bdubbs wrote: ↑Sat Jun 30, 2018 11:00 pm
I'm not sure if acquiring your competition will do the trick in this scenario. It's been so long since I've played without the subsidiary dlc but I know this scenario won't use it at all. So if you acquire all the competition's stock I'm not sure if it will give you the dominance as if its your own. Granted I think you can still force a merger, so you could just acquire them out right which would also complete the goal.
Ok, to give a bit more detail, first, the game started with loose financial conditions, so I immediately built a RE stronghold in Paris. From there I could watch the apparel competitor and its evolution.
I saw they had good sales, no competition, lots of R&D labs, not enough stores or factories, and a slow moving stock price, so I started buying them: with bank money and also by diluting my stock. Maybe their stock was moving slow because all the research costs.
The price started going up from 20$ because of my buying, but I didn´t care because I had plenty of assets to fund the purchase. I went steadily and stealthily through that part.
I observed their research, and calculated when their last tech breakthrough would be (1999), for both apparel&leather. At that time I had 50% of the company. The price was about 50-60$.
I decided to give manufacturing a try, so I purchased all their tech (they can´t refuse when you have a 50% ownership) instead of keep buying their stock.
There could have been strong hands asking for too much to grow the ownership to 75% (and then you have to include paying for the other 25%!). I think I considered that way easier than an outright merger... and cheaper, because...
The stock price went straight through the roof after that because of the one-time tech sale, so I sold my take and used all the money to set up factories and stores at once. Discount megastores first, then specialized stores.
I hired the best talents around in the HQ so I could have good manufacturing and sales levels in the firms really fast.
The competition was a bit slow in setting up proper "distribution channels", and as I had been observing them for four years I knew beforehand their behavior. By the time they were in a position to fight a proper war I had the dominance (maybe I couldnt have held to it for very long, but hey, mission accomplished!).
By the way, I´m waiting for Gorillatore´s re-make, and for you to do some gameplay too...
EDIT: really, the forum server should give us more time before logging one off !!