Offworld Trading Company is a Bold New Trading RTS by the Designer of Civilization IV

Stardock and Mohawk Games have fully revealed Offworld Trading Company, an entirely resource and trading-focused real time strategy game. The game is created and headed by Soren Johnson, the designer of Civilization IV, and its elevator pitch boils down to a “fast-paced RTS where money, not firepower, is your weapon.”

Players are tasked with managing the commercial exploits of a newly founded colony on Mars, upon which you have to eke out your place in the market. Featured above, you can view the game’s debut trailer, which featured (mostly) Johnson talking up the game’s overview. The distribution of resources, however, seems to be the most intriguing portion of gameplay.

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Instead of eventually being able to hoard and amass vast stockpiles of resources, food, and or supplies – players will be consistently either flourishing or failing, pending their focus of resource gathering. The goal is to eventually manipulate the price of goods by directly controlling the flow of supply, demand, and finally distribution.

Veteran RTS players might be thrown off to know that you don’t build units – at all. There also isn’t a predetermined route of decisions to make in order to effectively have a stronger methodology over your opponents. This doesn’t work in Offworld Trading Company, as there is no definitive “best” resource. The market is always changing.

You can, however, sabotage your opponents’ markets via subterfuge and back-handed tactics like hiring pirates to attack their supply lines, paying off a mutiny to directly acquire their buildings, and even dabble in corporate espionage to alter the prices of goods on the market.

Offworld Trading Company is currently available for a discounted price through publisher Stardock, for $35.99. It’s also coming to Steam Early Access on the 12th of February.

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Owner and Publisher at Niche Gamer and Nicchiban. Outlaw fighting for a better game industry.


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