Offworld Trading Company

[Sirian]

I do really well with Expansive HQ, so any time I can pick that, I'm not likely to struggle. Unless the map and/or scenario conditions heavily favor another HQ type, but I am comfortable with them all.

The only initial scenario that gave me trouble was the Science HQ one, so I am just not remembering the details. Sorry that's not much help.


- Sirian

[Cheater Hater]

I do really well with Expansive HQ, so any time I can pick that, I'm not likely to struggle. Unless the map and/or scenario conditions heavily favor another HQ type, but I am comfortable with them all.

How can I tell what HQ the map favors? The tutorial map doesn't seem constrained on many/any resources, and there aren't any good locations that give you access to all but one resource.

Edit: Another try, another seemingly good start, another time where the price of everything I produce tanks and I fall hopelessly behind with no signs of what I'm doing wrong--I give up.

[Old Harry]

Have you been demolishing unproductive buildings and swapping in more profitable ones? I also like hijacking profitable ones from whoever is doing well if that option is available.

I recently came back to the daily challenge and totally failed though so perhaps the game got harder.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, the game gets harder every time I come back to it, I haven't played in a while and am now even scared to touch. The new animations look really cool though.

Some perhaps outdated advice:

Claim rare high-quality tiles even if you don't produce on them.
Its totally cool to ignore the underlying resources and use claims just as real estate. Turn those aluminium mines into chemcial factories if you need to.
And you do need to, chemicals are great. Slant drilling is great. Nanotech is great. Teleportation is great.
You see others moving actively into an industry? Dump your stockpile in that resource, destroy the buildings and build something else. Don't even wait for industries to become unprofitable, and always keep a stockpile of your current cash crop, so you can adversely move the market against incoming competitors.
Have all resources tanked? Delete everything and build some research centres, research until stuff is expensive again.

[v8mark]

I do really well with Expansive HQ, so any time I can pick that, I'm not likely to struggle. Unless the map and/or scenario conditions heavily favor another HQ type, but I am comfortable with them all.

How can I tell what HQ the map favors?  The tutorial map doesn't seem constrained on many/any resources, and there aren't any good locations that give you access to all but one resource.

Edit: Another try, another seemingly good start, another time where the price of everything I produce tanks and I fall hopelessly behind with no signs of what I'm doing wrong--I give up.

Hey - I just recorded a blind playthrough with commentary of Managing Expectations. Hopefully this gives you a few pointers. It's a pretty standard Manager AI skirmish with some oddities because of its age (the scanning start, normal prices across the board). I didn't play the cleanest game ever, but the commentary should give you some sort of idea of what to be thinking about at different points of the game.

(I'm a pretty experienced player btw, and active in MP.)

[Cheater Hater]

Hey - I just recorded a blind playthrough with commentary of Managing Expectations. Hopefully this gives you a few pointers. It's a pretty standard Manager AI skirmish with some oddities because of its age (the scanning start, normal prices across the board). I didn't play the cleanest game ever, but the commentary should give you some sort of idea of what to be thinking about at different points of the game.

(I'm a pretty experienced player btw, and active in MP.)

Thanks, I'll look at that soon when I get a chance. What do you mean by it being "old" though--have they changed how MP works since those tutorials have been made?

Other comments from the thread (nice to see this got going at least--it certainly deserves to be seen, even if I suck at it):
* I've figured out to swap out of unprofitable buildings (including raw resource production), but in a lot of cases it feels like the friction of swapping between buildings is hurting a lot (especially for expensive buildings that require glass). I also can't look ahead and see what the prices will be later (even before considering random events).
* Again, when should I be using the Black Market? Most of the options there either are too focused on one opponent or are paying for a temporary benefit (even before you consider the risk of them being Goon Squaded).
* Same question about the special buildings, when should I build them? I think my last run was hurt by building a Patent Lab early that I could never use (because I never had the money to spare). I recognize the Patents are mostly very powerful, but it feels like their payback time is way too long by the time I finally can afford to research them.
* When do I have the spare claims for high-quality tiles? You have three claims to start, and at least two of them need to be invested in building materials to get out your HQ upgrades in a reasonable timeframe. I'm also weary about claiming tiles that are too far away due to fuel always spiking (and then water spiking alongside it, making the Fuel building unprofitable).
* Is there any way to tell what everyone else is producing without manually scanning the map? It feels like there should be some kind of graphs/charts (like the end of game stuff), but I don't know where to find it in the main interface.
* If everything tanks, I'm basically dead. Until the far late game (when I've already lost) I have almost no spare money in my bank account because I'm spending it as soon as possible (upgrading my HQ ASAP, auto-supplying my profitable buildings, building things with materials I don't have, etc)--presumably I'm doing something wrong here (probably keeping too much inventory, but most of my inventory in the early game is stuff to upgrade my HQ), but I have no idea how to change it.

[v8mark]

What do you mean by it being "old" though--have they changed how MP works since those tutorials have been made?

Yep - the 'reveal map' option is the one used for multiplayer now. Rather than scanning, you see the whole map. Early founds are punished with excessive debt (there's a debt ticker that ticks down to zero). It's a much better start to the game, IMO at least.

* Again, when should I be using the Black Market? Most of the options there either are too focused on one opponent or are paying for a temporary benefit (even before you consider the risk of them being Goon Squaded).

Early/mid game, the black market is almost always worth it. It should almost never be off cooldown. Snap up claims as soon as you can afford to, and buy goons as quickly as you can as well. Then once goons are expensive, start pinging other people with surges/EMPs. The value you get from it is too high to ignore it.

* Same question about the special buildings, when should I build them? I think my last run was hurt by building a Patent Lab early that I could never use (because I never had the money to spare). I recognize the Patents are mostly very powerful, but it feels like their payback time is way too long by the time I finally can afford to research them.

