Why am I too stupid to understand corporations?

[Hangly Man]

I have played two different games and gotten a corp each time. This time I saved up a scientist from the middle ages and founded Standard Ethanol.

Now, what do they do after that? Civilopedia says I should be able to build executives now, but they never show up in the build menu.

 

[phungus420]

They are currently broken. You can exploit this and spread them to foriegn countries, but whatever you do, do not build them in your own cities. Unless you want to be paying around 2000 Gold per turn on Inflation.

 

[Ammar]

They are currently broken. You can exploit this and spread them to foriegn countries, but whatever you do, do not build them in your own cities. Unless you want to be paying around 2000 Gold per turn on Inflation.

It's not quite as bad. Anyway, did you even read the question? He asked nothing like that.

@OP:
So, you founded the Corporate HQ? You can only build executives in cities where there's either the HQ or a branch. Are you running State Property?

 

[Hangly Man]

No I mean I can't spread it at all. Why can't I build executives?

 

[Hangly Man]

Are you running State Property?

Yyyyes!

That's why?

 

[Joe Harker]

yes, you can't build corps when you have state property

 

[azaris]

They are currently broken. You can exploit this and spread them to foriegn countries, but whatever you do, do not build them in your own cities. Unless you want to be paying around 2000 Gold per turn on Inflation.

I see inflation also affects the ludicrous claims made against corporations on CFC. I bet it's 10000 gold per turn per city by tomorrow.

 

[SPQR300]

That's ridiculous, corporations are really powerful. With free market+courthouses in the cities, and bank, market+grocery+wall street in the HQ you get a lot of money! It is worth spreading it home, and even abroad, however expensive it is.

 

[Random Oracle]

I see inflation also affects the ludicrous claims made against corporations on CFC. I bet it's 10000 gold per turn per city by tomorrow.

Who is being ludicrous here? Are you claiming that people posting screenshots like this are faking them? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5720780&postcount=20

I haven't played my games far enough to run into this problem yet, but this does certainly seem bad. I'm happy people are looking into this thing, you just seem happy belittling them in every thread.

 

[Chigau Jiji]

As I understand it, it's been pretty well agreed that corporations
in your own country are broken due to inflation.
However, they are useful to economically cripple others.
Probably overlypoweredly so.

In my one experience corporations were a disaster
as I built them in all my own cities as an experiment,
thinking the bonuses were worth the maintenance cost.
In theory the maintenance cost of, in my example,
32 gpt is halved by a courthouse, so 16gpt.
Then the HQ gets 5gpt x 200% from buildings (including Wall Street) = 15gpt,
so it seems to average out
and in the meantime you're getting hammers, food, culture bonuses.
Great, surely?
No. Cos inflation screws you royally.
That maintenance charge is affected by 100% to 200% inflation in late game,
so the actual cost of each corp per city was not 16gpt,
but more like 40gpt!
That is crippling.

 

[sneaky]

I build the Sid's Sushi Co. corporation yesterday. It is great for boosting food poor cities. I of course didn't spread to all my cities. Just the one that needed. So far I haven't had to spread it to foreign cities and haven't been drowning in debt.

 

[azaris]

Who is being ludicrous here? Are you claiming that people posting screenshots like this are faking them? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5720780&postcount=20

I haven't played my games far enough to run into this problem yet, but this does certainly seem bad. I'm happy people are looking into this thing, you just seem happy belittling them in every thread.

That screenshot is from a game that is clearly won and in the very late stages, where the player foolishly spammed all his own cities full of two different corps. It is not representative of the usual way of handling corps. Inflation is a powerful economy limiting factor in the late game, but using an example with completely screwed up strategy as an example of how "corporations are broken" is just silly.

 

[sneaky]

That screenshot is from a game that is clearly won and in the very late stages, where the player foolishly spammed all his own cities full of two different corps. It is not representative of the usual way of handling corps. Inflation is a powerful economy limiting factor in the late game, but using an example with completely screwed up strategy as an example of how "corporations are broken" is just silly.

Indeed, I finally founded a few corporations in my last game, and I noticed you just need to be careful. Don't spread them to all your cities, only the ones that can benefit from it and don't expect to make any or much money. You are getting a huge benefit, so you should expect to be forced to pay for that. In any case, when you are careful you can still have a booming economy and don't have to drown in debt.

Of course you could take an proactive stance and spread them to foreign cities and extort money from your neighbors, but that's a completely different strategy and not the normal use of the corporation system.

 

[Random Oracle]

That screenshot is from a game that is clearly won and in the very late stages, where the player foolishly spammed all his own cities full of two different corps. It is not representative of the usual way of handling corps. Inflation is a powerful economy limiting factor in the late game, but using an example with completely screwed up strategy as an example of how "corporations are broken" is just silly.

The problem with inflation is that if Corporations are balanced at 20 upkeep cost, when inflation turns that into 60 are they still balanced? Their effect doesn't vary like this so either they're too cheap to start with or too expensive later on. In any case, it might be a good idea not to argue this issue in a ton of different threads. Maybe this issue should be continued in this thread in the bug forum: http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=266

 

[homan1983]

That's ridiculous, corporations are really powerful. With free market+courthouses in the cities, and bank, market+grocery+wall street in the HQ you get a lot of money! It is worth spreading it home, and even abroad, however expensive it is.

