Re: [Rails-devel] 1835 Bug

[John D. G. <jd...@di...>]

On 2012-10-09 16:29, Mike Bourke wrote:
> I have seen some groups who don't permit the purchase of trains from
> Government-owned corporations (the Prussian and CGR, specifically). This
> might be yet another candidate for a game option. To the best of my
> knowledge, these two would be the only operating companies that would have
> been affected by this bug.

I haven't seen that variant rule, but it makes some sense.  The CGR does
have some serious restrictions on its ability to buy/sell trains in the
standard rules, as does the Asteroid League; but the Prussian and the three
state companies of 1837 don't.

A harder question would arise in games like 18Mex, when a minor company may
merge into and transfer a train to a larger company that isn't allowed to
operate yet (requires a phase change and/or more shares to be purchased
before it can float).  In that situation I would not let anyone buy a train
from the "hibernating" company, even if we already know who its president
will be.

> In a related issue, I do believe that some of the 18xx game rules forbid the
> purchase of trains from corporations who have not *operated* yet, even if
> they have floated, but I can't be more specific or more certain.

I'm not aware of any cases like this.  Of course in most games it can't
happen; it requires that the company which hasn't yet operated have a train,
I've seen this happen because that company began with a train (minors in
18EU) or because it is a merged company and one of its predecessors had a
train (1841, 1832, 18C2C, but also the Prussian, CGR, Asteroid League, and
1837 state RRs).  I'm pretty sure that none of these games prohibits those
companies from selling their trains before they first operate, except that
if the Asteroid League has only one train it can't sell it.

> This would
> prohibit certain bootstrapping practices (float a corp, buy an about-to-die
> train from another corp for most of the treasury, buy a train to trigger a
> phase change, the corp which received the treasury then buys the new and
> better train from the first at a pittance. The owner is then forced to sell
> shares in order to raise capital for a train, dumping the company - and the
> problem - on some other poor schmuck who bought shares in the company in
> good faith).

That's the two-company dump, which is expressly banned in nearly all 18xx
games, usually by requiring that any train purchase which involves emergency
money raising be from the bank or bank pool and not from another company.

(In the original 1830 it is still possible to generate a heated rules debate
by saying that this maneuver is or isn't legal -- the rules simply don't
address the question, and I believe that ALL possible rulings one way or the
other lead to contradictions, making it a classic paradox.  Bruce Shelley's
errata tries to quash it by, once again, requiring that an emergency train
purchase be made from the bank or bank pool, and this is the way most people
in my area play the game.)