Late game scaling?

It seems like you were prolonging the game just to build more stuff.  Couldn't you have just bought out the other AI?

Yeah, I've attempted to play the game longer than intended.  (Wish there was an option for a "long game mode.)  I've seen the same type of issue with buyout options.  Smaller inferior companies buying out larger companies even though the larger company has a huge stake ownership in the smaller company.  To me if you have complete ownership in your company and partial ownership in the smaller company it should be nearly impossible for that smaller company to buy you out.

Now am I completely alone here or wrong?  That's why I've suggested in other posts the following.

• Offer a black market option preventing takeover's if you own more than 50% of your own company for X amount of time.  (Would get more expensive the more you purchase it, however, would be long enough for you to buy forever if you could afford it.)
• Have a way to temp inflate your stock price, also in attempt to prevent buyout.

Options for those that want an option to lengthen the game...

• Reduce initial resources to almost nothing to begin the game with "new reserves added as game progresses"
• Increase the cost to expand your colony significantly to cause each stage of the game to last 10 or more times longer...

I don't know if they would take up either of these options but, the way I look at it at why exclude those who appreciate longer games by not giving that option?  It could just be a game type for those that want the game to last for several hours versus 30 minutes to an hour.

This basically is a "I can't lose" option.  I don't think that's a good idea.  It would need to be so expensive that it would be only be useful to the guy who is winning by a wide margin (sitting on a ton of money) to artificially prolong the game.

Soren mentioned the stock market in a recent podcast (he specifically mentioned poison pills).  He seems to be resistant to making the stock market to complicated or with too many features.  You can indirectly inflate your stock price.

I think what you are looking for is a "sandbox mode" with no AIs...

I feel this should be an option for the player who is getting near the end of the game maybe competing against another player for domination.  That's also why I suggested cost scaling on this so if Player A used it several times early on maybe Player B would have the advantage if they never used it.

No, however, a way that you could co-exist with an AI for a while prior to one of you eventually winning.  And the option to extend the game doesn't eliminate the competition it just extends it.  Where-as a sandbox game it all but eliminates competition.

This is awesome. I think the best way to add a "long mode" would be to tweak the inflators and stock price calculation. Maybe inflate the colony growth costs and add more colony levels too.

I don't like the addition of a black market item that manipulates the stock prices. It likely would be too much of a binary situation that doesn't add any meaningful strategy, nor have an element allowing for counter-play.

Not having played yet, it seems to me there could be a simple "sandbox" mode where you would simply disable the buying and selling of stock, preventing the game from ever ending yet having everything else work.  Obviously this would cause some AI silliness as well as put a serious strain on all math and UI design elements as the numbers continued to grow.

Seems like a good stress test!

That's my thoughts I don't see it taking away anything from the vision of the game, just allows players that option

Mainly just thoughts on how to keep the game from going along and then sudden end.  I just don't like the way the game ends so abruptly currently.  Depending on the game it's going a long slowly everyone is building up, until, boom, the AI just purchased all your stock in a matter of a minute.... Boom game over.

I just think there should be some type of countering this effect, if you know it's coming, to slow the take-over to attempt to disrupt it.  As of now it seems that once you see it's happening; it's too late to change the outcome.

The whole stock value thing seems strange to me.  Like a previous poster, I haven't played yet either, but I have trouble seeing how the buyout makes sense in real numbers.  If I have enough stock and cash to buyout a competitor, shouldn't it be naturally impossible, without the need for black market chicanery, for that guy to buy me out?  My total company value exceeds that guys company value.  How can he possibly afford to buy me out.  He would have to have more Cash than I have assets, including my cash, so just having more cash than a competitor should at least be enough.  Maybe it is.  I can't see how much your competition had in cash.

UPDATE: Now that I think about this, it might be a little more complicated.  If they buyer outer theoretically took out a loan, or for us little guys, a mortgage against the value of the company he is buying out, then it might work.  That's something like a leveraged buyout.  I think this normally has to be done with the consent of the owner of the controlling interest, but if you waive that requirement, I guess this could make sense.

Speaking from play experience, the stock system is the way it is to provide an ending point. If you had to have full cash value to buy someone out, it would take a long time to reach that point in a close match. Both players would gain cash at roughly the same rate while trying to buy out the other, making it impossible to have gain enough cash to actually win. Also, reducing the weighting of cash on the stock value alleviates large fluctuations on stock value as cash fluctuates over time. It's also difficult to have a proper company valuation because how do you accurately value the buildings. claims, etc?

It's not a true stock/value system because its designed to facilitate winning more than anything. It wouldn't be fun if you had to have enough cash to cover cash + assets because the game would get drawn out too long. Ultimately, had you ended the game when you should have, it wouldn't have become an issue. 

Sorens spoken about the stock a few times in various podcasts posts and interviews if you want to dig them up to get a better idea on the role stock plays. I suspect internally they have played with many different models, a few have ended up in the various prototype phases. Although the current model isn't the most realistic, modern stock market prices are mostly a load of crap and hype anyway.

BTW, hover over the colony icon next to the stock price shows assets, cash and debt, so you can see how much cash they have.

I'll throw this up for reference...

Note that the "Value per Share" of all of a company's stock (10,000 shares) is 1/10th of the total asset value.

I'm not sure how you get a stock price of 154ish with 2.6mil cash on hand and no debt though. There's a multiplier based on stock owned/your stock owned, but I don't recall what those values are.

You also get multiplier for things like being first to build certain structures, owning patents, etc.

The stock is factored in above (I bought 1,000 shares of an opponent) but I imagine the assets of a buyout would just get combined with yours.

if your valuation gets too high, there is a hidden diminishing returns factor which dampens your stock price. Otherwise, the game really does get to the point where it might never end.

Sorry, I meant your stock has a multiplier based on how much has been bought already. Not your opponents stock that you own. I was off by a factor of 10 though, so it makes sense. 2.5mil cash would be roughly 25 in stock value, not 250 as I was thinking.

Edit: Soren cleared things up a bit.

btw, there is a "mods" folder inside the main folder. You can copy the reference folder and change the XML values if you want to try to mess with the game speeds and other factors. Be aware that XML changes a lot in updates, so you'll want to keep it updated.

you can select your mod from the Options menu.

Yeah I've lost games because of this, I don't understand either how I can own all my stock, and a few shares of his but he can buy me out when our companies are virtually the same value....  Especially being I had liquid funds that were 80% of his "value" working to buy him out....

That's fine that he wants to make it that way, it just seems to quick to end the game, it goes build, build, build off world trading, buy stock, boom game over.   I just wish there was some type of counter measure to prevent this.

I understand where youre coming from, since once all the stock is purchased, the game becomes a race to accumulate the lump sum to complete the buyout. What about requiring the buyout to happen on a timer one share at a time, like happens with selling your own stock?