Seriously, they're a severely underrated feature in the expansion pack, at least in my experience. Go read the last post in my thread and you'll see what I mean.
Civilization IV sure runs like a dream on my new computer.
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Why are corporations hated so much?
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I don't think corporations are underrated in power terms. They're just not very interesting strategically. The right move is always to pick the corps with the best yield for your resources, build the HQ in your Wall Street city, and expand it everywhere. By the time corps arrive, the game is usually already won. Building and spreading the executives is mostly busy-work, not really strategy. They've pretty much become footnotes to most game reports - "as usual, founded Sid's Sushi and spread it everywhere."
We had two entire Epics revolving around corporations, if you'd like to try them, Something Fishy and Friendly Takeover.
Yeah, I suppose I should try making a profit off of them without Free Market and Wall Street. Here I had over +70 gpt at the end of the game at 0% gold with help from merchants, Wall Street, and the corporations, which shaved some turns off of the finish date.
At the same time, I did not really think it to be that cheap to run 100% culture to win a culture victory, but then again I had fended off Mayan and HRE armies, so I feel the victory was well-deserved. BTW I've seen that when an AI demands a city in a peace treaty, they're most likely sending an attack force. That was true in my lost Mali game, and that was true here as well! Then Pacal was willing to sign peace even before the stack was annihilated (because it was badly hurt). Then the HRE declared war later and did absolutely zero damage to my civ. They stupidly amphibiously attacked an infantry with a grenadier! Of course, Charlemagne didn't have assembly line yet for some dumb reason. Is it just me, or do the AIs just not prioritize this tech? Some things have me puzzled, like why Metal Casting (and therefore the Colossus), The Parthenon, and Assembly Line get delayed like that for no good reason. Spain had ROBOTICS by the endgame, and I don't think the HRE had Assembly Line (though they did have Rocketry). Despite turning off science I still ended up with a monopoly on Advanced Flight, heh. But Spain had...oh, I give up. Hilariously, I ranked #2 on the most advanced civs list on the last turn due to turning off science. I'm not used to ISABELLA being a runaway leader in most games! Usually its a financial leader. This game only had one financial leader, whose teching was horrible due to being diplomatically isolated. You gotta love that! Also an organized leader was last in tech for most of the game (though Zara was doing well for himself).
Civilization IV sure runs like a dream on my new computer.
Well, the biggest criticism is that the corps are usually better for crippling AI economies than for strengthening your own. Sulla, in particular said that you cannot make a profit off of corps in his epic 13 report. Then again, maybe something's been fixed since then.
The corp system has even been criticized by gaming websites for this dumb strategy. Yes it's unreasonable that you cripple AI economies just by selling them cereal or sushi, but heh, it gives them benefits too, so why not? Very underrated. One thing that I do hate though, is the AI governor's bias towards spy specialists. I constantly had to fire them and turn them into merchants or artists (or engineers, in some cases). Even still, my game only took 13 and a half hours.
Civilization IV sure runs like a dream on my new computer.
The corporation maintenance costs have been changed substantially since I wrote that, which was the initial release of Beyond the Sword.
T-Hawk and DMOC have correctly explained why corporations are boring: they're a "one right answer" solution that always plays out the same, and introduce needless tedious micromanagement in the late game. In all honesty, Civ4 was better off without them.
November 7th, 2009, 22:24
(This post was last modified: November 8th, 2009, 20:26 by Dr. Nomadic.)
It doesn't come too late in the game to be decisive. I used the power of sushi to leap from #6 in population to #1 in a short time span. And that was just ONE city spreading the corp. Similarly all three corps allowed me to leap to #1 in land area without capturing a city through brute force (except for the one that the stupid Mayans captured for one turn, argh). If I were going for a spaceship win I probably would've founded Aluminum Co. (I didn't have an aluminum source!) and Mining Inc.
As I said though (slightly off topic), I agree with Sulla that the AI governors are bad for hiring all those spy specialists. Without touching the espionage slider I always had enough points to see what Nappy was researching and even to see what Spanish cities were building. Espionage isn't that important! I do like the new system anyways though. I would like to hear Sulla's word on this. EDIT: IMO, if anything, corps are the exact opposite of a "one right answer," because state property was the one right answer before IMO.
Civilization IV sure runs like a dream on my new computer.
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