{NEW BETA} fix/update South Central British Columbia 1898

[RulerofRails]

This map was previously released in a beta state. JSS, the author had done a lot more versions since the release, but remained in a work-ongoing state so wasn't released. He kindly sent me the latest version and I have done my best to go through it to make sure everything is working correctly. Bear in mind, this is among the most detailed maps ever made. There are over 400 events!

If you haven't tried this map before, it's a historical scenario. Your initial task is to build the historical route in a similar time frame. I can assure that JSS has crafted a great number of choices and decisions for you to make along the way. Did I mention there are over 580 events?

The scenery and route grading are top notch. If you see water cells (only visible thanks to reflection) those are hiding the visible territory border of out-of-bounds areas. An ingenious solution for sure.

The setup of mines and smelters (represented by Steel Mills) and the haulage needed for supplying the smelters is probably the best that has been done in RT3. It remains fairly solid against re-hauling cheats. But, better yet it feels natural to make use of the railway that you initially build.

If you want you can also focus on playing the stock market as an alternative win route. There are 19 companies in total and you can only get more industries by mergers, so there's lots of strategy here too.

Notes for beta 498:
- New chapter to build the tunnel

- 580 events now. The only time I noticed a drop in performance was when starting a new game. "Setting up Buildings" takes longer. I'm loading the map in about 40 secs now. Loading save-games is normal and gameplay is smooth, no real impact on in-game performance.

- Quite a few small bugs fixed

- Many, many tweaks. Especially to give the player better access to relevant information, especially in the ledger.

- Balancing out starting randomization has taken the leaner rather than the generous option thanks to JSS's input

- Tunnel approaches tweaked

- No more water cells hiding territory boundaries

- For now the newspapers are suspended. The map has enough events already and there are plenty of game relevant messages

- I experimented with shifting some labels, but at certain camera angles they always overlap. In my view they are informative. But if after seeing them a couple times they annoy you, shift+E and doze them.


When working on this I tried hard on the ledger to give relevant information in a condensed format. Because I spent so much time with this map, it's quite possible there are some information that I assume is known, but is actually omitted. I don't want to spoil the choices, but to give enough of an insight so as not to feel in the dark. I'm curious for any feedback/suggestions on this.


Enjoy!

SCBC1898 0-498.zip

(11.05 MiB) Downloaded 378 times

[Gumboots]

Cool. I'll take a look at it. I've been idly messing with sandboxes a bit lately, and think I'm ready for a scenario.

If you see water cells (only visible thanks to reflection) those are hiding the visible territory border of out-of-bounds areas. An ingenious solution for sure.

I did look at the earlier beta and was wondering what those water cells were meant to do. If they're only hiding a border I'd be inclined to ditch them. You should be able to make the border invisible anyway, like I did with the "Livonian border" territory on the Latvia map. It still worked as it should, but wasn't visible when playing (ie: it mapped to the Latvia territory).

Obvious option here: Ditch the water cells, set track cost to +10,000%, set border to invisible, map to standard Canada territory (whatever it's called).

Edit: Took a quick look. At the start, when you get the option to look around, I think it'd be sensible to not make every possible loco available. It is 1898 after all, so having Red Devil's and whatever running around is a tad bonkers. I'd be inclined to drop the additional locos from that event. Anyone who wants to look around will be fine with locos that suit the timeframe.

[Gumboots]

With all the Lumber Company benefits, the combined Bank+Lumber Mill is a lethal starting strategy.

Just running a few quick tests.
1/ Taking over the lumber company is easy.
2/ Taking over the bank appears to be impossible. Tried a cold turkey merge at game start, both with and without buying available bank shares first (can't get a majority of them anyway) and with a range of merger offer prices. Merger invariably fails in all cases.

Edit: Ok, just started the game running after buying a few locos. Pop-up tells me I get all sorts of benefits from merging with the lumber company. One of these so-called benefits is a -20% reduction on logs and lumber prices. This actually reduces the profitability of logging camps and lumber mills.

Who thought that was a benefit?

Next problem: First tunnel out of Robson has terrible grades at the entrance and exit, regardless of which tunnel setting you use. The terrain needs works there. I think the problem is that the cliff facing the tunnel is too angled to allow the tunnel to sit flat. TBH it would probably be best to just ditch the tunnel entirely, but if you don't want to do that it should be possible to rework the terrain so the tunnel isn't borked.

