Minimalist Balance Mod?

[Krill]

I know, I'm talking about earlier.

What, that makes no sense. I turned tech off to buy enough tanks and a few bombers so I could destroy sunrise, and I didn't do that for more than about 6 turns - I still teched Flight and Fascism whilst rushing tanks. It's a tactical decision that's based on an ingame situation that can vary. It's the same type of decision you make when you whip population.

[SevenSpirits]

What, that makes no sense. I turned tech off to buy enough tanks and a few bombers so I could destroy sunrise, and I didn't do that for more than about 6 turns - I still teched Flight and Fascism whilst rushing tanks. It's a tactical decision that's based on an ingame situation that can vary. It's the same type of decision you make when you whip population.

My point is that earlier in the game you are less likely to do such a thing (spend commerce on non-tech). I don't think that's a particularly surprising or controversial point, because of Democracy's position in the tech tree.

[Cyneheard]

My point is that earlier in the game you are less likely to do such a thing (spend commerce on non-tech). I don't think that's a particularly surprising or controversial point, because of Democracy's position in the tech tree.

I'm confused.

[Krill]

My point is that earlier in the game you are less likely to do such a thing (spend commerce on non-tech). I don't think that's a particularly surprising or controversial point, because of Democracy's position in the tech tree.

Wait, but egregious do you mean remarkably good, or remarkably bad? Because I'd have rush bought rifles if I could have leveraged them. The reason I didn't at that point is that the others just got the rifling. The question isn't how useful the techs are in an absolute sense, that depends on everything else in a game, specifically others tech positions. The further behind other players are, the less important future techs become because you can find an edge easily enough, generally because you'll have the next unit good enough to wipe the floor with your enemies.

But this is all tangential to Corps.

[SevenSpirits]

Wait, but egregious do you mean remarkably good, or remarkably bad?

I mean the plain old outrageous/severe/extreme definition, without value judgment. To rephrase my point, suppose an early tech improves your capabilities by 3%; my position is that whatever later tech we're talking about (at a time when it costs approximately the same number of research turns) is also improving them by about 3%, and the fact that 3% is a greater absolute number at that point is irrelevant.

I'm taking the same position about a number of late-game things: they improve your position by a large amount in absolute terms, but by a quite reasonable (= non-egregious) amount in relative terms which is what matters.

I further claimed that I thought the late techs were actually sometimes LESS effective in relative terms, such that conversion to hammers is a more efficient use of that commerce, and that this is primarily because tech tends to be a longer-term investment and in the later eras the game is often quite close to ending, so there's less time for an investment to pay off.

[SevenSpirits]

New hypothetical draft:

* Rifles are strength 13 / cost 100 instead of strength 14 / cost 110.
* War Elephants are strength 7 / cost 55 instead of strength 8 / cost 60.
* Gifted cities get the same number of revolt turns as they would if captured. (Note: Sometimes, if the new owner's culture is highest, this is zero.)
* You cannot draft and/or whip a given city more than once in a turn.
* Blockades are range 2, not 3.
* Corporation resource productivity (and corresponding maintenance) scales by (eligable resources on the map / number of players), rather than by world size.
* Nukes are Nuke-immune.
* Nukes do 20 damage instead of 80 damage per unit on average.
* Infiltration EPs reduced by 50%.
* Tech steal mission cost increased by 50%.
* Civic/religion swapping missions removed.
* All first-row techs now have the same cost (the cost mining/mysticism have now).

[TheMeInTeam]

You research the techs anyway.
Depends on luck, you might spawn one right before you needed it or consistently hit 10% artists when you want a GM or vice versa.
Opportunity costs for the two food corps and Mining Inc are insignificant compared to corp spam.
Don't forget the gold to spread them! Interesting comparison here to missionaries, but you have to consider what else you'd build instead of them. It's not that difficult to not have much else to build except an army.
You should be doing this anyway to maximize outputs.
The cost of running SP workshops is that you haven't cottaged the tiles and can lose a significant commerce advantage.

PBEM4 shows just how stupid corps can become. I planted a good dozen cities that had only 2-3 tiles to work, proper filler cities and gave them a food corps and Mining Inc. After a forge and factory they were throwing out 2-3 turn MI. Add in the ability that food corps and hammer corps let you rebuild conquered lands much faster than a competitor could do without them, and they are effectively a must have.

1. Because there are SO MANY games where players get medicine early on . The only tech you "research anyway" is for mining inc or createcon. These are not early techs and they DO delay assembly line if you go there ASAP.

