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Text File | 1994-08-11 | 23KB | 436 lines

IRON OX, Version 1.12 (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 is an interactive strategy BBS doorgame for three to eight players. The Iron Ox door supports literally hundreds of games going on at one time, so you may be involved in several different 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 could 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.) By default, games last 14 turns, which will usually mean two weeks. 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 (if you like, you can use your real name). You also choose what species you want to be -- you can be human, or any of several non-human races. In general, all of the different races have an equal chance to compete, but the more exotic species have special characteristics you must learn to exploit. Luckily, you can choose different aliases and races in different games, so you'll have plenty of opportunities to experiment. If you start a game rather than joining an existing game, you will have the option to set a minimum and maximum number of players for the game (by default, the minimum number of players is three and the maximum is eight). If you're just getting started with the game, choosing a 3-4 player game will ensure a fast start. If the Iron Ox door is registered, you will also be able to choose the length of the game within limits set by your sysop. Whether you started a new game or joined a game someone else started, you will also be allowed to vote on whether to start the game as soon as possible or to wait for more people to join. Beginning with Iron Ox version 1.10, you will be able to play your first turn right after starting or joining a game -- you don't have to wait for more people to join the game first. However, the game will not advance to the second or subsequent turns until at least the minimum have joined and a majority of players vote to start. Naturally, the game will begin when the maximum number of players has joined regardless of their votes. THE COLONY The world you are conquering is divided into a 5 x 12 map, labelled with letters and numbers (1-5 and A-L). These squares can produce any of four materials: The Product Is Produced Best By Value ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Food River Land Keeps Your Character Alive Energy Open Plain 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. 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) 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...) Dirty Tricks on Other Players variable 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 in 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. 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 all of the tricks of the trade, but here is some basic information on a few of the best tactics: 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. 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 spyling is 250 credits. 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 the strategy may take you months to master. 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. The game does not have to be competitive -- players can accomplish the highest scores by working *together*, using trades to share product and put land in the hands of the characters who can use it best -- but it can very often be cutthroat. 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!