A-Z Backlog challenge: Offworld trading company
Offworld Trading Company was one of my recommendations in my post on Steam deals in February. Having now completed a campaign I am going to go into more depth into my thoughts on it.
In this game you play the CEO of a company that has been given right to set up on an area of Mars. You will mine minerals, produce food, energy and water for your HQ and the human settlement nearby and basically look to dominate your competitors through fair or foul means. At the start of the scenario you will scan the area to see what resources are plentiful and scarce and decide where to place your HQ. You need to decide whether to take the first plot that looks decent, or whether to keep looking for something better. Knowledge is power but if you leave it too late the best spots could all be taken.
Your HQ starts at level 1 with only a few land claims which you use to claim a tile to place a building on. You generally want to start by bringing in minerals which allow you to upgrade your HQ as quickly as possible. Once it is level 2, unless you are using a robot HQ, you will probably need to start producing food and water. Robots are more focussed on producing fuel to keep running. Then when you get to level 3 and 4 you will need to decide how you are going to specialise. There are three late game products- glass, electronics and chemicals. Each requires different input products such as silicon, aluminium or carbon.
Each map being different means each game different products may be abundant or scarce. The market is based on supply and demand so prices change rapidly. It's not just the town you are supplying but also your competitors will be buying and selling things as they require money, raw materials or finished goods. It's quite easy to see at a glance what each opponent is focusing on and what they may be lacking in (and need to buy from the market thus driving prices up).
It's not always the person that makes the most end game goods that wins. It's cool that sometimes the simple things are neglected and you can win simply focusing on things like food and energy. The tutorial does a good job of introducing you to the different product chains and features of the game. You may find the most fun (and frustrating) to be the black market. Here you can find things such as pirates that shoot down some of your opponents good being transported, underground nukes that decrease the resource yields of an enemy tile, slowdown strikes and production boosts, as well as emp blasts and power surges. All can be devastating but the costs must be weighed in comparison to the things you could build with that money.
In the base game there is a 7 week campaign where you try to best 7 opponents over a series of scenarios. There are a number of different CEOs to choose from, who all have different bonuses to change the ideal playstyle.
Each week you will be given money based on how well you did in previous weeks. This can be spent on buying employees which give you access to different building and speed up the production of the buildings- further specialising your strategy.
Each week you get the option of which area to move to and who your opponents are (generally 2 or 3 of the 7 total opponents). You will be given an overview of the conditions you expect to find there and what black market activities you can buy. You will then see what employees your competitors to figure out where they are strong or weak and what strategy they are likely to employ.
Your aim is to build as many modules for the colony as possible. This costs money as well as resources. The person that builds the most in the week will get a bonus (such as a free building, free resources or free black market activity) that carries forward for x number of weeks or indefinitely and then depending on what % of modules you built, you will get that % of the colonies' income. At the end of each scenario you get detailed info of exactly what competitor built and did so you can see where you might have done things better to take advantage of the situation.
The first 4 weeks sees everyone trying to build up their company through victories and staff purchases. Week 5-6 see eliminations as the company with the lowest share value leaving each round. Week 7 sees the final 4 competitors go head to head on the final map. It didn't take too long to learn enough to win on a fairly low difficulty level.
I've enjoyed it so far but not sure if I will continue giving other CEOs a try or wait and see what the DLC brings to the table when those are on special too.
Release year: 2016
Rating: 80
Normal price: $39.99
Best sale price: $13.59
In this game you play the CEO of a company that has been given right to set up on an area of Mars. You will mine minerals, produce food, energy and water for your HQ and the human settlement nearby and basically look to dominate your competitors through fair or foul means. At the start of the scenario you will scan the area to see what resources are plentiful and scarce and decide where to place your HQ. You need to decide whether to take the first plot that looks decent, or whether to keep looking for something better. Knowledge is power but if you leave it too late the best spots could all be taken.
Your HQ starts at level 1 with only a few land claims which you use to claim a tile to place a building on. You generally want to start by bringing in minerals which allow you to upgrade your HQ as quickly as possible. Once it is level 2, unless you are using a robot HQ, you will probably need to start producing food and water. Robots are more focussed on producing fuel to keep running. Then when you get to level 3 and 4 you will need to decide how you are going to specialise. There are three late game products- glass, electronics and chemicals. Each requires different input products such as silicon, aluminium or carbon.
Each map being different means each game different products may be abundant or scarce. The market is based on supply and demand so prices change rapidly. It's not just the town you are supplying but also your competitors will be buying and selling things as they require money, raw materials or finished goods. It's quite easy to see at a glance what each opponent is focusing on and what they may be lacking in (and need to buy from the market thus driving prices up).
It's not always the person that makes the most end game goods that wins. It's cool that sometimes the simple things are neglected and you can win simply focusing on things like food and energy. The tutorial does a good job of introducing you to the different product chains and features of the game. You may find the most fun (and frustrating) to be the black market. Here you can find things such as pirates that shoot down some of your opponents good being transported, underground nukes that decrease the resource yields of an enemy tile, slowdown strikes and production boosts, as well as emp blasts and power surges. All can be devastating but the costs must be weighed in comparison to the things you could build with that money.
In the base game there is a 7 week campaign where you try to best 7 opponents over a series of scenarios. There are a number of different CEOs to choose from, who all have different bonuses to change the ideal playstyle.
Each week you will be given money based on how well you did in previous weeks. This can be spent on buying employees which give you access to different building and speed up the production of the buildings- further specialising your strategy.
Each week you get the option of which area to move to and who your opponents are (generally 2 or 3 of the 7 total opponents). You will be given an overview of the conditions you expect to find there and what black market activities you can buy. You will then see what employees your competitors to figure out where they are strong or weak and what strategy they are likely to employ.
Your aim is to build as many modules for the colony as possible. This costs money as well as resources. The person that builds the most in the week will get a bonus (such as a free building, free resources or free black market activity) that carries forward for x number of weeks or indefinitely and then depending on what % of modules you built, you will get that % of the colonies' income. At the end of each scenario you get detailed info of exactly what competitor built and did so you can see where you might have done things better to take advantage of the situation.
The first 4 weeks sees everyone trying to build up their company through victories and staff purchases. Week 5-6 see eliminations as the company with the lowest share value leaving each round. Week 7 sees the final 4 competitors go head to head on the final map. It didn't take too long to learn enough to win on a fairly low difficulty level.
Release year: 2016
Rating: 80
Normal price: $39.99
Best sale price: $13.59
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