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1995-01-12
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IRON OX, Version 2.01
(C)opyright 1994, Joel W. Downer
THE SCENARIO
In the 23rd century, all of Earth's frontiers have been exhausted (even
the oceans have been drained, pursuant to the Deforestation and
Environmental Degradation Act of 2214). With the mountains strip-mined
to dust and the entire planet bare of luxite, the vital mineral needed
for supralight travel, corporations have had to turn to other worlds to
find virgin nature to plunder.
They're accomplishing this rapine at a record pace by enlisting
independent landowners. The corporations transport land-hungry
colonists to new worlds, parcel out territory to them as rapidly as the
colonists can develop it, and then purchase the colony's products at
embarrassingly low prices. (This game is virtually free of violence,
but it's not short on exploitation....)
You are one of these colonists, looking for a world with clean air, tall
mountains, and an open horizon so that you can bless it with smog,
mines, and solar panels. With the help of iron oxen -- multipurpose,
automated robotic harvesters -- you're going to find a way to make
nature work for your profit.
THE GAME
Iron Ox games support from one human player (playing against the
computer) to a maximum of eight. Individual games may last anywhere
from a week up to several months: You decide when you create the game.
The door supports up to 255 active games, so you may be involved in many
games at once. (The maximum number of games you can play at one time is
set by your sysop, and is limited to three in the unregistered version.)
Iron Ox is a game of strategy, intense competition, and just a little
bit of goofy humor. It will test skills you didn't know you had -- from
your ability to manage a large estate of mines and farmland to your
ability to write bad poetry. The game involves a number of different
layers of strategy, so you may be able to master the basics in a short
time, but you can play for months or even years without completely
exhausting the possibilities.
Game play is based on turns (usually one per day), which equate to
"months" for your character. The game advances to a new month (and you
can take another turn) when everyone in the game has had a chance to
play or when a day has passed since the last turn ended. (In other
words, if a game has four players and you're the fourth one to play, you
can go right back in and take your turn for the next month as soon as
you're done.) If you're playing entirely against the computer, you can
play many turns, even playing a game from start to finish, in a single
session. (Both your ability to play games wholly against the computer
and the number of turns you can take per day are configured by your
sysop.)
STARTING AND JOINING GAMES
When you join or start games from the main menu, you will choose an
alias by which people will know you in that game. You also choose what
species you want to be -- you can be human, or any of several non-human
races. Some advice on the advantages and disadvantages of various races
appears later on.
If you start a game rather than joining an existing game, you will have
the option to make a number of decisions about the "shape" of the world
-- for example, how big the map is, how long the game will last, how
many computer players will participate, and how hard the game will be.
Here are some tips on shaping a game that will be fun to play:
1. If you've never played before, don't worry about all the options --
just accept the defaults. The default configuration is intended to
be just right for new players.
2. When you do start trying new configurations, be warned that bigger
isn't always better. In fact, it's usually true in Iron Ox that
bigger means *harder*. A game with more players, a longer duration,
and a bigger map will be harder to survive than a smaller one.
3. Listen to the game's advice (even if you decide not to follow it).
The game will advise you, for example, on the best map size to fit
the game length you selected.
Whether you started a new game or joined a game someone else started,
you will also be allowed to vote on whether to get the game underway as
soon as possible or to wait for more people to join. Once the minimum
number of players have joined and a majority of votes are to start, the
game will be underway and can advance past its first turn. From that
point on, the only way a new player can join the game is by taking over
a computer player.
If you have played Iron Ox 1.x, you will find Iron Ox 2.x to be much
freer-flowing and more fast-paced. Instead of waiting for other people
to join, you can start a game and immediately play several turns against
the AI players. At any time during the game, other people can join by
taking over for AI players.
THE COLONY
The river valley you are conquering is divided into a number of plots,
labelled with numbers and letters. The size of the map may vary from
5 to 55 rows high, but is always 12 columns (A-L) wide. When the map is
more than 5 rows high, not all of it will be visible on the screen at
one time; you can use the "+" and "-" keys at the major menus to move
around.
Squares on the map can produce any of four materials:
The Product Is Produced Best By Value
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Food River Land Keeps Your Character Alive
Energy Desert Land Keeps Your Oxen Running
Mineral Ore Mountainous Land Needed by Store to Make Oxen
Luxite ??????????? Worth a Lot of Money! <g>
Luxite is the most valuable material you can produce, but it can be
tricky to find -- it may be anywhere, and mining for it at random is a
waste of time. The Prospector's Office can tell you how much luxite
may be found in individual map squares, but only for a price.
