"Corporations"

[Youngsun]

"A Corporation" will be a unit. Any organisation which comprises of people can be a unit(Either an infantry division or a corporation)

Corporation units should not have movement rate. Their battlefields should be in cities and they should leave fields to other mil. units that means they can exist only in cities.

The whole mechanism of corporation works SIMPLE. Corporations consume the city's resource,employ the citizen,sell their products to the client cities and pay taxes to its own government.

There are 3 basic things produced by cities.

Food
Shields
Trade

Food: Raw grain,vegetables,fish and meat
Shields: Any basic material for industrial output such as metals,mineral ores and enegy sources.
Trade: Basic transactions of individuals

After you discover "Corporation" you can build it as a unit.(Only in the city which has a bank)

There are three basic industries they can engage.

1.Food -> Corporation -> Processed food
2.Shields-> Corporation -> Manufactured goods
3.Trade -> Corporation -> Service

"Processed food" means any food item that has been given extra values.(Bread,Canned food,Restaurant meal,Fast food,etc)

"MFG" means any item that has been manufactured by firms(Automobile,PC,consumer electronics,etc)

"Service" means any kind of advanced transactions or intangible goods provided frims(Banking,Financing,etc)

City production(Food,shields and Trade)can be represented by 1st industry in my model.

Citizens who work at irrigated tiles are farmers
Citizens who work at mined tiles are miners
Citizens who work at water tiles are fishers
All of them are engaging 1st industry and they represent low class in the city.

Citizens who work at marketplace are traders
Citizens who work at corporations are salarymen
Salarymen can be employed by "Corporation unit".
They represent middle class in the city.

Other specialists, Entertainers and scientists are upper class in the city.

Class classification is based on their hapiness level not the tradional class division under my model.

Back to corporations

The first unit you produce is called HQ unit(corporate HQ) HQ unit has its own AI which deals with its own management but all corporate units can be strategically located by the player.

Above city shows 4 corporate units stick to the city. The city and 3 of the corporate units belong to American civ but 5 turns ago Toyota(MFG)unit came into the city and employed 2 unemployed workers who recently migrated from near rural area.

"American express" unit consumes trade arrows from the city then produces services

"Ford" unit consumes shields from the city then produce MFGs

"Mc Donald" unit consumes food from the city then produce process food.

"Toyota" unit also produces MFGs.

There are two major problems when foreign firms run their business in your city.

1.Your city's basic production(food,shields and trade)are eaten up by the foreign firms then they make profit on your people and pay taxes to their own government not to you.

2.When there are more than two firms exist in the same industry, they compete to try to dominate the whole market. They fight by using these unique stats

S=Size
FP=Financial power(monetary power)
PR=Public relation(also Brand recognition)
PC=Production capacity
MC=Marketing capacity
TS=Technology level(the higher the better)

As long as the city's demand is higher than what the firms can produce, there won't be any serious competition.

About "Demand"

Each class has different demand attitude.

Low class(Farmers,Miners,Fishers,The unemployed)
Food make them content extra commodities will make them happy

Middle class(Traders,Salarymen)
Processed food make them content extra commodities will make them happy. Raw food make them unhappy.

Upper class(Entertainers,Scientist)
Processed food/MFG/Service make them content and working at maxium efficiency. If their luxury demands are not met their performance drops significantly.

Dienstag

Corporate unit can not be killed by other mil units but only other corporate unit through competition. They have HQ units and Branch units as long as you kill only branch units the whole group will not perish and it will later grow again.

When you wanna pit your corporate units against other civs unit, you just target the city which has enemy unit then the HQ unit will do the rest.

You can not send your corporate units to other civs which are currently at war with you.(use mil units for this kind of situations)

When you declare a war against a civ, the enemy civ's corporate units in your territory will be all captured and converted to your side.(freezing enemy's propery)

Why do we need corporate warfare as part of the game.