[RulerofRails]

Please note that I didn't do anything to the terrain on the map so far. That is all JSS's original handiwork. I haven't gone into the history in depth, but I would dare to say that from what I have seen in terms of detail, I assume there were actually significant tunnels where the map has them.

The thing about using water to hide territory boundaries is that the player can go into territories and see where he isn't allowed to build, instead of guessing. If you turn water reflections off, you don't see that weird shimmering on the mountainsides.


What I found with the tunnel is that to lay it first, starting from the uphill side close to the mountain and at a slight diagonal with common setting can give very smooth entries. Something like this:

You are right though, it could be tweaked a bit. I think even just to lower one of the vertices for each entry might help. I will look into it more later.


Bank/Lumber mergers.
I nerfed the Lumber merger bonuses, it's not as deadly as before. Previously it was -20% cheaper track, and -20% track maintenance as well. My thought with this merger was always that you were swapping a pile of cash for a consistent cash stream. What happens with track maintenance is that it's based on track cost, so in effect you were -40% on track maintenance cost throughout the game. On eventually $20-30M+ worth of track it's significant.

The 20% lower price is offset by 20% higher production. Also, until you manage to reach the Coal Mines far to the west you must rely on Lumber-Coal conversion at the Robson port to get Coal for your smelter. Guess what? Lower Lumber price makes this conversion do better = potential higher profit at your smelter.

In order to takeover the bank you need to encourage Jay Cooke to sell a couple of shares. The trade-off here is that it's a little waste of PNW to drive the price up enough to get him to sell out. If you are really aggressive you will have majority by March (he will sell enough on second month turnover), and the merge will cost only a little more than the cash you receive. This is a comparatively "easy" use of this technique because a low number of total shares makes it easier to run the price up.

Um, yep. I forgot to test the look-around mode. So that's an obvious thing I missed already.

[Gumboots]

Yes I figured the terrain was the original. I just think it would benefit from a slight adjustment. When you're operating with very limited track, frigging around with unconnected bits really is not appealing. Better if you can smoothly extend from the existing track.

I might do a quick run through building the whole route, and make a list of any problem areas.

You don't need the water to see where the territory is. Water doesn't even display on territory view, and any selected territory will be coloured.

Incidentally, that SU-General-1 event gives me these locos on my installation:

Set 2-6-4T Double Header Avail. to TRUE (Should be 2D2, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Atlantic 4-4-2 Avail. to TRUE
Set Baldwin 0-6-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be BE5/7, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Big Boy 4-8-8-4 Avail. to TRUE
Set BR 39 2-8-2 Avail. to TRUE (Should be the Deltic, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Challenger 4-6-6-4 Avail. to TRUE
Set Class 01 4-6-2 Avail. to TRUE
Set Class 500 4-6-0 Avail. to TRUE
Set Consolidation 2-8-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be EF66, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Kriegslok 2-10-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be E18, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Mogul 2-6-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be E412, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Norris 4-2-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be E60CP, according to .gmp event hex)
Set N&W A 2-6-6-4 Avail. to TRUE (Should be the Bipolar, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Norfolk Western Class J Avail. to TRUE (Should be ET22, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Orca NX462 Avail. to TRUE (Should be F3, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Planet 2-2-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be F45, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Red Devil 4-8-4 Avail. to TRUE (Should be 6/6 Crocodile, according to .gmp event hex)
Set S3 4-4-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be GG1, according to .gmp event hex)
Set LMR Samson Avail. to TRUE (Should be GP7, according to .gmp event hex)
Set H10 2-8-2 Avail. to TRUE
Set Northern 4-8-4 Avail. to TRUE
Set Pacific 4-6-2 Avail. to TRUE
Set Red Devil 4-8-4 Avail. to TRUE (Yes, it is listed twice)
Set Unknown Loco Avail. to TRUE (Should be SD90 MAC, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Unknown Loco Avail. to TRUE (Should be VL80T, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Unknown Loco Avail. to TRUE (Should be Class 460, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Class QJ Avail. to TRUE
Set Unknown Loco Avail. to TRUE (Should be GP35, according to .gmp event hex)
Set U1 Avail. to TRUE
Set Unknown Loco Avail. to TRUE (Should be the Zephyr, according to .gmp event hex)
Set BR 39 2-8-2 Avail. to TRUE (Should be the Deltic, according to .gmp event hex) (Yes, it is listed twice)
Set Class 500 4-6-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be C103, according to .gmp event hex) (Yes, it is listed twice)
Set Firefly 2-2-2 Avail. to TRUE (Should be the DD40AX, according to .gmp event hex)
Set Crampton 4-2-0 Avail. to TRUE (Should be Class 6E, according to .gmp event hex)

---

Which is a very strange list. This here game engine is severely borked when it comes to loco lists.

