In Short (from my curator review): "Excellent game whose novel Economic-Strategy ideas will hopefully spawn a long lasting genre of this quality. Dispels the notion that strategy=violence."

Longer Form: I am an economics student in graduate school and a sci-fi fan, so as far as I'm concerned OTC was designed specifically for me. The economics & finance in the game is not only fun, but educational and facsinating if you have an interest in those subjects.
I love the strategy genre, and have for years, but having a genre so closely tied to violence: Total War, Company of Heroes, Starcraft, Age of Empires, etc. has always bugged me a little bit. Not because I'm a pacifist, but because it takes away from strategic depth to have such a simple zero-sum mechanic at the core of gameplay. With OTC there are not such clear and basic decisions. In a war game: produce units, more is almost always better. In contrast, OTC can't be won, even on the easiest difficulties, by spamming one type of production. You'll inevitably over-supply that commodity and shrink your profits on each sale down to next to nothing while paying through the nose on whatever inputs are associated with that commodity. Simply put, there's more strategic depth.
The art style is nice, it is simple as of right now and realistically rendered, I wonder whether there is room to convey information more through the art than is currently done. For instance if the ships transporting resources could convey more about their cargo to lessen the emphasis on the ever-present charts.

Note on Early Access: As always, monitor reviews and update logs to note that devs are making progress, but as of the time of writing this review, they are very active and seem to be constantly tweaking and making improvements.

A few minor gripes: 1.) My computer is not a world-beater, but can handle most any games on medium or high, however OTC gives me a little trouble with frame-rate so I've had to go down to low settings, which is a shame for such a pretty game.
2.) In-game UI could use some poish, main menus and what not are gorgeous so I have faith that these will get better.


Recommendation: If you like strategy games you should do one of two things: 1.) Buy it 2.) Wait until it comes out of Early Access, then buy it.

'This isn't going to be like other RTS, it's going to be economy based instead of blowing things up' ... Put's in a 'black market' where you buy things to blow stuff up.

I like the game concept, but I feel as though the black market is detrimental to it. You are meant to outfox the other companies, by speculating on price and going after the resources that will be needed. It's like playing MULE or Settlers of Catan. The problem is it just reverts to any other RTS when the Black Market comes into play. If someone tries to plan ahead, see what is going to be needed, invest, ect. Other players just shut their stuff down. Sure, there are no armies, but is has the same effect. It's just lazy. Imagine Microsoft, instead of competing for market share with Apple based on innovation, could just nuke one of Apple's manufacturing plants. That's not how it works. Should we add a rule to Monopoly where you can obliterate Hotels? This is not in the spirit of this sort of arena.

Please remove this and replace it with something else. There are auctions, price manipulations, etc. that are better suited for this game. More ideas like those, and less 'sabotage' type things would be MUCH better. If you don't want this to be like every other RTS out there, then don't make it like every other RTS out there. There is a lot of potential here, please don't drop the ball.

I enjoy some aspects of the game, and see where it could be fun, but I cannot recommend it unless the direction is changed.

This game in all however is a very expensive game even though i like it its price is way to expensive for what it does. i i knew what the game was like i would wait for the price to be at least $25.

i love the game so far (only played 1 game lol) im having an issue though... my sound is not sync. with what is happening on the screen. could anybody help with that? plz contact me. it isn't a huge issue though the 2 second lag ain't that great either

Refreshing take on the RTS genre simply focusing on economic warfare rather than actual. Frantic multiplayer and capable singleplayer/skirmish. No doubt in my mind that this can be fleshed out to be something awesome by the time it is fully released.

One of the few games that has really high replayability. Every thime the game evolves different so there is always something new

+community is very nice

-balancing is hard: Scavenger and Sientific are in the current patch far ahead. (In the previous patch it was expansive with the 50% steel reduction. This shows how fragile and hard the hole balancing is.