1.It is extremly difficult and costly to gain actual territory nowadays.
2.You can weaken your enemy's economy without declaring a war.
3.While you enjoy peace with many other civs, you still can feel the exitement of warfare.
4.Without "corporation" element we can not simulate many other nations of today such as Japan which has small military force but has formidable corporate force.

[The Joker]

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]

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.

------------------
No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Stefu]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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).]

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]

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]

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.

---------------------

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]

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]

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]

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.

[MidKnight Lament]

I've been holding back, but I have to agree. It's just too complex. It's hard work just to read through it. I'm afraid it'll have to be culled down quite a bit before it's probably got a chance.

But then, who am I to say so?

- MKL

[Youngsun]

Stuff2 Thanks for the suggestions

quote: First of all...please, no more unit's. I just hate moving around unit's.

Hey Stuff2 have you really read the posts? I said "corporations don't have movement rate" in the first post. I considered that they would be either "city improvements" or "units" but since there are no multiple city improvements in a city, I thought an immobile unit would be better to describe them. Any better idea for this from you would be welcome.

quote: - 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.)

No problem! I'm with you on this.(had exactly same thought frankly) And "partial tax returns" to the client city" Does it mean paying wages to the employees? If I misunderstood on this please explain.

quote: - 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.

Are you saying state-runned firms and privatised frims? Well I don't know, I think it would be better to let us control the firms for simplicty.(all state-runned)If you don't agree defend your point by proving it won't be too complex with this element. What I meant about the control was that we control only "strategic moves" for the firms but "internal management" of the firms.

quote: - There should also exist illegal corporations. Smuggling illegal stuff like drugs and weapons.

Interesting! Can you be more specific with an example?

quote: - 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.

I agree and that was the part of the model alreay. If you don't have any trade pact with other civs you won't be able to establish firms on other civs' cities.

quote: - 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.

Wow "giving speical status to the top 5 corporations" excellent idea Stuff2 I like it. it would be real fun if they interfere our politics once they got enough economic might. Thus keeping them weak and divided are gonna be the key to full control over them even if they belong to you.(no monopoly allowed)

quote: - Free market should mean that your control of it is limited to taxes and maybe a few regulations.

Again I have to say "full strategic control allowed to players" otherwise there is no point of having them. I was thingking "no or limited number of corporate force allowed to communist players". They might produce a lot of mil units with their shields but not enough PF/MFG/service so suffering from the problem of unhappy citizens always attracted to Western goods. So players who have market economy as their economic form will have weaker military force with strong corporate force whereas communist players have formidable military force with pathetic corporate force.

Sirotnicov & MKL

You guys! Think about my poor position here. Someone ask more complexity and someone ask more simplicity. exactly at which tune do I have to play with? I really respected you guys' opinions so I simplified a lot from my original model then somebody ask to add something that were actually in my original model/thought. I never knew spitting an idea out and maintaining it could be this difficult. But since I started this I feel obliged to be responsible on this so cheer me up OK? Don't just say it's too comlex. Make some counter suggestions which can help to simplify the model or at least say which specific part of my model is too complex so I can touch it point by point.

Sirotnicov

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

Size is like a HP for mil units so we need this.

Financial power is an asset which can be used for either offensive or defensive corporate activities so we need this.

PR & Marketing maybe we can sacrifice these.

Productivity/TL are absolue necessities.

So new stats for corporations

S=Size(1-250)
FP=Financial power(1-30000)
P=Productivity(1-20)
Tl=Technology level(1-50)

Even mil units in civII have 4 stats(HP/Att/Def/FP with some speical abilities) so are you satisfied?

[Grumbold]

I believe that the benefits and liabilities of corporations are currently handled as an integral part of the government model. Becoming a Democracy does not overnight transform a country into a wealthy innovative and productive society. The benefits granted to you (the civ) reflect enhanced commercial activity, improved education and all the other things which less regulated private enterprise help encourage. By trying to introduce a corporation as a separate entity into the game at a late stage is going to blur the objectives.

