Crude Empire

Build an oil empire in boomtown Texas

West Texas in the oil boom. You start with a small budget, a survey map of the Permian Basin and competitors who already own the gas stations in town. Find oil, drill the well yourself, lay pipelines, refine crude into gasoline and sell it at your own pumps. Every stage can become the bottleneck, and your rivals fight you for every field and every customer.

Every link of the chain is yours

• Find the oil – Scans from the air tint the map where oil is likely, and geology teams pinpoint the field. Wells run dry over time, so keep looking for the next one.

• Drill it yourself – Keep the bore straight on the plumb gauge and ease off when the gas lamp blinks. A steady hand gives the well up to 15% more output, or you leave the job to the drilling crew.

• Build the supply chain – Pumpjacks, pipelines, crude and gasoline tanks, refineries, truck depots, roads and gas stations. Rivers and hills make routes expensive, so plan your lines.

• Keep it moving – Pipelines carry the crude, trucks drive the gasoline to your stations over the roads you build. With too few trucks they queue at the depot while your pumps run dry.

Find the bottleneck

A full pipeline, a refinery that is too small, a depot without enough trucks: somewhere the chain always jams. The flow view shows how much runs through every pipe and where it hits its limit, and you set priorities and limits at each junction. The office follows your oil stage by stage, marks the bottleneck and tells you how to fix it, and the books show where the money comes from and where it goes.

Win the market

• Take on the competition – Established brands run gas stations in every town and react to your prices. Rival oil companies play like you: they explore, drill, build their own supply chains and fight you for fields and customers.

• Set your price – One price for a whole town or one for each station. The sales forecast shows what a few cents more or less will sell before your rivals react.

• Sign contracts – Power plants, industry and the airport order large deliveries. Check whether your production and trucks can carry them before you sign: late deliveries cost a penalty.

• Ride the market – Crude and gasoline prices move, the refining margin rises and falls, and news shift demand. Now and then a leak, a strike or a price war forces a quick decision.

Fight for the fields

• Drilling rights – Bid for oil fields at auction. Neighbors can sit on the same reservoir, and whoever pumps faster gets more.

• Sabotage – Dirty tricks against the competition, and theirs against you.

• Finance – Take loans, issue bonds, trade on the stock market and hedge your prices against the next crash.

• Research – Unlock upgrade levels for your buildings and trucks.

From field manager to the boardroom

In the campaign you start as an employee of an oil company and run one region after another for it. Meet the board's targets to climb the ranks, with larger maps, bigger budgets and new oil regions beyond the Permian Basin. A story told in letters and telegrams ties it all together.