Overall good job, one of my favorite games

I was excited to get this game - Civ4 was my favorite civ and so I expected a lot from Soren Johnson.

This is a much more accessible game than Civ. The complete lack of a combat system revolutionizes the RTS genre and feels alien, yet the core mechanics can be understood within 30-45 minutes of play. The interaction of the game sytems is complex, and mastery and strategy will take a lot of time to develop.

You play one of four factions, each with different bonuses and penalties. It is vital to play to your factions strengths, because you are severely resource constrained and must make difficult decisions about how to expand.

You interact with other factions in five ways: the map, auctions, the stock market, the black market, and the market.

On the map, you compete for resources and tile placement. Taking a key tile from another player can be enormously damaging by preventing adjacency bonuses.

In auctions, you bid against other players for a special bonus. This is the most "head-to-head" aspect of the game. Depending on game options, you are not constrained to bidding with cash on hand. Instead, you can go into debt to purchase the item. If you arent careful, you might win an auction to your overal detriment.

On the black market, you purchase attack powers. These seem to suck, though perhaps I just don't understand how to use them effectively yet. You are very rate limited in how quickly you can purchase these powers, they go up in price quickly, and they are usually very weak. Disabling a tile for 60 seconds is painful, but doesnt seem to be enough to cause any long term damage.

On the stock market, you buy and sell ownership stakes in each player's faction. You win by forcibly buying out the other players.

And finally the market. You buy and sell resources, and your actions affect the price of the resource. In my view, a critical weakness of the game is that the market supplies unlimited resources. Resources are not supplied by other players; instead, the market steadily raises prices. One consequence of this is that there is no resource tech race - you can buy any resources at the start of the game, which really break the idea that you are a startup colony on mars. You also get no real benefit from being the first to supply another resource.

The game also gives you very limited insight into the price elasticity of demand - how much price will change in response to a purchase or sale. This is probably because there isn't a "real" market system. In order to allow you to buy an unlimited amount of resources on the market, the game must model its own price elasticity of demand curve. This is contrived and can fall out of sync with the specifics of each game. You also have no insight into the global supply of a given resource - there is no way to answer the question "Is this resource cheap because no one needs it or because everyone is producing a surplus?" Perhaps if you had some way to view the global aggregate stockpile of each resource, this could be improved.

Because of the way the market functions and the lack of insight into its details, it doesn't quite feel like you are playing with other players. Again, maybe this is just due to my inexperience.

There are a couple UI issues:
* An easy way to see the space market price for goods.
* An easy way to find your buildings/tiles on the map.
* Graphics performance is ok, but not good.


Overall, I'm still pretty excited about this game. Its a new idea in RTS. It greatly reduces micromanagement compared to other RTS. It needs polish, but I think its going to make for some amazing multiplayer matches.

This Review is negative, but judging the potential of further development in, it could be positive for the finished game. It is made shortly after the early access release on steam and it might get updated at a later point.
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The first thing you need to know is that this game is not an economic strategy build-your-empire game, like the Anno games or Railroad Tycoon, or certain lesser well known games in that niche. This game is not slow, and the building up your empire part is pretty shallow compared to other such games.

But what is it then?

Its a kinda unique thing, the closest game to compare it to is probably M.U.L.E. from the 80´s, but as i never played that myself, i cant say how much it resembles this old classic. It is a real-time economics strategy game, on the backdrop of Mars.

So the mechanics are that you build up your base (one of 4 factions) by upgrading it, harvesting different resources and processing them into other products plus eventual doing research and managing the black market, all while competing with several other players for the market and resources. Your aim is to make huge profits and buy out your competitors on the stock market while they try to do the same.


What state is it in? (15-02-2015)

It is a well functioning Beta product at the point of writing this i would say. There are issues with the pacing of the game and with the gameplay itself. I also had 2 or 3 crashes within my playtime. I did not try the Multiplayer part yet.

