and then switch to State Property when the modern Corporations kick in to limit the damage.

Literally the last step of marxist historical development.

 

[Leoreth]

Sounds realistic so far.

 

[brett0007]

Sounds realistic so far.

Since when is the western world a bastion of communism? If anything its lately been shifting to right wing capitalist/interventionist protectionism to combat the supposedly communist China. which is looking more and more like a fascist state than a communist one...

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah and things suck.

 

[The Fool King]

Sounds realistic so far.

What is the point of realism in game design, when it takes the fun out of playing?

(Surely, for example, the Environmentalism civic in the main game may be slightly unrealistic und overly simplified, but it serves its purpose in the balance of the game well.)

 

[Leoreth]

Education.

 

[The Fool King]

Well, I happen to be a high school history teacher and forgive me, but you, sir, seem to have to have a warped concept of education. Or playing games for that matter.

1) People don't play games if they aren't fun - ask any psychologist to explain the basics to you better than I probably can.

2) I would be both horrible at my job as well as constantly miserable if I weren't doing my utmost every day to make the subject of the lesson fun and interesting.

 

[Leoreth]

damn it seems you don't only school people in the classroom

 

[brett0007]

Yeah and things suck.

That's an opinion though, And I highly doubt having Russia as the bastion of free market capitalism is educational, Id far rather have countries competing to host corporations and then general shift from manufacturing based economies to business and financial based. Regardless of any opinions on capitalism/socialism the stark truth is the global economy acts as a market, and it is dominated by private interests, Id like a communist/fascist option for alt history and a bit role play but going by the world today the free market needs a buff.

 

[Leoreth]

That's an opinion though

Yeah but it's mine and I'm the creator

 

[1SDANi]

Well, I happen to be a high school history teacher and forgive me, but you, sir, seem to have to have a warped concept of education. Or playing games for that matter.

1) People don't play games if they aren't fun - ask any psychologist to explain the basics to you better than I probably can.

2) I would be both horrible at my job as well as constantly miserable if I weren't doing my utmost every day to make the subject of the lesson fun and interesting.

You could make a mod to make the civics fun, balanced, and historically accurate.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

This gives a strong extra incentive to adopt State Property because State Property limits Corporation to one per city.

Huh? I was under the impression that limit had been removed quite a while ago. Are you sure you're playing the current version?

 

[LikeNothing]

Huh? I was under the impression that limit had been removed quite a while ago. Are you sure you're playing the current version?

https://github.com/dguenms/Dawn-of-Civilization/blob/develop/Assets/Python/Companies.py
See line 100 to 104

Yeah and things suck.

I agree 100%. Happily running Free Enterprise till eternity is not realistic or interesting for any civ.

What concerns me is what should be the end game economic Civic replacing Free Enterprise. I (and Karl Marx, and the Scandinavian governments, as far as I understand) thought that (regarding DoC as a rough simulation of reality) State Property is a valid immediate replacement of Free Enterprise, but Public Welfare is the ultimate economic Civic in the far distant future. The unlock sequence and listing sequence of the economic Civics also seem to suggest this.

So I am pointing out the fact that State Property beats Public Welfare at end game, for civs like France and America, regardless of play style (for warmongers State Property will always be better because of the bonus), may not be what the creator had in mind originally.

Specifically:

(1) Is Public Welfare currently overshadowed by State Property? It appears that State Property is usually a superior alternative to Public Welfare not only right after switching from Free Enterprise, but all the way till end game, for many, if not most civs. This then makes Public Welfare somewhat redundant, especially since it unlocks so late.

(2) How should Free Enterprise - State Property - Public Welfare be balanced?

(2.1) Where the balance should be at: The most game theoretic balance would make them each optimal for different civs at all times; the most realistic balance would make them each optimal for most civs at different times, but generally allow a clear progression over time/eras/epochs as one gradually replaces another as the dominant civic in the world overall.

I'm not too concerned with where the balance should be at - I enjoy games that hit either end of the balance. Most games, especially competitive PvP games strive for game theoretic balance, while historical strategy games (probably the favorite genre of everyone here) is the one genre where realistic balance is mainstream.

