Announcement

**The Joker** · March 16, 2000, 08:53

I like the idea a lot. It would not only provide new, unconventional yet realistic ways of competing with other civs, it would also be fun to do.

I have some questions though:

- What do you do with the MFG's, the processed food and the services?

- How do people get unemployed?

- How involved would you be in the coorporations? (would you control what they would do?)

**The diplomat** · March 16, 2000, 12:11

I love the idea. it's great. Also, I really like the screen you made: it helps visualize the concept. I like the fact that the pop is divided in lower/middle/upper class, and that you have unemployment. These are economic concepts that are a must in civ3! One of the things that I like the best with the idea is that it strengtens free market. In SMAC, free market is too weak. With your idea, a free market could really be a economic powerhouse which is very good.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

**Stefu** · March 17, 2000, 01:04

I like this idea, esp. food/goods/services model. However, might you consider that instead of corporations being tied to civs, they'd be independent entities, like religions are proposed to be in Religion thread? You wouldn't simply build corporate units, you contract them and ask them to establish branch to your city so you can thake the advantage. Primary goal of corp would be to make money - to do this, it attempts to establish itself in as many areas as possible. This would also allow some fine diplomacy - for instance, civ might demand that corporation only tries to establish itself in one civs area, or corporation might ask civ to give it monopoly in its area. Later, corporations could even hire mercenaries and contract armies - if small civ refuses to obey them, then they'll try to take over!

**Youngsun** · March 17, 2000, 02:00

Hello Joker

1.MFG means processed shields. You can imagine shields as basic materials needed for industrial production like steel,pig iron,other metals or energy sources.

Manufacured goods are materials that are one step further from shields such as automobile,machinery,pc or consumer electronics,etc.

Since there are three different classes exist in a city, each class has varing degree of demand on food/PF/MFG/Service.

Low class needs 2 food and extra PF/MFG/Service will make them happy.

Middle class needs 2 PF to be content. Raw food will make them unhappy. extra MFG/Service will make them happy.

Upper class needs 2 PF/MFG/Service to be content. If their demand is not met their performance(Happiness/Science output)will drop.

Surplus of PF/MFG will be stored in national stock which can be traded to other civs. Service can not be stored(its disposible)

Some civs which have no corporation still can produce riflemen/armour,etc but they will lack PF/MFG/Service output which is exactly what happened former USSR and its bloc. For example, if Moscow has 200 shields output per turn it can produce heaps of armours but none of PF/MFG/service thus its citizens won't be so happy and attracted by Western goods.(Market economy vs Communism)

Unemployment

You remember the relationship between food and granary in a city?

Ha ha you do right?

It has exact same principle. Only scientist can convert trade arrows to beakers. Total output of beakers can be controlled by you like 60% education and 40% R&D. If you spend beakers as Education, they become "school texts" and "research reports" for R&D.

"School texts" will be piled up as food does in the city and if there is a school as city imrpovement, the school serves just like a granry to store texts more efficiently. Once texts reach certain amount like 40~50 texts, it becomes a "graduation certificate".

Newly appeared citizens are uneducated yeomen and you convert them as educated unemployed people by giving them a graduation certificate.

Yeomen can readily do farming,fishing and mining but those are their limit.

An educated man can be either a trader or salaryman.

Anyone can be Entertainer but high class has veteran and non-veteran element. If an entertainer gets 5~10 turns of experience he/she becomes a "Star". A Star produces twice more happiness than normal entertianers. Scientists do the same.

Scientists are created by granting educated men a "Doctor degree". Doctor degrees are produced by accumulation of "research reports" as graduation certificates do.

Doctor degree/Graduation certificate/happiness can be stored.
(DD/GC after discovery of paper.
Hapiness after discovery of Film/VCR/Radio cassete.)

We can contol corporation units like we control other military units. But Corporations are like organic creatures. They can grow or perish. Cities are kind of their nurseries. A city which produce lots of trade arrows is perfect environment service firms. A city produces many shields for manufacturing firms.