2. Are you SERIOUSLY going to claim that GPP management depends on luck? That if a good player really wants x great person type, he can't get it with the guy planned well ahead of time? Really?

3. No, you don't get to claim "insignificant opportunity cost" unless you actually run the math. In a 12 city empire, you are spending 1200 hammers and a decent chunk of gold (normal speed) to spread the corporation. A 5 hammer mining inc pre-factory/power would take >30-40 turns to pay back its cost, for example (assuming forge). Sushi is even SLOWER to pay back. No math on the opportunity cost, no valid claim, sorry.

4. Are you saying that players build every city improvement in every city? Let's compare the exec to the simplest/most basic city construction option: building wealth. Now you have to factor in the exec construction cost + 100 gold + opp cost of getting techs sooner when you're dropping 2k+ gold just to spread the corp. Even more opp cost if you're talking about setting up cities just to make use of the corps. Even more beyond that if you spread multiple corps (sushi/mining).

5. Wrong. You can't hand-wave "you should be doing this anyway". Maybe, instead of investing in gold infra, you want to draft. Maybe you want to build units, NOW, before you die (or before your opponent gets to meaningful techs). Maybe you'd rather be building factories and coal plants. Maybe your empire would get at most 10-20% slider from the banks/wall street and it would take 50 turns for the investment to pay off and you have other options. Back up your claims! There is no way a good player will always be getting 6+ banks and wall street in a timeframe relevant to ASAP set up a corporation.

6. Oh my. I feel like we're on the verge of dredging up a cottage vs spec debate again at this rate, but whatever. Cottages are only good worked early. A non-riverside, non-financial (and FIN is often banned!) grassland cottage takes 70 (!) turns to break even on a NON-rep specialist during the time period of the game where it is difficult to push the cap. Suddenly you're telling me that cottages are the end-game answer? In your example, you're citing filler cities. Would you really cottage those?

Let's say you're going for production and/or research. Player A runs towns and invests into 75% science in most of his cities (library, university, observatory...labs come later, but AL you can realistically get by the timeframe of ANY corp). Player B runs workshops and invests into 100% hammers (forge, factory, coal plant). Give these guys their best civics: Emancipation/free speech/US and Caste + state property with guilds/chem.

Let player A run science at 100% and build research. Player B builds research.

Cottage gives 1 commerce 5 turns, 2 for 10, 4 for 20 (printing press), and then 7 + 1h after. Workshop gives 4 hammers immediately.

After 35 turns, the workshop has hammered out 280 beakers...and can instantly turn to production as needed.

Cottage? 1.75x5 + 3.5x10 + 7x20 = 8.75 + 35 + 140 = 183.75 beakers.

After town status, you'd get 13.25 beakers/turn (very nice) and would gain on the 8 beakers/turn of a workshop at a rate of 5.25/turn. It would take another 19 turns to catch the raw output of simply building research...or 54 turns.

54 turns after building your emancipation cottage, it beats a workshop (normal speed), and without kremlin workshops are always better for production too.

Ironically most good corp spammers don't use towns, they use workshops . Nevertheless, the assertion that SP shops carry some kind of game-breaking commerce opportunity cost is beyond silly.

Want an example? Here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread...ler&page=3

Posts 46 and 50.

Some "opportunity cost" .

Now, where is this PBEM 4 game? It does not appear in completed PBEM games and a forum search for it only turns up a dedicated lurker request from over a year ago...

[Cyneheard]

As of this post, PBEM4 hasn't been moved to the completed games section; it finished last week or so.

[Shoot the Moon]

Just to throw out another game for the corporations discussion, go back and look at PBEM 8. I think the general consensus was that if we had banned nukes I likely would have won the game (or at the very least been very competitive) despite the fact that my empire was significantly smaller than WK's for the simple fact that I had corps and he did not. When the game ended because of nukes, I had the same MFG as his empire despite being smaller and having almost no cities with power compared to WK having power in all of his cities. This was all because of Mining Inc which, because of Wall Street and courthouses didn't even cost me gold (actually made me gold on each city it was spread to). The issue with corps really is that they are the one right choice once you get them -- there is absolutely no point in not spreading them as widely as possible; nothing else you could build remotely approaches their productivity.

[TheMeInTeam]

The issue with corps really is that they are the one right choice once you get them

The issue with this argument is that it is 100% bogus and unsupported.