If your civilisation is being overtaken but your corporation(s) dominate around the world, are you winning or losing? Does a powerful multinational company care which country originally birthed it enough to provide reciprocal benefits? I think Civ 3 would do better to model these via a wider range of government types (Corporate Democracy, Corporate Republic and so on)

[Youngsun]

Hello Grumbold Welcome to Apolyton!

quote: I believe that the benefits and liabilities of corporations are currently handled as an integral part of the government model.

I agree they were in CivI&II.

quote: Becoming a Democracy does not overnight transform a country into a wealthy innovative and productive society

Of course you are right. You wouldn't think that I didn't know about this would you?

quote: The benefits granted to you (the civ) reflect enhanced commercial activity, improved education and all the other things which less regulated private enterprise help encourage.

Exactly!

quote: By trying to introduce a corporation as a separate entity into the game at a late stage is going to blur the objectives.

If you read the posts carefully, corporations will be part of a civ represented as units. And What objectives? You mean CivI & II's objectives? I did not said my ideas are for CivI and II. Now I'm interested about CivIII so the ideas are for CivIII OK?

quote: If your civilisation is being overtaken but your corporation(s) dominate around the world, are you winning or losing?

Now that's an interesting question. What kind of fool would spent more time to strengthen his/her corporate force when his/her military force got smashed and your very existance is under threat? Would you seriously? I bet not. I bet not everyone would make such a foolish decision. Even if that's the case I say you are lost because nation's existance comes first.

quote: Does a powerful multinational company care which country originally birthed it enough to provide reciprocal benefits?

Unfortunetly they do not(you are right)and this element is under consideration to be added into the model. Thus you better watch out your bigger corporations because once they become too big you will think "I have been breeding a beast here!".

quote: I think Civ3 would do better to model these via a wider range of government types (Corporate Democracy, Corporate Republic and so on

Are you saying CTP style "corporate republic"? If that was what you were saying that is your opinion so I respect that. Nobody can say anything about personal preference right? If you were saying something different than CTP style let me know. Maybe you are very good at upgrading present government model. Who knows?

Again Welcome Grumbold. Feel free to comment to other threads there are so many nice ideas you can read and enjoy here.

[Grumbold]

Heh, I was trying to avoid any direct CTP comparisons and think in general terms. I just see the player as the guiding influence of whichever civilisation they shepherd. While corporations form an integral part of the modern world I don't see them as part of the civ that spawned them so they should not be steered by the same hand. Those would be nationalised industries - almost the antithesis of a true corp.

If there were financial and scientific incentives in the modern age to encouraging corporate growth in your civ but risks later when the giant grew too big and started leeching power back it could be interesting. Then again, I positively hated SMAC for forcing interaction with PLANET on top of all those superb human factions. This could be a cool way for a trailing civ to deal with the devil and attempt to leapfrog past the opposition and snatch victory before they essentially became puppets fronting a mass of conglomerates (a bit like escalating military readiness costs in CTP but which the player cannot turn 'off'?)After enough time they may not even be able to revolt, essentially losing the game to the enemy within their own faction. The softer alternative is to have CTP style corporate governments - you can turn them on and off at will and can choose one which most closely matches your wishes.

Any corp units should represent attempts to make inroads into foreign markets (essentially attempting to infect them with your corporate disease to enhance your gains) but a menu screen could handle this. Units really should be outside the players control once the organisation has enough clout to muscle in overseas against the incumbent competition. I believe player controlled actions are more the province of national espionage budgets than corporate ones.

[Youngsun]

quote: I just see the player as the guiding influence of whichever civilisation they shepherd. While corporations form an integral part of the modern world I don't see them as part of the civ that spawned them so they should not be steered by the same hand.

