Some basic questions........

[Gumboots]

Ok, next question. I've been refining the game goals to keep it nice and tight but still achievable. Currently I'm wanting to set 8,000 loads as a lifetime target, but it went and gave me gold even though I had only hauled slightly over 7,400 loads. Everything else seems to be working. I'm just wondering what's up with the haulage trigger. Screenshots:

[OilCan]

A couple of quick double checks...
1. Is your company selected (player company) on the Gold event AND/OR the status event?
2. Does the Silver event have an effect of GOLD win instead of a SILVER win?
3. In the status event, is Game-Wide, or LTD *any company*, or LTD to a territory used to show the number of company loads instead of 'LTD Company...'?

We have to start with the premise that RT3 correctly counts the number of loads hauled by your company. The problem then is an error in the GOLD event, the status event, or maybe the Silver event.

You may want to test using 10 and then 50 haul loads for Gold.

If you think it would help, post the screen shots of the conditions, effects and dialog box of the Gold and Status events.

[Gumboots]

I think I figured it out. Will still have to test it some more.

[Gumboots]

Ok, another question. I'm working on a different game now, and I want to have a requirement for the player to have >50% shareholding in a company. That's not one of the standard event triggers, but I assume it would be possible with variables.

Is there a way of calculating player shares, either by number or dollar value, and dividng that by the total for the company?

So basically, if there are 100,000 shares and you own 51,000, the test will come up as true. If you own 50,000 or less, it will come up as false.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Ok, another question. I'm working on a different game now, and I want to have a requirement for the player to have >50% shareholding in a company. That's not one of the standard event triggers, but I assume it would be possible with variables.

Is there a way of calculating player shares, either by number or dollar value, and dividng that by the total for the company?

So basically, if there are 100,000 shares and you own 51,000, the test will come up as true. If you own 50,000 or less, it will come up as false.

I don't think this is possible because there is no way to know the total number of shares of a company or it's per-share price, unless you control the share price by an effect(s) and keep it below $100 so it doesn't split (as long as you know how many shares are out there to begin with.)

[OilCan]

Wolverine is correct: there is not a way to detect the percentage of a company that the player owns. The unpredictable increase over time of outstanding shares puts a question mark into the equation. Also, unfortunately, there is not a way to detect what the current market cap is. The exact number of shares owned by the player cannot be detected. Knowing the wealth of shares in personal net worth is clouded by salary, dividends and interest.

A couple of surrogate ways to test if a player is investing in their company is to compare personal net worth against company book value. This has some error but it does detect if the player is building up cash or investing (assuming that wealth grows much quicker when cash is invested). > Edit: On second thoughts, this will not work because CBV can suddenly shrink when several bonds are taken out at once. The proportion of PNW to CBV would dramatically increase due to bonds, not player investment. You would have to compare PNW to company assets instead. <

A second way is to require the player to start another company and then return to their original company. This adds another company to the map which can be detected. It also requires that the player owns at least 51% of their company so that they can return as chairman. This is a goofy way to do it, but it meets your objective of knowing if a player owns the majority of their company.

I finally figured out a way to stop stock splits, but you would only want to do that if the stock market is disabled as a 'special condition'. it stops the newspapers from reporting stock splits when the stock market is supposed to be turned off and not part of the game.

[Gumboots]

Ugh. Silly game limits. The game obviously tracks exactly how many shares there are at any time. You'd think they would have built in some way of accessing that information.

Knowing the wealth of shares in personal net worth is clouded by salary, dividends and interest.

Actually there is a trigger for player share value, so that one is ok. It's just that extracting the same for the company as a whole is a problem.

A couple of surrogate ways to test if a player is investing in their company is to compare personal net worth against company book value. This has some error but it does detect if the player is building up cash or investing (assuming that wealth grows much quicker when cash is invested).

I did think of some surrogate dodges. Since the game has an algorithm to calculate current share price based on economic conditions, current profit, assets, etc it should be possible to fake that fairly well with a suitable bit of algebra. The only real wildcard is large stock purchases and sales, which will make things jump around.

I could also just require that PNW be something like 60% of CBV, to add enough margin so that (most of the time) it would guarantee that the player had enough assets to take over the company.That could be a good way to tackle it, because it would add an element of interest. Once you buy 51% of shares there is no further action required, but if you have to track PNW against CBV (or something else) that could be quite the nail biter.

> Edit: On second thoughts, this will not work because CBV can suddenly shrink when several bonds are taken out at once.

No, it wont. Taking out bonds is, in itself, pretty neutral to CBV. It only has a noticeable effect on CBV if you can't afford the interest and your profits go down the drain, or if you can easily afford the interest and your profits rise significantly.

