Removing an AI Investor

[OilCan]

Is there a tactic to encourage or force an AI investor to sell the stock which they have bought in your company? Or are you stuck with an AI investor in your company for the rest of the game?

[Hawk]

As you buy more shares of your own stock, you're buying it away from the investors.
If you sell stock the investors will buy it.

[WPandP]

He means the competitors, i.e. Commodore Vanderbilt, when controlled by the computer. It's exceedingly hard to get them to sell off, but it can be done.

I've seen that sometimes the AI will take advantage of the selling opportunity, when you bid up the price of the stock by buying a lot. The AI isn't dumb - it only takes action if they stand to gain a lot by it. So, you'll be taking it on the chin, buying a lot of stock at inflated prices, while the AI gets to sell at those prices and thus make your investment worth less. Still, if you're going for control, you may need to do it.

This means buying all at once; it won't work if you buy a little at a time, since there is time for the share price to normalize. And you'll have to buy enough to get the share price well over its book value, so if there are millions of shares outstanding, you may have to go deeply into debt in order to buy enough to have an effect.

[nedfumpkin]

Generally I don't like it when the AI players buy my stock so I try to keep the price high and buy it as much as much as I can. If a scenario has a PNW goal, then I do everything I can to get all my company's shares as soon as possible. This way your PNW will always be almost the same value as your company.

To do this, I generally start a scenario with either building or buying an industry that I can supply. I also build a railroad just big enough to supply my industry and connect two cities. Then I basically try to buy stock and buy it back while slowly expanding. By the fifth year I will generally have all the stock, then I will buy into other RRs.

I always try to get at least 1/2 the stock before it splits. I tend to try to run at a loss the first few years to keep my stock down and invest in infrastructure. I keep my costs high too, and this keeps the stock from going up too much.

AI will sell your stock if the price drops really low, or if you run it up really high before a split. Sometimes there will be a few thousand shares left, and early in the year it becomes obvious that it will split, so I buy all the shares to make the price go really high, and the AI will sell just before it splits.

Another thing is if you turn off dividends. Get dividends from other RRs, and use your salary to pay your margin until you have all the stock. Why give others money when you're only getting a small percentage. Not paying dividends discourages AI from buying your stock.

[Gandar]

The only way to get them to sell is to pump up your stock price by purchasing stocks with your own money not company money and then you end up buying so heavily on margin that when the ai l sells, the stock price will drop and you get a margin call.
The only solution is to make sure that you control your company as early as possible in the game.
I use similar strategies to nedfumpkin but that may be because we are just across the bay from each other. Paying dividends pumps up your stock so stop dividends. It is always a good idea to buy ai stocks, this serves two purposes, it gives you a foothold in the ai company and they frequently pay good dividends, and secondly if you hold ai stock then the ai will purchase more of their own stock so they will have less money to buy yours.
Its usually better to bite the bullet and restart than to spend a lot of time and effort trying to do something you should have done in the early part of the game.

[Hawk]

He means the competitors, i.e. Commodore Vanderbilt, when controlled by the computer.

Oops! My bad.

Never mind! (think Emily Letella )

[Gwizz]

Another method:

If there are not too many chairmen holding lots of cash and you have excess cash and you hold 51% of your own stock:

Stop any trains about to reach one of your stations. Start another AI RR between two cities that will be very profitable and keep 51% of it's stock. Then resign back to your own RR. Continue to stop your trains just short of their next station. There is a good chance the gent holding some of you stock will move his investment with your stock value dropping in price and move it to the new more profitable RR. Then with the AI stock at a higher price, cash in the AI stock and buy your stock now at an even lower value since the gent left.

If you want to do some tycooning: before you sell your AI stock, take control of the AI and cut it's track. Then build track to be merged later by your Railroad until all AI money and bonds are used up. This will sink the AI RR and put the new Chairman in the poor house and give you something to later merge at a very low price.

[Grandma Ruth]

I've also found it helps to sell (or short-sell) some of the competitor's own company stock - then they may have to sell your your stock to raise money to buy back their own. Depends on their purchasing power to begin with, of course.

[Cliff]

Is there a tactic to encourage or force an AI investor to sell the stock which they have bought in your company? Or are you stuck with an AI investor in your company for the rest of the game?

It is also possible to bring about the bankruptcy of one of the other tycoons. Some are very conservative (i.e., never buy anything on margin); others are margined to the hilt. For those - by weakening their main company (by various & sundry ways) and by manipulating the stock market, you can cause a margin call on that tycoon which often leads to his bankruptcy. But be careful! If you are heavily margined yourself, you may get cought up in the downslide and end up bankrupt yourself!

-- Cliff in Virginia