In order to takeover the bank you need to encourage Jay Cooke to sell a couple of shares. The trade-off here is that it's a little waste of PNW to drive the price up enough to get him to sell out. If you are really aggressive you will have majority by March (he will sell enough on second month turnover)

Ah. I was trying it with the game paused at the start. I'll try it that way. PNW is no problem, since you have stacks anyway. I just bought all the available stock at the start of the game, and still had plenty of purchasing power.

---

Come to think of it, IMO the map would benefit from fewer labels. They all tend to merge together and with the city names from some angles, making the visible text a bit of a mess. I don't think the labels are necessary. A few could be kept for prominent features, where they won't be in the way, but a lot of them could easily be ditched. I deliberately didn't use labels on the Latvia map, for this reason.

[RulerofRails]

What I meant about the territory is that if you go to territories view you can see at an overview where you are not allowed. The initial route is fairly clear, but further west for example getting out of Penticton will be a bit more difficult to find. The risks for hidden territory are that you could clip it a bit, the other thing is that with limited track you can't really investigate the entire run at once so there is a chance you head towards a dead-end without knowing it. How obvious are the routes that aren't beside a river the first time you see the map? I know that at first I was taking a different route out of Penticton.

But if it's not being an obvious help in knowing where to go at a larger-scale, then I have no problem in hiding that territory.

Each section has a route description, which mentions most of the rivers/lakes/rivers etc., that are labelled. This is a different way for a first-time player to get an overview of the route. Probably it's more useful (where you're supposed to go, vs. where you are not allowed to go) than the forbidden territory overview, but does require some reading.

Personally I don't often see the labels at angles where they can bunch because I'm normally in a cargo overview mode at higher zoom levels and I navigate by clicking on the mini-map. I would agree that a couple could be re-positioned better, but I'm reluctant to get rid of these without JSS's input.


I'm not sure what's wrong with the loco availability. Have you removed any locos from the install you are using? I tried to investigate this in the past, and I thought that evented locos should work correctly even if you have extra custom locos installed, but I didn't test what happens if some of the originals are removed. For example Gilligan's Isle I tested as working even with custom locos. That was 1.06, but still.

[Gumboots]

What I meant about the territory is that if you go to territories view you can see at an overview where you are not allowed.

Yes, I know, but that still applies even if there are no water cells on the boundaries. The water cells aren't useful when using the territory view.

The risks for hidden territory are that you could clip it a bit...

You could, but if the track cost is astronomical you will realise this as soon as you clip it. If the track costs is +10,000%, which IIRC I what I used for the "Livonian border", then a single track unit that would normally cost $4k will cost $404k.

How obvious are the routes that aren't beside a river the first time you see the map? I know that at first I was taking a different route out of Penticton.

IOW, the current indications aren't working anyway. I don't know about Penticton. So far I've only got to Midway, but it's pretty clear to that point, even without any guides. Another idea: the map has hardly any trees on it, and the area would have been forested at the time. You could use areas of forest to mark out the ground either side of the route.

TBH, on the route to Midway there's no incentive to build on the inaccessible territory anyway. Even if it was accessible, it's pointless going there. The obvious route is the same one you are meant to follow, so I can't see any need for an inaccessible territory there. It would only be a consideration if you were attempting to stop an AI doing stupid things with track.

One other thing: The events are set so you lose track if you don't use it, at the end of each month. I'd say that's too frequent. I know the idea is that you keep pushing along the route at roughly the original real life pace, but the amounts of track you're getting are piddling compared to the total distance so you'll be wanting to do heaps of other things to maintain interest. Making people lay piddling amounts of track every month is probably going to be nothing more than an irritation. There's no strategy in it. It may be better to have something like a three or six monthly check, with a player/company penalty of some sort if track hadn't been laid.