On Beginner's level, you can trust your eyes when you choose land from
anywhere on the map, but be warned! On Intermediate and higher levels,
the initial land survey is sometimes mistaken. You may want to search
or prospect land before you claim it to make sure it's what it appears
to be. Searching plots has a fringe benefit: Other players may hide
their surplus products on unclaimed plots on the map, and if you find
them, they're yours!
You will be able to claim one square of land per turn. (Opportunities
to buy extra land will come up from time to time.) Before your land
will make anything for you, you will have to purchase an iron ox at
Oxware, Etc., and program the ox to produce the materials you want.
You start the game with six units of food and six units of energy, and
you can buy and sell products at the General Store. However, you will
want to make sure that you assign some squares to produce food or energy,
because other players and various disasters can wipe out the inventory
at the store, leaving you in peril of starvation!
The self-employed work very long days, and you're no exception:
Depending on your race, you will have between 10 and 22 hours a day to
work (less if you're short on food).
Game Activity Hours Deducted
----------------------------------------------
Claiming Land 2 hours
Buying a New Ox 1 hour
Changing an Ox's Job 1 hour
Prospecting for Luxite 1 hour (or more)
Searching Land 1 hour (or more)
Hiding Products 1 hour (or more)
Visiting the General Store 1 hour
Going to the Bank 2 hours
Visiting the Saloon none (that's rest and relaxation!)
Entering/Bidding on Auctions none (perhaps you use a cellular phone...)
Trading with Other Players none (cellular phone again...)
Joining/Trading w/ Commune none (you know the story by now...)
Changing Your Name none
Dirty Tricks on Other Players variable
Catching a Ride Home none, but it gnaws at your conscience!
If you have game time left over at the end of your turn, you can do odd
jobs to make extra money.
The game offers a variety of options that you'll learn best by
exploring. The Planetary News Office will allow you to review the
history of the game and post announcements for other players to read.
The Saloon will allow you to shoot the bull with other players, buy
drinks, and enter and vote on the Planetary Cultural Competition, not to
mention waste your free hours and coins on the infamous Rat Race. Dirty
Tricks give you a way to make life difficult for other players ... if
you can get away with it!
HOW TO WIN THE GAME
Your score in this game is based on the estimated value of your property
in credits. Land is the most valuable kind of property -- worth
thousands of credits -- but food, ore, energy, luxite, and money are
counted, too. Remember that the score values of different products are
based on the prices at the beginning of the game, not the fluctuating
colony-side economy: Sometimes selling your products can help your
score, and sometimes it's best to hold onto them.
Each game has winners and losers. The door also keeps track of overall
score -- your total points for all the games you've played. The overall
score (which you can view with (L)ist Scores from the Main Menu) is
cumulative (it includes points from games that have finished); it resets
monthly, or on some other schedule set by your sysop. When you take
over for a computer-controlled player part-way through a game, your
monthly score is credited for everything you do *after* you take over
the character, but you don't get credit for all the points the AI
accumulated.
If you're playing the registered version of Iron Ox and your sysop has
enabled time prizes, you may be able to win extra on-line time through
skillful play.
The door keeps track of all-time records: highest individual score and
highest margin of victory. It also keeps records for the games with the
highest *overall* score for the colony (the property of all the players
added together). Would you rather run up a high score at the expense of
other players, or work for the overall good of the colony? It's up to
you.
THE RACES
Inside the game, you'll find a catalog of all the races you're allowed
to play, along with ANSI pictures and descriptions. Here, though, is a
little general advice about each race:
Human: The baseline for comparison -- average at everything.
Rockpicker: Good miner and very good at dirty tricks, but not the best
choice for beginners. Vulnerable to starvation, and greatly
mistrusted by everyone.
Slouch: Not much good at anything, but very lucky.
Caper: Very talented -- good at almost everything! -- but works short
hours and takes frequent vacations. Keep an eye on the boredom
monitor in the game status screen. Don't work too hard, and try to
keep entertained!
Photovore: Very powerful character, but tricky to use to its fullest
advantage. Doesn't mine well, but excellent at making food and
energy. Lots of hours per day to play with, and invulnerable to
starvation. A beginner might not be able to use the Photovore to its
full potential, but the generous number of hours can be a good way
to learn.
Shovelfist: Great miner, but unlucky and not especially clever.
Vulnerable to starvation. People pick on Shovelfists.
Rubblemuncher: Invulnerable to starvation (like the Photovore) and
*great* at making ore. However, this character doesn't get many
hours per day, and may have trouble making enough energy to meet
its needs.
Handler: Not much good at making things, but decent at dirty tricks and
*very* good at bartering. Mostly a character for advanced players
and team play.
Metamorph: Very attractive character because of its ability to change
shapes! The best way to use a Metamorph is to change shape into
something the colony is likely to be short on (e.g., to change into a
Rubblemuncher when no one in the colony is good at making ore). Note
that changing shape will disable your character for a full turn, so
it's not a decision you should make lightly.