My friend that is what I thought, and what I did as well... but inflation keeps going up and by the end - after egyptians switched to state property - I was forced to keep 80% tax to pay for 3000 costs 2100 of which was just inflation.

That screenshot is from a game that is clearly won and in the very late stages, where the player foolishly spammed all his own cities full of two different corps. It is not representative of the usual way of handling corps. Inflation is a powerful economy limiting factor in the late game, but using an example with completely screwed up strategy as an example of how "corporations are broken" is just silly.

Think about what you're saying and don't simply make reactive statements that make you look stupid.

The first corporation comes with Railroad, and the next ones come around medicine etc. So you only get to found them in the moder ages in the first place.

The screenshot I provided has the date and its 2003AD. Thats only about 50 turns after the first corporation was founded, perhaps slightly more. The only reason it says "10 turns to victory" is because I launched a spaceship NOT because we are near the end game.

My gripe with corporations aren't that they costs too much, but rather that the cost of the corporations change greatly from the time you found them, going up and up as the game goes on.
So something that cost me 30 before is now costing me 224% more now (100)

 

[Ralgar]

First rule of corporations
They are not a dumb no brainer like religions
Second rule of corporations
They are not a dumb no brainer like religions.
Third rule of corporations
Don't spread it to all your cities, but only selected ones. For example to kickstart new founded across the sea. Or on your borders, the culture bonus is a big one! Settle Mining Corp in your Heroic Epic and Ironworks production cities. The beaker generating Corp in your Science Cities.

Corporations are not broken. It seems to me, there was much fine tuning involved. Yes, it cost money. But in the late game I have enough and the boni are very complementary. For exampe Mining Corp comes with railroads and around the time you built levees and factorys. The food Corps come with Techs which give you lots of health. The culture ones with mass media.

 

[bonafide11]

Civilization has it right. Corporations should and do provide huge bonuses if used properly. The people who whine about it being broken don't understand the basis of a free market economy.

 

[homan1983]

First rule of corporations
Corporations are not broken. It seems to me, there was much fine tuning involved. Yes, it cost money. But in the late game I have enough and the boni are very complementary. For exampe Mining Corp comes with railroads and around the time you built levees and factorys. The food Corps come with Techs which give you lots of health. The culture ones with mass media.

Spoken truely like someone who thinks theory = practice. Your notion that "yes I have enough money in the late game" is so innocent that when you realize what you're actually talking baout you'll kick yourself.

 

[Jaca]

My only experiece so far -- played one game only -- with corporations is just very good!

1. You can spread them in your own territory, no problem. If you built Wall street in you money-city, get the HQ there. Pick out a few key cities first where you want to have the benefit of the Corporations.

2. It's about investment, really, I think. In the beginning, when you're still using them to build up the city infrastructure, they cost you, but they do bring return on investment fairly quickly. It depends on what you want, of course, but its always investing money in return for what you wanted the Corporation being founded for in the first place. I find Mining Inc. especially interesting. You get lots of hammers in return for commerce, while worst case you switch to "build wealth" for a few turns for a break even effect.

3. Once you can spread in foreign territory, you earn lots more. I did have the frustration that my vassal was switching to State Prperty from tume to time, so I had to wait a bit before demanding him to switch back for my Corporations to profit more from him.

4. There's really lots of dynamics added with the Corporations. I think it's very nice.

Overall, great game mechanic.

Jaca

 

[azaris]

Think about what you're saying and don't simply make reactive statements that make you look stupid.

Pot, kettle, and all that.

The first corporation comes with Railroad, and the next ones come around medicine etc. So you only get to found them in the moder ages in the first place.

Railroad is an Industrial Era tech. Besides, the inflation is tied to years, not era or techs. You can have corporations in 1700-1800 if you play well.

The screenshot I provided has the date and its 2003AD. Thats only about 50 turns after the first corporation was founded, perhaps slightly more. The only reason it says "10 turns to victory" is because I launched a spaceship NOT because we are near the end game.

The screenshot shows that the game only has 77 turns left. If that isn't the end game then I don't know what is.

My gripe with corporations aren't that they costs too much, but rather that the cost of the corporations change greatly from the time you found them, going up and up as the game goes on.
So something that cost me 30 before is now costing me 224% more now (100)

The cost of everything goes up greatly during the modern era due to inflation. This is to offset all the powerful gold producing infrastructure you have place in your huge empire by then. Consequently, corporations take a heavy hit as well.

As to whether it's correctly balanced at the moment, I don't know yet. I doubt many of the people declaring this feature broken here have played more than 0-5 games on BtS either.

But the idea that corporations become less lucrative as time goes on makes sense because the player's economy grows massively in the modern times. Otherwise it would just be a self-feeding mechanism where once you found a corp and spam it in all your cities, you always get richer and richer. That IMO would make the corps truly OP and broken.