Soren Johnson's new company Mohawk Games has announced their first game, a combat-free real time economic simulator set on Mars called Offworld Trading Company.
What is Offworld Trading Company? The short answer would be: M.U.L.E. The long answer would be better found on the game's website or in Soren's blog post, but I'll steal a small bit of it from the site:
Money is the heart of Offworld Trading Company. Players gain cash by selling excess resources like carbon, fuel, and silicon on the open market, and spend it buying the resources they’re short on. Prices fluctuate in real time; dump a bunch of iron on the market and its price will crater, making it cheap for other players to buy up (and making their stockpiles worth much less in the near term).Resources are extracted from the planet from concentrations visible on the map, or created by a player’s industrial buildings like a hydrolysis station turning water into fuel and oxygen. However, each building – extractors, processors, or special facilities like patent offices – requires a claim to be spent acquiring the land to build it on.
Claims are acquired by leveling up your colony (at a hefty resource cost), or for cash at the black market (at an escalating and significant cash price). Getting a new claim in Offworld Trading Company is a lot like claiming an expansion site in a traditional RTS.
Finally, the black market allows for more direct interactions than manipulating the price of silicon. Drop a wad of cash to hire pirates to harass your opponents’ supply chains, smuggle a crippling EMP device into their factories, or send a power surge through their facilities – but don’t be surprised when your corporation finds itself on the receiving end of some of these effects.
A good article/interview can be found at Ars.
Intro videos from Soren himself:
Thanks for posting! 
Nice. Loved what he did with Firaxis. And I generally feel that you can't go wrong with a game backed by Stardock (excepting Elemental).
Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Fascinating to see a 3X (4X, sans eXterminate). Been awhile since I've seen a truly original strategy game concept.
Real-time economy reminds me a lot of X series. But there was so much more to those games to supplement that element. I fear with this game that theres a very real chance of it feeling like an overdeveloped feature of a larger game.
Wonder if it'll find its way to iOS, could be good for that.
Nice. Loved what he did with Firaxis. And I generally feel that you can't go wrong with a game backed by Stardock (excepting Elemental).
To be fair, Stardock did right by its customers in my book. The later games were far from perfect, but considering I got them all for free and they are enjoyable I'm back on good terms with Stardock. We'll see if their own games can keep up with the times (a fear I have for GalCiv 3) or if they will be stuck in the mid-00's game design.
Anyway, Soren is designing this, they're helping fund it, so a bit of a moot point.
MULE!
Wow this game sounds like a blast. Thanks for posting, and thanks for the blog entry. He did a great job presenting the game that way.
I am very, very interested in this game.
It does appear that the first prototype has gone out: http://www.mohawkgames.com/2014/07/2...
Thanks to [ he who shall not be named just yet ] I've managed to get my hands on a key, so I'll be checking the game out sometime soon.
Jelly.
btw, we've lifted the non-graphics parts of our NDA (http://www.mohawkgames.com/2014/09/1...), so if you've played the game, please feel free to discuss!
OMG IT'S SO UGLY!
Gameplay is great BUT IT'S SO UGLY!
[size=0]Not representative of the actual game, all characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.[/size]
So I'm working on a Q&A with Soren; is there anything you guys would like me to bring up?
Or you could just ask Soren in the thread here. 
Soren talking to other devs:
Those interviews are pretty good. 
And my interview with Soren is up. Hope you guys enjoy!
Thumbs up!
Also, I'm not sure I've ever told you this, but I really dig your site.
And my interview with Soren is up.
Awesome. I'll be sure to get retweet that.
Thanks, guys!
Okay, so I liked M.U.L.E, RRT and Belter (yes, I have it tucked away somewhere unless it was in the box that was stolen years ago), but AoE and other pure RTS games leave me cold. Specifically, the speed-clicking and associated physical tasks just don't interest me.
If I disable the Black Market competitive stuff, will I still have to deal with reflex-oriented gameplay? Or can the game be played more like RRT in that regard? IE, the player with the fastest physical reflexes and tons of keyboard shortcuts will not be favored?
Okay, so I liked M.U.L.E, RRT and Belter (yes, I have it tucked away somewhere unless it was in the box that was stolen years ago), but AoE and other pure RTS games leave me cold. Specifically, the speed-clicking and associated physical tasks just don't interest me.
If I disable the Black Market competitive stuff, will I still have to deal with reflex-oriented gameplay? Or can the game be played more like RRT in that regard? IE, the player with the fastest physical reflexes and tons of keyboard shortcuts will not be favored?
Over the course of a typical game (about 30 minutes) most players will probably trigger about 5 or 6 black market events, so it's not super reflex-oriented. (The price doubles every time one is bought...)
However, considering your background, you might enjoy the campaign mode more than the skirmishes as those games are balanced to go slower and rely more on long-term planning.
Just a note that the Founder's edition will be discontinued this week, so it won't be available for purchase again until it hits Steam.
Soren was also on the last Game Design Roundtable podcast to talk about OTC: http://thegamedesignroundtable.com/
Oops.
Edit: Updated the OP, which was my original intention.
Thanks for posting the video. Soren also has some info up on his design blog: http://www.designer-notes.com/?p=891
RTSs aren't typically games that I play (the last I played a lot was either the original Red Alert or Age of Empires), but after watching the videos that Soren has been posting and having listened to him on various podcasts since the project was announced, I think I'm gonna have to buy this. It looks really interesting.
Anyone here have any experience with it?
Game is up now: http://store.steampowered.com/app/27...
Bought it last night. Haven't received my key yet, but that's alright since I'm working all day. Hopefully it arrives by the time I get home as the streams really sold me on this game and I'm excited to dig into it.
This looks awesome.
Can't wait to have some free time to dive into this.
RTSs aren't typically games that I play (the last I played a lot was either the original Red Alert or Age of Empires), but after watching the videos that Soren has been posting and having listened to him on various podcasts since the project was announced, I think I'm gonna have to buy this. It looks really interesting.
Anyone here have any experience with it?
So I love real-time economic games (Anno Series, Railroad Tycoon), but I don't love multiplayer RTSes. I'm having a hard time making up my mind on this game. I'm not fond of making a lot of decisions in a short period of time, I prefer a slower pace and consequences that are more set-back than costing you the game. So, I have to believe this isn't going to be the game for me... but still. Something draws me to it.
So I'm kind of in the same boat. I don't know if this is the game for me, but it's certainly intriguing.
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