The best choices for beginning players are the Human, Slouch, Caper, and
Photovore.
NICE, NASTY, OR BOTH?
After you've played Iron Ox for a while, the basics -- claiming land,
buying oxen, buying and selling product at the store -- will start to
seem simple. You won't have seen that "Warning: Eat or Die!" message
for a while, and those natural disasters that used to frustrate you so
much will start to look like neat opportunities because they drive the
purchase prices at the store so high. "So," you say, "is that all there
is to learn? This is too easy!"
The truth is that you're now ready to start learning the real heart of
the game: how to interact with other players and drive your score up
and/or their scores down.
Iron Ox includes dozens of different ways for you to help or harm other
players. Some of those ways support a friendly, cooperative style of
play where everyone comes out on top. Others are designed for those
hard-hearted, ruthless, malicious players who think that cooperation
died with the Soviet Empire.
Naturally, you will have to experiment to learn which tactics work well
for you, but here is some basic information on a few of the best ones:
The Nice Stuff
Auctions Do you have extra energy when you know there's a
shortage? Put it up for auction, and you can pass it
along to the highest bidder. The advantage of auctions
is that the competition can drive up prices; the
disadvantage is that they are slow and give you limited
control over where your product ends up.
Trade Deals Unlike an auction, a trade deal can happen very quickly
-- the recipient can accept or reject as soon as he or
she receives it, sometimes in the same turn as the deal
was offered. However, a trade deal is an all-or-nothing
proposition, and there's no bidding: You choose a single
player and make that player an offer.
Trade deals offer a fast way to exchange products
*without* the risks of joining a commune. Team players
who use trade deals effectively can achieve scores
impossible for solo players.
Communes The most powerful form of cooperation is to found or join
a commune. (No, being a member of a commune doesn't make
you a Communist, though some Rockpickers think so. <g>)
Members of communes still hold onto private property, but
they can trade it back and forth with other commune
members without waiting for confirmation, and can view
information about fellow members that they ordinarily
could only see by spying. Because the philosophy of
communes is "all for one and one for all," scores for
commune members are averaged across the entire commune.
Warning: Be careful about whom you invite into your
commune! An unscrupulous grifter or flim-flam man can
sometimes pick an entire commune clean of its property
and then disappear.
Hide and Seek Keeping large surpluses of products on-hand is dangerous
-- most things spoil when you have too much of them in
one place. Besides, if you run out of warehouse room,
you have to start stacking your valuables on the
sidewalk, and that makes them much easier to steal.
You can avoid these problems by hiding your surplus
products on unowned plots on the map. Later, when you
need them, you can recover the products -- assuming that
they haven't been destroyed by a natural disaster or
stolen by another player.
Once you've done all your normal daily work -- claimed
land, bought an ox, and so forth -- you're well-advised
to spend a little time exploring. Not only can you gain
valuable information, you can possibly find valuable
*products* hidden by other players or left around by
chance.
Hey, searching out other people's hiding places might not
be *nice*, but finders keepers, right? <grin>
The Nasty Stuff
Spying Spying on another character allows you to find out the
character's race, state of health, and status in the
world -- how much food, energy, ore, luxite, and money he
or she has on hand. The penalty for being caught spying
is 250 credits. Once you've spied, this information (as
of the time you spied) is stored in a "spy database"
that's accessible from the help menu.
Sabotage Sabotage involves smashing an opponent's ox into tiny
little pieces with a ball peen hammer. Naturally, this
dirty trick is a great way to work out your aggressions.
If you are caught sabotaging another player's ox, the
penalty is 1,000 credits.
Stealing The trusty old "five-fingered discount" is one of the
fastest ways to leapfrog up in the standings or help
another player along to starvation. Be careful, though!
If you are caught stealing, you will be penalized a plot
of land and -- even worse -- that plot will be awarded to
the player you were trying to rob!
Order Pizza Online games are a great place to do all those things
we're *FAR* too mature and honest to do in real life.
This dirty trick is really more of a prank: It involves
ordering a pizza in the name of another character so that
the food arrives in the middle of the night and leaves
your victim bleary-eyed -- and less able to work -- the
next day. If you are caught, you will be fined 100
credits.
Call Pirates Luxite pirates are ruthless, nasty predators who have
made a fortune stealing from hard-working colonists. One
of the most terrible things a colonist can do is to cut a
deal with these vermin and give them the planetary
security codes. However, this act of infamy is a great
way to harm a player who has saved up too much luxite.
Warning: Be *VERY* careful about this dirty trick. Some
colonists have been executed for aiding the pirates.
