Managing the Economy

[steve39]

RT2 always plays best when loads of money is being made and the Economy is in Boom but only relatively recently have I worked out what helps the latter, though not entirely.  Would anybody like to comment please?

1) The Economy is checked twice yearly and may change in March or September. 

2) There is an element of randomness about what happens, especially in the first March and if it goes into Recession, I regard it as an unwarranted stunt by PopTop, kill the game and do a Restart.

3) When starting, try to leave around $100 unspent; I may be wrong but it seems to encourage the first step up to Prosperity.  It looks as if the less you leave in the kitty, the less chance there is of an upgrade in the first March.   Much depends on how much track/locos you wish to start the game with and thus earn in the first year: view it as a trade-off if you like according to taste. 

4) Some players like to cheat, again according to taste, and one here is to save mid-February and if the Economy misbehaves, shall we say, back-track.  I like to get Prosperity during the first year and Boom by the second - and stay there for as long as possible. 

5) A prerequisite in raising the Economy and keeping it high is to keep laying track.  I suspect that a set number of cells has to be laid each half year but have never worked out how many, nor if they're counted over the whole six months or weighted towards the last month before the Economy is checked.  If I get nervous about an impending change, I may save my money for a few months and then build track in the month or two before the Economy is checked.   

6) Having a decent amount of cash helps.  So does arrival of a high revenue train, or several.  Looking at it the other way, if you have a long period of low revenue and inactivity, the Economy will fall.

7) Buying shares is a tricky one.  Overdoing it by offering or buying too many doesn't seem to be viewed favourably.  But so is doing nothing!  One marker is to try and keep your shares Spending Power above your Debt.  You can let the debt exceed this gradually but it's best to have a Spending Power above $1000 as soon as possible and the higher the better.  It'll give you more room for manoeuvre too.   

8 ) Dealing too much in your own shares seems to be a definite way of tipping the Economy and I tend to play this down now and buy more AI shares, partly also because I like to buy out every single AI (just a quirk of mine which adds to the enjoyment)!  If in dire straights buying some of your own shares, or buying them back, will boost their value and help but this can be expensive and desperate stuff!   Best I can say here is to take it easy and don't launch too many of your own shares: the Economy doesn't seem to like that at all! 

9) Bonds are a safe way of raising cash, again if you don't overdo it.  When the interest rate drops I replace the first bonds (usually around 10-12%) with something lower and repeat every so often as the rate drops to its lowest level of 5% (only available in a Boom economy).  Repaying bonds can also help the Economy.

10) There's an element of "steady as she goes" about all this.

11) Now, for the record, my playing style is, on the main lines, to run full trains only and no caboose  (unless it's a very important train).  They make loadsamoney - but you MUST choose only the locos with the highest reliability.  Breakdowns and crashes are not only caused by less reliable locos: they also happen more if the Economy drops.  When I get a breakdown, and especially two in quick succession, I stop and check my financial position and if my company's shares are beginning to fall and lose earnings, I realise that I've got it wrong and without the kind of action already described, sure as night follows day, the Economy will drop.

12) It's possible to play most of a game in Boom conditions and it's not just that you make more money, generation of passengers and raw materials also goes up.  It's a virtuous circle.  When, alas, the economy does drop you may struggle to get back to where you were so, as the saying goes, try and keep your nose clean! 

Any thoughts on this would be welcome.

Steve

[djf01]

Hi Steve,

In RRT1, the stock market engine is much simpler, but the 5 level economy was about the same.  Track laying costs were dependent *only* on the level of the economy.  In that game, it was always best to build during a depression or recession, and finance during prosperity or boom.  But ... the game tried to catch you out.  If you had too much cash, the game went into boom to force you to spend he cash inefficiently.  If you had too little cash, the game was keen on throwing you into recession.  It was designed to try and catch you out.

I suspect the movements in the economy in RRT2 are governed by internal hard coded events, and as such, are probably based on event triggers available to map editors. 

I've never thought about the level of the economy to much.  I think there is a background risk of about 10%/year of a movement in any direction. 

But, I also think a downturn in the economy is more likely if the player cash position is too low.  The game is trying to catch you in a margin call. 

Similarly, the chance of the economy picking up increases if the *company* cash is excessive.  The game is trying to make you waste your company cash.

