Sensitive initial conditions

One consequence of my simplified dividends system is that the relative worth of companies is very sensitive to small changes in income, particularly at the start of the game. If one company has an income of 100 while another is bringing in 90, the former will pay out 20/share and the latter only 10/share (assuming 5-share companies). So a small change in income can have a dramatic effect if it crosses a boundary from one level of dividends to another.

Major changes of income are fine. If a company buys a second (or third) train, then it is only right that its dividends should increase. Indeed, if one company's dividends were to increase as a result of buying a second train, while another's second train didn't quite make enough to pay higher dividends, then this would be just as much a problem.

So I've been carefully checking the potential incomes of each company at the start of the game, using various different values for different sizes of city. To make them balance, I've had to reduce the initial value of the larger cities. I'm happy to try the game with these reduced values. It could be argued that the previous incomes were too high, leading to player incomes growing too quickly.

I did notice that if I also reduced the initial value of 2-station cities, then the presence of towns on a route made an important difference, as they gave an extra income using the "+1" of a "2+1" train. The consequence is that while the sums worked for companies in most parts of the board, those in the crowded North of England lost out because there is no space to put towns between the cities. Pursuing this line of exploration further, I considered making towns worth zero, so that they are just obstacles preventing the creation of certain routes early in the game. This worked, but I don't like the "feel" of making them worse than plain hexes. I also considered adding "2H" trains, which would run for only 2 hexes but would give an additional income equivalent to a town. I think this would work and I may return to this idea in the future.

For now, I have some values that seem to work. The next step is to do more modelling of how player incomes grow at the start of the game, taking account of the cost of shares.