Corporative embassy is too powerful?

[delta180]

In my game right now the top 4 nations in the galatic council are megacorps, they all have at least 15 corporate Embassies and the biggest has ~30, as you can see the Xanid's make up around half there base diplomatic weight from economy. And despite only having the 6th best economy in the game, they double the economic diplomatic weight of any non-megacorp.

I don't play as Megacorps very often, so is this balanced? Are Megacorps ment to have the lion's share of diplomatic weight, or is this broken?

 

[15JTaylor]

In my game right now the top 4 nations in the galatic council are megacorps, they all have at least 15 corporate Embassies and the biggest has ~30, as you can see the Xanid's make up around half there base diplomatic weight from economy. And despite only having the 6th best economy in the game, they double the economic diplomatic weight of any non-megacorp.

View attachment 747241

I don't play as Megacorps very often, so is this balanced? Are Megacorps ment to have the lion's share of diplomatic weight, or is this broken?

I honestly agree. I dont know how to balance it, but it was a struggle to become galactic emperor on grand admiral with a megacorp existing.

 

[delta180]

I honestly agree. I dont know how to balance it, but it was a struggle to become galactic emperor on grand admiral with a megacorp existing.

I think it does make sense that a Megacorp would be able to lobby the intergalactic government to get its way, but maybe it could be a flat 50 DW rather than a 5% multiplier.

 

[exi123]

The corporate embassy is also very expensive and has a high upkeep. There is also much influence and energy involved to open all these branches.

And, from a gameplay view, if you have a big embassy on many developed planets within your sphere you should be able to queeze massive weight from these planets, your branch is working towards that.

 

[Tamwin5]

Remember, you can always use favors (either bought with resources or gotten through espionage) to leverage their diplomatic weight into supporting your resolutions. Expecting to be so dominant to just bully your way to Galactic Emperor on Grand Admiral is a little arrogant.

 

[delta180]

Remember, you can always use favors (either bought with resources or gotten through espionage) to leverage their diplomatic weight into supporting your resolutions. Expecting to be so dominant to just bully your way to Galactic Emperor on Grand Admiral is a little arrogant.

I am not looking to become galactic emperor or anything. I only have 3.2k weight so I am not really in contention, it may not effect me in this game, but when the only 4 megacorps in the game making up the top 4 positions in the galactic senate it feels like that might be a little bit broken.

 

[Zander]

I think it does make sense that a Megacorp would be able to lobby the intergalactic government to get its way, but maybe it could be a flat 50 DW rather than a 5% multiplier.

Something along these lines, yes. It's not reasonable that Megacorps would have the most diplomatic heft across the board, and *especially* not reasonable that this effect is amplified on big galaxies vs small galaxies.

More generally, perhaps Megacorp embassy bonus could only apply to economy-related votes?

 

[Tamwin5]

If you look at the numbers, the megacorp in question is getting around 2,800 diplo power from corporate embassies. They are getting nearly 7,000 from stacking diplo weight bonuses: Public relations specialists, cooperative diplomatic stance, galactic contender ascension perk, etc. +160% diploids weight from economy is good for sure, but it's still only effectively +60% diplomatic weight (if stacking multiplicatively with their existing +75% diploids weight from different sources). And every one of those offices represents an investment of influence, energy, and minerals, as well as losing out on another building (like +5% global amenities).

A megacorp which can establish commercial pacts with numerous empires and build up enough infrastructure should be a dominate force in the galactic community. Being able to grow power in a way other than "conquer everyone" or "Tech rush to the moon" is a good thing. I'm not sure why so many people seem to think this is a problem.

 

[MateuszS]

Furthermore, corpo embassies require relevant tech (Xeno Diplomacy) AND can be built on planet with planetary capital building (which means said planet needs to have at least 25 pops). It's not that you'll see it in 2220. Yes, it's annoying since midgame, so cutting eco bonus by half may be solution.

 

[Incompetent]

I don't have a problem with the concept, but the scaling. If a Megacorp becomes twice as big, with twice as many branch offices, that means their *base* diplo power will be about twice as much (ignoring power from tech for the moment, which is a complicated issue). But then they're also getting twice the *multiplier* from corporate embassies, so you end up with quadratic power growth. In practice, this isn't a problem on small galaxies but gets a bit crazy on bigger galaxies, as in the OP screenshot.