I fully agree with your point but since this is a game we are talking about, giving some form of control to the players wouldn't harm too much of realism as a game. Simcity,Imperialism and other similar games allows players to control almost every aspect of game and they are truely fun and they all lack reality somehow.(regarding the range of human control)We can't make a game that can represent whole reality out there but only get close to the reality with varing degrees.

quote: If there were financial and scientific incentives in the modern age to encouraging corporate growth in your civ but risks later when the giant grew too big and started leeching power back it could be interesting. Then again, I positively hated SMAC for forcing interaction with PLANET on top of all those superb human factions. This could be a cool way for a trailing civ to deal with the devil and attempt to leapfrog past the opposition and snatch victory before they essentially became puppets fronting a mass of conglomerates (a bit like escalating military readiness costs in CTP but which the player cannot turn 'off'?)After enough time they may not even be able to revolt, essentially losing the game to the enemy within their own faction. The softer alternative is to have CTP style corporate governments - you can turn them on and off at will and can choose one which most closely matches your wishes.

Your first alternative sounds good to me. Personally I want some changes and new aspects added to the game otherwise I would not spend my valuable pocket money for identical replica of previous masterpiece with some graphical/sound modifications.

quote: Any corp units should represent attempts to make inroads into foreign markets (essentially attempting to infect them with your corporate disease to enhance your gains) but a menu screen could handle this. Units really should be outside the players control once the organisation has enough clout to muscle in overseas against the incumbent competition. I believe player controlled actions are more the province of national espionage budgets than corporate ones.

Menu screen? I never thought about using menu screen for corporate warfare/activities. How? Would you mind explain little bit more on this? If you can convince me that will give more fun I will be glad to give up the idea of using them(corporations)as units.

When I say "units of corporations" do not imagine them as some sort of field units. I chose a unit but a city improvement as thier representation because units are easier/simpler way to put more than one corporations into a city by using same principle of other field units. Also for corporate warfare it is much easier to be handled by unit stats than other revolutionary/untested ideas.

HP/Size
Att,Def/FP,Productivity
Fire power/Techonloty level

See the similarity there?

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 21, 2000).]

[Grumbold]

I'll try and flesh out unitless corporations. This is off the top of my head so playability may not be ideal.

Current civ models have the national productivity and profitability firmly under the players control. You dictate exactly which improvements to build, which sites to farm, what percentage is to be allocated to science.

My vision of corporations will be a mechanism for diverting some income (in the form of tax incentives to big business) to encourage the growth of independant corporations within your country. Starting with *anyones* discovery of the corporation you can specify a percentage of national wealth to forfeit (1-20) in return for future gains. Depending on the amount invested (in both real terms and as a percentage of GDP - the bigger nations get an advantage here) the corporations will begin to flourish and provide increasing returns to the funding nation in terms of serious production, trade and science boosts.

The model will track corporation size and exposure per country. The player will be able to view estimates with reasonably accurate forecasts for their own country and less accurate for others - accuracy subject to espionage.

Once one corporation reaches 30% exposure in a country, or all corporations 50% the player will no longer be able to decrease corporate funding or switch to a government type that rejects the principles of private ownership or market forces.

Should a single corporation reach a 50% exposure in a country, or all corporations collectively reach 70%, the country will become a virtual puppet state. They will no longer be able to deny the corporations and a player nation will effectively lose at this point. Only if any successful endgame criteria is met before this point will the player have sufficient public popularity to shrug off their mantle and break their power.

[Youngsun]

Grumbold

quote: My vision of corporations will be a mechanism for diverting some income (in the form of tax incentives to big business)to encourage the growth of independant corporations within your country. Starting with *anyones* discovery of the corporation you can specify a percentage of national wealth to forfeit (1-20) in return for future gains. Depending on the amount invested (in both real terms and as a percentage of GDP - the bigger nations get an advantage here)

Generally similar to my thought. But in what way can we invest for the growth of corporations? You mentioned "tax incentives" how about governmnet subsidies? by injecting hugh amount of cash into a corporation to boost its growth. Or creating a tariff wall to protect our smaller firms from bigger foreign ones. And not only bigger nations but rich nations in terms of food/shields/trade production regardless of thier size. I really want to see basic city products(food/shields/trade) can be traded at international market like many nations of today do. Take the food for example, How many nations are actually self sufficient for food production? And this is a big industry indeed and can be strategic as well. Major food exporter(USA,Thailand,etc)

I really had to add "processed food/MFG/service" for more advanced form of prodcution to give hugh bonus to nations which hold many corporations.

