Game: King Oil

Thread: Re: Rules questions

mark5ok — 2008-10-08T21:30:27+00:00

While I like the "rules" that you came up with to deal with those situations...

I don't think that Milton Bradley expected people to RUN OUT OF pieces in this game (Even though it tends to happen almost every game played).

When playing 2 or 3 players, the player that needs extra pieces can just start using the extra color not being used. But, in a 4-player game, you obviously can't do that...

Because the rules don't even talk about the "Possibility" of running out of pieces (Although they do mention what happens when the Bank runs out of money) I really don't think that they ever meant that to happen AT ALL!!

Now... I've noticed that whenever this game is up for Auction on E-Bay, it usually ends up going for quite a bit (considering this game is from the 70's and not really all that well known)... Perhaps some of the reason for the higher prices is all the people who play the game are picking up a second copy for the extra pieces??

That's really the solution to your problem... for I think the people at Milton Bradley had intended for the game to be played out AS STATED in the instructions (And never thinking that there would be a shortage of pieces problem).

ALSO... in order to play by your "House Rules" you would have to make sure that every player had EXACTLY THE SAME number of pieces every time you play. If someone had one less Oil Derrick or one less Tool Shed than another player, that would REALLY put him/her at a disadvantage in the game!!

I really believe that Milton Bradley just didn't include as many pieces as they should have with this game...

Thread: Re: Component Inventory.

adreeve — 2008-04-19T02:43:27+00:00

electricvomit wrote:
DinoSnert wrote:
I think that should be 36 piplines as it should be an equal number between all 4 colors of red, blue, yellow & white.

I counted 9 in two colors and 8 in the other two colors, for a total of 38 pipelines.

9 + 9 + 8 + 8 does not equal 38, but rather 34. I think you're missing 2 pieces. There should be 9 of each.

Thread: Re: Looking for Card Information

Brian Sinclair — 2008-04-09T06:37:24+00:00

Tim,

I forwarded you my private email. Let me know if you don't get it.

Thanks,
Brian

Thread: Re: Looking for Card Information

Inntrepid — 2008-04-09T04:53:24+00:00

Yeah, we have the game. It will probably be later this week before I can get around to doing the scans. Geekmail me your private email and I will send them to you as soon as I get them scanned.

Thread: Re: Looking for Card Information

Brian Sinclair — 2008-04-09T04:39:58+00:00

I am looking at how they distributed the different cards. I am considering trying to tinker with the game to see if a variation of this could be converted into a board or card game. As for the unique board (three disks), I think there are systems that could be used to create the randomness required for such a game. I think some type of spin-off from this game could be interesting. Is this something you might be able to help me with? Unfortunately I long ago lost track of this game after moving away from home. I enjoyed playing this as a kid.

Thanks,
Brian

Thread: Re: Looking for Card Information

Inntrepid — 2008-04-09T04:24:16+00:00

I am kind of curious as to why you are looking for the card scans. The game has the unique board where you rotate the disk in the board to randomize the wells depths each game.

Thread: Looking for Card Information

Brian Sinclair — 2008-04-09T00:42:22+00:00

I am hoping that someone who owns the game can help me out. I am looking for the information on each of the 32 cards that is included in the game. It would be possible to get several on one page if scanned. Your help would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Brian

Thread: Re: Component Inventory.

electricvomit — 2008-04-08T19:57:14+00:00

DinoSnert wrote:
I think that should be 36 piplines as it should be an equal number between all 4 colors of red, blue, yellow & white.

I counted 9 in two colors and 8 in the other two colors, for a total of 38 pipelines.

Thread: Re: Component Inventory.

DinoSnert — 2007-12-09T03:10:41+00:00

I think that should be 36 piplines as it should be an equal number between all 4 colors of red, blue, yellow & white.

Thread: Re: Pipeline Placement

chockle — 2007-09-16T23:04:50+00:00

RaDiKal wrote:
And no, the pipelines do not go in the holes.

No comment.

Thread: Re: Pipeline Placement

Barry Kendall — 2007-09-16T16:26:20+00:00

I made the same mistake in the beginning, but figured it out. The pipelines are flat on one side for this reason. I guess the raised bosses at the end are supposed to represent valves or something; probably their chief function is to make pipes easier to pick up.

I love this game.

Thread: Re: Pipeline Placement

chansen2794 — 2007-09-16T16:03:56+00:00

Thank you. It was hard to tell because the pipelines are about the right length to extend between two holes in a few places.

