Bankrupting AI Companies

[Mingus]

Hello All,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Having read Oilcan's excellent guide, I am wondering what would be the best approach to bankrupt/disrupt AI companies given my current situation.

(1) I have complete control over my own company, it is very profitable and runs quite efficiently
(2) I have four other competitors, to which I do own stock, however, not enough to take over and merge with my own company.
(3) One of the AI companies runs a train on my own line (we share one city connection)

Should I 'milk' the other competitors of their goods, setting up a large station and my own track overlapping the AI cities, but only moving goods out of their cities to my own (sending back an empty train), or should I 'mirror' their tracks and stations, setting up parallel tracks?

Which would be the preferred/most efficient method?

[Wolverine@MSU]

I've found the best way is to bleed off the cargoes to another city, even if it means a loss, and send back an empty train. This will only work if the competitor is small and you only have to do this to a few stations. If the AI has grown fairly large (10 or more cities) it's probably not going to work without costing your company dearly. If you can keep cargoes out of their hands, AND they make all of their profits from hauling (i.e. no industries), they will eventually go belly-up, or at least have their stock price go down to where you can get a controlling share. Trying to compete with them with parallel tracks will only work if you dedicate a whole slew of trains to soak up ALL of the cargoes.

[Mingus]

That is a great point about knowing where the majority of AI's revenue is being generated from. I will at least be able to know if the 'bleed' strategy is worth the cost of implementing.

Luckily, I was able to merge with the largest of my competitors (the AI with the most cities connected). While I didn't own a controlling interest in the AI company, I was performing much better (had a better reputation) then my rival, and the votes went my way.

The remaining AI companies are only connected to (at most) 4 cities, as per the typical AI behavior, so it may just work with the rest.

Thank you for the sound advice!

[JoeExplorer]

I'm playing Texas Tea and am using this strategy to try to bleed the AI's Austin route. I have 2 trains running on their line and they are always carrying 4 car loads. But I'm not making any money. The AI takes all the profit for use of their tracks. If my cargo is valued at 100K then the AI takes the full amount.

How is this bleeding the AI? It seems that I'm just making money for them.

[Blackhawk]

I think the idea of stealing their cargo is to either put your own station outside of their station or if you must use their station and then take the cargo and haul it to your own station. If you use your own station and own rail network, you are now taking their cargoes while not having to pay them for the use of their track. Then if you haul it to your own station away from the AI rails they have lost the ability to use that cargo.

[JoeExplorer]

"I see said the blind man".....gotcha...thanks for the clarification.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Plus the fact that if you run YOUR trains on THEIR lines, they will make most, if not all of the profit. The whole idea is to steal their cargo and run it on your own lines.

[skamman]

thats what i do I starve them! i will run tracks right next to the ai and take their trains! If they connect to my track i will delete the track so they cant use it any more i will also put the stations in awkward positions so they cannot connect directly onto my stations and so they slowly wither and die! doesn't always work on expert but hey its satisfying knowing you destroyed a profitable railway with your industrial might!

[Hawk]

Just remember though, if you let AI trains run on your track, they have to pay you.
Just another way to make a little money.