Welcome to HQCG. A lot of people seem to be confused and befuddled about corporations. So I'll give a little run down of my own prefered Corp tactics, and try my darndest to explain why I do what I do.
Corps work very similarly to religion, however the benefits donot require the building of extra buildings to gain. With a religion, you gain a single happy face and a single by itself. Build a temple and you gain another happy face, another , and the ability to have a priest specialist. With a cathedral you gain +50% upto 3 happy, and 2 more priests. So in effect, religion gives you happy, hammer, and culture benefits, augment even more with certain wonders, with a science bonus added on after a monestary is build.
Now corporations do a similar thing. However, instead of requiring buildings, they require access to resources, and a maintenance cost. You can gain science, hammers, food and culture from corporations.
Now that the basics are out of the way, lets discuss the individual corporations that I call "the happy 4".
Sid's Sushi is God. I will hold a great merchant from the middle ages, for thousands of years, to make sure I get sid's sushi. Most maps contain a large amount of seafood. Often, most civs will posses 2 or more of a seafood resource. Wich allows you access to numerouse resources through trades. With the worlds seafood supply at your disposal, it is very easy to gain a +10 food bonus from sid's sushi. As well as 40+ culture. 10 extra food, can be used to have 5 extra specialists in each and every city. Run representation, and thats 30 before bonuses from buildings In every city. As well as the great person points from having them active.
It Uses clam, crab, fish and rice.
Now why not cereal corp? Well, corn, wheat and rice are not as plentiful as seafood, and often a rival civ will only have one of each if any, thus lowereing your own food bonus even though it requires less resources per food+. And gives no culture bonus.
Next Up is Creative Constructions. It gives hammers and culture by using (from memory) bronze, iron, marble, stone and aluminum. Normally +6 hammers is usual with a minor jump after Industrialism. Mining Inc on the other hand, gives double the hammers (usually) and no culture. However, Mining Inc clashes with the next two Corps.
Aluminum Corp. It requires coal. Only coal. And it gives only science. +6 has been normal without going after everyones coal in the game. I spend little time spreading this corp, it goes to my core cities only, that would already have all the + buildings in place.
Civilized Jewlers is the last of the 4. I NEVER go after an artist to get this, but if I happen to pop one (wich usually happens because the game hates me) Then I will found it in my wall street city, then spread this to my vassals/rivals/neighbors. Purely for the cash. It's +culture bonus is useful in certain situations but it's designed to pay for itself if spread within your own cities. It uses gems, silver and gold.
Now you can have all 4 of these Corporations running in all of your cities, but that gets really expensive, especially under evironmentalism, wich adds +25% to corp costs. Personally Sid's sushi gets spread to all cities I can. If I could, every city in the game would have this, friend and enemy alike. But that's not likely feasable. Creative constructions is great in newly captured cities to help them get up to speed, in both culture and buildings. If I'm rich, then I will give it to all my own cities, and generally spread to one of an allies cities, in hopes they will spread it further.
The other two, I've already mentioned the plan with those. Aluminum corp to a select few core science cities, and Civilized Jewlers spread to OTHER civs.
Now with all these corps going, you can imagine that requires alot of labor. A lot of hammers to build the executives. And alot of $$ to do the spreading (usually 100 gold per city average just to attempt to add it.) So it's really debatable as to wether it's all worth it. Now with a large enough empire, you could easilly gain a huge bonus in research but is it better than just spending that time "building" science. Well that all depends on your own playing style. If you have many well built cities they can get the ball rolling quickly. But only a few very specialised cities would probably be better served in different ways.
Are corps over powered? Even with sid's sushi giving +2000 to an empire at 0% research, is it overpowered?
Well no. You could run state property to gain the same effects. +food from workshops and watermills is similar to Sid's Sushi and the +10% hammer bonus is similar to Creative constructions WITHOUT the time required to spread and the costs may offset the science bonus if you are pressed for resources.
Basicly. If you are the type that wants all your cities to be perfect monstrosities that give you +6000 per turn towards the end of the game. Then by all means. Spread those corps.