IMO, Rulebooks have improved somewhat in the last 30 years.

Thread: Re: Pipeline Placement

RaDiKal — 2007-09-16T03:56:53+00:00

And no, the pipelines do not go in the holes.

I can't say which field (yours or your targets) the large cylinder end of the pipeline piece goes in. I remember someone asking that and although it doesn't matter, there's always somebody asking about that at some point in the game.

Thread: Re: Pipeline Placement

chansen2794 — 2007-09-16T03:56:19+00:00

Mike,
Thanks for the fast answer. What I'm wondering though is if the pipeline has to go in the holes on the board or if they can just be placed anywhere, regardless of hole location.
Thanks Again,
Chris

Thread: Re: Need info about "King Oil" - total bank

chansen2794 — 2007-09-16T03:54:05+00:00

My count:

45 - $10k
31 - $5k
31 - $1k
40 - $500

I seem to have the least amount of $500 bills of anyone.

Thread: Re: Pipeline Placement

hokietiki — 2007-09-16T03:51:52+00:00

Chris
Pipelines go from area to area. You want to pipeline someone's highly productive adjacent area, since they must pay you per producing well in that area. Of course if someone plays a pipeline on you, next time you have a fire, sacrifice the wells in the area they pipelined you and you will not have to pay the other player as much.
BTW a fun game with kids. . . Cheers!

Thread: Pipeline Placement

chansen2794 — 2007-09-16T03:14:22+00:00

Hello,
Just purchased this game and found the rules a little sparse in regard to pipeline placement. Do the pipelines just have to go from one area to another, regardless of available holes? Or do the pipelines have to go into a hole? If so, do they need to go into a hole on one side or both? Also, if so, does the hole need to be empty or can drill caps be moved for pipeline placement?
Thanks in advance,
Chris

Thread: Re: Beter name than King OPEC

potts_games — 2007-09-06T01:08:48+00:00

Nice review. I remember playing this game as a kid, with my brothers and dad, and occasionally my uncle who was in the oil business. Eventually our little drill rig broke, and the game did not get played again.

I may have to check the parent's house next time I am home to see if they still have the game laying around.

Mike

Thread: Beter name than King OPEC

Geekymike — 2007-09-05T19:23:11+00:00

I picked up this game back in the mid eighties when I was 7-8 years old. I saw that the $.50 they asked for was a better price than the $6.66 price that it had sold for when new (according to the price tag that is still on the box). Being a little boardgame geek even back then, I had to have it.

When we got home, Dad and I read through the instructions and we got my little brother in on the action too. The game had money like Monopoly, but the game was faster and much more fun.

King Oil begins the game by randomly spinning the large black disks underneath the field. These disks determine the depths of the oil. Each player buys a plot of land and draws a wildcat card, which determines how many wells you can drill. Wildcat cards also dictate land availability and disasters.

Drilling for oil consists of plunging the oil derrick into a hole on your plot of land. If the top shows the blue ring, you are in luck, you hit a shallow well and are only charged $2000 for your producing well. If the ring is yellow, you are charged $4000 for your well. Red means the oil is waaaay down there and you are out $6000 for your well. If no ring is shown, congratulations, you have found no oil and get to pay $6000 for the experience and the cap over the hole.

Each turn, the player gains money based on how many wells they have and what the Wildcat card says how much money each well produces. After 4 producing wells are on a plot, you can begin purchasing pipelines into an opponent's plot for the price of $25,000, an additional pipe can be bought when 5 wells are on the plot and a third can be bought when 6 wells are producing. These pipelines bleed your opponent dry, as he must pay between $1000 and $5000 to the owner of the pipeline at the beginning of his turn. The winner is the last to go bankrupt.

This game has a fun mechanic of drilling and a great level of strategy, do you spread the wealth on wells, or try to screw your neighbor? The pipelines make it so the game plays faster and can “steal” from others and supplement your income. This game is very fun and I am glad I bought it back when I was a lil' Geek. My wife, brother, and ex-wife all had a great time when I brought it out. Definitely pick this game up if you can find it and are into light-medium economic games.

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Csigs — 2007-08-19T19:31:40+00:00

Peg drills for oil.

Thread: Re: Rules questions

jirwin — 2007-02-19T16:59:23+00:00

According to the rules that I have, you remove your house as soon as you make your first drilling because you then apply either a rig, or cap. Therefore you can always free up your houses(sheds).