Bribe Reporter Reputation is very important on a small colony world. By
spreading lies about another player, you can generate
suspicions and dissension among your opponents. Having a
false report printed in the newspaper isn't very
expensive, and people have very seldom been caught, but
you'll have to use this option shrewdly to make it work
to your benefit.
The Countermeasures
The Sheriff Being the victim of theft can make you feel helpless,
particularly if you're playing a character who isn't good
at stealing. You may know *who* is stealing from you,
and you may know it's going to happen in advance, but
they don't make a home security system a Rockpicker can't
foil. The Sheriff's office gives you a means of revenge.
If another character is stealing from you repetitively,
you can ask the Sheriff to send a deputy out to your home
to watch for that character until the next time you play.
If the character tries to steal from you again -- before
the next time you play a turn in the game! -- he or she
will automatically be caught. If you're wrong, however,
*you* will be fined a plot of land for wasting the
deputy's time.
Warning: Be *VERY* careful with this option, because
order of play has a lot to do with whether your
prediction will come out true. For example, if you are
the last person to play in one turn and the first person
to play the next turn, your prediction cannot succeed and
you *WILL* lose a plot of land. Them's the breaks,
pardner.
Trojan Oxen Trojan Oxen cost at least twice as much as regular oxen,
and they don't make anything. Sound pretty useless,
don't they? Actually, they can be very effective,
particularly if you are having trouble with another
character sabotaging your oxen.
Trojan Oxen *appear* to produce whatever product you
choose. By default, they appear to produce as much as
you normally could given your race and the terrain type.
For an extra price, however, you can "turbo-charge" a
Trojan Ox so that it appears to produce even more --
making it an extra-tempting target for sabotage.
Trojan Oxen, you see, are experts in self-defense. After
a tangle with a Trojan Ox, even the most dedicated
saboteurs wish they had never hefted that ball peen
hammer. Note: Trojan Oxen are only available in the
registered version of Iron Ox.
STRATEGY
Iron Ox is a very simple game to play, but it may not seem that way at
first. <g> Here are some tips to help you get started:
1. Claim your one plot of land every turn. It doesn't cost anything,
it's always worth something, and it's good for your score.
2. Make sure you keep your character well fed! Unless you're one of
the species that doesn't require food (Photovore and Rubblemuncher),
going several months on short rations could cause your character to
starve to death, eliminating you from the game.
3. Don't wait until you're hungry or running out of energy to start
making food and energy. If you assign an ox to make food this turn,
you won't be able to eat the food until *TURN AFTER NEXT*. In order
to survive, you have to think ahead.
4. Be conservative about Dirty Tricks: Stealing is fun, but losing
plots of land (the penalty for being caught) isn't. Many factors
determine your rate of success at stealing, including the size and
value of what you're stealing, your race, the month of the game, and
what kind of character you're stealing *from*. Until you know the
rules, be careful!
5. Take advantage of the information the game gives you. Read the
Newspaper carefully each month, and check the Game (I)nfo Screen and
(Y)our Holdings screen from the (H)elp Menu at least once per turn.
7. Take the Colony Cultural Competition seriously. The topics -- bad puns,
disgusting recipes, etc. -- may seem frivolous, but the prize for the
winner -- a free plot of land! -- is worth the trouble. Make an
entry even if you can't think of something good, and be sure to vote.
The Committee has been known to favor people who are good citizens.
8. If you have friends who are playing the game, don't ignore the
possibility of alliances or team play. Trade deals and communes are
very powerful tools, and several of the races were designed to work
best as parts of two- and three-player alliances.
9. Playing every day makes a big difference. Few things are more
frustrating than missing a day and coming back to find that someone
has stolen all your character's food and you've starved to death. If
you can't play every day, remember that the game will allow you to
claim an extra plot of land after a missed turn. If you know in
advance that you're going to miss a day, you may have special reason
to consider visiting the Sheriff's office....
Luxite and ore are usually worth much more money than food and energy,
but trying to produce lots of them early in the game is dangerous,
because doing so will force you to rely on the store for food and
energy. Buying up everything from the store can hurt opponents who are
relying on store inventory, and will also cause prices to rise (store
prices are based on supply and demand), but do not expect to make money
just by buying and selling! Any time you stockpile large amounts of a
product, you are taking a risk, because occasional events (a rat
infestation, an earthquake, or a pirate raid, for example) can destroy
your stockpile.
Whether your game is friendly or ruthless, the key to success is
understanding what the other players are trying to do. If all players
make one product, the price will be driven very low by the excess supply
and everyone will suffer. If other players are relying on the store for
food or energy, you should be very careful about doing the same thing.
The store's inventory is not inexhaustible.
Good luck!