Saturday, January 27, 1996

McMulti Game (1/27/1996)

Players: Joshua, Mike, Scott

We thought maybe we'd romanticized McMulti during its year-long hiatus from Saturday nights, but rules clarifications showed us again how fun this game can be. Joshua and Scott went drilling for oil early in the game, with Mike building gas stations to take advantage of the profit margin as the game begins. Joshua hit some wells and Mike sold some gas, but Scott's had Allan's luck and dropped behind. The economy moved quite frequently and not always the way it was likely to move, and the consumer market boomed for most of the game (hitting an astounding high of 77!).

Mike made his profit on the gas stations and decided to sell them off at a profit (or slightly less) and begin drilling and refining. Joshua's three wells pumped him full of profit and his refinery guaranteed that he could sell on whatever market he wanted. The import and export markets for refined oil topped out at $48 million per barrel -- and the incredible consumer market made even that heavy investment worthwhile. All three players were contentedly making money until luck finally changed the game.

Scott's roll moved the economy into "Depression" and he sold on the newly invigorated consumer market and bought an island's worth of equipment. On Mike's next roll, he changed the economy back to "Rapid Growth," driving equipment prices (and the consumer market) through the roof. Both he and Joshua purchased their equipment at much greater prices than Scott, and almost immediately, news forced all three to pay substantial taxes on their equipment. From that point, it was only a matter of time before Scott won, with Joshua and Mike finishing almost $700 million behind.

A word from our winner, Scott

"Are you kidding? Okay, here's my winner's tip: sit on your ass until the dice win the game for you. On a more serious note, I remember that we stopped playing this game because we felt that luck played too much of a role, and I think I'm back to that opinion. The game was decided by the dice and nothing else. We were all pretty close before the fateful round, but the advantage I gained by a roll of the dice was decisive."

Scott's words to live by:
- Take Joshua's "winner's tip" from last week with a grain of salt -- he played the same strategy this time and lost by millions.
- Mike's strategy of making early profit on the consumer market seems sound.

No comments:

Post a Comment