Thread: Re: Component Inventory.

Jim1701 — 2007-02-02T03:41:51+00:00

According to wikipedia, the game includes 84 derricks, 128 well caps, 24 tool sheds, 38 pipelines, and 32 King Oil turn cards.

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RaDiKal — 2006-11-11T22:31:02+00:00

The drilling rig. Disks with sparse arrays of holes under the board cause the rig to raise one two or three colors; the less colors, the cheaper the well head.

Thread: Component Inventory.

Dreadnaut — 2006-11-02T04:09:55+00:00

Would anyone happen to have the number of shed, caps, derricks and pipelines each color should have. I recently got the game, but am not sure if it is complete. Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom

Thread: Re: Need info about "King Oil" - total bank

wbleacox — 2006-10-25T04:50:52+00:00

Thank you very much for the reply. We are also looking for game pieces. Know of a source?

Thanks again,
Brent

Thread: Re: Rules questions

MrUnicorn — 2006-09-29T05:14:08+00:00

These questions popped up in our last couple plays of King Oil as well. The rules clearly don't offer up any guidance for these situations, so I have no "official" ruling. I can however offer up what we resolved to do:

1. What happens when you have no more rigs to place on a producing well? The rules only state that if you have no sites availalbe for drilling, you must pay $10,000. But that's a limit on your available property sites and not on the ability to place a well if you strike oil.

In this situation we chose to simply cap a well after drilling. This of course means that the normal fees associated with the various levels of well depth are still incurred ($2000-$6000).

This solution seems most fitting as it tends to continue game play in a manner more "natural" than forcing a $10,000 fee per drilling. Not having any more rigs seems to come about not through poor planning, but through forced drilling over lots of rounds (although poor planning will contribute). Forcing this steep fee round after round on a player who has reached this point seems somewhat chaotic.

I must admit, I really like your suggestion of ending the game when one person runs out of rigs to place. It does offer up a nice strategic option as well as a nice game ending mechanism. King Oil is highly monotonous and can draaaaaaaag on, this might be a nice solution.

2. Are you limited in an auction to purchasing property by the number of houses you own? We had a player go bankrupt which puts their property up for auction. Can you bid on the property if you don't have a house to place on it? (We said no).

I believe we also placed a hard limit on house numbers, but in hindsight doing so in the situation you described above might cause the game do drag on longer (something I think can be a problem with King Oil). Without limits set on house numbers, the rich do indeed get richer, but this might also cause the game to end through fulfillment of the empty bank scenario.

These issues (and more) seem to come up quite frequently in King Oil. Perhaps they only gave it a couple rounds of playtesting.

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tanksalot1991 — 2006-09-05T10:52:03+00:00

Full View of Board

Thread: Rules questions

Walt Mulder — 2006-08-27T05:51:57+00:00

We had a great time playing the game with 4 tonight but had 2 critical question come up that weren't in the rules.

1. What happens when you have no more rigs to place on a producing well? The rules only state that if you have no sites availalbe for drilling, you must pay $10,000. But that's a limit on your available property sites and not on the ability to place a well if you strike oil.

2. Are you limited in an auction to purchasing property by the number of houses you own? We had a player go bankrupt which puts their property up for auction. Can you bid on the property if you don't have a house to place on it? (We said no).

The first question could be solved a number of ways but I'm wondering if there's anything official or commonly used out there. You could:
a) Cap a well to give you the rig you need to place if you strike oil.
b) Not allow any drilling forcing you to pay $10,000(just as if you had no place to drill on your property).
c) End the game when one person places their last rig and let the player with the most money at that time win. This option creates a strategy on how many wells to drill on a given turn to try and force an end game when you are flush with money.

The second question also has a few possibilities:
a) Limit the properties you can purchase to the number of houses per player in the game (6).
b) Allow unlimited purchase of auctioned property and find a way to mark what you buy. This option tends to favor the rich, and a rich get richer outcome.

Anyone have any other ideas out there?

Cheers.

Thread: Re: Need info about "King Oil" - total bank

Inntrepid — 2006-07-05T03:32:32+00:00

We have a secondhand copy and the box had the corners split but all of the parts and money was bagged inside it. We have:

40 - $10k
35 - $5k
31 - $1k
49 - $500

Thread: Re: Need info about "King Oil" - total bank

skeletodoc — 2006-07-05T01:50:16+00:00

I bought a used copy on-line recently and the money totals are: 34-$500's,30-$1000's,37-$5000's, and 36-$10,000's.

