Having played a bit longer... I'm so happy. Every game so far has been totally different, and trying to predict the scarce resource is really exciting. Somehow on one map water got up to 600$, at which point someone.. probably Ms Sabotage who kept blowing up the water wells... made an absolute killing. I lost, but it was fun.
Having played a couple more games, I'll take back my words about steel and power being over/under useful. It really depends on the map and to some extent on the personality. (though not having a any power supply seems to get you beaten pretty hard on most
) Steel is the lifeblood of robots... and near useless for scavenger. It adds an interesting imbalance that makes each map-opponent combination really fresh.
The biggest problem for me right now, is the end game buyout phase.
AI players seem to be buying me out for a lower value than my cash balance (as I am waiting to buy THEM out and tend to have ~200k when it happens). I've spent a few end games hovering over the buy out button, and have lost a few times "on a knife edge" just before buying them out. This doesn't make sense because if they buy me... how can I possibly be 5k away from the 200k needed to buy them? This has also happened when I own my stock 100%.
Also, the end game seems to spiral ludicrously fast once a buy out occurs - everything is going well, then suddenly: Mr X buys out Ms Y! Then 5 seconds later Mr X also buys out Ms G! Then, game over! Are they getting the opponent's liquid funds in the buyout, which bankrolls their next purchase? In a 4 way match, if an AI makes a buyout before you, even if you're close to making one yourself, they will (in all of my games so far) buy out every other company within minutes.