PNW - GRRRR!!!!

[rrt3rookie]

I just completed the campaign scenarios on hard. I got gold on all but 3 scenarios - silver on 2 bronze on 1. The 3 I did not get gold on involved reaching a PNW amount. In all 3 scenarios I was pretty much on my way to achieving the PNW amount except with 2 years or less to go in each one the the econmony crashed! Needless to say the PNW went way down and there was no time to recover. In 2 cases I was able to get back to the silver level. In the third case, I was desparatly fighting off margin calls by selling the stock in the other campanies and then having the company repurchase stock when possible. As the economy declined into a crash, I failed to keep up and all my stock was sold sending my PNW into the negative. PNW was a condition for gold only, so I got silver.

I'm guessing it was just random bad luck unless it is programmed into those scenarios to drop the eceomy at those times. If it is programmed that way, that is just so unfair!

I haven't looked at the event coding yet, but the 3 villanous scenarios were The State of Germany, The Orient Express, and Chip Off the Old Block.

[nedfumpkin]

Any time a map requires a pnw goal, my strategy is to focus entirely on obtaining 100% of my company stock as quickly as possible. I do this by buying shares for myself and buying them back from the company. It becomes a fine art with luck and skill combined, but some pointers are that the economy on its own goes in roughly 5 year cycles. You won't go from boom to crash in one year unless it is coded into the events, so if you pay atention to the direction, you can plan for the future.

You will need to have a profitable route set up that will be inexpensive to expand since you will want to divert as much company cash to buying back stock, and you want to keep your debt low so you can buy bonds for that purpose. When you see your stock is heading for a split, try to buy as much stock yourself, and buy back as much as you can before and after the split. You should try to get all of your stock in the first 5 years if not sooner. Only then should you start buying other stocks, or paying dividends. Never pay dividends before you have all your stock because it is wasted money, and may attract investors from other companies.

Once you have all your stock, you can issue dividends to clear your margin, and then buy stock in other RRs - they tend to issue dividends. Be careful when approaching lean times since you will be forced to by back stock to keep from margin calls, and if you don't have the money, you will fail. With all the stcok in the company, your pnw will be prett much the same as the book value of the company. Buy lots of industry and lay lots of track and you will not have any trouble with pnw.

[EPH]

Ned, how on earth can you afford to keep buying up your company stock unless you pay dividends? Are you buying limited amounts of stock yourself while using mostly company cash to buy up the stock? That can take a while - and if there are multiple AI players they can gobble up big chunks of your stock, too.

My experience with this is a little different. I try to get the company into high profitability very early (don't we all ), then focus on buying up lots of stock while pouring all profits into the highest dividends I can stand. So - I use both personal and company stock purchases to keep the stock price up (which keeps the value of the stock I hold up) and take the dividend payouts ($2 per share will just about keep my debt from growing, more than that helps chip it down). This discourages other (AI) players from buying my stock, keeps the debt from growing and keeps my stock value up so that I can keep buying. Once I have 50-75% of the stock and a dividend of $2-$3.50 I'm usually rolling in PNW, so I can revert to expanding my railroad/industrial company.

I routinely run personal debt ratios of 1-1 or sometimes as high as 1-3 (stock value 50/debt 50-150). If I get that high I either use company funds to buy back stock or count on expansion/high dividends to pump up my worth. Of course, if the economy is trending down and a depression or crash might be coming then you should only buy stocks from cash or keep your debt ratio low. If your company is sound and you think a crash is coming, max out your bonds, wait for the crash and then buy stock like mad. This ONLY works if your company is making money in a recession or depression!

Of course, buying up stock runs up the stock value which increases the amount of money you have to invest, so it is possible to get all or almost all of the stock in one 'run' and then hope you can keep from crashing while you pay down your debt... not recommended, but if you do this at the END of the game it will trigger the PNW and give you the gold medal before the value crashes and your debt wipes you out. That's a trick - but one allowed by the game and used by tycoons in real life.

[nedfumpkin]

By not paying dividends, you company stock will be less attractive to the AI. Unless you own all the stock, when you pay dividends, you are only getting a partion of the money, so to me it is a waste.

Generally I buy as much stock as I can when the secario starts. Then I generally buy an industry and supply it, as well as connect two cities. If I have money left over, I buy back stock.

The trick is to acquire as much of your stock as you can as quickly as possible, so you want to always keep an eye on its price. Buy cheap, buy back expensive is the rule. This will keep your stock rising in price. Always try to buy as much as you can before a split, and buy back as much as possible too. After a split you want to try to buy more. Always buy before buying back. Margin calls can ruin you, but it's also a good time to buy back stock to float the price. It's usually a matter of riding out a depression.

The key to this is making sure you have a profitable rr with industry. If you go into the red too much then your stock price falls, so it helps to be in the black, and an industry will do that. It all comes down to careful planning and timing. But I found that I can always achieve gold on a pnw scenario by following this method. It's how I finally beat the Orient Express. Works great on Germantown too.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I agree with Ned as far as not paying dividends until I own most, if not all, of the stock; it's just company money down the tubes. There is another trick I spoke about before that you can use to manupulate the price of your stock. It works best in Normal - Boom economies, but can also be used to advantage even in Recession/Depression. It turns out that in the year-end rollover, the dividend rate has a BIG influence on stock price change from December to January: If there is a big dividend rate, the stock price will increase when in Prosperity/Boom, or at least not drop as much when in Recession/Depression. Conversely, stock price will almost always fall if dividends are set to "$0". You can use this to your advantage both ways vis-a-vis PNW.

I almost always pause the game right at the end of December and do one of two things: if I want the stock price to rise, I'll pump up the dividend rate to the maximum amount (when using this strategy I don't spend much during the year so I have lots of cash to use for dividend payout) of, if I want the price to fall, I'll sell off a bunch of stock, sometimes all of it, pay no dividend, and then buy back the stock at a lower price first thing in January (I also always recall the "Autosave" game in January and save it as my "JanXX" game, returning dividends to "$0" if I raised them in December). Often, when using the latter strategy, the stock price is so low that it encourages AIs to buy in before you get a chance to buy back your sold stock. Recalling the Autosaveed game prevents this, and will make the AI wait until the end of January to make any purchases. If I've bought back stock and raised the price back up, the AI will often not buy any.

I also agree with NED on the value of profitable industry early on in the game. Having a steady flow of income for the company helps keep the stock price up, and often the stock price per share grows much faster than the CBV/share. It also supplies company cash for paying as dividends when December rolls around.