Together Retro: M.U.L.E.

[fastbilly1]

I ran a training game last night for Ack and our buddy Xen. I buggered it up and picked a 12 turn game, but thats ok we were just playing it so they could figure out the flow. I have played it many times in the past, but neither of them had, so the first bit was spent with me talking quite a bit, but as you all know, showing is far better than telling.

We all loaded up Planet MULE only to discover that we had to make forum accounts to play the game online. Annoying, but fine, whatever. Then we got the game up and running. I played host and the tapeworm ontop of the ball (Packer), Xen played the long necks (Gollumer), and Ack played the big legs (Leggite).

The first few rounds were fairly standard fair. Figuring out how land grabs work, how auctions work, why you need to get food and energy going first, why you need smithore. Then the game turned. At first Ack was grabbing Smithore at an alarming rate, then I took over Smithore production from him thanks to two mountains that gave me a total of 13 together. While Ack and I fought over that for two turns, Xen started dropping Crystite mines. By turn six Xen had over 10k in the bank, but only had one farm and one energy factory. Xen then got hit by every bad event that could happen in the game in a row. However in the end, he still won by a few hundred points.

Everyone had fun but agreed that Planet Mule is a bit slow. I think they need an option in Planet Mule 2 to be able to end auctions early. A two button system with a vote to end early option would make it perfect to me, since auctions can really drag down the early game. I had a ball, Ack and Xen both seemed to enjoy it after the initial learning curve. Mostly since everyone started yelling at each other about the game. That and auctions were called "Selling Chicken" which continued to be an insult while we moved to playing Killing Floor.

[Ack]

Yeah, I got a bad start by not getting any food production and instead ending up with relatively crappy smithore facilities. Planet MULE has a slight delay when grabbing land at the beginning. I pretty much started behind and stayed that way through the game, though I did manage to grab a couple of high value spots later on, like a new crater for crystite mining.

But having learned it, I'm better prepared for future games and diversifying my portfolio! And at least I didn't screw up and lose multiple MULEs like Xen did...

[fastbilly1]

I forgot about that. Yeah he misplaced two Mules in haste and had one run away due to an event. He just got those three heavy Crystite lots on turns 3,4,5 and that was really the end of the game. Had I played better, and not tried to play the Crystite game, I could have won. But thats the game.

[mjmjr25]

Exedeyes, how long did yr playthrough take you?

[ExedExes]

Exedeyes, how long did yr playthrough take you?

About an hour. I forgot that the Standard mode has 12 stages.

More interesting things to note:

- Planetquakes shift mountains to an adjacent field. That means any MULEs that get a mountain on the new field get destroyed! I was wondering why I had a field without one, that's why.

- Putting similar productions next to each other get you a bonus for each field. The CPU on the NES likes to do that with Smithore, but they had no food, which I had 4 fields next to each other producing.

- During the Acid Rain Storm, any fields that the cloud passes over gain additional food production, in addition to the increased food production they bring.

[Ack]

- Putting similar productions next to each other get you a bonus for each field. The CPU on the NES likes to do that with Smithore, but they had no food, which I had 4 fields next to each other producing.

That right there explains so much, and I am glad I now know it.

[mjmjr25]

So as a guy whose never played this - if I were to describe it as:

Risk meets Harvest Moon - winner decided in an hour.

How accurate would that be?

[fastbilly1]

So as a guy whose never played this - if I were to describe it as:

Risk meets Harvest Moon - winner decided in an hour.

How accurate would that be?

I view it more as Catan with real time auctions and ATATs.

[Ack]

So as a guy whose never played this - if I were to describe it as:

Risk meets Harvest Moon - winner decided in an hour.

How accurate would that be?

I view it more as Catan with real time auctions and ATATs.

Yeah, I see it as an extremely capitalist Harvest Moon.

[beatnix]

Based on what everyone is describing, that's what it kind of sounds like to me too. But I've zero experience with this title, so... My opinion isn't very valuable to your question. But it sounds like an interesting game to give a run. I was going to try it out last night, but I guess I don't actually own the game. For some reason my brain thought I did.