This could all be done with 4 or maybe 6 events.  If so, it'd be very interesting to know what the exact trigger formulas are.  It could be they are simple cash values.  It could be they are ratios.  Either way, this post has suddenly made me more wary of ensuring I spend/invest spare company cash.

6) Having a decent amount of cash helps.  So does arrival of a high revenue train, or several.  Looking at it the other way, if you have a long period of low revenue and inactivity, the Economy will fall.

In RRT2, the level of the economy effects:

- cargo available to haul

- revenue earned for the cargo

- demand for particular cargo

The last point in particular really reduce company earnings during an economic downturn. 

7) ...  One marker is to try and keep your shares Spending Power above your Debt. 

I've always found keeping this ratio (debt less than purchasing power) particularly difficult.  It required too much monitoring, and an economic downturn always stuffs up the ratio.  This idea that the level of the economy is based on personal cash levels probably explain this.

12) It's possible to play most of a game in Boom conditions and it's not just that you make more money, generation of passengers and raw materials also goes up.  It's a virtuous circle.  When, alas, the economy does drop you may struggle to get back to where you were so, as the saying goes, try and keep your nose clean! 

The only "problem" with playing in a persistent boom is your public goodwill takes a hammering if you can't deliver all the loads building up at your stations.  This isn't really a problem, unless the economy does turn down randomly, in which case the number of loads available for you to haul collapses.

[steve39]

Hi,

The only "problem" with playing in a persistent boom is your public goodwill takes a hammering if you can't deliver all the loads building up at your stations.  This isn't really a problem, unless the economy does turn down randomly, in which case the number of loads available for you to haul collapses.

Loads building up at stations a "problem"?  It's one I have never known!

But what about the GOODWILL? I was under the impression its only effect was to make buying a Territory more expensive.  Are there any other effects?

Steve 

PS - I think we're all familiar with what happens when the Economy turns down; I'm trying to focus on how to manage it and play for as long as possible under Boom conditions.  Some players are definitely better at this than others and I sometimes wonder if players who struggle to get a Gold award have got the hang of the railroad tactics - but find a cycling Economy, up and down, just something to live with when in fact good tactics can help.           

[djf01]

[quote author=steve39 link=topic=580.msg2025#msg2025 date=1194532139

Loads building up at stations a "problem"?  It's one I have never known!

But what about the GOODWILL? I was under the impression its only effect was to make buying a Territory more expensive.  Are there any other effects?

If there are 2 railroads in the same city, the loads generated by the base resources (houses, mines etc) go by preferance the railroad with the highest good will.

In a game I was playing recently, I had two cities on either side of the map, one had an AI railroad station in it.  My railroad wasn't getting any loads at the jointly held city.  My goodwill was terrible because one of my cities had a logging camp which I was not servicing.  Once I bulldozed the logging camp, my goodwill skyrocketed, and I started getting loads from the joint city.

[steve39]

In a game I was playing recently, I had two cities on either side of the map, one had an AI railroad station in it.  My railroad wasn't getting any loads at the jointly held city.  My goodwill was terrible because one of my cities had a logging camp which I was not servicing.  Once I bulldozed the logging camp, my goodwill skyrocketed, and I started getting loads from the joint city.

This is interesting, and I confess to never having found where the Goodwill is shown.  Could you explain further please?

Steve

Doh - I forgot to include in my list re managing the economy that if shares are being traded, you must keep the divi on your own shares >0.

[djf01]

This is interesting, and I confess to never having found where the Goodwill is shown.  Could you explain further please?

Company View, Overview Tab, Below "Track Mileage" and "Average Speed" is "Public Goodwill".

In most cases goodwill is of little consequence.  I think the game designers wanted this to be the way players competed with the AIs and each other for business within cities.  But as most readers here know, this is an insane way to compete with an AI.  There are much crueler things we can do (like running one of our trains on it's main line and using the cheat codes to make it break it down :-)).

Doh - I forgot to include in my list re managing the economy that if shares are being traded, you must keep the divi on your own shares >0.

The manual says dividend has an impact on the share price, but I've never noticed it myself. 

I'd like to know exactly how the share price is calculated.  But I think it is something like this:

( Book Value + Trailing 12 month earnings Earnings * ~10 + X ) * (1 + Y)*(1 + Z)

Y is a modifier based on recent purchases or sales, the effect of which decays monthly until it's completely gone after a year.

