My insight so far in this game

[Maria]

Hi,

I completed the campaing (I lost, lmao) and wanted to share with you what I'm thinking about certain topics of the game with what I played.

Maybe some things I don't like are intended and a way to add difficulty to the game, I don't know, but please take a look.

• There's no real explanation what "becoming major" actually does. I suspected I'd win if I got to 51% but wasn't quite sure. So by not priorizing buying stocks too high I naturally lost. Even if you buy some, there should be more to it than a black hole you'd sink crazy high amounts of money in. Like... more shares = more money from somehow, maybe taxes.
  
• Cashing diamonds in for around 1500$ seems to be the best to use them. Paying the guy to point at the right land to buy next is a waste imo. Tried it a couple times, always got one of the lowest at the current matchup. Like I bought a 37 when my opponents had 37, 38 and 43. Moreover the marker is kinda misleading since you can't exactly which piece of land he means for the head being on the cross of the grid, basically touching all 4 adjacent pieces of land.
  
• Meanwhile my opponents always seem to have ground piercing satellite support and outbid themselves on the same 3 highest value pieces of land like there's no tomorrow.
  
• Winning the highest bid on a land on the other hand doesn't feel rewarding at all because there's no clear indication if it was worth the effort or not. You could argue that you can't know the worth of a piece of land before you dug up all the oil, but then again why do my opponents know before?
  
• Clicking on a shop in town multiple times brings up the shop popup also multiple times on top of another which you all have to close individually.
  
• Gas - I haven't managed to buy the 90.000 gas upgrade on my first playthough because I was so busy catching up with shares once I feared I might lose if I hadn't enough but that might just have been me making poor decisions. My opponents on the other hand didn't spend a single upgrade on gas till the end, maybe they know it's not worth it.
  
• Music - the soundtrack is ncie and soothing but definitely needs some more tracks. Also it shouldn't be possible that the same track gets played two times in a row. Also the fast and hectic track (you know which I mean, the one that plays in the last month) sometimes plays in the middle of the game, making you nervous for no reason.
  
• Taking 2000 with me on a dig site is almost never enough, I always need loans. I'm not saying you should be able to freely pick any amount but there should be at least a range from which you could chose, like 2000-5000. Picking higher amounts should have some kind of disadvantage then thou, because otherwise you'd always take the highest amound with you.
  
• I caught moles trying to reveal an already revealed tile twice - be it through previous moles or scanner.
  
• If you got the upgrade that lets you deactivate those pipe spots and you built a pipe that has the minimum length, there's no way in hell you can upgrade that one (you will only open/close the pipe spots) and you have to build another one around that.
  
• Vertical scrolling on the map - hoo boy, this is probably what I hate the most. It wasn't clear to me first why there "suddenly" (the scrolling is so slow and sneaky that you only see it after a few minutes) was another layer of untouched earth, but after positioning my cursor on a certain tile I and staring it down long enough I found out. I could have been long done with some maps but since the game decides to scroll there are times when two months go by until there's enough earth again to discover another patch of oil or gas. Moreover the moles won't go below what's currently shown. The scrolling doesn't seem to serve any deeper purpose, why was it implemented? I could sometimes finish maps by July but also couldn't because there might be stille some secret hidden oil patch below my current screen. I'd say the complete map gets shown right from the start or the maps just gets deeper and it's possible to scroll manually.

Don't get me wrong, this is one of the best games I have played in a while. One of those games which you start when you come home from work, then hours go by and suddenly it's late at night and there's around 2 hours left until I have to get up for work.

I have never done review/quality control stuff like this before but I find this game has a lot potential and I want it to get even better.

