Twitter Week: 2010-08-22

Twitter Week: 2010-08-08

  • ♺ @jodrellbank: The Perseids are coming! Follow @virtualastro @britastro for next week’s #Meteorwatch news (trailer: http://bit.ly/9sST8p) #
  • ♺ @GreatDismal: RT @dgroundsel: Aluminum foil ship floating on sulphur hexafluoride gas http://bit.ly/cm2ZSi [and http://is.gd/e32mP #
  • RT @oneillkza: Stock exchange crop circles connected to July theft of Goldman-Sachs HFT software? http://ow.ly/2l7hM http://ow.ly/2l7ae #
  • Mike Calhoon just won 1849 by going bankrupt on the 10H – our first ever bankrupt victor. Well done Mike! #18xx #
  • ♺ @davemcclure: OH: “Apple is the Willy Wonka of the tech world.” #iPhoneAsEverlastingGobstopper #GoldenTicket #
  • ♺ @sciam: RT @lornina: #tcmy10 there’s no such thing as sustainable water. Bruce Brandfon of Scientific American #

Twitter Week: 2010-08-01

Twitter Week: 2010-07-25

Anatomy of a three company dump

Three company dumps in 18xx are frequently discussed but far less often successfully executed. They are hard to pull off well. Additionally, according to my email, there’s also a fair bit of confusion on how to arrange a three company dump.

The minimal form:

  1. You are the president of CompanyA, CompanyB and CompanyC.
  2. When CompanyB runs it has no train and has to buy one.
  3. CompanyB buys a train from CompanyA for face value or less1
  4. CompanyB doesn’t have enough treasury to buy the train for that much, and neither does the CompanyB president, so the CompanyB president sells shares in CompanyC to fund the train, sufficient to dump CompanyC on another player (who holds at least two shares of the company) in the middle of an Operating Round.

You’ll have to flesh out the details of how to arrive in this minimal state, and what related conditions you want to be true when you do. Presumably one of the pre-conditions is that CompanyC doesn’t (or won’t) have a train.

Getting all the details right is tricky. In several hundred 18xx games, I’ve seen two well-executed three company dumps. A well-executed three company dump can be devastating to the player the company is dumped on, especially if it lands them needing to buy a $1,100 diesel they were unprepared for (as it was for me in one of those two cases).

Notes:

  • The company selling the train (usually) can’t be the one being dumped as the sale/control-transfer happens before the presidential authorisation for the train sale and the new president is unlikely to authorise the train sale.
  • Some games explicitly disallow three company dumps. Check the rules for the game you are playing. The games that disallow, usually do so by requiring that forced train purchases must be from the bank and not from other companies.

  1. The 1830 rules allow trains to be purchased for up to face value during forced emergency train purchases - so pick a value just high enough to accomplish the dump 

And upon the far horizon in the east

Kanga.nu and its services have been moved to a new host. This marks the final decommissioning of the box I built from parts while working at VA Research. It has been a long time..and it is somewhat sad to see her fade into scrap.

If you notice problems or inconsistencies, please comment below or email me.

Twitter Week: 2010-04-17

  • RT @alleyinsider:Steve Jobs responds to Adobe furor, tells you to go read John Gruber’s post http://bit.ly/9B53Es [Doh!] #
  • @rholzgrafe: I dropped #Facebook. instead as I can find no use for #fb, but find Twitter extremely useful. Far more signal on #twitter. in reply to rholzgrafe #
  • @rholzgrafe: I don’t use #FB or #Twitter (much) for friends. I do use Twitter for news, tech info, and professional interests. in reply to rholzgrafe #
  • @andsoerinsaid: I’m a less impressed with Samarkand. Stephen’s Rocket is one of Knizia’s two best games in my mind. Quite wonderful. in reply to andsoerinsaid #
  • @rholzgrafe: Oh, and you said to give you a shout when I’m dumping games toward the Endgame auction… Consider yourself yelled out. in reply to rholzgrafe #
  • @rholzgrafe Grab me on #bgdf_chat & I’ll try & remember what I’m selling. in reply to rholzgrafe #
  • @BrenoKummel Historicity is clearly important to some. I don’t know how dominant the trait is. I like it, but not critical to me. #18xx in reply to BrenoKummel #

Twitter Week: 2010-04-10