X might be zero, but I think trailing 24 month earnings are in there as well, about * 5 perhaps?  Not too sure. 

Z is the state of the economy.  0 for normal, about 10-15% for prosperity, 20-30% for  boom, -(10-15%) recession etc.

Perhaps 10 isn't the right PE either.

For the "stop the trains" tactic to work, the trains need to be stopped for a full year before the share price really tumbles.  And much longer than that tends to be counter productive.

If anyone has any further insights I'd like to know.

[steve39]

Well, Einstein,

I'm mightily impressed by your proposed equation!  But can't help myself and wonder if anybody else can chip in?  It would be good to know what one of the game's fundamentals is based on.   

Coming back to the shares divi, I've noticed many a time that if you allow it to sit at zero for too many months the Economy will drop a step.  I could be mistaken and will try a test when part way through my next game.   

For my sins, I try to play a clean game, hopefully in the spirit of the scenario designer, and have never tried the "stop the trains" trick.  Not my cup of tea, I suppose. 

Goodwill - thanks for saying where this is displayed: I realise now that it's a page I stopped looking at a long time ago.  My partner in crime, though, Geoffrey, assures me that its only influence is on territory purchase price, which in many games is a peripheral aspect.  Hmm... I shall now watch this  like a hawk and see if any other correlation can be spotted. 

Steve

[Gwizz]

This material is very interesting

I've used the stop the trains strategy a few times. 

In the past in real life, large companies would send cargo by the train loads to

a siding in a state on route, and let a number of trains sit for a few days until their inventory was over when the trains could proceed and deliver the cargo.

In the old days RRs would hold up frieght that was to be transfered to another RR causing expensive delays.

I'll stop all trains just short of their stations starting in about June,  This causes the stock price to drop.  In Nov. or Dec. I will buy the stock at the lower cost, then I let the trains deliver their cargo.  Doing this causes the stock to increase.  I will then sell out of any margin. I've never paid any attention to the economy.  Maybe this is why I'm just an average player.

 

[steve39]

Hi Gwizz,

(a) Isn't this "stop the trains" trick a trade-off?  From what you say it's possible to buy shares cheaper.  Fine, but the value of the stopped trains is decaying all the time and nothing much is happening with your railroad. 

- I find it more useful to link two large cities as quickly as possible and launch as many trains as possible, and as quickly as possible, to bring in loads of revenue and expand like mad.  For me it's "the" foundation.  If two decently big cities are reachable in the first year I will connect them and set off three trains, which if covered by double track at the passing points, can make return trips.  That's 6 revenue earning trips when there's a lot of traffic and demand. 

- It two really large cities are too far apart, let's call them A and D, I build a line as far as I can afford towards it, and two stations en route, B and C.  Then start with trains from all three stations, A,B,C, the maximum distance each, while still keeping a small cash reserve in the kitty.  One or two will pass en route (cover with some double track where possible) and they will all have arrived by around July-August. 

This generates so much revenue that I can extend the track to D and start a fourth train (from there), if possible with a more powerful/expensive loco - all in the first year.  All four trains are redirected to run A-D non-stop.  The cost of the intermediate stations (B,C) may be $200K and they may be little used again, but they will have enabled connection of two distant cities and four trains beavering away between them - all in year 1.   

- A hybrid of the above is to connect two local Cities for their quick revenue and, elsewhere, start a longer run with a small station at the halfway point for sand/coal.  By the time the train reaches the service station, the shorter runs will have provided the revenue to complete the longer run. 

Whichever approach I use, by the middle of the second year I'll have bought several more big locos and the money is pouring in fast enough to start extending to the next big city.  In the early years when demand is at its highest the revenue from these trains is huge and - crucially - you can maintain a high divi on your shares: which makes it easier to buy more.  This is a virtuous circle and, I think, better than artificially depressing share prices to make them buyable and sacrificing your railroad's profitability.  Your Spending Limit rises too.  Meanwhile, PopTop thinks all this is "a good thing" and raises the Economy from Normal to Prosperity and then Boom.  Yet another virtuous circle and where I think I came in! 

(b) Keeping your shares Spending Limit above the Debt ain't so hard if you start carefully and use Bonds.  Keep a rough balance until your Spending Limit exceeds $1000, then gradually become more daring.  As your Limit continues to rise, it all gets easier still.  Staying in Boom is part of it, and when things eventually do turn down, if you haven't raised your shares Debt too high, you will be able to ride it out.   

