Some ideas to fix corporations

[greenday_234]

Say you spread Cereal Mills to another civ. It gives +2 and -4 . If they used it to add a merchant in every city and all of those citis had a market, grocer, and bank. they would be gaining 2 gold per city and 4 in the wall street city. That is only from minimum benifets. This means there are benifets.

This is all true, however, it appears as if the AI doesn't see it this way for they spread every corporation with the same amount of zeal regardless of its gold benefits/drawbacks. However, AI usage is not the main focus of my argument for making founders the soul spreaders, rather it is a small part.
Since I often get sidetracked and have difficulty articulating my point, I'll stop here and put down the four main arguments to support my point.

1) the benefits to the founder of a corporation spread to foreign cities is much much greater than the effort put in, and this will always be true to some degree so long as the franchisee has the same rights to spread as the founder.

2)So long as the franchisee has the same rights as the founder, all the hard work of getting techs,money and great people in order to found a corporation in an effort to gain an advantage (much as wonders provide to the builder) is immediately marginalized the second that corporation is spread to a foreign city. This is done by removing control from the founders hands

3) The loss of control results in a loss of strategic depth, as the owner will no longer be able to strategize which countries/cities to spread to. In essence, there is no spreading strategy, like there could be, because ultimately all those not running state property/Mercantalism will eventually have the corp.

4)There are two strategies right now, hang on to your corporation and spread it to only your cities that need it and take a penalty. Or, spread to one or two foreign cities, and presto! forget about your corporation because time will do the rest. (make money strategy) Not exactly exciting if you ask me nor strategic.

Franchises can get out of hand in RL, as one franchisee opens multiple branches, some of which are also franchises. Once you establish McDonalds of Hong Kong, you can bet your bottom dollar they will spread it to all of China, southeast Asia, and Pakistan at a minimum.

You're right, however, I tend to avoid real-life examples as gameplay > historical accuracy. Imagine if Civ followed real life to a tee, you'd be attempting to play a cluster ****

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by greenday_234
You're right, however, I tend to avoid real-life examples as gameplay > historical accuracy. Imagine if Civ followed real life to a tee, you'd be attempting to play a cluster ****

Watch big stacks engage one another in combat, and you'll find you are playing a cluster****.

[greenday_234]

Watch big stacks engage one another in combat, and you'll find you are playing a cluster****.

touche sir!

[greenday_234]

hmm, this one kinda died. possible that people don't think corps are broken?

[RuneofDoom]

I wish I could contribute =) Unfortunately I haven't had enough time to play yet to offer an qualified opinion of my own. So far, the few games I've played Corporations seem to go largely unused. I've founded a few for the sake of exploring them but so far I haven't experienced the ai corporate spam effect.

I admit though I find myself a bit lost still as to how to best make use of this new addition to the game.

So yeah - I at least find posts like this interesting and informative. Hope it picks back up.

[Lars_Domus]

No! This would make corporations even more weapon-like. Foreign corps can be useful, as long as you know where to place them. The AI just need to show a little more restraint in spreading them, that's all.

[greenday_234]

No! This would make corporations even more weapon-like. Foreign corps can be useful, as long as you know where to place them.

Well thats just my point, after you've placed one, you no-longer have any control as to where to place them, since the AI then receives the same placement abilities you do. regardless of restraint. You also say they'd be more weapon like, which I suppose to some degree would be true, however we don't make the same argument with wonders, where only one civ receives ALL of the wonders benefits. Besides the AI civ would have ways to combat your spread of corporations even under my system, i.e. mercantalism or state property. Certainly, they'd no longer reap the benefits by adopting merchantalism...but then again, isn't that their fault for not founding it?

The AI just need to show a little more restraint in spreading them, that's all.

I agree, though this doesn't solve the problem. If you go through all the effort of founding a corp, why should its power then be marginalized by trying to reap some of its benefits?

[Lars_Domus]

Well, as it is now considering whether to spread a corporation abroad is what Firaxis would call "an interesting decision": You can keep it to yourself and deny the AI the benefits, or you can spread it for monetary gain, but risk giving your rivals benefits you wouldn't like them to have.

When a foreign corporation is spread to one of your cities you're faced with another interesting decision: Do you spread it at an economic loss to gain its benefits, and provide the owner with an economic reward, or do you try to limit it or even block it with an appropriate civic? If you have no control of where to put it anyway (per your suggestion) then why not just go for straight for State Property (which is still quite a powerful civic)? That's not an interesting decision at all!

As it is now, spreading a corporation abroad works very much in the spirit of real life corporations: Taking a risk to gain economic benefits. There's a reason they call it a venture you know

[playshogi]

My suggestions for corporations:
1) only the HQ city can build execs
2) maintenance exempt from inflation, but escalates with the number of branches founded (similar to the way colonial expenses escalates)
3) if spread to an AI civ, that AI civ stops trading to you all the resources the corp uses, as soon as the deals can be canceled.
4) AI civs without the corp, don't make ridiculous trades, for example, I once got 3 Sushi resources for 1 silk when I built Sushi.