Custom Corporations

[peege]

I just finished a marathon BtS game on HUGE with 15 civs. The game was on Prince and I managed to get all the corporations except one that never got founded before the game ended.

It got me to thinking how short of taking over a city with the corporation HQ in it, there would be no way for any of the civs to compete.

I am pretty sure it is out of the question for CIV IV, but just for the sake of discussion, wouldn't it be cool if in future versions of the game, there could be custom corporations?

What about the civ that has a ton of cows, or pigs? can't they make a Burger Chef or something like that? where the points that it could get would be based on the commodities at stake. that would also determine which corporations competed with which.

I'm just tossing this out there. It's been on my mind.

I tend to go for Mining Inc, and Sid's Sushi for sure, and even save the great people for a couple of hundred years if i have to. Then I use the other corporations to selectively control other civs' economies. For example, giving Cereal to the civs that don't have any wheat, corn etc, and sushi to ones lacking fish. unless they are my allies. trying to keep the benefit down for the other guy, while maximizing on the spreading of the corps that have HQ in the same city as Wall Street.

With custom corporations, you could build a business that actually fit your own country to compete with the foreign corporations. sure, it might not do as well globally, but it might, and it would sure be an interesting way of getting games to be different each time.



Any thoughts?

The game is great now, but in the future versions, it would be nice to see an expansion of an already great concept to make the game more customizable.

[Theben]

You certainly can modify the game to customize your corps.

[peege]

I mean as an in game option.

[joncnunn]

Just don't build corporations that compete with the ones you already have so the poor AI can found some.

I could also argue that you able to found 6 of them (and on the verge of being able to found the 7th) would indicate the AIs were all way behind anyway and you should promote yourself to the next level.

[Unimatrix11]

no, i think peege isnt complaining about anything or asking a question: He makes a suggestion to expand the corp-feature with some sort of custom-design. Like in Alpha Centauri, you can design your units, he wishes for a feature which enables you to design your own corps.

Given the right modules for design and a clean and simple interface, as well as the fact, that you would do it like 3times max in a game (meaning it doesnt take too much gametime), it might be an idea worth exploring, IMO.

[Blaupanzer]

That vision of corporations sounds both playable and closer to history. Each of up to three corporations would have to use at least three resources. However, the AI programming for that would be very complex.

[peege]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
no, i think peege isnt complaining about anything or asking a question: He makes a suggestion to expand the corp-feature with some sort of custom-design. Like in Alpha Centauri, you can design your units, he wishes for a feature which enables you to design your own corps.

Exactly.

I'm happy with CIV IV the way it is.

It would be a way of taking a franchise game like CIV and expanding it in a way that busts it open. That approach could be taken with other aspects of the game as well, but corporations seem like the easiest way to start on it.

In general, the old CIV games are pretty much the same as the new ones with the exception of the Corporations, and the Great people, espionage, generals and such. Only a few technologies added per new version. New units with new graphics, sure, but the game is essentially the same.

This would be a way of breaking out of that mold.

I personally, don't 'want to see a CIV-V that is just like IV, except with a greater demand on the processor and graphics card. True customization would really blow it out of the water. I didn't even bother playing much of CIV 3 because it was too much like Civ2. I went to Call to Power II during that time.


I'm not a programmer though. I do know that it would probably be well outside of the scope of a mod for this version though. Involving a new corporation-advisor screen at least. Not to mention all kinds of behind the scenes stuff to make it happen.

[peege]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Just don't build corporations that compete with the ones you already have so the poor AI can found some.

I could also argue that you able to found 6 of them (and on the verge of being able to found the 7th) would indicate the AIs were all way behind anyway and you should promote yourself to the next level.

You're probably right there. Time for monarch.

I did make a concerted effort to get them all as my main goal for the whole game too. I was behind militarily because of it. But eventually won because of it.

Also, by building the ones that compete with my corps, it ensures that I have a monopoly on them. It's a sound tactic. I choose where to deploy which corporation.

It's like Cheerio's being the manufacturer of the gereric version, "Toasty O's" or something. They figure, you're gonna buy either the expensive box, or the cheap box. Either way, they get your money.

But as stated in the post above, that wasn't the point of the thread. So much as the corp-customization IN-GAME.