2006-09 Politics and Risk From Donboy Along with money I need to include politics and risk in my railroad simulation. The main problem with politics and risk is that they do not scale very well. Real politics is based on the actions of large groups of people vs a small group that is making the rules while the number of real people in my simulation is limited so any natural dynamic would be gone. Time scale is also a problem because change in politics often takes place over more years than my simulation will cover. The management of risk is very much a part of business and life. My main problem with risk is that I need to limit the kinds of risk to keep my simulation reasonable in scope. One of the things I like about a middle earth (Lord of the Rings) location for my layout is the fantasy of the good races being noble and the evil races being violent. The reality if all of use being a mix of good and evil is suspended so we can clearly see what actions are good and what actions are evil. For raising children the ability to show what actions are good and what actions are evil is a plus so I want to retain this. Given a choice in how the world should be it only seems right that the peaceful good folks would live in prosperity while the violent orcs live a desperate existence in the hills. Because of time scale I do not plan on the politics changing during the simulation except for small changes in tax rates and cost of money (interest rates on loans). In the real world railroads activity and profits are closely connected to politics with many regulations and taxes to the extent that railroads do not have much choice in how they run their businesses. If my simulation was realistic in relation to politics then there would not be many management choices to make because regulations would limit them. This is one advantage of a fantasy location for the railroad I can use a fantasy political environment in my simulation. My simulated environment will have a low tax rate and only the regulations that are needed for safety (violation of rules will be enforced by fines against the violator's simulation bank account). The simulation will have no rate rules, no work rules and no union rules because that will make the simulation interesting and more fun. I would like it if the real world worked that way the same way as my simulation but I have no expectations of that happening. I have no realistic chance to change my real world environment by moving or being politically active so I don't worry about it and just live with it the best I can. Taxes will be based on a train license fee and a over length fee added by car if the train is over length. This will avoid the problem of a real world simulation where the way to make the most profit from a railroad is the run very few but very long trains. Publicly owned track takes care of the problem of competition with one set of tracks. There are many types of risk. Risks with nature, financial risks, health risks and the risk of violence of some sort. To win at my simulation with you will need to be the best with railroad logistics and the management of risk (the balance will be luck just like the real world). For financial risks market demands will be variable so you run the risk of to much railroad equipment for service requirements or you might be lacking the equipment to meet the demand for service. You will also have a random low percentage risk of violence where your train could be robbed by orcs and it's cargo taken or destroyed. The level of risk from violence can be managed by the amount of preparation is made in advance. For security you can spend more money to reduce chance of loss from orcs or save money and take the risk. I have been looking at software requirements as I go along and have seen nothing that looks to difficult yet. The main problem will be the developement of a automatic car reader system. I could get by without of car reader but it will be better if I can make it work because it will cut down on data entry and the ability to cheat the system. I plan to start testing and development of a car reader system once I have the first 10 feet of track down.