But not every firm can meet the demand of upper class citizens under my model. If firmA produce hi-tech MFGs which are labelled with Technology level 20 for example, firmB's TL 15 MFGs wouldn't attract a single citizen who can get access to the FirmA's MFGs. FirmB may sell its TL15 MFG to less developed countries or has to face the consequences.(Out of business) Which means it is better to have few high-tech firm than having many lousy firms.(same logic with mil units;1 riflemen is far better than 5 warriors) So mobilising many small firms then waiting for them to grow would not work.

quote: The model will track corporation size and exposure per country. The player will be able to view estimates with reasonably accurate forecasts for their own country and less accurate for others - accuracy subject to espionage.

That one was in my mind but I simply did not metion it but "introducing varing degree of accuracy for the report" was not part of my thought. Do you think adding this element will be more fun rather than annoying? And what do you think about "corporate espionage" that can be done by corporations themselves not necessariliy by the government.

quote: Once one corporation reaches 30% exposure in a country, or all corporations 50% the player will no longer be able to decrease corporate funding or switch to a government type that rejects the principles of private ownership or market forces.

I disagree. I think player still should be able to change but with the risk of losing many hard earned big corporations or through harder process thus effectively discouraging players to change. The option for switching government form should be open to the players for national emergency such as total war.

quote: Should a single corporation reach a 50% exposure in a country, or all corporations collectively reach 70%, the country will become a virtual puppet state

I think a little bit less harmful consequense would be better. If "puppet state" is the final/most severe penalties for letting the corporations dominating nation's GDP nobody would invest on corporations from the first place. "Interfering government affairs" or "rejecting orders from the government" will be enough I think.

quote: They will no longer be able to deny the corporations and a player nation will effectively lose at this point.

Losing by corporations? I think that's too much! We have not witnessed such thing yet in the history but there is still a possiblity of happeneing that.

quote: Only if any successful endgame criteria is met before this point will the player have sufficient public popularity to shrug off their mantle and break their power.

Public popularity? Government vs Corporations? I think no one will count corporations before the government since their natures are quite different.

Grumbold plaese give more suggestions about the benefits of having corporations rather than horrific consequenses of having them.
also the last post you did not mention enough about why menu screens are better. Since I feel menu screen is necessary for easy summary of corporations like city/mil units reports in CivII perhaps menu screen was already there. The only thing we have to define is that how come we represent corporations with feelings of their existance which can be unit/city improvement or some sort of revolutionary idea. Are you up to the latter?

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 22, 2000).]

[MidKnight Lament]

There definitely needs to be some consequences. We don't want this being another thing which encourages ICS.

- MKL

[Youngsun]

MKL

If I thought "corporations" idea would encourage "ICS" I would not have suggested it at all since my play style is close to perfectionist one.

ICS is a problem because players who do that tend to neglect to build right infra for cities.

If there is no right infra in a city, no corporations will be attracted to come there to open their businesses.

Corporations represent one step advanced form of production/trade industries from the basic city production and they need a lot of food/shields/trade surplus run their own businesses.

I rather say "corporations" will definitely encourage players who do ICS not to do it.

To attract a corporation or make them grow in your cities, you have to spent more time on improving your cities' infra such as Bank,Factory,supermarket,etc which can boost the overall basic city production.(Food/shields/trade)

If you neglect this, your city's beaker,hapiness production as well as the revenue will drop significantly which will cause eventual downfall of your civ itself.

Specialists such as entertainers and scientists require PF/MFGs/Services to perform their tasks at maxium efficiency and since under my model, they are the key pop. to produce hapiness/beakers,having a right mix of corporations is essential for civs' growth for later stage of the game.

By the way, have you tried "Shogun total war"(full game or demo)? I tried it(demo) today it was the best wargame I ever seen in terms of scale and battlefield representation.
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 23, 2000).]

