Found on digg.com this is rather an addictive game which had managed to captivate me for several hours earlier today. I have in fact become quite good at it to be honest but then again I do enjoy simulation games even if this one is a little too realistic for my own liking. During the game you have a lot of natural and man made disasters to face, plague, illness, war, often causing game over if you don’t prepare for them. The other thing that struck me as being somewhat of an annoyance was the fact that the game felt like it was biased against you succeeding and that you wouldn’t be able to win it. Normally this would dishearten me from playing any further due to the game becoming frustrating to play however I was hooked and thought how to play it more strategically.
As you can see from the above picture I have managed to achieve almost everything in the game (I didn’t build the medic center as that would win the game). It took a few hours of failing to get to that point but I soon learnt what I was doing wrong and formed a strategy to beat the game. The game is designed to be against you, as the real world is against African farmers, it is an unfair game and unfortunately exceptionally realistic. This leads to frustration at the game, but one must realise that your simply becoming frustrated with a game, what must it be like for those who are living like this for real life!
Well the first thing I did to become successful was to make sure I saved at least $50 each turn. This meant that if anything bad were to happen I could start again. Also make sure each of the family is in good health this increases productivity and therefore increases your ability to make money. Don’t bother with animals to begin with, they just waste money to be honest and are only necessary later on in the game. You want to work your way up from planting six corn, to planting six wheat and then six peanut. Once you have six peanut you can start planting half a field with peanuts and half a field with cotton (just incase one crop fails) with spare cash you haven’t spent on healthcare or crops buy a well and a plow this will increase income a hell of a lot. At this point when you have a steady income have another child or two and once you have $2000 or more saved up get a political representative, as then you shall survive a lot of negative events unscathed because they pretty much shield you from it, you may also now purchase insurance so that pretty much every negative event is covered!
Once you have a good $5000 saved you should be able to simply survive a couple of turns on peanut farming alone, at this point you could send your children to school, but defiantly buy a combine harvester as soon as you can afford one because these bitches make a shit load of cash! At this point you can build a few barns and get some elephants or cows. Elephants act as money makers somehow as well as aiding in crop production while cows simply make money and they are very good at it. Animals cover you if your crop fails, especially if you don’t have insurance.
Once you have everything like this to ensure you continue in the game you have to make one of your now adult children head of the family so you can marry them off, gain an extra person and make babies. Begin to marry off the girls, making the boys heads of families and marrying them to get more workers. Also don’t forget to, once you can afford it, pay for healthcare for the entire family each turn and send the children to school once they are of age. After about 20 turns you should have at least $100,000. By now you can complete the game simply by buying all the community buildings such as roads, schools, etc.
Once you have finished the game you score is calculated and made ready for you to submit to high score board if you are so inclined. I was quite disappointed that the amount of money you amass during the game is not a factor used to calculate end score, however the game was a good eye opener as to the hardships faced by those farming in Africa. If I found this game frustratingly unfair and difficult to be successful in, then just imagine what it’s like for those African farmers facing these problems in the real world!
If by reading this review you are interested in playing the game you can go and play it here.
dumbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupid game!!!!!!!!!!