Thanks Diplomat and Stefu for your positive feedbacks.

Stefu, My original thought was the same as yours(Corporations as separate entities) but this raises a question why I play this game at all? oh man I was criticised a lot! So I had to look for any possible point for compromise.But more suggestions are welcome!

All of you please add more suggestions on this. Criticisms/Suggestions/New Ideas/ All welcome!

**Youngsun** · March 17, 2000, 07:26

International trade with corporations.

Remember Corporation unit stats?

S=Size(1-250)
FP=Financial power(1-30000)
PR=Public relation(1-20)
PC=Production capacity(1-20)
MC=Marketing capacity(1-20)
Tl=Technology level(1-50)

Example:

Ford New York
Size:2
FP:150
PR:5
PC:5
MC:6
TL:5

Size 2 means there are 2 salarymen who currentely employed by the firm.

Financial power 100 is basic and with extra 50 the firm can employ another salaryman. Ford New York is now ready to recruit one more salarymen.

If the HQ unit has expansionist AI,it is more likely the firm will spend the 50 credit for hiring extra staff but if the HQ unit has perfectionist AI, the firm may invest the extra credit to increase productivity,marketing or technoloty level.

As I memtioned before country yeomen can not be a salarymen. If you want to create more educated jobless men, you have to give graduation certificates to them thus later they can be employed by firms or open their own business(traders).

You can actually sell graduation certificates and Doctor degrees to other civs which suffer from lack of beakers which produced by themselves.(Simulating education industry opened for overseas students)

Back to trade

Processed food/MFG can be stored into national stock.

Graduation certitificates/Doctor degrees can be also stored.

Services can not be stored.

All the surplus of PF/MFG/GC/DD from cities goes into national stock.

You can trade these production surplus with other civs by creating trade pact. You can either barter the goods with other goods or sell them to get pure cash.

Once you got foreign goods in your stock, you can send them to the needed cities.

Times up I have to go!

**Ari Rahikkala** · March 17, 2000, 17:28

Only scientist can convert trade arrows to beakers

After you discover "Corporation" you can build it as a unit

So, before you discover corporation, you have to suffer of slow technological advancement(no refined goods/food/services)? If you meant this, corporation could be the key technology in Civ3. So, do something to your idea.

**Dida** · March 18, 2000, 01:10

Remember that this is a game, not a college caurse. such a corporation will make the game far too complex and too demanding. You will probably need a 1ghz PIII to run it.

**Youngsun** · March 18, 2000, 11:44

Hello Dida

Dida. I have to admit when I first met "Civilisation" it was too complex for me so I didn't like it. Later I knew what the game was all about and I thought "This is the best game I ever seen!". And man I learned a lot from the game.

I really became interested about History(Especially military history) so I read many history books that I would not have read if I was not that encouraged by the game.

So I can say I learned a lot from this game.

Also I stongly believe that there are not only nations exist as considerable entities today. Some corporations have bigger volume of trade than other smaller nations and they deserve to appear in Civ game as they do in the history. Don't you agree?

And I don't think your 1ghz PIII thing is approprite to say when it comes to as a CPU requirement.(Are you kidding?)

I think this idea can be readily accomodated under system like P200MMX~higher. Remember Civilisation I was able to run under even AT.
It is nice little graphics and animations which mainly eat up all the memory not the basic game ideas!

LightEning

I had little bit different ideas when it comes to about "gaining a new technology". I was not ready to suggest it as a model because I did not complete the thought but this time I really have to tell you part of my ideas about it.

Research and development are quite recent things to human history and many of technological advances are actually acquired incidentally by many individuals rather than a centralised government project.

Thus under my model, most of ancient techonologies and some Renaissance/Industrial technologies will be discovered not by the accumulation of beakers but with random probability which can be dictated by social needs/wants/ and total trade arrows production.

