Why am I too stupid to understand corporations?

[jkp1187]

Just curious how the corporation thing would work by creating a couple of "gold colonies", let's call them.

Out of the way cities, perhaps even in tundra, maybe you founded them just to deny that territory to a rival.

Once an appropriate corporation is created (let's say Mining, Inc.), you create a branch in this city. You then convert the production of this city to gold.

Assuming no changes in any of the current rules structure (including inflation,) how many instances of resources would you need to get your hands on for this to be 'profitable' for your empire?

Discuss.

 

[homan1983]

But one thing seems clear: some players are saying that they have achieved good results using Corporations, not theory, but have gotten good results in actual games they have played. That means that the Corps. cannot be 'broken' or nobody would ever get good results.

your statement that "corporations cannot be broken or nobody would ever get good results" is wrong.

If it were as simple as that then this problem would have been caught by the civ developers well in advance.
In fact it is possible for something to both be broken, yet still yield good results.

This general happens with bad scalability.

For example espionage on normal speed is great and yields good results as expected for the cost, yet the same mechanic is flat out broken in marathon and to a slightly lesser extent in epic speed.
The problem here is scalability.


I also sometimes give the wrong impression, I DID get good, hell even GREAT results from corporations: but only at the start.
The problem with corporations isn't that they completely suck - but that they get worst and worst as the game goes on.

So whilst in the 1900s I was going: "cool corporations OWN, my free market economy is kickass", when i reached the second millennium I was thinking "holy . .. .. .. . im in the red bigtime, whats going on... *press F2* oh hello mr inflation thanks for taking away 2100 from me every turn, oh look your taking 224% on top of the other 100% I already pay cool".


Basically to use the espionage analogy, people who play on normal game speed would be: "espionage is fine learn to play" whereas those on marathon keep trying to get people to understand that it is in fact broken.

 

[Infantry#14]

Perhaps they can fix the corporation mechanic by letting that each corp in your city generate 10% more gold in addition to market, grocer, and banks.

 

[jkp1187]

Homan,

Just curious -- are the people reporting the extreme inflation problems with corporations playing on Epic or Marathon?

 

[homan1983]

Corpoartions are not broken, it's just how you use them

How insightful, thanks.

 

[homan1983]

Homan,

Just curious -- are the people reporting the extreme inflation problems with corporations playing on Epic or Marathon?

I played my first game game as "epic Ethiopia" and it was the same as my second game as "normal Dutchl"

I suggest people now play as zulu or HRE, with them you basically halve the cost of corporations compared to non-HRE/Zulu civs which is amazing - giving you an extra 1300 per turn as well as saving on the normal city maintenance too.

Although I must say at the start it was very managable - hence if u finish your game by 1800 you should be more than fine!

 

[mrt144]

Just curious how the corporation thing would work by creating a couple of "gold colonies", let's call them.

Out of the way cities, perhaps even in tundra, maybe you founded them just to deny that territory to a rival.

Once an appropriate corporation is created (let's say Mining, Inc.), you create a branch in this city. You then convert the production of this city to gold.

Assuming no changes in any of the current rules structure (including inflation,) how many instances of resources would you need to get your hands on for this to be 'profitable' for your empire?

Discuss.

lets say you have 10 hammers turned into gold

10*(1+m+b+Gr)= 10*(2) = 20
what is the true maintenance cost of consuming 10 resources? that is

(city maintenance for corps [which is partly based on resource consumption])*(turn*.0045)+(city maintenance for corps)-(HQ profit of 15)

assuming CMC is exactly the same as hammers to gold 20, you would only be profitable up until turn 167 after inflation kicking in. if the cost of consuming 10 resources was ever higher (and i think we know it is) it would only be profitable for a smaller amount of turns, earlier.

this is on a per city basis. factor in all the costs of having another city and no, it isnt profitable.

 

[Random Oracle]

I posted this in the Mining, Inc. thread, but I figure it could be quite relevant here. After all, I've talked quite a bit about corporations and now I've finally founded one.

I just founded my first ever corporation -- Sid's Sushi. With 21 seafood it's giving me a rather massive +11 and 42 ! Granted, it's costing me 44 , 22 with a courthouse. Considering the current inflation rate of 68% (quite low, but it's only 1610 AD) the adjusted cost is about 37 . 15 of that is paid by getting 5 per turn in my Wall Street city, so the total tradeoff is 22 for 11 and 42 per turn.

Considering the costs should be lower in smaller cities I can see this being very beneficial at this point of the game. However, if the inflation rate was, say, 200% and I had to pay 66 in the same city, I don't think I would be spreading it too much.

This is all on epic speed and a standard map.

The can be very useful in certain situations like when you're going for a cultural victory or you want it for a culture war. However, it's not relevant in my current game, so I'm going to ignore it. This leaves 11 which could be turned into 5½ specialists who could produce 16½ or base which then could get multiplied by the approriate buildings. Let's say we use merchant specialists in a MGB city, so we get 33 back. Certainly a good investment if we only paid 22 .

Additional factors to consider are health and happiness caps, GPPs points (especially in a GPP farm) and Representation. Also, using this corporation to help cities grow fast is worth quite a bit in itself and you can also use the food in whipping and drafting.

 

[homan1983]

Yes it would be a good investment, in fact you must understand that you pay a bit more because you have to secure quite a lot of resources for it.

So it would then hopefully after paying for itself, end up better than a SP/CS for guys who can afford to trade for many resources.