There was a eureka moment for me with patents - I often ran into the same sort of problems you did, until I realized that I needed to check the price of chems! If chems are cheap ($100 or less) a lot of patents are very valuable. Much higher than that and you have to plan a bit more, because the investment is a lot higher. But one of the most damaging mistakes you can make is to commit into a patent lab with chems at $230, and not be able to afford to research any patents.

* When do I have the spare claims for high-quality tiles? You have three claims to start, and at least two of them need to be invested in building materials to get out your HQ upgrades in a reasonable timeframe. I'm also weary about claiming tiles that are too far away due to fuel always spiking (and then water spiking alongside it, making the Fuel building unprofitable).

It depends. If there are claims on the black market you'll often have a couple to spare for money makers. As a rough build order: HQ1 upgrade materials, HQ2 water (+ maybe life support), HQ3 power, HQ4 advanced buildings and manufacturing (whatever's profitable). That's a VERY rough build order though - you're likely to deviate from it in some way almost every game.

* Is there any way to tell what everyone else is producing without manually scanning the map? It feels like there should be some kind of graphs/charts (like the end of game stuff), but I don't know where to find it in the main interface.

Short answer is no. But sometimes you can get a sense of a general price trend from the spark line in the background of the unit price. If it's trending down, it's because it's being produced (and sold). If it's trending up, it's probably a safe market -- but do check the map in case someone is producing it and holding the price high artificially. (AIs almost never do this, though.)

* If everything tanks, I'm basically dead. Until the far late game (when I've already lost) I have almost no spare money in my bank account because I'm spending it as soon as possible (upgrading my HQ ASAP, auto-supplying my profitable buildings, building things with materials I don't have, etc)--presumably I'm doing something wrong here (probably keeping too much inventory, but most of my inventory in the early game is stuff to upgrade my HQ), but I have no idea how to change it.

If everything tanks, two things will make you money whatever: Offworlds and Pleasure Domes. You should almost always plan to build two Offworlds, unless prices offworld are really terrible and prices onworld are very high. Pleasure Domes make money whatever the prices are, and particularly if you can get Virtual Reality it's a reliable cash source.

[Cheater Hater]

Watching the playthrough now, I'll take note of interesting things here:
* Choosing a spot where you don't need both iron and aluminum makes sense; and immediately buying what you don't have makes sense
* 12 minutes in, the main thing I'm seeing is that you're getting ahead of movements for your upgrades instead of just waiting and buying them when you need them. I'm also surprised that you're already thinking of buying someone out--I get that buying them out before they can buy themselves is nice (though I'm wondering more-generally if buying your own stock is mostly a "lose slowly" move?), but what's your upside?
* Can you talk about how you're laying out your nearby claims? You've been laying them out in long chains, while I've been clustering them all near the HQ--I understand that it helps defend against some of the black market weapons, but wouldn't it cost more in transport costs (before Teleportation)? Or does everything connected to the HQ have no transport costs? Is there any other reason for the spread-out layout?
* Another "duh" moment--you can spend a lot more chemicals instead of selling them to the market unlike the other resources (which mostly dry up once everyone's leveled their HQ other than the Offworld Market) so the normal market for them will almost always be profitable
* The black market is getting really expensive late game when you use it on cooldown (exclusively on claims, Mutinies and Goons)--is it really worth 50k to Mutiny back one water pump? And for that matter, wouldn't it be worth more to take someone else's water for the same time when you have to delay it a bit--presumably you're just afraid of an opposing Goons (is there a way to tell who's bought what on the black market before it's used? Probably not since it's the "black market" )

Overall very interesting--I'll try another run using some of these ideas.

[v8mark]

Glad it's useful! I'll have a go at answering some of the questions:

The early buy-out is definitely worth thinking about if you get an early lead and have a lot of cash. The main upside is that you get a huge stock price increase (in my situation, it would have pushed my stock above $30) and you get 60% of a subsidiary, which is usually a very strong source of income. Additionally of course you eliminate a rival. Think of it as equivalent to an axe rush in Civ - if successful you get 2 capitals (or a sub, in this case) and extra defence (higher stock price) at the cost of a large initial investment.

Base layout: first of all, there's no shipping for connected buildings at all - you get resources instantly. And I was generally trying to keep everything as separate as possible for black market defence. That's the primary concern - Reni, for example, was very easy to shut down with a single power surge. It's worth paying attention to what's on the black market; if it's EMPs and not power surges, lines are better than clumps, because the effect is AoE. (Side note: important buildings were next to the HQ for the Thinking Machines bonus!)

Chems: not always profitable, but usually a good bet if prices in general are high, because people are going to be optimising. Make sure you have a plan for the carbon, though, and make sure fuel is under control.

Black market: 50k for the water pump was expensive - perhaps too expensive. But not excessively so; it was bringing in roughly 5 water/sec with optimisations and adjacency, and water was up at 150 or so. So 150*5*120? About 90k in terms of absolute value over the duration (and some amount of denial to an opponent). Definitely worth it in absolute terms, but of course there's still an opportunity cost. And yes, I could have taken his instead, but as you said you risk hitting a goon. There's no way to see who's bought what, but of course you can tell how many of something has been bought by its price.

Let us know how the next attempt goes - and feel free to post a replay for critique if you like.

[v8mark]

Oh, one more thing that's important. Buying your own stock is generally a good idea if you have advantages in the late game, because it basically extends the game. That was why I bought some of my own stock in the mid game before going for Reni - I had the extra Expansive claims, some more black market claims, a bunch of good patents and some optimisations, so I was confident that if the game went long, I'd be in a stronger position.