Wargame_[space] Piece on Offworld Trading Company

from Stardock Forums

Bruce Geryk from Wargame_[space] has a great piece up about Offworld Trading Company.

"I love designs that take established mechanics and rework them. Offworld Trading Company does a lot of that. They have also made some interesting decisions about what you can and cannot do, in an attempt to maximize the game aspect. I’ll be very interested to see how the stock market develops, and where the AI goes. But at this point, with the game still a year from release, it looks like Mohawk Games has a sophisticated, well-structured model for resource extraction on planets on which there is no central taxing authority."

Read it here:http://www.wargamespace.com/2014/11/28/greenmail-on-the-red-planet/

 

13,499 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for linking. This was a good read with lots of interesting thoughts.

With regards to the comments on buying out another company is a huge advantage, perhaps there is some way to elegantly build in "dis-economies of scale" through the inefficiencies of having a subsidiary or necessitate the routing of resources through colonies to distribute. As its structured now, buying out an opponent is more of an "asset purchase" where the opponents buildings and resources seamlessly integrate into your colony, opposed to a merger/acquisition takeover via stock purchase which would indicate the entity remains a separate subsidiary under control. Perhaps the subsidiary could only auto-sell resources at market for cash to transfer to the parent company? Or have a built in integration period for the acquisition where the utilization isn't 100%.

I've only rarely seen instances where buying an opponents colony is not a good decision, partly because the AI almost never outright fails and succumbs to massive debt burden. As such, buying an opponent is best due to the massive influx of resources and claims

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I think this game is like a TTD, just with a different set. It's good. Bad thing is when players are have to fight. This world needs peace. 1812, 1914,... 2016? One big war per a century? Perfect idea for a game i would play next is a Sim City 2013-like truly MMO, where time is linked with realtime with some coefficient, and all players are helping their neighbours to build together a strongest ecosystem on the world map in presence of some catastrophic, global or local, disasters. The most important aspect would be a fine simulation of random building, nature, migration, market (with nets), something else, in a powerful datacenter. One could get money from this game by placing real companies as a commercial zone residents, with some ads when user clicks on them.

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