Offworld Trading Company - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
 
Mars has been colonized. Now, Earth's greatest corporate titans have been invited to build companies to support it. The competition to dominate the market is fierce in this fast-paced economic RTS from Civilization IV lead Designer, Soren Johnson.

Venture to Mars to Earn Your Fortune
With space travel becoming a reality and the easy-to-reach resources on Earth dwindling, hopeful people seeking their fortune are rushing to the next great frontier: Mars. Rekindle humanity’s adventurous spirit by leaving Earth behind and make a new name for yourself as a titan of industry on the red planet.

Discover the Origin of the Major Martian Businesses
Determine the fate of the Martian colonization effort in the dynamic single-player campaign mode. Multiple types of CEOs, each with unique traits and abilities, deliver many hours of discovery into their motivations and how they intend to dominate the future of Mars.

Experience New Adventure in Multiplayer
Turn your friends into frenemies! With a robust and exciting multiplayer mode that can support up to eight players, no two games of Offworld Trading Company are the same! The market fluctuates depending on which of the four starting corporations you and your opponents choose and what resources you accumulate. Strategy is key, and tenuous alliances between rivals are easily broken when the opportunity arises.

Control the Market before your Competition Controls You
In Offworld Trading Company, market forces are your weapons, not guns or bombs. The real-time player driven market is your sword and your shield here. In order to win, you will need to make tough choices on what resources to acquire, what goods to build and sell, how to interact with the planet's thriving underworld, and what stocks to acquire and when. With over a dozen different resources available and a constantly changing market economy, no two paths of victory are alike -- each game holds a different “key” to dominating your competition.

Previous Playtime

6 hours

Expectations and Prior Experience

My friend Daniel bought this for me as a gift awhile back, and we've played multiplayer maybe a dozen times since then. Aside from the tutorial, this will be my first time going solo and I basically have only one agenda - learn enough about the game to beat the AI. Most of the time, when we play, it was on a team against the computer, and every time we get spanked. One of these days, I'd really like to avenge myself and my friend.

That is also, ironically, my main worry about the game. It is intensely competitive, almost off-puttingly so. I like that it is a (mostly) pacifist game, but am somewhat discombobulated by the idea that the goal is to non-violently destroy your rivals. It will be interesting to see which of my tendencies wins out - my love for peacefully building things or my dislike of absolutist victory conditions.

I think the outlook is favorable, though, especially if there is an option to disable the black market. This is an RTS that focuses on base building and economy and dispenses with all that tedious military conflict and associated battlefield tactics. The worst case scenario is that I turn out to be so bad at it that my matches don't last long enough for me to enjoy the game's central premise. But that's what easy mode is for.