[Grumbold]

Sorry for the delay in response Youngsun. I think our concepts just differ in approach slightly. I don't see a nation (the player) controlling a multi-national corporation, rather the multi-mationals offering the temptation of massive growth (or witholding it) until they are too ingrained to be removable.

USA is a good example today of a country walking a very fine line between Democracy and Corporate control. The huge Corporations are mega rich and have helped keep the US economy the envy of the world. On the flip side (looking in from the outside) no President can get elected without having made substantial promises to the powerful lobbies that later cripple their ability to adopt serious policy changes. Attempts to regulate trade, arms sales, pollution etc have been consistently derailed because it is bad for certain businesses. I see them as being in the middle stage of my simple model - too powerful to remove while being too weak to insist on getting their way in everything.

Why it should be a screen/menu? The player offers incentives (money and shields) to encourage big businesses to set up shop and grow. Beyond that (and perhaps some limited ability to channel resulting profit toward more food, more production or more trade and prevent one single corporation becoming too dominant) they just have to pray that they have chosen the correct amount - i.e. enough to push their nation to a dominant place in the global market without eventually relinquishing their soverignity. No units to move, no corporate wars to fight, no extra improvements. Just increasing productivity in their cities. Like being in a car race where everyone has a tank of nitrous oxide to play with. Use enough of it at the right time and it will win you the race. Use too much and you crash and burn, too little and someone else is on the podium waving the champagne bottle. Otherwise there will be no balance of risk/reward and everyone will be obliged to go Corporate to survive.

The profit from corps can be visibly marked as MFG - it certainly would help show how useful the corporations are being. However if you knew from your graphs exactly how exposed each nation was it would just become a maths exercise in optimisation. Leave it to the espionage boys to get you more or less accurate data about other nations and that way you have to gamble if the race is tight. Some AI civs may even opt to 'burn out' because they hate the leaders so badly no sacrifice is too much. The poor little AI is almost certainly going to be the one playing catch up - players who are 10+ advances ahead in the tech race may not be able to get quite so complacent any more.

Shogun: Total War is going to be top of my shopping list when it ships. I don't think the full game has been released anywhere yet. I plan to get Majesty as soon as it hits our shelves tomorrow - looks like it should provide amusement for a week or two.
[This message has been edited by Grumbold (edited March 23, 2000).]

[Youngsun]

quote: I don't see a nation (the player) controlling a multi-national corporation, rather the multi-mationals offering the temptation of massive growth (or witholding it) until they are too ingrained to be removable.

I see it in the same way as you Grumbold but corporations do not start as MNCs don't they? I meant fuller extent of control over smaller corporations and the bigger ones will have their own voices which can not be simply overlooked by the governments. Thus you may say the top 5 ones can be quite separate entities from their governments.

quote: no President can get elected without having made substantial promises to the powerful lobbies that later cripple their ability to adopt serious policy changes. Attempts to regulate trade, arms sales, pollutio etc have been consistently derailed because it is bad for certain businesses. I see them being in the middle stage of my simple model - too powerful to remove while being too weak to insist on getting their way in everything.

I also like to see this kind of things added into the game(no problem)but no more powers to corporations than this examples. The possibility of corporations get stronger than now always exist but if we add this possibility into the game the corporation element will be always hot issue for the civs in later stage of the game and I don't think many people will like military warfare overrun by corporate warafare/activities.

quote: Why it should be a screen/menu? The player offers incentives (money and shields) to encourage big businesses to set up shop and grow. Beyond that (and perhaps some limited ability to channel resulting profit toward more food, more production or more trade and prevent one single corporation becoming too dominant) they just have to pray that they have chosen the correct amount - i.e. enough to push their nation to a dominant place in the global market without eventually relinquishing their soverignity. No units to move, no corporate wars to fight, no extra improvements. Just increasing productivity in their cities. Like being in a car race where everyone has a tank of nitrous oxide to play with. Use enough of it at the right time and it will win you the race. Use too much and you crash and burn, too little and someone else ion the podium waving the champagne bottle. Otherwise there will be no balance of risk/reward and everyone will be obliged to go Corporate to survive.