The most aggravating thing right now is the buyout mechanic, in which the AI just piles up the money and then all of a sudden within a few moments buys up all your stock, which means "Game Over" to you. There are popup warnings about those stock buyouts, but most often they simply happen too fast to prevent them.

Overall the game feels not much fun to me right now. The tutorials are a joke, especially the scientific one which i had to do way too often. They should rename the whole Tutorials section to "Challenge Modes". Because that's what they actually are, there isn't any proper explanation of game mechanics, besides of the tool tips and one entry text for each faction.

You will have to play a lot of games till you have a proper understanding of the game to be able to compete, the learning curve is high, even tough the mechanics themselves are not that complicated, because the game doesn't explain itself well enough.

There is a distinctive lack of feedback for the player to guide him. Everything that happens just gets thrown into the small feed in the lower right. You don't have time to really see the important things, or even know which are important. You can change the speed and also pause the game (in single player), but for me the game feels too fast paced to be enjoyable.

The UI is also a thing that needs work, it takes up way too much space right now, and its a bit laggy with accepting commands. The voice overs are some of the worst i have ever heard in any game, they definitely need to be completely redone. Music is okay tough.

The graphics are actually good and nice and communicate well with what they represent. Its kinda pretty and has a bit of a Settler vibe watching all the transports flying about delivering their goods. You just have never the time to actually watch and admire it, because the second you're idling and not planning your gameplay you are already at a disadvantage and loosing the game.


Thoughts on Gameplay:

In my opinion the building and production chains are too shallow and not deep enough for a proper strategy experience. There are 13 resources and about 20 buildings to manage. There are no real upgrades besides the Patent Lab where you can develop 11 different patents that change how your company operates, and the Engineering Lab which lets you increase the production rate of your buildings.

There is tactical strategy involved in the way you place your buildings (where and when) and in your decisions what to buy or sell, or when to upgrade your HQ or use the options of the Black Market, but this is not gameplay depth that can keep up with something like Civilization as an example. Overall its unsatisfying to discover that what looked like a giant red strategy planet from afar, is a strategy experience the size of a pea up close.

A typical game session will take about 30 minutes or often less, and its always a frantic rush towards the start for the resources and to the end for the buyout of the competitors. Its clear to me that this was kept simple and fast because the main focus is the multiplayer part, which is of limited interest to me. I speculate with this, but they probably want to keep it simple to port it to mobile or tablets later.

There are likely people who can appreciate such a game, one that doesn't overwhelm them with options and is over pretty fast. It even is a game that demands a certain skill to make quickly the right decisions, a bit like Starcraft maybe in that regard. When the issues are ironed out it could find a fanbase that likes it for what it is.

But it isn't a game for me personally, and probably never will be. I expected way more strategy then this game has to offer, even overlooking all the current issues of its early state.


Is it worth purchasing right now?

No, not unless you are an enthusiast and want to take part in balancing the game. Or you really enjoy fast paced multiplayer strategy games. Wait for the game to get some patches and look back later if it has improved. If you can grab it in a sale, go for it.

The game has potential to be a unique and interesting strategy game, but as of now its just a pretty thing that is frustrating to get into, and over much too soon, without proper depth after you learned the basics.

--------------------------------
Updates:
16-02-2012, Expanded with Gameplay section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvFYBkesqGU

-EARLY ACCESS REVIEW-

Before I continue writing this review I want to state that I'm more in the middle ground in terms whether or not I suggest this game.


GENERAL OVERVIEW

What is Offworld Trading Company? Simply put, Offworld Trading Company is a RTS without the conventional functions that we're used to seeing in RTSes today, that being a focus on military might and tactfulness. Instead of focusing on countering your enemies unit types and movements, maintaining map awareness and control, etc., you're in a race, so to speak, to survey the land of mars, identify what resources are rich and poor as well as what the best places to found are, figuring out the best way to maximize your profits while stiff-arming your opponents, and ultimately buying out their companies and declaring yourself the sole CEO of corporate mars. This is a lot easier said than done, of course, as there are lots of things that you need to be aware of and work around.