Instead, I would suggest that the corporate embassy should grant a chunk of base diplo power from economy based on the trade value of the planet. That way you can still get some extra diplomatic heft as a Megacorp, but you're not also getting a huge multiplier on every pop/ship you own and every resource you make inside your sovereign territory.

 

[Mastikator]

By the time it takes to build all those Corporate Embassies I think 16k diplo power actually feels weak :/

I mean in my games mega corps also tend to do really well compared to the other AI, but only in terms of diplomatic power. When a genocider comes knocking on their door all those embassies won't save you from the true power of the galaxy: fleets power.

 

[fusei]

The reason the corporate embassy bonus seems so relevant here is that the AI in general doesn't build much of a fleet.

As a human megacorp player the bonus is nice to have, but it will always be outpaced by developing my fleet.

 

[Dragatus]

I am not looking to become galactic emperor or anything. I only have 3.2k weight so I am not really in contention, it may not effect me in this game, but when the only 4 megacorps in the game making up the top 4 positions in the galactic senate it feels like that might be a little bit broken.

If you don't like the influence of capitalism on the galactic government you can set your war doctrine to Liberation Wars and de-megacorp the megacorps by liberating them into the stone age.

 

[ImaTomato]

I honestly agree. I dont know how to balance it, but it was a struggle to become galactic emperor on grand admiral with a megacorp existing.

You could just wipe them out.By the time you can become emperor most of the AI should have less than 1/10 of your fleet power .

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I think a reductionof the 5% wouldn't hurt anyone. The way you can scale your diplomatic weight through one building alone is insane. Yeah the AI will only use this in edge cases probably (OP bring an example for this) but a player can easily spam branch offices and create insane diplomatic values. It's also something that takes almost no effort since you will build branch offices anyway and let's be honest the yields of any resources but energy is underwhelming. It doesn't scale like energy does and the corporate embassy also increases trade value and thereby money.

I have seen it being done by players in multiple MP games to obscene amounts of diplomatic weight. Even if you only build it on a fraction of the branch offices.

Maybe make it is that it reduces the income of that office. So basically you are using the money for bribes or investments. That way you have the choice between obtaining diplomatic weight or resources.

 

[delta180]

If you look at the numbers, the megacorp in question is getting around 2,800 diplo power from corporate embassies. They are getting nearly 7,000 from stacking diplo weight bonuses: Public relations specialists, cooperative diplomatic stance, galactic contender ascension perk, etc. +160% diploids weight from economy is good for sure, but it's still only effectively +60% diplomatic weight (if stacking multiplicatively with their existing +75% diploids weight from different sources). And every one of those offices represents an investment of influence, energy, and minerals, as well as losing out on another building (like +5% global amenities).

A megacorp which can establish commercial pacts with numerous empires and build up enough infrastructure should be a dominate force in the galactic community. Being able to grow power in a way other than "conquer everyone" or "Tech rush to the moon" is a good thing. I'm not sure why so many people seem to think this is a problem.

It is late-game, so it sounds like it is completely fair then, as I said I don't play megacorps very often so I don't know what is and isn't expected from a late-game megacorp. Although I would like the UI to be cleaned up a little as the Corporative embassies are now pushing other information off the UI

 

[fusei]

Well that's what my endgame looks like and as you can see corporate embassies hardly matter.

 

[MateuszS]

How about making some buildings from branch office mutually exclusive? For example you cannot build both embassy and commercial forum (and imperial concession port, if you're that lucky to have it) in the same office, you have to choose between squeezing their wallets with forum (and gain branch office value bonus) OR embassy? In addition, make upkeep bigger (-1 crystals?)?

 

[delta180]

Well that's what my endgame looks like and as you can see corporate embassies hardly matter.

View attachment 747418

You have 10 times the pops and economy, so I think you own a large part of the galaxy. By late game, I mean the game has been going on for a while, not that massive powers are ruling large parts of the galaxy.

 

[fusei]

You have 10 times the pops and economy, so I think you own a large part of the galaxy. By late game, I mean the game has been going on for a while, not that massive powers are ruling large parts of the galaxy.

I'm not really into map painting, that's why I like to play megacorps so much, past a certain point more planets are just a hassle.

For me there is always a point when I build fleets only for diplomatic weight and the effect is even more pronounced in midgame, because when I outweigh everyone else in the GC combined I stop building fleets, so the effect could be even stronger than in the screen shot.