Offworld Trading Company

[Quintillus]

It's kind of odd to me that this game's thread never got much traffic, given its heritage as a Soren Johnson game. Maybe we just really like turn-based games on this forum?

Anyway, I revisited it, and enjoyed it more than the first go-round, winning another campaign as a Scientific faction. Why did I enjoy it more? Well, part of it was the Scientific mode of play, being able to go directly from raw materials to finish products. But it was also in part because I discovered I could slow down the game speed. Could I do that several years ago or was it in an update? I'm not sure. But it took the game from "just barely able to keep up with what's going on and it's chaotic" to "have enough time to evaluate what's going on and not running around like my hair is on fire."

I'd recommend the "Snail" speed, which seems to be half of regular speed, to any turn-based 4X gamers who give Offworld a try. The market prices can change awfully quickly, those pirates or EMP blastwaves can show up quickly too, and the two speeds slower than normal take it to a much more Civ-like pace.

 

[Kyriakos]

Is this the better space city-builder (or similar)?
If not, can you suggest others?

 

[Patine]

Is this the better space city-builder (or similar)?
If not, can you suggest others?

I'm not really sure they're going to admit to being an inferior game in the genre (if they actually even happen to be, which is subjective after all), and refer you to another one right off the bat in a thread dedicated to promoting this game. That seems very odd to ask.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm not really sure they're going to admit to being an inferior game in the genre (if they actually even happen to be, which is subjective after all), and refer you to another one right off the bat in a thread dedicated to promoting this game. That seems very odd to ask.

Indeed. Since sometimes non company representatives (eg The_J) start threads here, I thought it was the case with this too.
Although maybe The_J has a side-gig with computer games

 

[Dale]

Don't worry, we don't corrupt @The_J with bribes to start/comment on our game threads.

But as for the topic at hand, yeah give the game a go! It's a fantastic colonisation-resource-competition game.

 

[Quintillus]

It's not really a city builder... economic-resource-competition would be more accurate. It's also a shorter game loop, instead of hours building a city, you'll spend 30-60 minutes on a game, depending on speed and how quickly the competition wraps up, before the game ends. More Age of Empires than Civilization in pacing.

But it is a lot of fun. Even as someone who's played very few RTS games (traditional RTS, not pausable-real-time like Paradox titles) since Age of Empires III stole me away from Civ III shortly before I joined CivFanatics.

Although it is fun admiring my fleet of absurdly profitable solar panels, only for oversupply to tip them into making barely anything.