After playing the base game and one of the DLCs it was time to check out the latest DLC that was released in September. With how much improvement the first DLC brought to the game I had some high expectations heading into this one. Even more so since it has been a few years since they released the first DLC.
I fully expected like the DLC for them to keep something but also make some giant change. In a way tossing a curve ball at you gets you to think differently about how you went playing the game.
I was rather shocked they removed the gas all together. Instead, they added the ability to refine oil into petrol. This required bringing oil and pumping water into a refiner. Along with toggling the left or right or both sells from buying oil to petrol.
They also seemed to have made the game difficulty a bit harder. This time around I was not rocking the NPCs like I had been. They would quite a few times out mine me and go on quite the buying spree for the shares of the town.
My first couple of maps were quite a rough start. The only place to store petrol was in the refiners. Wagons carrying oil could not also carry petrol. So, there was a bit more micromanaging and needing to pay attention to the payloads on the wagons.
This would end up causing me quite some trouble. My oil rigs would over overflow more often if I was not paying enough attention. There were also just times were I was struggling to have enough income coming in to keep up with how quickly I needed to expand into producing resources.
A couple of bad maps like this one set me back quite far. Once you fall behind on needed upgrades like bigger pipes and new ones like increased vision around where you put pipes down. It would end up being quite a hole to try and dig myself out of.
Even more so with how they changed the bidding system to buy shares of the land. Instead of having real bidding wars like they did in the DLC. It was more like the base game with the expectation you had to put up a max bid amount upfront.
I am just not a fan of the new bidding system. While I tried to use it as a way to let the NPCS spend a bunch of their money getting shares of the town. Many of them were getting 20k or more for a few runs. So, this only weakened them a bit.
I preferred how the system worked in The Heat is on DLC. Where you got to have an actual bidding war. The way things were done in the DLC made it easy to overbid and waste money. Many of the NPCS were also willing to way overpay just to ensure I did not get any shares this time around as well.
There was also a different mini-game to try and win a little cash while in town. A dice game where you play trying to get to the sum of 21 with five dice. Again, I preferred the high-low game in The Heat in the first DLC over this.
This was not the only mini-game to play either. Instead of giving the normal maps much deeper underground to mine in. It turns out the DLC name Deeper Underground comes from a mini-game.
In this mini-game, you need to hit different target depths with a limited budget. Hitting 100-meter milestones gives you a boost in case to spend. Instead of getting oil, you are trying to hit pockets of water to reduce how much drilling costs. While also trying to avoid drilling through rocks or even hitting things that required dynamite to blow up to get past.
I ended up using moles to try and find pockets of water and avoid higher drilling costs the best I could. I found using the scanner ended up just being far too costly and not a tool I could use for this.
It was at least an interesting way to change up the gameplay a bit. I ended up winning some of the depth first-time milestones. Getting some cash at that time was quite needed to try and catch up with how far along the NPCs were upgrading their technology.
I do wish the DLC was a little longer. There ended up just being these two regions everyone would end up bidding for lands on. With the winner getting some unknown reward. With the DLC being under $7, there were still a few hours of fun for the price.
I did end up using the loan option quite early in most of the games I was in. You can click on the cash amount and take out a loan while on the map. Giving you some bigger startup capital to get set up for making petrol.
Unlike the first DLC where I always felt like I had way too much time and was not in a rush. This time around I found myself converting oil into petrol many times still in the last month. Sometimes not even getting everything out of the ground let alone to the market and sold.
This added some fun on my end needing to rethink a bit about how I was appearing things. Along with how in the base game and first DLC I was just spending heavily on scans. This time around end up being a bit costly on my end. Even more so if I ended up getting a low-oil-producing map.
I also found myself taking whatever price for petrol I could get. It was always higher than oil since that could not be boosted with gas this time around. As if my oil refiner storage for petrol filled up it would stop producing. This makes me more inclined just to sell to keep the production lines going then risking running out of time and needing to dump unrefined oil at much lower prices.
Final Thoughts
I was not that shocked I ended up losing in the end. While I had a giant pile of cash. You only get to bid on the lowest share owners' stake in the town. While I had one some shares still ended up being the lowest share holder as last place just did not have enough to keep me alive.
It looks like I played a little too greedy in the end. I also was not sure if there was going to be another area for everyone to go mine for oil. The base game and first DLC had more areas. A mistake I would not make again if I chose to play again.
Overall, it was different from the base game and first DLC enough to want to hop back into the game and have some fun mining for oil. When it comes down to my personal play style. I do however prefer the first DLC The Heat is On over Deeper Underground.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Turmoil.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.