At the beginning of a match, the only thing you see on the map is the main trading hub and the tiles surrounding it, with the rest of the map covered in fog of war (you can see the terrain, in the fog of war, just not the resources that might be lying within the covered tiles). You start off with 6 "scans" and gain another one every few seconds, You click on a tile that has already been exposed completely and the scan will further reveal tiles in a radius around it. If the border of your scan is near a resource that's hidden a yellow beam will extend from the tile it's in, and if you include the tile within your scan it will show you the tile's yield. As you begin to uncover the location's resources, you need to immediately begin figuring out how you want to start. For example, if you're finding the planet is heavy on iron, it might be wise to try playing as the Robotics or Expansionist division as steel is a major component for their progress and it will be something you will likely not have to deal with, while on the other hand if iron is short you may want to choose Scavenger as they are not dependent on steel like the other divisions, and also try to snatch the iron and refuse to divulge supply so as to drive the price of steel up and make the competition pay through the nose in order to expand. You'll also want to make sure you do not found your colony too far from the resources you plan on claiming, as blimps use fuel to transport their goods, and if you have lots of long routes then your blimps will -absolutely- chew through your fuel reserves (or lack thereof).

Once you pick your division and landing spot, it's time to start building. Your colony HQ will start at level one, and you will have a handful of claims which are used to...well...claim tiles on the map, which then allow you to build your production buildings. You will learn quickly that in order to thrive, you need to amass claim rights so you can continue building production buildings and the resources which will give you what you need to expand your buildings as well as amass the capital you'll need to trade for goods you may not be able to produce and, ultimately, win. There are three ways to gain claims; upgrading your HQ (which takes resources, such as aluminum, steel, and glass, for example), buying claims from the black market (which become more expensive each time a player buys one - grab em' while they're hot!), and auctions (which often becomes very expensive). Once you've amassed enough capital from the market you've so devilishly cornered, you can proceed to buy out the competition, taking over their buildings and HQ (which you can also upgrade if they haven't and get more claims). There are a handful of other things I haven't touched on: additional black market abilities, special buildings, resources, and patents to name the main ones, but as for the basic gameplay that about covers it.


THE GOOD

- Break from the current status-quo of RTSes
- Moderately in-depth and complex resource and production trees
- Procedural maps, meaning you'll have to fine tune your strategy game to game
- Decent AI
- Promising campaign mode; you get to choose what missions you tackle based on their rewards which will help you upgrade your company for the missions to come.


THE BAD

- Anti-climatic, nonsensical winning condition (You win by buying your competitor out of their own company, which results in the last moments of the game being a frenzied click fest to shotgun your opponents; a mindless-feeling ending for what's supposed to be a strategy game, albeit there is a sort of strategy to when you do commit to the kill.).
- Sub-par interface. Right now the interface "works," but is somewhat ugly and uninformative, namely the important status reports which pop up in small text off to the side. They are difficult to read and sometimes you can miss out on important tidbits such as resource shortages/surpluses or sabotage events (luckily their are fairly obvious audio ques for more important events that draw your attention to them, such as a crushing soda can for an aluminum shortage). In addition, I found that a couple of the special buildings such as the hacker relay lag out the interface when you bring them up, but that's likely due to a simple bug.
- First impressions of the pace of the game make me feel like the gameplay is rushed. I'm not going to make a strong point about this as I don't really have an explanation or concrete examples to point to adequately support the point. After watching the trailer I was expecting the game to determined by who thought the smartest, not the fastest, which it is to a degree, but a major part of the game is jumping on map position and resources before anyone else does. This is probably mostly attributed to the nature of the game being it is a RTS. This may well be something that tradition RTS players like (rushing to gain decisive map control).
- Some strategies can be unbalanced in some circumstances, and can be annoying and feel very gamey at times.


