Even the Canadian government has limits
We played 1856 yesterday, extremely quickly as these things go -- we started play at noon and finished around 5:15 PM. This is also the first time I've seen the game end by player bankruptcy, but it was a forced diesel train buy and so fairly close to the end of the game.
Let's review the basic sequence of events: government nationalizes major business; stock market crashes; large investors lose their shorts; game over.
This time we failed to pick up that there's a limit of one $100 government loan per company per turn. This doesn't really get in the way of the "use government loans to buy out your private company on the second turn" strategy, but it does make it a lot harder to use loans to do things like buy trains, and it certainly means you can't take out six loans you know you can't repay all at once to force the nationalization issue. My guess is that this means that the jump from "4" trains to diesels (destroying every train that existed before this point) happened a full stock round earlier than it should have, and the dividends that would have gotten paid out there would have helped to save the game.
fredrickegerman complained several times that my stock portfolio was essentially a superset of his (and indeed a key aspect of his bankruptcy play was that he and I split the Canadian Pacific 50-50, which caused him to be unable to sell that). I started with one of the two $100 private companies (fideidefensor the other), fredrickegerman with the $20 private company. This by rights should have given him an extra stock share or so on the first round, but the minimal income you get is cancelled out by the income the larger private company pays, and when the larger company gets sold for $200 that's 2-3 stock shares.
The other question is stock price. Sure, the company treasury will (eventually) wind up with 10x the initial stock price you set, but it's so metered out in 1856 that I don't think $65 vs. $80 is a big deal, even if you sell two shares every stock round consistently that $30 difference might barely pay your loan interest. But if I set my stock price at $65/share then for $260 I can buy four shares; at $80, only three. When the companies ramp up to paying out $20/share/turn, I think that extra share makes a difference.
Company treasury is worthless. In 1856 you can take out loans to "solve" the "problem", or like other 1830 derivatives you can frequently sell the company to make it somebody else's problem. (In 1825 you can just sell the company and it won't be anybody's problem.) There's exceptions to that, mostly if you can't sell the company, but it involves planning ahead to notice upcoming doom.
The other big 1856 question is whether to nationalize. Nationalizing CPR probably doesn't save fredrickegerman (the Grand Trunk is still doomed) but it leaves him with a 40% share of the Canadian Government Railways, which I was definitely setting up to play aggressively (mmm, 10 station markers). I think if this game played out he and I still split CPR 50-50, and CGR divides 40-20-20-20; is that better than there being no CPR, and CGR divided 50-40-10-0? You really want a company with 1 loan and $99 in treasury so you can make the decision yourself. Here we had cleaned up to almost no debt in game (beyond my one play only the CPR had any debt at all, $200 vs. a $9 treasury) so nationalization was almost a non-event, but CGR is sufficiently powerful that I think you want that option.
Let's review the basic sequence of events: government nationalizes major business; stock market crashes; large investors lose their shorts; game over.
This time we failed to pick up that there's a limit of one $100 government loan per company per turn. This doesn't really get in the way of the "use government loans to buy out your private company on the second turn" strategy, but it does make it a lot harder to use loans to do things like buy trains, and it certainly means you can't take out six loans you know you can't repay all at once to force the nationalization issue. My guess is that this means that the jump from "4" trains to diesels (destroying every train that existed before this point) happened a full stock round earlier than it should have, and the dividends that would have gotten paid out there would have helped to save the game.
fredrickegerman complained several times that my stock portfolio was essentially a superset of his (and indeed a key aspect of his bankruptcy play was that he and I split the Canadian Pacific 50-50, which caused him to be unable to sell that). I started with one of the two $100 private companies (fideidefensor the other), fredrickegerman with the $20 private company. This by rights should have given him an extra stock share or so on the first round, but the minimal income you get is cancelled out by the income the larger private company pays, and when the larger company gets sold for $200 that's 2-3 stock shares.
The other question is stock price. Sure, the company treasury will (eventually) wind up with 10x the initial stock price you set, but it's so metered out in 1856 that I don't think $65 vs. $80 is a big deal, even if you sell two shares every stock round consistently that $30 difference might barely pay your loan interest. But if I set my stock price at $65/share then for $260 I can buy four shares; at $80, only three. When the companies ramp up to paying out $20/share/turn, I think that extra share makes a difference.
Company treasury is worthless. In 1856 you can take out loans to "solve" the "problem", or like other 1830 derivatives you can frequently sell the company to make it somebody else's problem. (In 1825 you can just sell the company and it won't be anybody's problem.) There's exceptions to that, mostly if you can't sell the company, but it involves planning ahead to notice upcoming doom.
The other big 1856 question is whether to nationalize. Nationalizing CPR probably doesn't save fredrickegerman (the Grand Trunk is still doomed) but it leaves him with a 40% share of the Canadian Government Railways, which I was definitely setting up to play aggressively (mmm, 10 station markers). I think if this game played out he and I still split CPR 50-50, and CGR divides 40-20-20-20; is that better than there being no CPR, and CGR divided 50-40-10-0? You really want a company with 1 loan and $99 in treasury so you can make the decision yourself. Here we had cleaned up to almost no debt in game (beyond my one play only the CPR had any debt at all, $200 vs. a $9 treasury) so nationalization was almost a non-event, but CGR is sufficiently powerful that I think you want that option.