Back in 2003 we did not really have access to clouds, and multi-core processors were still in the future, so getting enough CPU power for a long enough time to handle all the calculations required considerable effort and occasional groveling. We were also using eta (correlation ratio) statistics instead of the more traditional rho (product moment) statistics as many variables were not joint normally distributed, or were manipulated as opposed to random, or had lots of unfortunate non-linear effects even over five year forecast horizons. The calculations were further complicated by myriad problems in the data. Besides analyzing if it mattered very much if the stated infant mortality was 3% or really 4% or even 5%, we deemed it necessary to calculate scenarios where, for example, Tunisia wanted no part of the maglevs. In that particular case, rail lines had to be routed several hundred miles further south in Algeria before connecting to Libya. Algeria actually does quite well, but the Tunisian economy declines dramatically.
While the cooperative building of the rail network and some hyper-modern cities was a Nash equilibrium -
a condition in theory of games where all players win - in that it did wonders for easing unemployment and the accelerating deterioration of urban metropolitan areas like Cairo, there was a dark side. We took considerable pains to point out the disappointing consequences if no maglevs and supurbs were built. These results were often driven down to sub-country (region, province, wilayat, governorate, muhafazat, state or shabiyat depending on the country) levels.
As it happens, we added an appendix dealing with the hypothetical situation of a repeat of the massive 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunamis. As devastating as that was two hundred and fifty years ago, there are likely four times
as many people at risk today as then. We strongly suggested Morocco and Algeria and their neighbors at least
establish disaster recovery teams and procedures. That was not to say the eastern Mediterranean is any safer seismically - Alexandrians still remember when their city was nearly obliterated in 365. Our models suggested that similar event today would kill two million Egyptians outright and virtually everyone in Gaza.