Turmoil Drill, pipe, sell at the right moment

Every round starts at the land auction: bid on a plot, then find out what is actually under it. Send a dowser to sniff out deposits, or invest in a mole or scanner for a better read. Once oil shows up, you place a rig and lay pipes out to it, branch by branch, watching the black stuff flow into your silos.

The fun is in the guessing. Pipe too far and you waste money on empty ground; stop exploring too early and valuable oil stays underground. Later plots add rock, gas pockets and ice that your equipment has to cope with, so the upgrades you buy in town start to matter. A year on a plot is short, and there is always one more thing you could have squeezed out of it.

Two companies in town buy your crude, and their prices move up and down as the year goes on.

Natural gas gives you another lever: pipe it into the mix and it boosts what buyers will pay. The constant question is whether to take the cash now or hold out, and the answer changes from plot to plot.

This is a tycoon at heart, just one where the business is oil and the town keeps score. As your profits grow, the town grows with you, building by building, and new characters turn up with things to sell: better drills, faster horses, and in the saloon, shadier arrangements that keep prices high.

The real prize is the mayor's office. Shares of the town go up for auction, your three rivals bid against you, and the first to hold half the shares wins. So every plot of land is not just a drilling site but a step up the ladder: outbid your competitors for the good ground, out-earn them, then out-spend them at the stock auction. The rags-to-riches arc is the whole campaign.