(2.2) How should the balance be achieved: Regardless of where the balance is at, I think for all purposes, including both fun and education, the balance should not rest so much on "how best to get rid of nuisance corporations". This follows as a corollary from OP's point, which is that corporations shouldn't be such a big nuisance. But my point is more modest than that: even if corporations are such a big nuisance (I certainly regard them as such IRL), it should not tilt the balance between the last three economic Civics this much (which IMO makes them a nuisance not only in game and IRL, but in the game's meta too!).

 

[Nyayr]

It is possible to run with all those corporations, when you a huge colonial empire like England or France, with tons of resources to combat the unhappiness/health issues. However you have to avoid Coal power that's for sure. India and China can also manage due to the high resources count they have.

I usually prefer Free enterprise cause it has a has economy stability bonus of 50%? or state property has a reduced one? Even so the extra hammer per specialist is useful if you try to outproduce the competition.

Public welfare can however with a high happiness overshadow Free enterprise late game, when you able to have +10 happiness in cities and get a coin for each happy person. You have to focus on nature reserves for an additional 1 coin and 1 coin for a happy person. So you want to keep forests in tact. Especially nations that have a lot of forest like the North Americas (especially Canada), Australia and Russia, can manage a huge output as well on the east side. Moscow for example starts with about 8-10 forest so thats an extra 8-10 happiness you can tap into.

Though if you like lumbering them down... You wish you could plant forests... Which you can't I believe?

 

[Malchar]

Do civilizations that run different civics get a diplomatic relations penalty? I haven't played any modern-era games for quite some time, so I forget if this already exists. My idea would be that there could be a relations penalty between civilizations running free enterprise and state property. This could represent the largely irrational hatred between different countries in real life, and it could be an interesting gameplay choice adding some additional factors to the calculus. Considering that right now the Arabian civ has a huge -15 diplo penalty towards anyone who is a different religion, I think a comparable penalty between free enterprise and state property would be more than realistic.

 

[Leoreth]

Civic based relation penalties are driven only by LH favourite civics: they like you if you have it, dislike you a little if you don't have it, dislike you more if you refuse to switch to it. That's it.

It's certainly less impactful than religion even in RFC where the impact of religion peaks during the medieval era and then tapers off. My idea would be a system where civs can have next to their state religion a state ideology. There would be different Ideologies that get unlocked around the Industrial (or late Renaissance) eras, e.g. Authoritarianism, Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism, Fundamentalism etc. (not sure how detailed to be here) which you cannot pick but get sorted into based on your overall civic choices, like you already are for dynamic name and leader selection purposes (in many ways it would be a more explicit version of those systems).

You'd have a corresponding icon in the scoreboard next to your name and significant relation penalties between differing ideologies and boosts between shared ideologies, to the point where choosing an ideology likely determines who is your ally and who is your enemy, similar to state religion in vanilla BtS.

You could model a lot of things using this premise, like the Revolutionary Wars, WW2 and the Cold War. Beyond the first stab at this feature you could also do things like giving each Ideology their own mini-UN to interact with each other, like COMINTERN etc.

 

[MechatronicJazz]

My idea would be a system where civs can have next to their state religion a state ideology.

Very cool idea. I really like how the dynamic names don't rely on just one civic category (if I'm not mistaken), so ideology categories that depend on the combinations you have also really appeal to me.

On the debate about how realistic the likely optimal civ choices for each civ are: civics are always going to be an imperfect fit for the civs they are based on. I agree that incentivizing civs to choose the historical civics is a good goal, but there should always be some room for alt-histories and various player strategies. Suggesting tweaks to make a civic more historical and fun still seems useful, but complaining that you've found the optimal civic for a particular civ to be an ahistorical one seems less useful. Personally, I like the idea of all late game civics being viable for all (or most) late game civs in different situations, rather than the historical one always being the obvious choice.

 

[Leoreth]

I mean that's what it's striving for. Of course stability rules box you in to some extent. The AI at least is in no way scripted to make historical choices besides LH preferences and some minor adjustments to prevent ahistorical situations.