FINAL VERDICT
Should you purchase this game as of the time of this review? Depends, really. I gave this game a recommendation because I, personally, have a fun time with it and I expect it's quality to rise over the next periods of development as I have faith in the credentials of the developers. However, this game is not for everyone, especially at it's price tag. Taking into account what I've experienced as well as what many of my friends have, I would say that for the average consumer ~20$ is a fair price tag for what you're currently getting. Bear in mind, of course, that the game is still in early access and may well be undisputably worthy of it's price tag, but until that day is etched in stone I would simply follow this game and watching where it goes.

Pros:
- Completely playable game with very little bugs, very good for an Early Access Game
- Competent AI
- Single/Multiplayer Skirmishes are fast paced and intense(even vs AI)
- A breathe of fresh air for the Strategy/4X genre
- Intuitive Interface, for a complex economic game, the interface makes it easy to understand things
- Every map is different, this means you or any other person cannot rely on the same strategy everytime and will have to adjust their playstyles accordingly

Cons:
- A bit too pricey for an Early Access Game
- Multiplayer games are hosted by Players, lags later in the game is nearly inevitable
- Single Player Campaign feels a bit too short in comparison to other Strategy/4X games (Civ, Total War & etc)
- Games are shorter in comparison to your standard Strategy/4X games.
- The game targets a very niche market, thus this may be a boring game to someone and an addicting game to another
- Needs more polishing on the interface (e.g. Events Notification is nearly unnoticeable if not for the SFX accompanying an event)

Verdict:
The game delivers what it promises, if you like what you see(check out Mohawk Games youtube channel and watch some VODs) and don't mind shelling out a high price for an Early Access Game, then it is a good buy. While the game is still in early access, the foundations of the gameplay itself is well polished. However there are still a lot of room to grow for this game and one may get frustrated or regret his or her purchase. If you are a 4X or Strategy games enthusiast I suggest buying this game, otherwise waiting for a sale may be a wiser choice.

Mohawk Games: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasmHPTajRU9kXWHjJqJD_g

If You like board games, playing with people on multiplayer than ist game for You (but still much overpriced - i suggest buying it on sale or something). I suppose its game for like 20-40 hours depending on how much You like playing with people on multiplayer. Its rather casual game, that you will return to play a match from time to time.

Good:
- Something fresh
- Nicely done
- Easy to play

Bad:
- AI is dumb, easy to beat
- Short campaign
- Much overpriced
- No dedicated servers on multiplayer so in 90% cases -> You finish the host, he quits, and game stops, throwing all of other players to the lobby.

I give it a plus, because its nice game, and gives a lot of fun, but beware ITS MUCH MUCH OVERPRICED. Its rather worth like 20 USD, so I suggest to wait on some sale.

I can't recommend the game right now; obviously it's Early Access, so I write this more to inform other people to probably wait to see how it improves. Even with all possible features they could put into this game; it's almost insultingly overpriced.

It just needs a little more 'something' in the game at its current price point. From what I got from playing, I felt like it should have been priced around $20 max. I'd ceretainly appreciate to hear from the developers as to why they believe the cost of the game is this high. The only reason I purchased it is because I'm usually the person that grabs games of interest in our community and I let them know if it's worth it or not. I can't recommend it at this price point.

The UI needs some works; it's pretty sluggish. The 'Notification' system is lackluster and need polish. They just pop-up in the lower-right corner 'Chat Window' so you really need to keep an eye on it at all times so you know when things are going to be effecting you.

Don't expect to just jump in this game and know what to do; it has a high learning curve so expect to spend some time figuring a few things out before you get to know what you're doing so you can beat other players.

The fact that an AI (or a player) can just race to earn a ton of cash, and then buy people out... is a silly win condition. I understand it's a 'Trading Game' and that's sorta the point; but I think there needs to be more to it than just "Stockpile Cash -> Insta Buy-Out Player" - You learn to counter this by buying your own stock of course, when possible.

