I currently have 17 Branch Offices providing the following; Energy- 380; Consumer Goods- 12; Alloy- 6; Research (all)- 24; Unity- 13. Even with my empire being among the smallest in the galaxy, the sprawl penalty has my Traditions cost at +50%, and everything else around 30%. Coupled with the inability to form pacts, I'm struggling to play Tall. I can't even claim to have done significant damage to other civs, because as soon as they kick me off-world with 8 Enforcers, they just rebuild the police buildings into something useful. Am I missing something here, or does the Criminal Corporation need some serious loving?
Criminal Corp: Costs seem way higher than benefits
- Thread starter Immortal-D
- Start date
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Crime is a limp noodle atm. until they beef it up, and make generating crime easier, and keeping it down harder, criminal syndicates are gonna struggle.
You have to be VERY picky about where you put your criminal branches. Lots of branches is not a recipe for victory.
crime syndicate is just something they made while thinking: "Hey, couldn't it be fun if?" and then totally ignored it balancewise. You are better off playing anything else, really.
Yep.
Also, you have to think about crime as opportunity cost for other empires. I've noticed that the AI reacts strongly to the presence of criminal megacorp buildings. So, I might drop a criminal office on all big planets in opposing empires, but not to generate profits. The real goal is to coerce the AI into building multiple enforcer buildings, tying up slots and POPs even after my crime office is gone.
It's like taxing all other empires 2 slots and 4 POPs on most planets.
But think of the memes! I'm doing a criminal syndicate AAR right now and the jokes write themselves. Yes, it isn't a good pick for a competitive MP game, but I find the empire type to be entertaining.
I think part of the issue with Branch Offices in general is the benefit for the hosting empire really isn't worth it. At least with regular Megacorps you get a Commercial Pact. With syndicates, all I get is Crime and a few Clerk jobs. It's a no-brainer to try and shut that down.
Isn't that the whole point behind the civic, though? To turn what's normally a mutually beneficial deal into a parasitic, one-sided relationship?
I'd say that criminal branch office is actually a good thing.
Embrace crime, make a deal with crime lords. You lose 4 pops, but you win 10 stability, and you don't need enforcers anymore.
There's a balance with being a parasite. Take too much, and the host will work to kill it off. There is no incentive to keep a syndicate office around so it's always better to kill it.
To be perfectly honest, regular branch offices aren't all that hot anyway. They don't produce a lot more resources than a district would, and they cost an outrageous influence price to set up.
For something that is supposed to be the defining characteristic of megacorps, it really just feels like a side bonus more than a central element of gameplay.
For something that is supposed to be the defining characteristic of megacorps, it really just feels like a side bonus more than a central element of gameplay.
I appreciate the info everyone 
Rather unfortunate, but at least there is no shortage of other options. Hopefully Corps buffed eventually.
Rather unfortunate, but at least there is no shortage of other options. Hopefully Corps buffed eventually.
Yeah, when you have a deal with crime lords most crime events stop. You'll still have stuff like drug trade and criminal pops, but you won't have gang wars that kill pops, assassinates governors or gives stuff like -10% trade value.
Yes, the most destructive events won't fire.
But it gets better than that.
Maximum abuse is when you let crime get to 1% on a planet temporarily, then you make a deal with the crime lords. Then you let it go back down again. There may actually be zero crime on your world while you get that 10% stability.
I tried several strategies. The last was trying to sow discontent and rebellion, but with the amount of police stations built and getting booted off the planet, I failed to find any viable way for criminal gameplay.
I don't feel corp perks really hit home with genuine gameplay and corp-specific perks.
I don't feel corp perks really hit home with genuine gameplay and corp-specific perks.
The AI won't build police stations if the crime is below 10%. You can try to keep it below that threshold and the branch office would be able to survive. After the AI used up all the building slots you are free to skyrocket the crime as much as you can.
I found it especially galling when I had to build police stations because crime was becomming a problem on my own worlds, while playing criminal syndicate.
The messeages from events and event names and everything really led me to believe that the devs just threw it into the mix without giving it the proper seasoning.
I feel it is akward as a criminal syndicate when all the governors I hire are 'rightous' so they can fight crime, because that is a better alternative than some ability to lower cost on armies/ships/blocker removal in some random sector where I aren't building armies or ships anyway.
The messeages from events and event names and everything really led me to believe that the devs just threw it into the mix without giving it the proper seasoning.
I feel it is akward as a criminal syndicate when all the governors I hire are 'rightous' so they can fight crime, because that is a better alternative than some ability to lower cost on armies/ships/blocker removal in some random sector where I aren't building armies or ships anyway.