There is a way to knock down an opponent and assure that they won't be able to start another company. It involves some "dirty tactics" (not cheating), but that what Tycooning is all about, isn't it? The goal is to drive the opponent (AI) into the ground to the point where they don't have the required cash, or purchasing power, to be able to start another company. There are a few requirements to do this though: you have to own a controlling share in your own company (so yo can regain the Chair), you have to be able to buy up a controlling share of the competitor (so you can work their company to your advantage, and the AI's disadvantage), you have to be able to absorb what could be a substantial loss as a result of running the AI (now in your control) into the ground. It helps if the target AI player doesn't own any stock in your company.
It works like this (all the below done with the game "Paused"):
1. Assuming you have a controlling share in your company, buy up at least 51% of the AI's stock and assume the Chairmanship (do not Merge with the AI)
2. Use the AI's assets, including Company Cash and perhaps bonds, to buy back company stock. If you run out of shares to buy back before you run out of money, sell off your shares, 1000 at a time (one round of "Sell") and have the company buy them back. This will drive up the price, so you'll make a pretty big profit when you sell of your shares below. The degree to which you do this (use company assets including bonds) will vary depending on the financial state of your original company, because eventually you're going to have to merge with AI, and you don't want them to be too much of a financial burden.
3. Depending on how much you need to "hurt" the AI, sell off any industries they have, bulldoze a couple pieces of track and build a Post Office to block the AI from rebuilding it, buy and then immediately sell industries, etc. The idea here is to make sure that the AI's share price will plummet after you leave it. It may take a year or two to drive it completely into the ground, especially if the AI has grown to a substantial size before you can do the above.
4. Re-assume Chairmanship of your original company, sell off any remaining stock in the AI company, and short-sell as much as possible of the AI's stock. Remember, the stock price will plummet, so when you need to buy it back, you'll make a bundle here.
5. Resume play, and watch the AI go under. If the AI player has bought a lot of his stock on margin, there will come a time when a magin call will be issued, and he'll go belly up, hopefully with a negative cash balance, preventing him from ever starting another company. Eventually, the AI's company should go bankrupt, so you'll want to buy back into it and merge before that happens. If the company goes into "receivership", I don't think you'll ever be able to merge with it.
If there are multiple AIs, and each AI player has bought into the other AI companies, you may need to attack all of them at once, but depending on how much they own of each other's companies, you may be able to attack them one-at-a-time.
Happy Tycooning!!
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