[Stabbin' Hobo]

Ive seen diamonds bought for more than 4k, its just luck like all the town offers you get and you have to check each round. The best use for them is VERY situational and that would be waiting on a natural price spike to then turn on the gas and then sell all oil late in the year when you need a time extension. Its more limited than the heated gas add on, which is NOT worth the money unless you get very lucky with gas...even then it takes a lot to earn back that 90k. Just paying off the standard gas connections seems to be hit or miss, probably best to only buy it for one and just time your gas rush to that buyer even though it means missing a lot of natural spikes to jump on. Thats 40k you don't really need to waste.


If a pipe is too short to click on it functions as a joint and is the largest size so you don't have to go around but I didn't know that either because its not obvious.

The vertical scrolling through the year is to create tension about finishing before the time is up, you can get deeper 3 and your dowsers will find it before you can see it. Its also a reason to not spend any money on deeper 2 or 3 until you are into the full year rounds because they will hit on oil you can not get to in time. The scrolling as time goes creates an actual need for wide 3 pipes and fast drills. I think this is just fine but I wish it went a LOT deeper. Maybe into 18 or 24 month rounds in later stages.


Best use for a mole is with the gas upgrade so it will check nearby tiles for gas, but even that seems to miss a lot of gas...I think they should sense a few tiles further than they do. Im pretty sure the diamond upgrade barely breaks even most games.

The AI will bid itself silly over bad land, they go only by what has already been revealed and trying to be next to the highest number already showing. Its useful to let them go crazy or even bid them up a few times before taking cheap land and then you do stock auction second when they have less money.

The 2000 limit is only fair, otherwise rich players would be at even more of an advantage by not having to pay interest. I avoided loans my first campaign, now I take out 1500 as just a normal part of my round start every round. Not getting caught with a low output or few wagons in the early part of the round, especially if the price is good at the start, is worth the few thousand in interest. If you have bid on land you know will be pretty good then its worth it to bribe the banker for lower interest if he has a good offer and borrow hard early so you can get your infrastructure in early, oil tanked up and gas lines ready to go when the timing is good. If you know you are on bad land dont borrow and just take it slow and steady and dont lose money.


The stock game is less than thrilling right now, and its got some bugs. Winning gives you a bonus round.

[MrNormsHGW]

I noticed that most pockets of gas seem to be in the center area (on my 3rd time though) so that by the time you see them, you have oil pipes blocking their way to the gas valves and they can't be used. I think if there's going to be gas to boost the oil prices, it would be nice if most were on the sides (left/right) where the buyers are so you can actually chain them together and get that good price boost.

[Gamious]

Thanks for the feedback! We will check out the things you mentioned.
A couple of responses:
Anthony should point to one of the 3 highest remaining plots in the area. Maybe it's bugged. We'll check. We changed the world map, because of that some coordinates might be off, placing Anthony unclearly.

AI bidding is actually very shallow at the moment. They only go by the numbers and will bid heavily. We're changing that.

We know about the shop windows. It's actualy a hard thing to fix. But it will be done, in time.

AI upgrading is not super sophisticated yet either. Gas upgrades should be worth your while. But it might be a bit much.

Music, it's a random cycle of 4 tracks now. Maybe we should make it sequential.

2000 - This is an important part of the challenge. Kickstarting your drilling smartly and quickly. Bringing 5000 would make the game a lot less fun. It would take away a lot of the challenge. What kind of disadvantage did you have in mind?

Moles are erratic ;)

We're working on a fix for the short pipe issue.

Scrolling - that is part of the challenge. It works as a time constraint. If you get the whole land at the beginning the game would be infinitely easier. And less fun because of it. Set up your network so that you can react quickly if you find a low pocket.

[Gamious]

Originally posted by MrNormsHGW:

I noticed that most pockets of gas seem to be in the center area (on my 3rd time though) so that by the time you see them, you have oil pipes blocking their way to the gas valves and they can't be used. I think if there's going to be gas to boost the oil prices, it would be nice if most were on the sides (left/right) where the buyers are so you can actually chain them together and get that good price boost.

Gas and oil is distributed randomly over the levels. That is part of the challenge.