I was thinking it would be easy to tell if someone has gone robber baron. One way would be like this:
1/ Assume no player company at the start (you have to create it).
2/ For the first player company, set a variable to match company ID.
3/ If another company is created after that, the player company ID will no longer match the variable.
4/ If variable doesn't match when checked, apply another variable to set alternative medal conditions.
That will also work if the player company is created in the editor, before the scenario start. The only difference in that case is you can preset the relevant variable to the correct value, via an event running at scenario start. Then the test gets applied when the next company is created.
It could get trickier if you wanted to allow legit multiple companies while still catching robber baron tricks. In that situation you would have to apply additional checks, probably on stock price of the discarded company (ie: if stock price < $10 then *conditions go here*).
Or, if the discarded company has been merged immediately, you could check for personal cash boost since last company creation, and assume evil trickery if personal cash had increased in less than one week (minimum test interval in the editor, IIRC).
These are just basic ideas off the top of my head. You might need to get even more detailed for some cases, but I'm fairly sure it would be possible to sort out suitable test conditions to cover most possibilities.
When I was making my Latvia map I did play around with some traps for robber barons.
Gumboots wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 7:15 am2/ Have reinstated the ability to do unlimited multiple companies, but...
3/ ...the catch is that every time you start an extra one (not counting your first one) access cost for Russia increases by $1.5 million. So you can robber baron and/or cash cow to your heart's content if you want to, but if you do that you'll be up for a whole lot of money to get into Russia, and you need Russia for Gold. Creating a total of three companies will put Russian access cost at $6 million. If that's still too exploitable I'll add some extra devious nasties, but I thought it was worth trying the option for extra fun and games (we are supposed to be having fun here).
Gumboots wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 8:38 pmI've added an extra bit of trickery to deal with company-jumping exploits. Obviously the increased Russian access cost can't apply if you already have access to Russia. However, the Kremlin can decide that making a nice donation to the glorious revolution is the price you pay for being tolerated while you play capitalist tricks. So, if you have access to Russia already and start an extra company you are still up for an extra $1.5 million for each extra company you start, except that in these cases it comes out of your personal cash, not your company cash. That should get people thinking before they get carried away.