I expect to see a lot more from this game at this price though; and I just don't see the value yet. I'm going to keep playing over the weekend and I'll update this review after a few more play sessions.

---------- Review Update -------------

I still can't really recommend it yet. Winning doesn't really feel like anything special. Here's why; you spend most of the game just attempting to get a good supply of things going, then in the last 2-3 minutes of the game everyone scrambles to start 'Selling All Their Stuff' so you can just buy everyone else out.

This seems extremely anti-climatic to me; I feel like they just don't have any other ideas on how you can 'win' at the game. Once someone starts buying the stocks... it's just a silly race to finish buying everyone out in the next minute or two.

So here's my constructive feedback on 'How To Win' should be done in the game. Since it's about "Saving Humanity" and all that... you shouldn't be buying stock on the other companies; instead players should be 'Offworlding' their goods to "Earth" in order to 'Save Humanity'. The first 'Trade Company' to meet the demands of "Earth" should win. You could have "Earth" have random demands every game, or even shift/change in the middle of it if you want to get crazy.

It's odd that that isn't how you win? Maybe it is? But all my games always just end up being "Stock Buyout Races". Who can press the minus and plus buttons faster than the other.

TL;DR Version - Winning isn't rewarding; the game builds you up, but just doesn't know how to finish yet.

First Impressions:

I was super-excited when I first learned about this title, as there aren't many economic RTS's out on the market right now (if any). I finally don't have to worry about memorizing hot-keys to queue up marines or peons or whatever else I may need to reach my keystroke per second quota. Instead, players will each get a HQ, choose a business model, and attempt to buy out their competition by buying low and selling high. This game features both raw materials and finished goods, with the price of each being affected by supply and demand. It reminds me of "Sid Meier's Railroads" a bit, though you are limited in your building placement by "claims"...that is, a resource that allows you to unlock one hex on the map for your personal use. There's a bit of a learning curve and the AI can be somewhat difficult, but I found myself wanting more with each gameplay session. The $40 price is a concern for those on a tight budget, but for those who can afford it (and love the idea of an economic RTS) should pick it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGXR8SzE3fw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m05pYvDPng8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dLV0ZrHbc

This is a great economic game. The goal is to buy out your opponents by gaining resources and selling them at the highest values you can get. You can do it like a goodly market competitor or you can relish in the lamentations of your enemies by crushing them with some dirty tactics. Oh you took over that resource I wanted? That's okay, I'm just going to nuke it. Oh you're going to sell water til price plummets? Well I'm going to hack the market and triple the value! Now I see why EA likes being EA so much... screwing competitors and customers is just so much fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7oe4gx8JOY

When I bought this game, I though that it would be something different than what it is; and, I feel many of those not recommending this game made that same mistake. What this game is NOT is an economic/city builder simulation where you continually grow (ie a 4X).

What it IS is a resource management RTS (others have gone into further detail) - probably the first of its kind (at least the first that I've played). In any case, it is very innovative and very good for what it is, in my opinion.

I read through the other reviews to see if there was anything that I could add to what others have said, because I agree with most of the things that have been said about the game. One thng that I others haven't really talked about is how much strategy is actually involved in the game.

First of all, others haven't really talked about how important the stock market actually is. As others have said, the ultimate goal of the game is to buy out your oponents stock; and conversely you must defend your own stock. Your stock price (and I might be a litttle bit wrong here) is based off of your net assets; that is the value of all your resources, buildings (including your home colony), minus any debt that you may have accrued; but more importantly, it also includes the value of any stock you buy in other (your opponent's) companies (also maybe your own?). The part I'm not sure about is how much the actual buying/selling of shares actually influences price. At the beginning everyone's stock price is low but it rises as the game progresses. If you can buy shares early on, not only will it make it easier for you to defeat your opponents in the end, you will make it much harder for them to beat you, since the progress they have made during the game has driven up your own stock price.