Book value is assets minus liablilities. If you take out $1 million of bonds, your cash assets rise by $1 million but your debts rise by the same amount. Net effect on CBV: zero.

OK, so you are paying are fees on the bonds, but they're only 2%, which is not a highly significant amount. You have to pay the same again if you re-pay the bonds early anyway. That amount should be small enough to not have any noticeable effect on your CBV. If it isn't, you have other problems.

A second way is to require the player to start another company and then return to their original company. This adds another company to the map which can be detected. It also requires that the player owns at least 51% of their company so that they can return as chairman. This is a goofy way to do it, but it meets your objective of knowing if a player owns the majority of their company.

Yup. Thought of that one too. I'd have to add a further step, because I also want the initial company to be the only one left at the end of the game, but that should be possible.

[Gumboots]

Ok, re this bit:

"I could also just require that PNW be something like 60% of CBV, to add enough margin so that (most of the time) it would guarantee that the player had enough assets to take over the company.That could be a good way to tackle it, because it would add an element of interest. Once you buy 51% of shares there is no further action required, but if you have to track PNW against CBV (or something else) that could be quite the nail biter."

If I wanted to do that, what syntax would be required to run the trigger?

[OilCan]

It will require two separate events which must activate in tandem. Has to be in 1.06V. GV1 is Game Variable 1.

First event. Condition statement says: Always True. Select the screen players company, don't test against players, don't test against territories.
Timing is End of Month
Leave 'One-time only event' unchecked (no X)
Effect Panel: Select 'to the company for which the condition is true'
Effect statements (notes added to each line)
GV1 = CBV (this sets GV1 to the current company book value, GV1 now substitutes for CBV)
GV1 * 100 (this scales up the number by 100 since we cannot divide by a decimal. Remember, that GV1 cannot become larger than 2 billion)
GV1 / 167 (this calculates 60% of GV1. (100/percent) x scale up number)=((100/60) x 100)=166.666.. which is rounded to 167)
So, the first event sets GV1 to equal 60% of CBV. We cannot use decimals so we had to scale up the number and then divide by an integer.

Second event. Condition statement says: PNW >= GV1. Select the human player.
Timing is Beginning of Month (this makes the event activate immediately after 60% of CBV is calculated and before that number can change)
Check (X) the One-Time only event
Effect is then whatever you wish it to be for your game story.
If the effect involves the player's company, then go back to the condition statement and add a 'Force test against companies' and select the human company.
So, the second event tests PNW against GV1 which is itself 60% of CBV. It will activate when PNW is equal to or greater than 60% CBV, but it will activate only once.

Hope this helps.

[Gumboots]

Yup. That helps. Thanks. Might have to take a look at 1.06.

[Gumboots]

As it turns out, I went with another option that would run with 1.05. Tried installing 1.06 but had some glitches with it. I'll have a go at a 1.06 secnario once I figure out how to debug installation. At the moment I just want to have fun.

[Hawk]

You have read the thread about multiple installs, right?

viewtopic.php?f=82&t=2363

[Gumboots]

Yes, but although the installation I copied has been correctly patched to CtC then 1.05 (including "Vista fix" and "No CD") I was still getting an error with 1.06. It applies just fine, but I get that error about can't see some pack when I try to run the game. Can't remember which, but you probably know the one. It has been mentioned several times in the other threads, and usually results from patches not being correctly applied. The orignal installation runs fine as 1.05, so there may be unknown gremlins hiding somewhere. Unknown gremlins can wait. ;)

[Hawk]

Is it the CarSideView_3imb? If so, that means the C to C didn't install properly for some reason.

[Gumboots]

Well I can try it from scratch as a brand new, second installation, but it does run fine as CtC/1.05.

[Gumboots]

I was looking through the editor again, and I noticed that there is an option to track LTD or YTD revenue to or from a territory. Has anyone ever tried using that in a game?

I'm thinking of trying it, because it would prevent bait and switch tactics, and shipping at a loss. Not only would you have to haul loads, but you'd have to haul loads that actually make money between territories.

It could also save some event testing in the editor. On any map, certain towns will be connected by default, just because they are part of any core routes and too obvious and profitable to ignore. So, there wouldn't be any need to test against them. It would only require testing against some of the more obscure locations.

Basically the idea is to find another (less verbose) way of dealing with a requirement to run a real service to any specified towns, and of disallowing silly tricks to circumvent the scenario aims.

[EPH]

Off the top of my head... since you have to select a territory to test against I think you can only get revenue to or from, not revenue from one region to another.

Some of the regional events were broken, but I think the only way to know for certain would be to whip up some events and test it.

[Gumboots]

I've tried it since asking, and revenue to and from a territory does work. I like it. It means people have to run real services to the specified locations.