Trade Companies and Vassals

[gazo]

For the next expansion, Ed, maybe we could incorporate Corporations and Vassals?

If we include Corporations, let them start fairly early in the timeline. So we could implement trade companies. If we did this, than maybe England and the Netherlands could have a bonus towards them.

This would allow a new district too, one focusing on trade companies/corporations. Maybe one per civ, maybe not. Maybe one per civ, with each building adding a new company/corporation?

Trade companies and vassalage go hand-and-hand, I think. Maybe making another country a vassal state or colonial state gives you access to all of their resources as though you had improved those tiles? And then, obviously, this would tie in to trade companies/corporations - when you form a trade company, you select the resource it is tied to, and you get a bonus for each such resource worked (not on the tile, but added to your pool of income) - plus if strategic, you get the added resource count, and if a luxury, you get the amenity.

Maybe some civs have an additional corporation bonus, like if Australia makes a trade company focused on sheep.

 

[man_in_finance]

This is my idea for trade improvements. It is aims to minimise changes to underlying game features/mechanics whilst maximising the gameplay and strategic sense about those mechanics.

At the moment the game allows international trade routes, but generally speaking the only factor worthy of consideration are your own civs trade routes. Multi-national trade routes. I.e if civ A, civ B, and civ C all have established trade routes between each other, means nothing.

I think the concept of trade agreements, where multiple civs all have bi-directional trade routes established routes in a 'graph clique' should be worth more. The initial values I have pegged are:

1-clique: 1x trade route (civ A has a route to civ B)
2-clique: 1.5x trade route (A has a route to B and B to A)
3-clique: 2.0x trade route (A B and C have routes to each other)
4-clique: 2.5x trade route (A B C D have routes to each other)
..etc

A clique is only valid for the turns it is in place, making pillaging trade routes, embargoes more impactful, and also war considerations more financially painful.

As an extension a great merchant can establish a multi-national corporation in any turn which replicates your current most valuable trade route for the remainder of the game regardless if your clique fails (by trade routes between civs ending or being pillaged).

 

[Bechhold]

I think it would be interesting in the next expansion have a system where you can form Chartered Companies (which could recruit certain types of units and workers to construct certain buildings), then as the game advances form them into Corporations that focus on a certain commodity i.e. Food, Energy, or even Iron/Gunpowder etc.

 

[Greywulf]

Yeah, I've been calling for Vassalage for years now, among other things. I've given up now.