I have a question for you. Do corporations gonna operate at civ or city level? If you meant civ level, menu screen only can take care of everything but if you meant city level we need to see corporations in cities by both menu screen and city view. In city view,there are mil units,city improvements,citizens,city production and corporations. If you want to see them in city view then there is no problem I can just call them corporations not corporation units. If you don't want to see them in city view then menu screen only can do the job I think.

Another question. If there is national emergency such as total war or even world war,do corporations excercise same amount of power as they do during peace time? and can the governments raise its voice for tighter control over their unruly corporations by declaring martial law which can be supported by the constitution and other relevant legislations? I think we better compromise on this point by letting big corporations exercise incredible power during peace time but at the same time giving some opportunities to players to escape this unwanted destinies by having critical events like a war. The players(democracies) might not declare an offensive war with popular support but they can conduct defensive campaignes with no problem to check growing corporations. What do you say?

quote: if you knew from your graphs exactly how exposed each nation was it would just become a maths exercise in optimisation

You are quite right Grumbold. I think this "varing degree of accuracy of information on other civs' economies" should be in the game. I'm with you on this.

quote: Total War is going to be top of my shopping list when it ships

Me too man. After I tried the demo,I'm sure I will never regret for its purchase.

[tniem]

I like the whole corpration idea but I would like to see maybe a few ideas change. For it to work in my mind you would need a stock market or something comparable.

So the stock market in New York would go up when a New York Corporation (NBC) made money overseas. This would give New Yorkers more jobs and give them more happiness and wealth. NBC grows and expands to Paris creating PNBC or something and New York grows money and happiness.

While in Paris more people have jobs from the new corporation but the extra funds that Paris gets from a corporation partly go to New York. In this way corporations from other nations in your cities would help you but it would also help foreign nations.

Plus, it would make it easier to get a foreign nation to like you if the people all watched your television, they might try to become you.

[Youngsun]

Hello tniem!

Stock market as game mechanism not a city improvement?

What exactly have you in mind tniem? If you add simple explanation about how would it work in the game that will be appreciated. Are you studying Finance perhaps?

quote: it would make it easier to get a foreign nation to like you if the people all watched your television, they might try to become you

I think that's for other thread but interesting idea tniem. Is this mean new kind of warfare to reach supremacy of controlling media?(I believe there is a tread for this one)

[Par4]

OMG someone read my media thread
I absolutely love this idea being supporter of laissez-faire capitalism, or for those who don't know completely free market. This thread is hella long so I skimmed it somewhat.

You can't have control over corporations unless you have police state SE(I support SE) I'll return to this later. Corps work on supply and demand they aren't going to every little city so corps won't go to ICS cities.

Democracy-Freemarket SE

1. Corporations work on supply and demand if a city is size one then a corp isn't gonna set up shop there, but a size 10 city then they will because the cost of a branch will be profitable.

Corp POV
size 1 city 10000 people
revenue 15000 year
cost to maintain branch
20000 year
profit -5000 year
No way we ain't setting up shop there

size 10 city 1000000 people
revenue 1500000 year
cost to maintain medium branch
35000 year
profit 1465000 year
ok we'll set up a branch

2. Corporations need to have ideas(this ties in with my senate ideology ideas). If the senate is the sierra club party and the screws chemocorp over by passing pollution taxes then chemocorp is gonna use its money to support the WeLoveChemicals political party during the next election year, which is every 4 years.

3. mfg,pf,si(service industries tv, banks) should wield considerable power in the international table. In negotiations with russia, china threatens to tell its pf corps(which listen to the gov unlike big ole' mfg nike who doesn't really give a crap) to pull all branches out of russia, china will give taxes breaks to these companies to equal out costs. Russia backs down because millions will starve because russia was didn't have farms.