© Keeping a high level of cash in your railroad account won't by itself prevent the Economy from falling.  I've played games where the cash in hand was many millions, and the Economy would still fall if I stopped expanding, or allowed my shares divi to fall to zero and stay there through forgetfulness.  Darned complicated game this RT2!

Steve

[djf01]

I find it more useful to link two large cities as quickly as possible and launch as many trains as possible, and as quickly as possible, to bring in loads of revenue and expand like mad.  For me it's "the" foundation.

I like your style Steve.  Personally, I'm not a big fan of "stop the trains".  But I use it in conjunction with something like your expansion strategy.

I started playing the game with the Eastern USA map, so I'll use that as my example since most players are familiar with it.  Just in case you only ever read forums and don't actually play the game, this map gives a big incentive to connect the big cities New York and Chicago.  The other big city is Washington (because Baltimore is so close both towns can be spanned by one large station).

When I first started playing, I used the stock market like a regular investor would.  I ran my railroad as profitably as I could, and built up stock in my own company with cautious use of margin.

But more often than not, I'd get margin called after I'd made a decent expansion, but before my first trains arrived at Chicago.  The dip in revenue (combined with the economy tanking after my cash reserves plummeted) was enough to lower my share price was enough to bankrupt me, even though I ended up the boss of a ridiculously profitable company.

It took me a while to work out that I needed a strategy to manage my personal finances as well as my company's.

(a) Isn't this "stop the trains" trick a trade-off?  ...  Fine, but the value of the stopped trains is decaying all the time and nothing much is happening with your railroad.

...

This is a virtuous circle and, I think, better than artificially depressing share prices to make them buyable and sacrificing your railroad's profitability. 

The way I use "stop the trains" could probably be better described as "stop the revenue".  And I use it in a way that does not (much) compromise the profitability of my railroad.

NYC -> Chicago is too far to connect at startup.  So I build NYC -> Washington (NYC -> Albany works too, but not as well), using the methods described in this thread, build a profitable short haul system.  By the end of the second year  (if I was a really good player I'd get this down to one) I have enough of a credit rating to build to Chicago. 

This is where I differ from Steve a bit.  Once connected to Chicago, I sell *all* my stock.  The *every* train is set to go to Chicago.  With whatever cash I have left I buy locos, and send those NYC -> Chicago as soon as the cargo is available.  They key thing is to ensure there is *no revenue*.

The cities are 300+ cells away and take a year or more to get to Chicago.  By the time the first train is poised to arrive, the share price has tanked (and sometimes so has the economy).  I usually stop the first one or two trains, until the share price is low enough for me to buy at least half my company.  After buying my stock back (going as far into margin as I can) I then allow a train to arrive, then unstop the stopped trains.  They key is timing it so the first train arrives within a month of you taking on all that personal debt, so you don't get margin called.

By the time 5 or 6 trains have arrived at Chicago, I own all my stock and my company is awash with cash. 

This strategy works as a personal investor because the share price is very very short term in it's outlook, and potential earnings based on the loads on the trains are not considered.

It works from a company perspective because you build the big money infrastructure (Chicago to NYC) without wasting money or passengers on intermediate stations. 

There are a couple of other strategies I think are worth mentioning:

- To do a long initial expansion I use single track, and only run trains one way initially.  (First few trains fund duplicating track for the back haul).

- I build the large hotel and large restaurant first, before I build a roundhouse. 

Also, if the game is played at "expert" difficulty, I can bulldoze my station at Washington, and so long as my intermediate water towers and roundhouses are not capturing any resources, I can resign as chairman and let the AI run the railroad.  With it's revenue and maintenance advantages, it makes more money that I ever could.

Oh, and while I remember, I've checked my stock price formula and it's completely wrong :-).

[JSS]

Steve39, I must disagree with many of your conclusions. This is a response to your first post above.

Quote

[djf01]

Hi JSS,

A very interesting post, but I feel I should defend some of Steve's conclusions.  I'm now convinced he's closer to the mark that you (and me) on this.

Quote

it is all based on randomness guided by some general trends. What I mean by that is that there seems to be an 80% chance that a trend will continue to move into the direction it has been moving until it reaches Depression or Boom.

