AI Buying My Stock, I Cannot Purchase Theirs

[The Centurion]

I loved the first ten hours of playing this game through the various tutorials and practice scenarios. Then I played a skirmish or two. In the last match I was being quite competitive against the AI opponents. Two of them bought a couple shares in my company, so I went ahead and purchased the rest to ward them off.

Later on, the AI bought out all my shares (even the ones I owned)? This put me at risk of a total buyout. The puzzling thing about this is the game told me I was not allowed to buy any of theirs? How is this fair??

I was really digging this game, but the wholly nonexistent information explaining to the player how the deeper concepts of the game actually work is just frankly appalling. It's lacking a whole level of accessibility in this way, and has me on the verge of writing a negative review in utter frustration. I've been surfing forums and long-dead posts and can't seem to find any solution specific to this problem.

[noctilucus]

Stock owned by a company itself can indeed be bought by others:
- the shares on the right half, can be bought at double price (if I remember correctly)
- the shares on the left half, have to be bought as a package, this is the total buyout you're referring to

It's likely that you couldn't buy AI shares because:
- they were already owned by another AI player; in that case, only a total buyout is possible, after which you and the other AI player(s) will own part of the company
- you didn't have enough cash available for a total buyout; I think the amount needed is indicated when you hover over the buy shares button

[The Centurion]

Originally posted by noctilucus:

Stock owned by a company itself can indeed be bought by others:
- the shares on the right half, can be bought at double price (if I remember correctly)
- the shares on the left half, have to be bought as a package, this is the total buyout you're referring to

It's likely that you couldn't buy AI shares because:
- they were already owned by another AI player; in that case, only a total buyout is possible, after which you and the other AI player(s) will own part of the company
- you didn't have enough cash available for a total buyout; I think the amount needed is indicated when you hover over the buy shares button

What I am finding is that I can only buy shares while the shares are still open for purchase. Once those shares are all owned by another company, I cannot purchase any more, and thus the only other option is a total buyout.

The exact opposite is true for me: when I buy shares in my own company, rival orgs can buy and sell my shares from out under me no questions asked. Why am I not compensated for those shares at the very least? This makes quite a frustrating late game when my opponents steal my shares from me with impunity whilst I cannot reciprocate.

[Terotrous]

I guess I can clarify what's happening.

You can always buy shares from the owner of the company. If you own all 10 of your shares, rivals can buy them from you, one at a time, until only 5 are left, which must be bought in a block to eliminate you. When doing this, they have to pay twice the share's value.

You can never buy shares from someone who isn't the owner of the company, but you don't need to. If one AI player owns 5 of your shares, and you own the other 5, another player can buy you out, then they will just split control of your company.

For this reason, if you own more than 5 of your own shares, it acts as a buffer, since people have to buy those shares before they can do a buyout. However, buying all 10 of your shares is rarely the correct play, it's usually better to use that money to improve your economy or eliminate another player instead. You can never be fully protected against a buyout, and if your economy falls behind you will lose eventually, the best defense is generally just to focus on making a ton of money to drive your stock price up and eliminating the rivals before they can get enough to buy you out.

Note that when you buy someone out, besides making money from their company, you also get a few free claims and any stock they owned becomes yours, so buying someone out is generally immensely powerful and nearly guarantees victory unless another player gets a buyout of another player at almost the exact same time.

If you find buyouts annoying in general, another option is to play Stock Victory matches, which have a completely different win condition where no one can be eliminated from the game.

[Mettle]

It basically comes down to the fact that any player may only *safely* hold up to 50% of their own stock.

Anything that player owns of themselves past that 50% mark can be bought out (at a much higher price) by an opponent. The last 50% (Assuming you bought your way up to that 50% mark), protects you from losing majority control until they can afford to buy out the entire block at once.

notice I'm talking about a player holding THEIR OWN stock past the 50% mark -- if any other player holds that stock then it's theirs until they decide to sell it, or until that company is bought out and the shares become permanently locked.

[Mettle]

The only case I can think of where you LITERALLY CANNOT buy shares is when a company has already been bought out.

When that happens their shares LOCK IN to reflect how their company was split up among their new owners, and since they no longer an independent company they will no longer have a stock of their own, and the value of their company is instead factored into their various owners' stock prices.