So if you want to get "Warrior code", your society must be asking this kind technology or at least wanting that for some reasons which can be cultural/economical/pure territorial,etc.

I will give one example for easier understanding of this concept.

Inca civ has no enemy civs around near its borders(No serious competition) but its people need lots of spiritual fulfilment mainly because of its culture.

Now Your society's need/want is spiritual fulfilment rather than advanced warfare right?

Then Inca civ is more likely to get "cermonial burial" not "warrior code".

OK Now how come Inca gets "cermonial burial" tech without beakers?

Once you have a city which produces lots of trade arrows the city will begin to receive bonus of "exchange of ideas". This "exchange of ideas" allows you to combine many limited individuals' thoughts to one which is more practical and close to realisation.

Let me just say your civ produces 100 trade arrows per turn and your government form is monarchy.

So about 20~30 exchange of ideas bonus you will recieve.(20~30% which also affecte by the civ's culture)

It maybe 10~20% under Despotism or 30~50% under republic.

As your civ becomes more advanced you will have more technologies which can be targeted and researched by your government as a project such as development of armour.

There was not so many scientists working on specific project ordered by the government during the ancient era and the term scientist itself is quite recent one I think. Of course there was some kings who were interested about discovering new technologies with working body of thinkers under the royal expense but these were rare.

So as long as your civ's infra is alright and produce lots of trade arrows per turn, you will have no problem to discover new technologies sooner than other civs.

And make sure your society gets more interested about what you are actually interested. If you want to have many war-related tech. then declare many wars with other civs or if you want make your civ economically strong, create many big size cities.

So civs which start from islands are more likely to get "map making".

So civs which start from a continent which has many enemy civs are likely get more war-related tech.

By Modern/Industiral era, you will be able to actually concentrate your effort to get a specific tech. without necessarily making your society really get interested about what you need now.

I really hope this will help you to understand What I'm thinking about gaining a new technology. What do you say?

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 18, 2000).]

**Dobermann** · March 18, 2000, 12:37

I dont like to post without giving constructive critisism but I had to say my mind here..

The first thing that comes to mind is Micro-Management, I mean people already complain about to much micro..
The second is how the d*vil are you going to keep track of all that info, especially if you have 50+ cities.

Its a well thought out idea but...complex..far to much for civ3 I think. Okey I´ll go away now and stop bothering you

**Youngsun** · March 18, 2000, 12:46

Doberman

Hahaha No it is not bothering at all.

I really appreciate your constructive critisism.

Since you controll your corporate force like you control your military force, it would not cause much micromanagement problem I think.

You may have seen ideas of stacking mil units right?

Corporate units can stack too like the Japanese keiretsu such as Mitsubishi. This group of corporations which work under the same HQ unit will be regarded as a one big task force and you control them as one unit by giving orders to the HQ unit which will do the rest that's why HQ unit needs independent AI.

More criticisms are welcome Doberman
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 18, 2000).]

**Ari Rahikkala** · March 18, 2000, 16:21

I don't think that there were no services, processed food or manufactured goods before great corporations started to form. Perhaps it would be a better idea to start listing companies after the invention of currency. The first companies are much smaller, and maybe also more inefficient in producing luxuries. Then, as you invent banking, economics, corporation , railroad, trade and other technologies like that, your companies become more efficient. Maybe, if your companies had high technologic values, they could do some research for you.

And, some corporations could be more efficient than others: For example, Toyota makes five cars from five shields, but Ford makes six. (Nothing personal, Toyota ). Now, the player, of course, wants to get Ford making cars for him. Except if Toyota has much higher technology level. Or something. Anyway, it brings again a new strategic element into the game: One more thing to ponder for the builders, one more thing which has to be in Civilization.

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Gaining new technologies related to current situation: Not bad. You could get the basic advances ( Trade, alphabet, warrior code, ceremonial burial, etc etc...) quite easily, even if the situation wasn't right. If you had really bad luck, you would get stuck without advancing; This happened to the aboriginals. They just thought that they didn't need any more technology.

