➤ Martian economy 🎮

Apparently Mars is full of resources to mine. Let's talk about the planet, of course (better specify). At least this is what Offworld Trading Company suggests, the new title of Soren Johnson, lead designer of Civilization IV, now at work for Stardock, which enacts an economic war between multinationals, fought on the surface of the red planet, made of economic valuations, stock market prices and low hits ... very low.

Mars has six resources to exploit, which are randomly distributed across maps as they are spawned at the start of each game. Having positioned our operational base, possibly in the vicinity of the resources most useful for our strategy, we must choose what to start extracting, building the appropriate infrastructures. The base itself has five levels of growth, which involve a greater exploitation of resources and, above all, the possibility of occupying more boxes, thus being able to increase the volume of business (but also the energy, oxygen, water and food needs) . Overall, the construction and management system is very simple and straightforward, since a couple of clicks are enough to pull up a building, while the information needed by the player is all clearly visible on the screen: on the left side there is the resource column, with relative market values, on the right there are the competing companies (upper part) and the various illegal actions that can be carried out (lower part). The latter are used to curb opponents, but also to get some bonuses in an unorthodox way. We will talk about it again in a dedicated paragraph. The map itself is also easy to read and does not present particular difficulties of interpretation. Everything is immediate. In the advanced stages of the game you can build special buildings, such as a patent office to exploit the rights on some discoveries, or a recreation center to improve your financial situation, or even a black market to make more profits with sales. Basic resources are used to create more complex goods, such as electronic components, chemicals, and so on. In conclusion, apparently Offworld Trading Company does not seem to be very different from the other strategic ones, in truth it has elements that make it unique. How do multinationals who have to pretend to respect the rules at the same time fight each other? Before we find out, let's dive into the game a bit.

Sabotage and acquisitions in the review of Offworld Trading Company, a PC management software

Game mode

Offworld Trading Company offers different game modes. Our first steps are guided by a rich tutorial, which explains the rudiments and illustrates the differences between the factions (generally productive) through not exactly exceptional dialogues. The other modes are the single player campaign, the classic skirmishes against artificial intelligence and online skirmishes.

It will sound strange, but the focus of the game is not the campaign, but the skirmish mode. In fact, the campaign itself includes some variations to the victory conditions, which are illustrated from mission to mission, but does not offer anything that alters the basic game scheme too much. Above all it offers nothing more in terms of the overall experience. Offworld Trading Company is evidently meant to be a quick game title. A skirmish lasts a maximum of thirty minutes. This is why it does not involve major complications in terms of production and resource management. In the time of a game our company must be founded, after having scanned the surface of the map to find the best place to place it, and developed to the maximum. In the next game you start from scratch. A similar structure, really light for the genre, does not suit the campaign mode, which instead provides a link between the various missions and a kind of story to follow. You don't lose much by not playing it. Mohawk Games has completely changed the pace of a usually slow genre. The same technical part of the title seems to reflect this approach: the surface of Mars is graphically essential, as are the buildings, which look good when viewed from a certain distance, but are obviously not meant to be admired up close. They aren't ugly, but it is clear that the developers were more interested in their functionality than making them amazing.

Play dirty

Let's say our opponent is making a lot of money from geothermal energy production. Good for him? Not really. Our goal, at least during a skirmish, is that the rivals' shares lose value, so that we can buy shares and finally assimilate them completely., turning their companies into our subsidiaries.

So, why not go for a good sabotage, in order to block the production of energy? In doing so, the unfortunate person will have to turn to the market to meet his energy needs, increasing his debt. Its shares will be weakened and it will be easier to buy them. What we have done is just one of many feasible examples of disruptive action. In short, Offworld Trading Company, beyond the management part, is a competition to see who does it dirtier, identifying weaknesses in the rivals' production chain and investing in targeted attacks. But let's take another example. One of the special buyable buildings is a hacking tower that allows you to send false information to the market by influencing it for a short time. What is it for? For example, let's say that you want to increase the price of an asset you have large stocks of, so as to sell them with the maximum profit: just make them believe that there is a shortage to see the price skyrocket. Or we can do exactly the opposite, that is to say that there is a surplus of availability of a certain good, perhaps one on which the production of a rival is focused, so as to see its price collapse. There would be many more feasible examples, but we believe they can suffice. Suffice it to say that between EMP attacks, paid riots, goods sold on the black market, resources exploited despite having no rights over a certain territory and so on, the advanced stages of Offworld Trading Company are a continuous aim under the belt trying to do the most possible evil, working at the same time to limit the damage caused by the equally ambitious and incorrect adversaries. Obviously the difficult thing is to understand how and where to intervene, in order not to lead to empty attacks. To do this, you need to learn to observe your opponents and evaluate their economic performance. The advice is to initially play against the CPU to develop a good glance that allows you to quickly identify the characteristics of the opposing companies. Sure, it's not the same as challenging other humans, but when you are still immature the single player offers the great advantage of the pause button, which allows you to examine the map in peace. Moreover it must be said that by selecting the higher difficulty levels the challenge is still exciting, especially when all the available factions have been unlocked.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Intel Core i7-4770 processor
16 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 video card
Windows 10 operating system

Minimum requirements

Windows 10 / 8.1 / 7 64-bit operating system
1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon X2 64 processor
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT / ATI Radeon HD 3870 / Intel HD Graphics 4600 video card
2 GB of RAM
DirectX 11
2 GB disk space

Recommended Requirements

3 GHz Intel Quad-Core Processor / 3.2 GHz AMD Six-Core Processor
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 / AMD Radeon HD 7850 video card
4 GB of RAM

Comment

Digital Delivery Steam Price 29,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

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8.0

Your vote

Offworld Trading Company is a light strategy, based on impropriety and deception, which gives its maximum when played online. The simple simulated economic system unfortunately does not fit the campaign mode, as well as the pace of the action, which is obviously designed for fast games. In general, the Mohawk Games title performs very well in its basic concept. If it intrigues you, buy it unreservedly. However, if you are looking for something broader, look elsewhere, perhaps the upcoming Stellaris.