Black Gold (video game)

Oil Imperium is a German economic simulation that was developed in 1989 and released for the PC, Commodore 64, Atari ST and the Amiga by Reline Software.

Game History and Structure

The idea is to encourage as much oil and sell as well as to defeat the enemy with all sorts of fair and unfair means. A move always takes a month, each action in the game costs one or more days.

The game is designed for four players that can be played either from a man ( in the hotseat method) or the computer. Players take control of one of the company " Interoil ", " All American ", " Transoil " or " Explora Inc.".

There are four different game targets to choose from: three-year game, play to the longest survival of the company in the game, play to 80 % market share of a player or game to reach 60 million dollars. The mission objectives there are certain differences. So take for example the manual bore the mission objective " as the first $ 60 million " is longer than the other missions.

There are eight oil producing regions to choose from, where licenses, tanks and oil fields are to acquire: Alaska, North America, Central America, South America, Europe, the Soviet Union, the Gulf region and Indochina.

One can can exhibit expertise about the likely yield an oil field and this field - with good expectations - buy. Then you have the choice to manually drill or is this to be done from the computer ( for a fee ).

There is the possibility to disturb the opponent sensitive by sabotage. This happens, for example, by lighting the oil fields, destroying the tanks, manipulation of balance sheets, etc. To protect against such play down a player can hire a security company.

During the game, three types of action sequences can take place: When oil sale there may be a delay, with the result that you have to put yourself the pipes of a pipeline, and faster than a parallel -Build computer opponents. There are also manual drilling, in which the deviation of the drill bit has to be corrected from the center of, and the deletion from burning oil wells by dynamite. The latter can be allowed by a specialist named " Ted Redhair " perform (based on the famous Red Adair ).

Successor and related games

Even today enjoys the game very popular. Published in 2006, which specializes in the development of browser games company, G.Labs GmbH, Oil Imperium as a browser game variant. Since 2010 the game from the bitComposer Online GmbH is developed, which acquired a majority stake in G.Labs GmbH.