Secondly, the fundamental question that the game asks the player is what is the the best/most profitable way for me to use my limited resources. By resources I mean the game's 12? resources (basic like iron or water, or advanced like electronics or chemicals), your cash, and most importantly the number of claims you have. Your claims equal the number of buidlings you can have and so are the limiting factor to your profit; that is you must maximize the profit from your limited number of claims. this raises a number of interesting questions and decisions. It may be profitable to scrap buildings for others if market prices for an output are much higher than the input, if you can buy a stockpile at a low price, or if you already have a stockpile. You may want to turn off a building if the input is more expensive than the output. Another result of this is that you are always (or should be) watching the prices on the market, and be aware of how they relate to the other resources. Another result is that watching what your opponents are doing is important - they are working in the same market as you so, if they over or underproduce certain resources you can use that to your advantage.

This is where the black market comes in. I agree with others that some of the sabotages are overpowered - but you need to remember, this game is still in early access so balancing issues should be ironed out. However, what they are not is underpriced; if the price is low, that just means that the players aren't using the market to their full advantage. The prices grows incrementally, so by the late game they should already be expensive. And as I said above, what your opponents produce - or don't, in this case - affects the prices you buy and sell at, so you can use sabotages to help you as well as hinder your opponents.

Anyways, this got much longer than I intended, and I'm not sure how clear it was; but, I just want to say that I'm enjoying the game as it is, and eagerly await any improvements.

Performance issues fixed (overall)

10/10

$40 might be a stretch. $30 would be OK. $25 would be ideal. $20 - buy on the spot

Offworld Trading Company is a new type of real-time strategy game, it's not a combat-war type RTS, it's a numbers-war type game, it's a player-driven, market-driven game, where money and resources is power, and power is law.

From when it was announced, I loved the simple graphics, and playing it now I'm loving how it looks, the simplicity in the design, the deep colors, the nice eye candy effects, and the quick but charming animations, all of which are splendidly made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRt0h_e2fiQ&feature=youtu.be

There isn't a story of the sense that there's a campaign with that's lengthy with a big story to tell and characters to meet, it's only where you have to be the best of the best company that should represent what the future life of the human race, in terms of the market life. But in the campaign itself, you start off with limited equipment, and as you progress through it you will start to unlock what's been locked by purchasing them, until you got everything and finish the the campaign. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm working there.

Notice: This game does not have an offline mode yet.

The gameplay itself is the same as an RTS Command & Conquer, but with a mix of a hex-based movement / placement like a Civilization game, and sort of a mix of an Anno game with how building and trading is. Combined with the new idea, one that at least I haven't seen, of power management in the market area by gathering resources, buying and sell them, advancing your buildings to produce more materials, try do some shady tactics to over power your competitors. It's new and fun, and what I like about it is that it's simple yet complicated in a way, simple enough for most to learn.

At first I was skeptical with what the game is facing the price that it has, but after playing the first 3 tutorial levels, I fell in love with it, so my skepticism went away and I was happy with the game and the price, obviously followed with playing outside of the tutorial of course, playing the single player content and multiplayer. I see my self playing this for a while, and I was kind of hungry for this type of game, so win win. Also, while the game is sufficient enough to keep it self going for some time, I wouldn't mind seeing more buildings and units to play around with, just more content.

Shameless link to original post.

I'm reviewing this in its current state. I'll keep updating this review as updates get released.

Decent game - has tons of potential, but it's just too bland and predictable to recommend right now. I agree with other reviewers that say that it just needs an extra "something" to be fun (differing AI, more varied games, much better balancing, definitely optimization).

The part that I dislike the most is the balancing of the black market. It's way too easy to buy an EMP to use on your opponents (and likewise for your opponents to use on you). The only games I've won have been games where I constantly buy EMP's and disable my opponent's power plants or water sources. This definitely needs to be balanced by maybe making them much more expensive and much less powerful. I'm sure these will be balanced out over time.