I believe Steve is right in that there is a random aspect to the movement of the economy, but also a propensity to move in a given direction based on player action.  It's just a propensity, but I'm convinced it's there.  And it seems to be that if you and your company is doing well, the economy is more likely to trend upwards.  And if you and your company are in trouble, the economy is more likely to head south.

You are right about the trends in the economy tending to continue.  I've often wondered how this might be implemented, but I now think it's the effect of the player related actions.  If you get your play in state where the economy is more likely to pick up, it continues to pick up until you reach boom.  If it starts heading south it continues to head south (probably).

And if you don't do anything,  or play the game "in the corridor" (ie sensible cautious expansion) where you don't trigger the non-random economic changes, then all you are going to see are the random events.

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One of the basic concepts of the games should be or is that the shares of

[JSS]

djf01, all I can say is that if it works for you keep on doing it.  ;D

[Gwizz]

Different Play styles can sure change the direction of a game.

If I'm playing to win a medal, it is important to play in a given way.

If I take my more normal relaxed style, then I can't be too concerned about winning gold.  Then again maps are different to different people.  Most of PopTops maps were not very hard.  On the other hand, the player made maps tend to match the builders play style.  Not always but most of the time.  Depending upon a persons play style a map could be easy or hard.  Some maps I may not care for and others become my favorites that I may play many times.  The nice thing about the editor I can change a map I don't like into one I do like. 

While I never paid much attention to the economy in the past, I'm finding it very interesting, another challenge that I missed I guess.  I wonder what other challenges I have missed.

[steve39]

I should begin by apologising for a week's silence; I have been doing my homework.  When I left it we were faced by JSS's assertion that all changes in the Economy are random, as is their timing.  If I may put this politely and use an old English phrase, that's balderdash and piffle!  djf01 made a good addition by noting that the condition of a player's company and how he manages it will put the economy on an upward or a downward trend. 

I've taken a scenario (not POS) and when play was well developed - and my own company shares had begun to decline in both value & earnings - I tried the following options in August, one of the two months before the Economy is likely to change.  Cash in hand was about $660K.  My shares Spending Limit was very high (and equal to my Debt) so I could try making purchases without fear of penalty).  Sample size for each trial was 20.  The percentage figure quoted is for the Economy falling:

(a) no action - 50%   

This illustrates an underlying  degree of randomness. 

(b) buy 2 lots of own shares - 50%

© buy 4 lots of AI shares - 50%

In other words, share dealing like this by itself won't help.  (I think we all know that using your company to Buy Back Shares is beneficial). 

(d) lay $500K track (and thus reduce cash in hand to $160K) - 35%

(e) maintain cash in hand by taking a Bond and spending approx. $650K laying track - 30%

This shows that the most important factor in preventing the economy from turning down (or encouraging it to rise) is to lay track.  The caveat is that it's best done from your own cash, providing THAT isn't denuded too much.  Using a Bond as an aid can allow you to maintain liquidity and lay more track (the difference between 35% and 30% is not significant).  I'll come back to use of Bonds in a moment. 

(f) combination of © and (e) - 10%

In short, in order to bale me out, most effective was to lay track AND buy AI shares.  This achieved 90% success in preventing the Economy from sliding. 

Coming back to use of Bonds, I added to trial (e) with another Bond which I spent on more track.  The chance of a downward turn in the Economy promptly doubled from 30% to 60%.  This shows two things:

- there is a limit above which laying more track does not help.

- taking Bonds just before an Economy check has a negative effect. 

As yet unchecked is a suspicion that it's beneficial to reduce the number of Bonds you hold (or perhaps the total interest on them?).     

By using the techniques described above, coupled with an early expansionist policy, I can get Boom inside 2-3 years and maintain it for 20 years. 

- - - - -

POS (Prince of Steel) - JSS quoted a lot of runs of this scenario to support his case.  POS-II is available now so I did some trials with that (eight).  Most evident is that this is a scenario in which it is hard to be profitable - the biggest cities are far apart, fenced off, and expensive to buy; other Cities are also far apart; and industries are not well placed vis a vis the resources.  Hence journeys are long and not very profitable, and neither is your company.  In such marginal conditions you cannot expect the Economy to lift - and it won't. 