If you want to spend the time conquering your enemies and winning the game early, then your time would be better spent.
Corps work very similarly to religion, however the benefits donot require the building of extra buildings to gain. With a religion, you gain a single happy face and a single by itself. Build a temple and you gain another happy face, another , and the ability to have a priest specialist. With a cathedral you gain +50% upto 3 happy, and 2 more priests. So in effect, religion gives you happy, hammer, and culture benefits, augment even more with certain wonders, with a science bonus added on after a monestary is build.
Now corporations do a similar thing. However, instead of requiring buildings, they require access to resources, and a maintenance cost. You can gain science, hammers, food and culture from corporations.
Now that the basics are out of the way, lets discuss the individual corporations that I call "the happy 4".
Sid's Sushi is God. I will hold a great merchant from the middle ages, for thousands of years, to make sure I get sid's sushi. Most maps contain a large amount of seafood. Often, most civs will posses 2 or more of a seafood resource. Wich allows you access to numerouse resources through trades. With the worlds seafood supply at your disposal, it is very easy to gain a +10 food bonus from sid's sushi. As well as 40+ culture. 10 extra food, can be used to have 5 extra specialists in each and every city. Run representation, and thats 30 before bonuses from buildings In every city. As well as the great person points from having them active.
It Uses clam, crab, fish and rice.
Now why not cereal corp? Well, corn, wheat and rice are not as plentiful as seafood, and often a rival civ will only have one of each if any, thus lowereing your own food bonus even though it requires less resources per food+. And gives no culture bonus.
Next Up is Creative Constructions. It gives hammers and culture by using (from memory) bronze, iron, marble, stone and aluminum. Normally +6 hammers is usual with a minor jump after Industrialism. Mining Inc on the other hand, gives double the hammers (usually) and no culture. However, Mining Inc clashes with the next two Corps.
Aluminum Corp. It requires coal. Only coal. And it gives only science. +6 has been normal without going after everyones coal in the game. I spend little time spreading this corp, it goes to my core cities only, that would already have all the + buildings in place.
Civilized Jewlers is the last of the 4. I NEVER go after an artist to get this, but if I happen to pop one (wich usually happens because the game hates me) Then I will found it in my wall street city, then spread this to my vassals/rivals/neighbors. Purely for the cash. It's +culture bonus is useful in certain situations but it's designed to pay for itself if spread within your own cities. It uses gems, silver and gold.
Now you can have all 4 of these Corporations running in all of your cities, but that gets really expensive, especially under evironmentalism, wich adds +25% to corp costs. Personally Sid's sushi gets spread to all cities I can. If I could, every city in the game would have this, friend and enemy alike. But that's not likely feasable. Creative constructions is great in newly captured cities to help them get up to speed, in both culture and buildings. If I'm rich, then I will give it to all my own cities, and generally spread to one of an allies cities, in hopes they will spread it further.
The other two, I've already mentioned the plan with those. Aluminum corp to a select few core science cities, and Civilized Jewlers spread to OTHER civs.
Now with all these corps going, you can imagine that requires alot of labor. A lot of hammers to build the executives. And alot of $$ to do the spreading (usually 100 gold per city average just to attempt to add it.) So it's really debatable as to wether it's all worth it. Now with a large enough empire, you could easilly gain a huge bonus in research but is it better than just spending that time "building" science. Well that all depends on your own playing style. If you have many well built cities they can get the ball rolling quickly. But only a few very specialised cities would probably be better served in different ways.
Are corps over powered? Even with sid's sushi giving +2000 to an empire at 0% research, is it overpowered?
Well no. You could run state property to gain the same effects. +food from workshops and watermills is similar to Sid's Sushi and the +10% hammer bonus is similar to Creative constructions WITHOUT the time required to spread and the costs may offset the science bonus if you are pressed for resources.
Basicly. If you are the type that wants all your cities to be perfect monstrosities that give you +6000 per turn towards the end of the game. Then by all means. Spread those corps.
If you want to spend the time conquering your enemies and winning the game early, then your time would be better spent.
Comment