Speaking of which, the CA-Track Count 03-01 event seems pretty pointless to me. 20 track units is not enough to do anything worthwhile. Might as well either make it a decent offer, or ditch the event to simplify the coding. I'd say anything under 50 units is not worth bothering with, and frankly even 50 units is getting too low to interest me. If keeping it, I'd make it a duplicate of 02-01 and offer No/50/100.

Hmm. CA-Track Const-01-02: you get a pop-up saying labourers are available, and asking if you want to start building track. Yay! Of course you do. It's a train game. Result: 75 pieces of track. Say wot? That gets you nowhere. I'm getting the impression the scenario would be improved by going through the events with a fairly ruthless attitude. IMO offers should either be worthwhile, or should not be coded in the first place.

I'm not sure what's wrong with the loco availability. Have you removed any locos from the install you are using?

Sure. I've removed all the diesels and electrics. I never use them, so I don't want them getting in my way, so I ditch them.

The way they coded the loco list is how you would do it if you were specifically designing it to break as easily as possible. Ditto for the cargo list. What appears to be happening in most cases is that if a loco is missing it will pick the next one in the list. However, that still doesn't seem to explain all the cases listed above. I'm not sure what is happening with some of them.

What they should have done was code it to call locos and cargoes by ID number, which is not affected by name. That way it wouldn't matter which ones you had installed or removed. The ones that were called would work correctly as long as they were there, and any missing ones would just be skipped. I'd call that a basic 101 level coding failsafe, and have no idea why they didn't chose that option. Anyway, we're stuck with it.

I'll probably set up a custom loco list to suit myself anyway. For example, the Pennsy H3 is ideal for this map.

[RulerofRails]

Invisible territories don't show up in the territory list. But I'm going to get onto hiding it anyway.

Actually, you don't lose track you don't use. GV4 is your available track. There is a series of events: CA-Track Count ... . At the end of the month, these will re-add any unused track to GV4 (minus a little due to rounding). You can play the game competitively without caterpillar track laying.

There are two different track laying modes. One when a construction event is going (UnsuitforRail TV3=75) 75 units per month in summer/50 per month in winter, the other when there is no construction project (TV3=10/20) constant 10, 20 is special case. The events in question: one will appear during a construction event, the other when there is no project. These are the final fail-safe to running completely out of track.

When building the initial line you will receive enough track (GV4) to complete the line. Afterwards you will receive various offers of track purchase. Once the official routes are completed, every year you will be able to buy and build a decent amount of track (proper construction mode) from May to November, 75 every month except only 50 in October and November (possible 475 units per year) without any sort of caterpillar stuff.

BTW, CA-Track Const-01-02 does more than you might think. This event will start a construction project (May to November) later in the game. (CV4 handles construction projects.) Thing is that this comes after the master track control : CA-Rail Const.-01-01. The (75) buildable track pieces here are just to simulate for one month what CA-Rail Const.-01-01 would have done during the month of May, if it were later in the list. I did that because I couldn't be bothered shifting events around (I don't dare to actually move any, the one time I tried that the order priority of others completely failed). I suppose I could have also set it to fire at the end of April instead beginning of May. But it's tested as working this way.

Included in the track system are events to give you choices on how you manage your employees: rest/visits/security etc.. I don't want to spoil everything, but it's possible to get some Tycoon points out of those.

I added the Pennsy H3 into the map loco table already (ticked). In my install (haven't removed any locos), if Pennsy H3 is installed I can use it.

[Gumboots]

Actually, you don't lose track you don't use. GV4 is your available track. There is a series of events: CA-Track Count ... . At the end of the month, these will re-add any unused track to GV4 (minus a little due to rounding).

Seems pointless. Why not just a simple "Track units +whatever", instead of the rigmarole of resetting track to a fixed amount, then calculating how much to re-add to that to make up for the loss of residual track? I can't see the point of complicating it with the extra conditionals. The simple way makes more sense to me.

These are the final fail-safe to running completely out of track.

Does it matter? It's perfectly normal to temporarily run yourself out of track in limited track scenarios. It's how most people play them, AFAIK.

