Beyond the Sword Review by Solver

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I'm not sure what the nr of resources is after which you're going to pay for it.

So what you are saying is that the marginal "cost" for having more than one resources varies as the number of those resources increases

eg 3 grain costs nothing
4 grain costs 1gold/corporate branch
5 grain costs 3gold/branch
6 grain costs 6gold etc

From the manual the marginal benefit from the extra resources is fixed so there is a point at which your marginal benefit from the extra resource (fixed) is worth less than the marginal cost of the extra resource (variable/increasing)

Would that be the case?

[Shrapnel12]

If say Mining Inc is in a city that has say 3 consumable resources, you get the hammer bonus in every other city with Mining Inc as well, correct? This means instead of getting .5 h for say 1 g, you'd really be getting 1.5 x # of corp cities for 1 g? If this is true, that makes a corp very beneficial if you can afford it.

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by CyberShy
You can sell ONE of the resources to decrease your maintenance. You can sell TOW of the same resource to do the same. You can sell them all to make all maintenance costs go away. But then you won't have resources anymore as well.

But a corporation in a city with a courthouse and a HQ in a city with Bank/Grocery/Market/Wall Street is absolutely maintainable with only a few resources (2-6)

I'm not sure what the nr of resources is after which you're going to pay for it.

You can even fund those extra maintenances by founding new branches of your corporation in foreign cities. (which can give you 12 gpt per city!)

Yes, but then what do you do when foreign civs start spamming YOUR cities with corporations whose benefits you may or may not want, too? I appreciate that corporations may also require more "work" to get their full benefits, but I'm wondering if going straight for State Property and eschewing corporations altogether might be a "safer" strategy.

I am also worried about the inflation issue -- why was it decided to ramp up inflation so much in the end game versus the way it was earlier?

[Robert]

Originally posted by couerdelion


So what you are saying is that the marginal "cost" for having more than one resources varies as the number of those resources increases

eg 3 grain costs nothing
4 grain costs 1gold/corporate branch
5 grain costs 3gold/branch
6 grain costs 6gold etc

From the manual the marginal benefit from the extra resources is fixed so there is a point at which your marginal benefit from the extra resource (fixed) is worth less than the marginal cost of the extra resource (variable/increasing)

Would that be the case?

I meant that after a nr of resources you're going to have to pay a netto prize for it. With a courthouse and bank/grocery/wall street/etc. in your HQ city you're not going to pay a netto prize for it for the first nr of resources.

But indeed, the maintenance of your corporation depends on the number of resources you have of that specific branch.

regarding foreign corporations, you don't have to go to SP, you can also choose Mercantilism to disable the effects of foreign companies in your cities.

[yin26]

...why was it decided to ramp up inflation so much in the end game versus the way it was earlier?

This is just my take: When looking at ways to spice up the end game, certainly three starting points come to mind 1] What to do with multiple resources a player has but has no need for? 2] What about all those Great People who tend to lose their luster later in the game? 3] What to do with the large bank accounts, in part made possible by things like spreading your religion, etc.?

#1 is sort of like "Yeah, but no big deal." #2 Is along those line, too. #3, though, makes the end game a bit mindless as you can now afford huge armies, AI bribes, etc. Is there no way to tie these loose end together? This is the niche that corporations fill...you can now convert your resources to something you might want or lack, like more production or growth potential. Doing this, though, is going to make using up Great People a little more strategic, and you're going to have to eat up some of that huge bank account. Of course, you now have an incentive to get those extra resources as well...

So a pure warmonger who cares nothing for corps could, in theory, be bested by the player who makes a long-term corp strategy to have better production rates and city sizes in exchange for redundant resources, saved up GPs, and some of their cash flow off the top. Yes, this is a far more subtle approach to world domination, and you can certainly ignore it, but it's likely a bit of heaven for the micro-manager types who found the late game a bit shallow.

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by CyberShy

regarding foreign corporations, you don't have to go to SP, you can also choose Mercantilism to disable the effects of foreign companies in your cities.

That's true, but you also don't get the benefit of foreign trade routes with Mercantilism. (Which, given the nature of SP, kind of makes me go... ) And if corps aren't worth the hassle due to inflation except in marginal cases, SP might remain the default civic of choice, since it eliminates a possible benefit, helps the player keep costs down, while at the same time, prevents his cities from being 'exploited' by the AI corporations.


(Just playing devil's advocate here.)

[Robert]

I'm not sure from the top of my head if mercantilism means that you can't have trade routes with your own vassals / colonies. If it does mean that, that makes a huge difference.

Regarding inflation, the end game needs more inflation if not only to prevent that all civs will run rich and rich and rich.

[=DrJambo=]

The HRE UB, giving -75% to maintenance, is probably the best UB in BtS. Running Corps is easy and managable and less likely to give you late game grief.

Inflation is a nuisance, especially because it distorts the value of Corps as you get toward the end game. However, playing with some of the Corps has made me realise just how powerful they can be, if used correctly. Take the food Corps for instance. I have a food heavy city which has reached it's maximum land working population. Every extra citizen after then is therefore a GP. Add a food Corp and this city just became the greatest GP factory in history. This isn't possible under SP.

Not only that, but bolstering backwater cities with production or culture Corps can transform them in an instant into really useful and competitive cities during the late game.

The idea seems to be not to abuse where you put the Corps, i.e. not every city is going to benefit and the more you spam them arbitrarily, the more the late game inflation will hurt. Pick the cities wisely.

On that note however, my main reservation is the AI, which seems to spam Corps (foreign Corps at that!) among all their cities. Either they're getting some hidden economic boosts somewhere, to combat the inflation and costs, or the AI just isn't up to dealing with the choices that having Corps (particularly foreign Corps) enforce on you.

[dregor]

I tried playing on Epic and it's just too fast for me. Even if Marathon is "unbalanced", I think I'll be going back to it.

[Wiglaf]

You must like hitting "End turn" every few seconds.

[dregor]

Yea, my A.D.D. hasn't kicked in yet, sucks to be me I guess.

[Jvstin]

Originally posted by dregor
I tried playing on Epic and it's just too fast for me. Even if Marathon is "unbalanced", I think I'll be going back to it.

I've tried Marathon, and it just feels too long for me. I like Epic plenty fine.

[onodera]

Originally posted by dregor
I tried playing on Epic and it's just too fast for me. Even if Marathon is "unbalanced", I think I'll be going back to it.

Same here. New tech every 10 turns is too fast for me. And being able to build Swordsmen after my second city is just founded... Marathon all the way.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by dregor
I tried playing on Epic and it's just too fast for me. Even if Marathon is "unbalanced", I think I'll be going back to it.

Same here, I tried once to go back to Epic, but it was way too fast. Marathon

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by CyberShy

I meant that after a nr of resources you're going to have to pay a netto prize for it.

I've got no idea what one of those things is but I'm starting to thing that the whole logical argument goes back to where I was before, namely

1) Extra resources for the corps cost extra gold
2) Each extra resource also adds a corp-related benefit

Both of these values are marginal and cost the same for each resource you have (whether 1 or 100)

Therefore, if you don't like the trade-off of benefit to cost for the 100th resource, you don't like it for the 1st.