Bossatchal2

The answer is aggressive stock buyback thanks! The miscellaneous expense went to 89k one month at that AI company. It's a 3% fee for stock buyback 89/3*100=$3,566k which was the decrease in cash I was seeing. Thank you for the map editor suggestion. The map editor is less intimidating than I anticipated. I think next testing should be what changes to the map editor fix this issue. Map settings of note on the africa map: no assuming chairmanship, there is limited track building, computer ai is conservative in track expansion and aggressive in payout/stock buyback. The default having aggressive payout/stock buyback in computer ai makes this scenario much easier than Heartland. Extra info, Here is a list of things I can see that do not make up for the loss in cash: balance sheet jan 1st 2006 cash $1,869 buildings $1,464k land rights $0 track $1,642 trains $1,600 industry investment $0 Equity $6,575 stocks 254,000 shares outstanding trains: db18201 age 5 years age 5 years age 5 years age 1 years track cells remaining 271 Compare to in December when profits that year are 1,757k and annual cash flow due to dividend is -137k (most likely the dividend from dec hasn't been issued, so real amount might be around -120k) balance sheet dec 2006 cash $812k buildings $1,464k land rights $0 track $1,642 trains $1,600 industry investment $0 equity $5,519 stocks 211,000 shares outstanding trains: db18201 age 5 years age 5 years age 5 years age 1 years track cells remaining 271

I'm noticing something strange on the Africa after the flood scenario. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the map settings made by the creator? I haven't explored map creation yet, so was hoping someone else might have an idea. On a normal heartland scenario, the AI company will build up cash if there's no place nearby to expand towards. (e.g. AI company has $1.6 million cash at the start of 2040 and a profit of 1.2M in 2040. In 2041, it has a cash of 2.8M) On the africa after the flood scenario, the AI company to seems reset its cash each year after reaching about $1-2 million in cash. For an example, an AI company will have 1.6M cash at the start of 2005 and a profit of 1.2M in 2005. However in 2006, the cash decreases to 1.4M and it doesnt buy industries/trains/track/stations (there is no expansion). Things I've looked at: I tried buying the companies to see if it was replacing enginges, but all the engines were from the year they first appeared/expanded.

The station "receiving the delivery" drops in demand and recovers: one primary station and one secondary station if deliver to primary station -> 5 demand initially Jan 2029 drops to 4 demand one month later Feb 2029 2 demand after 6 pax car delivery in Mar 2029 Recuperates to 4 in Apr 2031 Recuperates to 5 in Dec 2031 if deliver to secondary station -> 4 demand initially Jan 2029 (starts at a lower demand) stays at 4 demand one month later Feb 2029 2 demand after 6 pax car delivery in Mar 2029 Recuperates to 4 in Apr 2031 (I didn't catch the exact month) Recuperates to 5 in Dec 2031 (I didn't catch the exact month) Both stations operate the same as far as I could tell. There was no noticeable difference between demand dropping in the primary and secondary stations. Am I answering your question? caveat: (it's possible if it's covering a city of 7, one station might slightly faster recover because the game might split the houses to be 4 at the primary station and 3 at the secondary, but I don't have motivation to be that precise).

The demand only declines at the station receiving the delivery. Thanks for the questions, nice things to know!

Yeah I've repeated it on Heartland as well. If anyone wants to see, make sure you wait one month after building the second station and the passenger demand (and other house demands e.g. mail) drops at the primary station. I ran some tests and the passenger demand recuperation is also worse at the primary station when a secondary covers houses in that same area (even when no trains are delivered to the second station) only one primary station 11 houses 5 demand initially Jan 2029 3 demand after 6 pax car delivery in Mar 2029 Recuperates to 5 demand in May 2030 one primary station and one secondary station 5 demand initially Jan 2029 drops to 4 demand one month later Feb 2029 2 demand after 6 pax car delivery in Mar 2029 Recuperates to 4 in Apr 2031 Recuperates to 5 in Dec 2031 I think for most of the game it's probably better to have just one station because passengers are the main revenue in the game. Maybe consider a second station if highly congested. Minor: How does this affect competing stations with AI? You can build stations at where the AI is located. Just by building stations in the same cities as the AI (not even taking cargos) I reduced one AI company's yearly revenue from 2,542,000 to 1,833,000. Minor: what about 2 stations in one city from a merger? I also found that deleting the primary station and leaving the secondary station will cause the secondary station demand to rise to what a primary alone station would have had. The secondary station now functions the same as if the primary station was there alone. It probably is best to delete AI stations (from mergers) that are in the same cities that you have.

Something funky is happening when I am building my second station. Not sure if this is map specific but playing America after the Flood on expert. I build a station at Atlanta. Then I build a second station at Atlanta and the demand for pax drops from 8 to 6 at the main station with no delivery of passengers. The second station only has a demand of 5. I reload and only build one station at Atlanta and the demand stays at 8. A similar thing happens when I build stations at Patterson. I feel like the stations might be splitting the demand from the houses based on proximity? Moreover, on this map it feels like something strange happens in the year 2031 (profit=740K). I never can make more profit than 2030 (1000K). Does anyone know what is happening here?

Things understood: Fully delivering from a farm or cattle or other simple producer facility will result in business profits around 10% of the business purchase price. Delivering more loads from a meat packing plant in the previous year (the year you see when hovering profitability) will increase the profits of that year. Delivering about 2 cars worth per year seemed to result in business profits around 10% of the business purchase price, more would be higher. This aligns with Maglev's comment. (on the hardest difficulty) Demand does not matter. I supplied a town bakery (w/ extra supply trains) before supplying grain from my farm (demand was 2). I also did a save and stopped the extra supply trains and then delivered from my farm (demand was 5). Farm profit was 25k each time. I delivered 6 cars that had been stockpiled in both runs. unclear: I was unable to replicate the lumber mill described. I had 50k (25% of business purchase price) average return sending to 0 demand towns using 2 lumber camps as a source even with some congestion. Most likely the OP was not sending enough per year due to high congestion. I don't understand relative profitability. With the relative profitability of 100 for grain farm I expected profits to be considerably better than cattle but it was not. Both were around 10% of business purchase price. untested: Economic cycles affect on businesses.

Thanks for this patch! Has given me a boost by fixing the milk issue in my 1830 start on heartland expert 9 ai scenario.