[RulerofRails]

There would be issues with a +track system with the seasons. You would need to reset for each season and then you would really lose some track allowance since 1.05 doesn't allow you to add variables (if you didn't do similar again). The current system is working (as far as I can tell). I hope you understand that I'm not really looking to, nor have time to, re-do concepts like this.

[Gumboots]

Fair enough. You just do what you think makes sense then.

[Gumboots]

Hey I had another idea, which is actually working with you instead of against you.

At the moment you can merge the bank at the start of the game. JSS hadn't intended this, but you reckon that merging the bank late in the game is hardly worth it.

Ok, how about setting it up so you can't merge at the start, but don't have to leave it until the end. You can easily make the bank stronger at the start, then if necessary you can use an event to nobble it to whatever level is necessary to allow a merge at the time of your choice. That should allow some incentive for a mid-game merger, without making it the default start all the time, and shouldn't be hard to code (basic company cash and/or player cash reduction should do it).

[RulerofRails]

There is going to be a change to the bank, good idea to prevent the early merger completely. I'm frustrated a little that the times I have motivation don't align with free time (end whinging). Anyway, please note that in all my test plays (bar one) I have purposely not merged the bank or lumber company early.


I can't change the fact that Jay Cooke has a majority (for some reason the AI chairmen stopped showing up in the editor). If you don't plan to merge near the start of the game, then you can short bank shares. At present there's not much to be made by shorting it, but if I up the cash/share price significantly that would open the door for a larger value short. So, one thing I will try to ensure is stabilizing share price against falling a lot on 1st and 2nd year ends.

Bankrupting Jay Cooke via event isn't really an option because he holds stakes in a lot of other companies, blocking other mergers from being
"easy." The options are:

1. Rely on a premium offer working
I found those a bit hard in this game since you have lots of assets (high CBV compared to revenue/profit, take a look at your salary and investors sentiment)

2. Be tricky
If you have some of your tricky ideas, I'm all ears. Although there is no rush, as I said free time is a little low for the next bit.

[Gumboots]

Ok, off the top of my head...

1/ A player cash reduction for Cooke should shake loose some stock, if you make the reduction severe enough. You could easily force him into a margin call by just nicking enough cash from him, if it's necessary to go that far. Although obviously this doesn't ensure that he'll sell the stock you want him to sell. If he has stock in a range of companies, the game engine might make him keep his own company's stock until last.

2/ Stock price reduction aimed at the bank company. I assume events will allow stock price reductions to be company-specific. If they can't, it could still work as a game-wide thing. That could even make it more exciting.

Lowering stock price artificially would make it easier for you to buy into the company, and would also reduce the purchasing power of anyone who already held stock in it. That should help safeguard to some extent against the obvious problem: other investors buying in when the price drops.

If it has to be game-wide that means it would also nobble your own purchasing power, which would be counterproductive, but could also be interesting if the variables were balanced well.

3/ Reduction of merger premium. I'm guessing that one has to be game-wide, and can't be company-specific, but it should help anyway.

Incidentally, the Wiki page for its List of stock market crashes and bear markets has two which could be useful: the Panic of 1901 and the Panic of 1907.

Panic of 1901, 17 May 1901, United States
Lasting 3 years, the market was spooked by the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, coupled with a severe drought later the same year.

Panic of 1907, Oct 1907, United States
Lasting over a year, markets took fright after U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt had threatened to rein in the monopolies that flourished in various industrial sectors, notably railways.

[RulerofRails]

Thanks for the ideas. Merger premium is something I haven't explored fully. I didn't setup any sort of detailed test yet. The main difficulty is the random factor, as in you would have run the test a lot of times to get an "accurate" picture. I think I will try a little test to see it's company specific.

I know that the way that your investors rate you (salary determination) is some indication of your "reputation." On this map, your earnings per share are rather low, a lot of track with large haulage distances. I believe this is a hit to your reputation, so such mergers at premium aren't going to be easy.

I'm always thinking about the impact and side-effects of changes. But, at the moment I'm thinking of retiring Jay Cooke as a player. The beauty of this is that it's clean, there is no exploit possible as share price remains stable. There are side-effects. He is the biggest AI player on the map. He is preventing you from a majority in BC Cattlemens Association, and also has large stake in CPR and your company. Pretty big impact, but that doesn't mean it's bad for gameplay.

