Event to set manager

[jeffryfisher]

Has anyone ever used an event to set a company manager? I tried in my US History map, creating an 1895 event whereby the company with the most track was supposed to be able to "raid" George Pullman a few months after the Pullman Strike.

The trigger fired, the choice was offered, I selected "Yes" (labeled as "Raid"), but nothing happened. I checked the event programming, and I did have the labels and effects in the right order, so my company's manager should have been set to George Pullman (and some unfortunate AI should have been forced to hire somebody new).

Maybe the game has a check against assigning a manager who has already been assigned to a company. Does anyone have any test data on this?

[jeffryfisher]

Crickets... Does that mean that nobody has worked with the set-manager effects?

As a Canadian in my current game, my company did not have the early growth opportunities open to the northern US companies, so an AI company grabbed Pullman before I could. In that scenario (where the AI gets to Pullman before you can), who else would you pick as your eventual top-drawer manager?

I in a long game where raiding has time to pay off, what's the recommended strategy for prising Pullman from the clutches of the AI? I am currently sucking the life out of a couple of my opponent's cities in the hope that his declining revenue will force a managerial change. However, I think that it will be the rigors of taxation, regulation and unionization that ruin him to the point that he either relinquishes Pullman or becomes a takeover target.

[Gwizz]

JSS has a good handle on eventing a manager.

I should have wrote it down when he showed me how to use this event.

My memory lost the instructions. ???

[jeffryfisher]

What I ended up doing is disabling George Pullman in the scenario settings and then offering him one-time only in an event right after the Pullman Strike in the late 1800s. The drawback is that if you ever give him up, then he's gone forever. I'm still pondering ways to overcome that, but there's no way to test for the loss, and I don't want an event to periodically bug a player about a manager that he already has.

[RSimpkinuk57]

Jeffry,

How about two events? The first makes the company that has Pullman hire somebody else. Cannot tell which company that is? Give new managers to all AI companies. The paired event then gives Pullman to you.

I've just voted yes, Pullman is the best manager. That is if you want your company to make money - or to lay track, build stations and buy engines. More money to spend on all those things (and maybe access rights too) beats a price reduction on just one aspect.

Having said that, he isn't always the man I'd want. Take the original campaign's Orient Express map. I have to link Paris and Constantinople. Pullman is the man to finance that. Then I have to haul 24 loads between them. Now I want someone who'll keep those loads from being robbed or wrecked.

You've been working on the data file: how about making him not quite so good? Maybe only +15% or +20% on passenger revenue, but to go with that -10% (say) on station revenue. Yes, minus: people sleeping in his cars will have less need to patronise station hotels.

regards, Richard