Companies declare bankruptcy when expanding

[Capital tourist]

Good day,
There seems to be a bug in the game - AI companies declare bankruptcy when they are in a liquidity squeeze, instead of planning ahead or selling their assets.

This is despite ai is set on hardest level. Example: company A opens a mine in April, and declares bankruptcy in June because of tight liquidity. The company is profitable, however there is not enough liquidity in the public markets to raise sufficient capital for a bond payment - thus it declares bankruptcy.

Is there any way I can work around it? For example, force ai to sell their assets, accept offers on their technology with a discount to value, or abstain from heavy investments when bond payments are approaching. This is very frustrating. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[David]

How frequently did this occur? If only a small number of companies failed in this manner, in my view, it would resemble real‑world situations, resulting in more diverse AI behaviors, and even create opportunities to acquire their assets. But if a large number of companies failed this way, it could indicate an AI issue. In that case, please share your save game so we can investigate.

[Capital tourist]

Hi David, thank you for taking the time.

Once the game is a few years in, this happens annually with healthy and profitable companies, that have a little debt and are expanding their businesses. It seems that the ai is not able to correctly consider that money supply is limited, and having enough capital for bond payments is essential for corporate survival before expanding into new segments. The ai does also not shut down firms and sell their land plots (back to the government) if it lacks funds for bond payment - which it should be able to do (imo plain logic for any corporate manager to be able to scale down operations or divest in order to survive).

I agree with you that having a turnover of companies is healthy as it takes out those not able to sufficiently employ their capital. This makes the game enjoyable and at the same time educative.

Remembered to save two examples where ai companies are about to go bust (game is paused for consideration of acquisition). I've attached one of them (the second file is >5mb when compressed (could send it by another channel). Post-beta version 12.0.17, no mods.

Please let me know your thoughts, perhaps there is a work around or a possibility to improve the game engine.

[Capital tourist]

Here is a shared Onedrive-folder with both saves:

https://1drv.ms/f/c/dc82d91c04e1d36f/Ig ... I?e=zx4Flg

[mdemircan2]

Hi David, thank you for taking the time.

Once the game is a few years in, this happens annually with healthy and profitable companies, that have a little debt and are expanding their businesses. It seems that the ai is not able to correctly consider that money supply is limited, and having enough capital for bond payments is essential for corporate survival before expanding into new segments. The ai does also not shut down firms and sell their land plots (back to the government) if it lacks funds for bond payment - which it should be able to do (imo plain logic for any corporate manager to be able to scale down operations or divest in order to survive).

I agree with you that having a turnover of companies is healthy as it takes out those not able to sufficiently employ their capital. This makes the game enjoyable and at the same time educative.

Remembered to save two examples where ai companies are about to go bust (game is paused for consideration of acquisition). I've attached one of them (the second file is >5mb when compressed (could send it by another channel). Post-beta version 12.0.17, no mods.

Please let me know your thoughts, perhaps there is a work around or a possibility to improve the game engine.

I'm curious about the result and looking forward to the answers!

[David]

The dev team has improved the AI's handling of liquidity crunch situations in the latest version 12.0.18.

I've tested it with your save games and the AI companies in both save games were able to prevent bankruptcy.

You could download the new version from https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10561

[Capital tourist]

Very well, it seems you are ahead of me with a new batch I was not aware of.

Thank you very much for taking the time to help!