A second factor I noted is that the choice of locos offered was poor and got worse: the designer is deliberately offering predominantly expensive and unprofitable locos.  A third factor in this vein is that it's hard to buy shares because you start in debt!  These three factors result in a game where profitability is simply not enough to encourage improvements in the Economy. 

Steve

[djf01]

Steve,

Very nice work.  Extremely interesting (other than I now feel guilty if the economy turns down during a game :-)).  But I have a few questions:

1) What was your *personal* cash position.  Did you go (further) into margin to buy AI shares?

2) I know this is a big ask, but I'd like to know if it's track laying in particular or transferring cash to illiquid assets has the same effect.  ie Repeat the experiment but instead of building track, but a Car Plant, or alternatively build some large hotels at small (ie no PAX) stations.

3) Did the economy go up a level in any of your tests?

[steve39]

Good questions! 

1)    Cash                            -5,961

       Stocks                            23,308

                                            -------

       Total                               17,346

       Purchasing Power             5,692

This was achieved by only issuing shares in Year 1, then personally buying a mixture of AI shares (often before an Economy check), and own shares carefully so as not to overdo it, in the period after an Economy check.  OK, AI shares don't earn as much but I will eventually buy out all the AI (yep, I'm power crazed, and it adds a nice extra degree of difficulty to a game)!  I've only developed this approach quite recently.  When things are sitting comfortably, my railway may occasionally offer shares for which the income will be $1.0-1.5 m.  Useful for a large burst of track laying and speed things along, or to buy out an AI.   

2)  (g) Buy Distillery ($400K, Very Lucrative, making $52K pa) and hence reduce cash in hand to $260K - 50%

In other words, it made no difference.  I suspect that the effect you allude to, ie. raising illiquid assets, may be a long-term one and thus difficult to assess.  Adding lots more hardware by acquiring an AI does have an immediate effect, though.  Couldn't repeat with Hotels as all my passenger stations already have them.

3)  The Economy was already at Boom.  But teetering

[djf01]

Good questions! 

1)    Cash                              -5,961

      Stocks                            23,308

                                            -------

      Total                              17,346

      Purchasing Power                5,692

I think I have an explanation for the effect of buying the AI stock.  My theory on this is the game is trying to catch you out in a margin call.  If your personal debt to equity ratio gets too high (probably beyond about 20%), then the economy is likely to head south.  From boom to depression a 20% ratio will go to near 50% - the point at which you are margin called - even without the value of the stocks falling due to declining revenues.

Buy buying AI stocks, you temporarily address this problem by increasing the market price of your AI stock.

An event code for this trigger would be:

PlayerCash * -5 > PlayerStockValue and Random1to10000 <= 200

Thanks to your testing we now know the personal finances effect is 20%, the company effect is also 20% and the random effect is only 10%.  (I'm feeling even more guilty about my economic depressions now :-)).

There is probably a converse event to boost the economy as well.  Everyone wants to buy low and sell high, but these events would see the economy to conspire against you.  The market would be down when you are short of cash, and if you have spare cash the market overprices itself.

2)  Buy Distillery ($400K, Very Lucrative, making $52K pa) and hence reduce cash in hand to $260K - 50%

That blows my theory out of the water :-(.  Either that or $400k is not enough. 

The reason I thought illiquid assets is that it's testable in an event.  I know track cells is too, but the game would  need to keep a running total somewhere.  If the test is a debt:equity ratio of some sort, it can be implemented easily using the games events.  However, I can't think of a formula that would replicate your results.

I can't think of a sensible way to test of it, but if it is laying track, then I have several followup ideas:

a) is it *your* company's track cells or is it game track cells (ie, if an AI builds a connection does that have the same effect?)

b) is it the value of the track, or the number of cells?  Do 10 cells stitched over a mountain have the same effect as 30 cells across the plain?

[djf01]

I think I have an explanation for the effect of buying the AI stock.  My theory on this is the game is trying to catch you out in a margin call.  If your personal debt to equity ratio gets too high (probably beyond about 20%), then the economy is likely to head south.  From boom to depression a 20% ratio will go to near 50% - the point at which you are margin called - even without the value of the stocks falling due to declining revenues.

Buy buying AI stocks, you temporarily address this problem by increasing the market price of your AI stock.

DJF01 you are a complete fool!! 