But the problem is, when that same cost is 60, 70 or even 80 per corporation, its not possible to say the same: there is no one who could benefit from it regardless of how many resources you got from trade or how much cottages you have.

 

[Random Oracle]

In this instance I'm not trading for additional recourse, I'm just using what happens to be available in my territory (archipelago map).

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Sid's Sushi is one of the best I usually try to found it. But don't foget that you have spent a Great Merchant, so you won't be making a profit until you gain back that 1200 or so gold he would have gotten you; plus ~75 gold & hammers for each city you spread it to.

 

[jkp1187]

lets say you have 10 hammers turned into gold

10*(1+m+b+Gr)= 10*(2) = 20
what is the true maintenance cost of consuming 10 resources? that is

(city maintenance for corps [which is partly based on resource consumption])*(turn*.0045)+(city maintenance for corps)-(HQ profit of 15)

assuming CMC is exactly the same as hammers to gold 20, you would only be profitable up until turn 167 after inflation kicking in. if the cost of consuming 10 resources was ever higher (and i think we know it is) it would only be profitable for a smaller amount of turns, earlier.

this is on a per city basis. factor in all the costs of having another city and no, it isnt profitable.

I'm sorry, not having followed most discussions on the math of converting hammers since Civ IV was released, I don't understand your notations. Can you elaborate? Thanks.

And what is "CMC"?

 

[andrewlt]

It seems to me that there is no point to spreading any corporation to any of your cities at all. There's always a cheaper way to get the food, production and culture you need. Instead of having free market, why not have state property and change your towns to workshops? You'll get more hammers for less gold that way.

I just totally dislike the way corporations work right now. You need to sacrifice a great person and spend turns making executives. That's a lot of opportunity cost for no benefit.

In the real world, spreading corporations inside your borders is a no-brainer. However, you have to be careful of spreading corporations to other countries and you have to weigh the benefits they get to the benefit you get. In BTS, it's the opposite. Spreading corporations to other countries is a no-brainer while you don't want to spread any of your corporations to any of your cities as much as possible. You don't want any foreign corporation in any of your cities either.

 

[mrt144]

I'm sorry, not having followed most discussions on the math of converting hammers since Civ IV was released, I don't understand your notations. Can you elaborate? Thanks.

And what is "CMC"?

m = market
b = bank
gr= grocer

cmc = city maintenance for corps

 

[homan1983]

I just totally dislike the way corporations work right now. You need to sacrifice a great person and spend turns making executives. That's a lot of opportunity cost for no benefit.

And spend making the branches, and spend money or resources trading for corporation resources and adopt civics such as free market and the whole suite that comes with it

 

[homan1983]

lets say you have 10 hammers turned into gold

10*(1+m+b+Gr)= 10*(2) = 20
what is the true maintenance cost of consuming 10 resources? that is

Hi mrt.

In fact 1 hammer = 3 commerce(gold).
It is true that you cannot "convert" the hammer into 3 gold easily or at all, but thats the real value of a hammer. So when you have a city on "culture" "wealth" or "science" then you're under a heavy penalty.

For example:

Mine gives +3 mills give +1+1+2 (food is slightly more valuable than hammer, lets say that its worst 4)

Or Rush buying needs 3 gold per 1 hammer.

A cottage gives 5 commerce whilst a workshop gives 2 hammers. there is 1 difference here between 5 and 2(6) but that is made up by the fact that the workshop converts another food into hammer thereby losing 1 commerce!

 

[Kissamies]

Oh dear. This explains why I had to run it on 90% gold at the end of my last late game domination win. Well, the colonial expenses were the main reason, but the corporate cost were still taking a substantial share of the costs. I have only played 2 games both ending around 1950ies. I shudder at the thought of even later game where that inflation really starts to rip.

I agree that some tweaking is needed.

 

[mrt144]

Hi mrt.

In fact 1 hammer = 3 commerce(gold).
It is true that you cannot "convert" the hammer into 3 gold easily or at all, but thats the real value of a hammer. So when you have a city on "culture" "wealth" or "science" then you're under a heavy penalty.

For example:

Mine gives +3 mills give +1+1+2 (food is slightly more valuable than hammer, lets say that its worst 4)

Or Rush buying needs 3 gold per 1 hammer.

A cottage gives 5 commerce whilst a workshop gives 2 hammers. there is 1 difference here between 5 and 2(6) but that is made up by the fact that the workshop converts another food into hammer thereby losing 1 commerce!

i thought the build gold production order was 1 hammer = 1 gold

 

[homan1983]

Yes is it. But that is because when you Build Gold/Science/Culture you're paying a huge penalty.

Thats why its almost always better to not build those 3 and build actual improvements/units.

In fact in a typical game I would use these a handful of times.

That is one of the great benefits of (cottages) compared to . Its very fluid; you can convert it into culture/science/gold/ep through slider, or you can convert it into using rush buy (on a 3:1 scale)

 

[mrt144]

Yes is it. But that is because when you Build Gold/Science/Culture you're paying a huge penalty.

Thats why its almost always better to not build those 3 and build actual improvements/units.

In fact in a typical game I would use these a handful of times.

That is one of the great benefits of (cottages) compared to . Its very fluid; you can convert it into culture/science/gold/ep through slider, or you can convert it into using rush buy (on a 3:1 scale)

but for the purposes of the exercise (a colony in a remote land that has no ability to grow) that doesn't apply.