[Gumboots]

I'd try the merger premium first, as if it works it's the simplest and easiest to implement. It should be fine if it is game-wide. AFAIK AI players will never attempt to merge companies anyway, so there should be no danger of cascading effects on companies you don't want to target. The only danger might be that you'd be able to merge a bunch of companies in quick succession, but you should be able get around that by having an event boost the merger premium back to normal after one merger (if company ID **** does not exist, boost premium).

In theory, setting merger premium to -100% should let you take over any company fairly easily. This could be tested anytime from any save, without having to worry too much about specifics, as all you're really worried about is being able to merge the bank at a selected year.

[RulerofRails]

I spent my time today back-tracking and updating a version before I lost the ability to control AI players. I had introduced a bug, perhaps from accidentally Shift+E while working in the editor (most of my updates are first simulated in a running test game before transferring them into the real map), or a non-game computer issue. Anyway, I stomped the bug, free to change chairmen now. Also it's going to be a tougher start now that there is only one Logging Camp above Robson. Also the Paper Mill in Kmir is out too (no more early Pulp revenue), might experiment with an event seeding option, but that's a long shot due to lack of room.

ETA:
Basically I didn't get to testing anything with the bank. Although I can get control of now, which might be helpful (I can give it special bonds now). Still not quite sure how to fit the bank merger in the story-line. Latest possibility I am considering: if I need too much scripting (such as game-wide merger premium adjustment) I could take it further and potentially handle the entire "merger" via event. It could be random some years into the game. And perhaps more likely in a bad economy or if you have held maxxed bonds for a couple of years. I should be able to test against the bank company and track it's CBV + cash. The game should automatically refund the value of any stock you own.

[Gumboots]

Still not quite sure how to fit the bank merger in the story-line.

Ok, Jay Cooke was an annoying bloke. Annoyed a lot of people over the years. It would be entirely plausible for someone in the know to leak the information that the bank's stockholders might be keen to see a different chairman.

Latest possibility I am considering: if I need too much scripting (such as game-wide merger premium adjustment)

I'm not sure why that would be "too much" scripting. AFAICT it's one of the simplest options. I was thinking of it more or less like this:

1/ Find an existing event that's roughly in the right timeframe. There are hundreds to choose from, so it shouldn't be hard to find one.
2/ It would have to be a once-only event.
3/ It would be best if it had no pop-up message, so you can add a suitable one.
4/ Once you have found the beastie, just add on the message and one effect (drop merger premium).
5/ Hey presto. Minimal scripting. All sorted. Go have beer.

[RulerofRails]

I tried to make merger premium company specific. It can be, but as far as I can tell it's a setting at your company affecting mergers you do, rather than at a company you are trying to merge with.

What I am worried about is an exploit. There are 18 companies here, I haven't thought of a good way to prevent exploit (taking other companies at the same time). It would have to be a penalty as you could only monitor if had happened. I was struggling to think of a measure that could possibly prevent it.

I also have some desire that mergers aren't scripted, as in since track-building is allowing freedom here is more important than normal. Now that I got rid of the bug, I can run the bank in a low-cash situation (can make use of the special bonds/expensive Post Office idea you helped with earlier). That will take a lot of early-merge appeal away. Together with more expensive merge price Cooke might lose his majority as well. The player will have liberty on when to merge but receive different bonuses depending on when the trigger is pulled.

For example if the player has maxxed bonds at the time of merge he/she may get access to extra bonds, something like this:
$5M at 15%
$3M at 12%
$1M at 10%
or none

Repayment will be in optional $1M chunks, triggered if cash is >$1M at year end.

Thanks for trying to help out with ideas. Sorry if I'm all over the place. I drive myself crazy too.

[Gumboots]

Re the exploit: would the human player's company be strong enough to merge multiple companies anyway?
If it only has the resources to merge the bank, no exploit would be possible. Merger premium can always be reset after the merger:

Take number of companies in existence > save number as variable X. Run merger premium reduction event. Have end of month check:
if number of companies less than X, jack merger premium up again. If not, repeat check next month.

That would only be open to exploits if the human company was strong enough to merge multiple companies in one month, or if you deliberately let it run long enough so you accumulated the resources for multiple mergers. If someone chose to merge a company other than the bank, they might lose out on merging the bank.

Does that sound workable?