I just re-read Steve's results to appreciate that *just* trading shares has no effect :-(.  So my interpretation of personal events must be completely wrong as well :-(.

[JSS]

Steve39, you have me almost convinced

[steve39]

djf01's comment about temporarily increasing the value of the stock is right and I buy AI shares to keep things ticking along and as a precaution in February and August.  Here's what happened when I trialled a doubling of the purchases.  Also, re your track cells question.  Previous results re-quoted for comparison, plus more detail.  As before, the percentage is of the economy falling (from Boom: making no changes gives a 50% result):

© buy 4 lots of AI shares (share value  +6.8%)  : 50% 

(h) buy 9 lots of AI shares (share value +10.2%)  : 40%

In short, buying 4 shares hadn't helped (unless married with track laying). 

Buying more did have an effect by itself, but not all that great. 

(d)  lay $500K flat track (38 cells),                (and thus reduce cash in hand to $160K)  : 35%

(j)  lay $500K steeply graded track (14 cells), (and thus reduce cash in hand to $160K)  : 50%

This shows that it's the track cells which count, not money spent on track laying. 

It also indicates that there may be a minimum requirement lying somewhere between 14 and 38.

Any more ideas or combinations to try?  (h)+(e) for sure! 

Steve

[Gwizz]

Hi JSS

You told Steve39 that he has almost convinced you. 

Could you give us a bit more info on where you believe the Economy works differently from what Steve said.  I'm still unsure on how the economy works.

I'm interested in all ideas since RT2 is not an open source program.  It is not easy to figure out how its inners work.

PS:

I read that if I go to Canada I can no longer use a picture ID to get back home, The US won't let me back over the border without a pass port.  I assume you cross to the US using a Canadain passport.  We were planning to go to BC.  But Pass Ports take a while to get and they are much more costly now. Gwizz,  I liked it better the way it was.  Me and the wife would still like to meet your better half.

[steve39]

Here's another set of trials from a later point in the same game.  It's mid-February and Share value & earnings have begun to fall.  Cash in hand (cih) $1,570K.  Once again the percentage figure shows the number of times the Economy fell in April:

2(a)  No change                                                :  50%

2(b)  Repay 2 Bonds (6%) (reducing cih to $570K)   :  55%

2©  Buy Back Shares (2000, cost $1,235K, reducing cih to $335K)  :  35%

2(d)  Lay track (28 cells), (cost $300K reducing cih to $1,270K)       :  35%

I haven't calculated the likely error/scatter in these samples of 20 but would say that there is no significant difference between 50% and 55%.  In other words, repaying two Bonds made no significant difference. 

Buying back a load of Shares, however, had the same effect as laying track.   

Except that laying track is a heck of a lot cheaper! 

Steve

[JSS]

Gwizz, I do not know exactly how the economy works. It is that simple.

What I am saying is that I have experienced at times totally the opposite of some of the claims made. That is I have been building lots of track in recession and that did not stop me from sliding into bust and I had frequently no cash at Prosperity and that did not keep me fro getting a Boom in economy. Especially late in the game when out of normal cash and when I even take out bonds to pay for my dividends, the economy does not necessarily spiral downwards. Hence my claim that almost all of the economic changes are driven by random choices.

Is there anything a player can do to chance this? Steve39

[djf01]

I had a poke through my rrt_tsc.exe file, looking for event trigger formulas in literals.

I *did* find some that looked extraordinarily map specific which I think was used for testing the trigger formula parser.  Now it *may* be that the event trigger formulas are parsed once when the map file is loaded, and the internal events are already parsed, or maybe encrypted to stop people like me peeking at the game's internals, but it's more likely these economic events, and the Automobile and 707 events, are hard coded and probably use a different mechanism.  This means the programmers have much more information at their disposal in triggering the effects.

I haven't calculated the likely error/scatter in these samples of 20 but would say that there is no significant difference between 50% and 55%. 

+/- 1 event from a sample of 20 sounds about right to me. 

In other words, repaying two Bonds made no significant difference. 

I think we could get very good odds that CompanyDebt alone is not the trigger.  CompanyDebt - CompanyCash (ie net debt) is a much more likely trigger. 

After all, if you take out a lot of bonds and decide you don't want to use them anymore, you can just pay them back.  If the game is going to catch anyone out over-expanding, it needs to ensure the player has spent the bonds first.