4. low class- nothing
middle class- pf, mfg si increase happiness williness to taxes
upper middle class-pf mfg, si increase happiness williness to taxes
upper class-pf mfg si entertainers

5. Corps can lobby for stuff(not much say rails between this detroit and denver)
Corporation Ford wants to increase its shields from small branch in denver to big branch in detroit so they lobby for a rail connection between the 2 they could offer gold or something. I would like to see PW like in CTP moving a settle around is too much or you could have a construction corp build a connection for a fee.

6. construction corporations
These are just something I kinda want to see they can produce roads highways rails airports(multiple)subways(multiple) at lower costs and faster times. These can also produce military weapons(think contractor) [idea jacked from other thread], ie tanks ships need to be built first, at lower costs and extra special ability or something(new ideas, military builds stuff no new ideas top brass likes the good ole days)

7.How corps work
A. Corporation researched
Corporation sets up HQ in city that is profitable. Profitable=demand+size-branch cost. The corporation then starts building whatever making pf mfg si. After a few years the corps expands to 4 other cities same civ. 2 cities produce shield to send to bigger branches to make cars or whatever out of.

Example
Ford 4 branchs HQ detroit
6 cars 5 shields
2 branches shield branches produce 50% more shields sends them to other branches
2 branches medium sized produce cars from imported shields from shield branches and shields aquired at city.

SB 15 shields sent to other branchesx2
PB 10 shields+15=25S 25x120%=30 cars
branch total costs 300000
sales revenue 500000
profit 200000

corporations empolyee these people for certain branches
SB(shield branch) lower class to work tiles
PB(production branch) middle class/LC
RB(research branch) upper middle class/MC/LC
MB(management branch) upper class/UMC/MC
Cities can have all branches

When corporations have enough profits to sustain the failure of a branch(overseas) they go foreign. Foreign branches reap the benefits of labor costs(new to civ ill go over later) and mining laws. affects on foreign countries are normally what your country supports until corp grows large enough to be multi national then persues it's own goals.

Multi national means the corp can support itself if it removes all its branches from the home civ.

Eviction of corps
Corps can be dismantled into smaller ones or disbanded and all branches in your country left for others in inhabit(without having cost to build one for the corp, the branches get filled fast). Smaller ones(baby corps from big monopoly corp) generally support the ideology of the other corp unless that is why it was dismantled.

Service industies-SI
Service industries are either banks stores media transports(airlines train cos)
They don't have production branches or shield branches but regional HQ(large) and City HQ(smaller)

The smaller the branch the lower the cost(can be seen at demographics of corp in corp window) but lower the amount of people served. RB same and MB same.
Regionalb are expensive but serve millions where as cityb can serve only a million.
Regional branches can construct(on there own) some other puppet branch so they can have control over small cities where city branches aren't profitable. All trade from city is turned into services which make people happy.
Puppet branches create jobs in the regional branch thus lowering unemployment.

Overseas branches create jobs in MB.
The employment in branches is a ratio of size to need
example:
1 new head every 50000 people

Labor costs affect whether a civ is profitable for overseas use. American city Ford is either going to go to france or germany to set up a new PB. France has high minimum wage were Germany has none. Branch cost lowered significantly. Ford goes to Germany. Other modifiers, education of population in civs city, peacefulness(Fords branches were closed by Iraq so if France is losing to Iraq then ford isn't going to go to France because it doesn't want its branches taken over.

Police States
government corporations
Same as normal except you control them. I need other ideas on this one.

Few other things
1. Stock markets make corps want to put MB there.
2. Media SI corps have 2x influence on senate.
3. Let's have some details to make the game interesting. Tell whether the corp makes computers or robots or coke or fast food or cars or airports or tanks or credit cards or clothes.

If my ideas get less detailed it's because my father is on a trip and really sick but ois in the middle of no where so I hope he gets back alright(it's why I'm up mom's gotta work tomorrow so she sleeps) This sums up my ideas for the corporations I'll add more in another post tomorrow when I'm refreshed and less distressed.

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