*Edit: As mentioned in the comments, you can disable the black market at the start of the game. This is actually how I prefer to play since then the AI can't gang up on you and take away any advantages that you were smart enough to get at the beginning of the game. I know this works both ways, but personally, I enjoy planning out everything without having to worry about the black market. Maybe I'll come around to it with future updates.*

Overall, currently, I don't think it's worth the price tag unless you want to be a part of the development process, but it may be in the future. I'm looking forward to updates, as this game could be great!

Update: They've definitely been listening to the players with their updates, and they've updated the game twice since release which is great! Nothing major that I can notice, but small tweaks that make a significant difference. I'll keep updating as things progress.

Have you ever played an RTS or 4X game and thought "I wish non-military victories were more viable?" Well let me tell you about Offworld Trading Company.

In Offworld, you are a company looking to compete with other startups and get rich by mining Mars for as much of the thirteen available resources as possible and drive opponents out of business. There are NO military units. Economic victory is the only victory.

There are four factions, but you don't select one until you've had the chance to survey the map. Resource availability and diversity is randomly generated, giving you the chance to plant the faction you think is best for the environment. APM will not save you, Starcraft fans. Resource tile claims are very limited. You will NEVER have all thirteen resources immediately. Some can be extracted on the spot, and others can only be produced by combining resources. What you can't collect yourself, you can purchase in an always available market where prices fluctuate on your behavior and the behavior of your opponents.

Your "score" is your Share Price. It is your net worth minus your debt. You defet other players by buying up massive amounts of their increasingly expensive shares. When you purchase all of their shares, you get everything they've been building. Your goal is to buyout all the other players.

The "essential" resources are Water, Oxygen, Food, Fuel and Power. Will your colony starve if you lack them? NO! "Starvation" does not exist, unlike Civ. You will automatically buy what you need from the market passively and accumulate Debt instead. Scrambling to acquire them all initially to avoid debt is a beginner's (or Civ player's) mistake. What good is staving off debt if you grab all those things without producing precious Aluminum or Steel to allow you to upgrade your headquarters and edge closer to victory? At the same time, you can't ignore them forever, because too much debt reduces your Share Price, allowing players to buy you more easily.

As you upgrade your headquarters, you are provided handfuls of more claims to tiles to help you collect and produce more resources, and build fancier buildings that will help you generate the wealth you need to buyout your opponents.

And then Sabatoge comes into play. Just because there's no militaries doesn't mean you can't take your opponents down a peg. The Black Market opens at regular intervals, allowing players to buy EMPs to temporarily disable opposing buildings, fake Mutinies to steal buildings, Dynamite to destroy buildings, or devastating, nonlethal Underground Nukes to permanently reduce the yield of an opponent's production tile. You can also buy precious claims when you want just one more building without having to upgrade, or Goon Squads that defend buildings from attacks (and then throw them back at opponents).

There are four factions. Three of them are human and require Water, Oxygen and Food. The Expansive humans are great if you're hungry for lots of tiles, because they get an extra Claim on a tile every time they upgrade. They also require less Steel for upgrades. The Robotic colony doesn't care about Water, Food or Oxygen, but instead require Electronics (the final, most expensive resource) as well as massive amounts of Power. Scientific colonies have the unique ability to plant production facilities directly on top of a raw resource, therby "skipping" a step. This is huge if you use it carefully. My favorite faction, Scavengers, use Carbon instead of Steel and can use the Black Market more frequently. They are my favorite because while other players are fighting over Iron and spending claims changing that same Iron into Steel, I can just use Carbon for everything (yet they are useless on a map where I can't find Carbon.) Again, when you play the game, you scan the map for resources FIRST and then choose the faction you think will work best with what you can grab.

As of March 2015 the game is aesthetically rough. There are only two songs, simple, loud sound effects, and placeholder robotic voices to announce events in game. Still, I cannot put this game down. Its positively brilliant and addictive, and it will only get better as the game develops.