Thread: Re: Need info about "King Oil" - total bank

ladawna — 2006-07-05T00:12:04+00:00

My husband is original owner of our copy and he feels pretty certain nothing is missing. It contains: 45 $10,000 bills. 32 $5,000 bills. 30 $1,000 bills. 42 $500 bills. I think Milton Bradley was not always exact with pieces, particularly money, so this might be somewhat "flexible" as long as you're in this range.

Thread: Re: Need info about "King Oil" - total bank

simon craddock — 2006-07-04T23:20:22+00:00

I have a second hand copy of the game and the money is as follows

45 x10k
31 x5k
31 x1k
38 x500
hope this helps

Thread: Need info about "King Oil" - total bank

wbleacox — 2006-07-04T22:42:38+00:00

We have a King Oil game, and really enjoy playing it,
but we don't know how much money in-total is in the bank
to start with. Much of the original money was lost, and
it makes a difference on how the game ends.

If anyone out there has the game, would you be willing
to count the total cash for us?

We are just hoping to find someone with a game that is
in good enough condition that most of the original money
is still intact.

Thank you,

Brent

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ladawna — 2006-06-30T17:05:45+00:00

King Oil - 2 player game session

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Inntrepid — 2006-05-14T11:06:13+00:00

Red WINS!! Red - $211,000, Yellow - $120,000 and White - $104,000

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Inntrepid — 2006-05-14T10:42:54+00:00

Red player explaining to Yellow how he is going to crush white.

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Inntrepid — 2006-05-14T10:09:31+00:00

Red's "Oil Alley" (10 producing oild wells) can be seen in the Upper Left.

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ZiggyZambo — 2006-03-15T06:30:09+00:00

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ZiggyZambo — 2006-03-15T06:16:46+00:00

Thread: King Oil

pamdabrat — 2005-12-30T06:03:36+00:00

I purchased King Oil as a Christmas gift. I found a great copy of the game on e-bay. This game is very fun to play. What amazes me is how much fun my 14 year old has with it. Like any typical teen now a-day's, he is into his X-Box, Game Boy and computer games. The fact that this game can hold his attention, and asked to be played 2 nights in row is amazing. I would recommend this as a family game.

Thread: User review

javelin98 — 2005-07-08T21:20:45+00:00

I no longer own this game, but I have fond memories of playing it with my sister on Saturday mornings while Bugs Bunny cartoons played in the background. If you chance to run across a playable copy, give it a try, as it is a light but fun game that easily provides an hour's entertainment.

You are an oil baron, drilling the Earth's crust to look for "black gold". At your disposal you have Derricks, Caps, Pipelines, and the bih kahuna -- The Drill. The object of the game is somewhat grim -- it's not to be the person who has the most money, but to be the last player to go bankrupt. Doesn't instill much confidence in the oil industry.

The game is very replayable, since the depths of the oil fields are determined by the players randomly turning three turntables inside the board before starting the game; holes in these turntables will determine how deep each well is. The depth of the well is important; the deeper it is, the more money it costs you to drill it. Dry wells (which you have to plug using one of your Caps) are also expensive, since the player presumably had to drill down as far as possible before determining that there was nothing down that hole.

How do you know if there is oil in a hole, and how far down it is? That's where the Big Kahuna Drill comes in. The player pushes the Big Freakin' Drill into the hole he intends to explore; there is a multi-colored shaft inside El Drillo that will poke out the top, exposing its bands of color. The band that is showing will tell you how far down the black crude is, which also determines how much you have to pay the bank ($2000 for a shallow hole, $4K for a medium hole, and $6K for a deep well. Dry wells also cost $6K to drill, since you have to drill very deep and then cap it off).

The strategy of the game is not limited to developing your own properties; you can also sabotage your opponents by building pipelines across their land and forcing them to pay you royalties. This can quickly sap the strength from an opponent's wallet.

To keep things interesting, each player must also draw a Wildcat Card at the start of their turn. These cards tell you how much you earn from your existing wells for that turn, how many new wells you can drill, and whether or not you can buy more land. There are also two Fire Cards, which require you to pay money to the bank and remove/cap a certain number of wells.

While the game is fairly simple and straightforward, it can be fun in a lighthearted way. This is one of those play-in-front-of-the-TV games... if you can find a copy.

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godongi — 2004-08-23T18:19:38+00:00