Been testing this critter. The sliding scale for credit rating vs debt is a good one, but I'm in two minds about the extra events for changing credit rating vs economy state. The catch is that if you get an above average economy state early in the game, you get a boosted credit rating too.
That's not what I was after. I was thinking of varying credit rating at high debt levels to provide extra strategic considerations, not randomly boosting credit rating at low or zero debt levels. I should have thought of this in advance, but didn't.
In my latest test play I managed to rack up the full $10m worth of bonds in the early 1860's, which is a bit too easy IMO.
So, what to do about it? Could just remove the extra events, and stick with the basic credit rating reduction as debt increases. It's still exploitable under the right circumstances, but is generally harder to exploit.
If I wanted to keep the variation at high debt levels it gets a bit tricky. The catch is that it relies on starting with a known value of economic state, setting a variable to match, then adjusting the variable based on changing economic state. Starting economy is always Normal, so editor value = 2, so set CV4 to 2 and off you go. You can track the economy from then on.
If I alter it to only come in at higher debt levels the economy will have changed since the scenario start, so it will all go pear-shaped. You can't reset to a baseline credit rating value either, because there's no option for that. All you can do is go up or down relative to the current value.
So to get it working at high debt levels only it would need some extra logic. What is basically needs is a way of getting the current economy state (easy) and then setting the variable to match that. The event would have to be of the form "Set GV3 = Economy state", but that means doing arithmetic with variables, and 1.05 won't do that, so it'd need a more verbose workaround method to get the same result.
What should work is something of this general form:
Would need an extra 5 events to set CV4 and credit rating when debt goes above each lower limit.
Note: these would need an extra trigger variable to prevent them firing inappropriately.
If {current economy state = 0} and {trigger variable = 0} then {set CV4 to 0, credit rating -2} and {set trigger variable = 1}
If {current economy state = 1} and {trigger variable = 0} then {set CV4 to 1, credit rating -1} and {set trigger variable = 1}
If {current economy state = 2} and {trigger variable = 0} then {set CV4 to 2, credit rating +0} and {set trigger variable = 1}
If {current economy state = 3} and {trigger variable = 0} then {set CV4 to 3, credit rating +1} and {set trigger variable = 1}
If {current economy state = 4} and {trigger variable = 0} then {set CV4 to 4, credit rating +2} and {set trigger variable = 1}
Would need a matching 5 events to reset credit rating when debt goes below each lower limit.
If {current economy state = 0} and {trigger variable = 1} then {credit rating +2} and {set trigger variable = 0}
If {current economy state = 1} and {trigger variable = 1} then {credit rating +1} and {set trigger variable = 0}
If {current economy state = 2} and {trigger variable = 1} then {credit rating +0} and {set trigger variable = 0}
If {current economy state = 3} and {trigger variable = 1} then {credit rating -1} and {set trigger variable = 0}
If {current economy state = 4} and {trigger variable = 1} then {credit rating -2} and {set trigger variable = 0}
Which is all getting a bit convoluted in terms of numbers of events, but is straightforward logic within each event. Once that lot have fired and set variable and credit rating, the same basic event as before can track against the changing economy:
If economy state < CV4, -1 credit rating and -1 CV4.
If economy state > CV4, +1 credit rating and +1 CV4.
But that would need an extra condition so it only fired when the previous lot were operational, so it would have to call the same trigger variable:
If {current economy state < CV4} and {trigger variable = 1} then {credit rating -1} and {CV4 -1}
If {current economy state > CV4} and {trigger variable = 1} then {credit rating +1} and {CV4 +1}
So all of that, when put together, should enable varying credit rating with economy state at any chosen debt level. It means an extra ten events for each debt limit, all firing monthly, but it will work.
The only question now is: how many ways is it still exploitable? Am I missing something? Probably am.
Good point about the terrain though.