And I could speak about religion, climate, temperature, people's origin, ways of life, and numerous other things which could be implemented. I just say, we don't seek a real world simulator. We seek a game. But adding the corporation idea here is a good idea. It probably makes the game better.

**Youngsun** · March 19, 2000, 00:25

quote:

Perhaps it would be a better idea to start listing companies after the invention of currency.The first companies are much smaller, and maybe also more inefficient in producing luxuries. Then, as you invent banking, economics, corporation , railroad, trade and other technologies like that, your companies become more efficient. Maybe, if your companies had high technologic values, they could do some research for you.

LightEning

Thanks for your helpful feedback. What about having a trading guild as a less advanced form of corporation for the Renaissance era? And as you said with more relevant technologies the guild will become more sophisticated and gets close to the form of corporation.

And "adding extra beakers to your nation's total beaker production when there are high-tech firms belong to you" is really nice idea!(Good job LightEning)

quote:

And, some corporations could be more efficient than others: For example, Toyota makes five cars from five shields, but Ford makes six. (Nothing personal, Toyota ). Now, the player, of course, wants to get Ford making cars for him. Except if Toyota has much higher technology level.

Remember the stats for corporations?
S=Size(1-250)
FP=Financial power(1-30000)
PR=Public relation(1-20)
PC=Production capacity(1-20)
MC=Marketing capacity(1-20)
Tl=Technology level(1-50)

I think it is better to say "productivity" rather than "production capacity". Thus smaller more production efficient firms can outperform bigger less production efficient firms.(Well pointed out LightEning)

quote:

Gaining new technologies related to current situation: Not bad. You could get the basic advances ( Trade, alphabet, warrior code, ceremonial burial, etc etc...) quite easily, even if the situation wasn't right. If you had really bad luck, you would get stuck without advancing; This happened to the aboriginals. They just thought that they didn't need any more technology.

I like the idea of technology stagnation and I believe this happened to some civs throughout the history. This kind of civs will need outside stimulation to gear up its technological advances again.

quote:

And I could speak about religion, climate, temperature, people's origin, ways of life, and numerous other things which could be implemented. I just say, we don't seek a real world simulator. We seek a game. But adding the corporation idea here is a good idea. It probably makes the game better.

Hahaha you are right we are just playing a game but a game which is better to be close to the reality not necessarily representing the reality.

**Stuff2** · March 19, 2000, 15:15

I love the idea of corporation's. There's just a few thing's that i don't like about it. Here are my comments:

- First of all...please, no more unit's. I just hate moving around unit's.
- Corporations should only be possible in cities belonging to an rival with whom u have an tradeagreement.
- Not all the tax will go to you...some of it (maybe around 25 - 50%) should go to the city where the corporation is established. (If you want to know why i will explain it to you.)
- It should be possible for government's to sell/buy/build corporations. A corporation belonging to your government will be totally under your control. But other corporations can be controlled by taxes and regulations.
- There should also exist illegal corporations. Smuggling illegal stuff like drugs and weapons.
- If u wanted to you should be able to forbid every kind of foreign corporation. This will make your citizens and your trade-partners unhappy, but it should be an option. Even though it may hurt your economy.
- Maybe the biggest corporations could interfere with the world politics. Maybe you should be able to contact corporation leaders and make agreements with them. If the 5 biggest corporation had this status it would mean alot to have them belonging to your civ.
- Free market should mean that your control of it is limited to taxes and maybe a few regulations.

**Sirotnikov** · March 19, 2000, 20:30

I like the idea, but I also fear that it would make a very comlpex game inside a game. Maye, try to simplify it more. And please: have less stats!. Nothing has 6 stats. nothing should have 6 stats. i got a headache just reading the stats. make less stats. ok, I asume you got the idea . but you're on the right track with corp's I think.

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"Corporations"

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