OUR REVIEW
Crude oil, gas stations, market prices
McMulti
Oil industry, drills and refineries
Pegasus Spiele has re-issued the classic economics game McMulti in a revised version. As soon as I heard that Pegasus would be publishing this game, which is among my most favorite games, I was looking forward to it very much. One of the real disadvantages of the old Hexagames version of that game was the optically not very well designed game box. Therefore let me mention immediately, the better cover of the Pegasus version shows a tycoon at this desk, smoking a cigar. In the background hovers his secretary in front of a wall full of images, among them oil-drilling platforms and a huge oil tanker.
Another thing, straight up front, the game was not only given a facial, the course of the game and the rules were changed, too.
As also for the old version, you need a rather big table for playing this new version. The game box holds those components: One Economy board, one Operations board, 8 News card, 7 Economy cards, 1 red and one black Production die, 1 green Difference die, 80 Drilling Rigs, 16 Oil Wells (crude oil pumps in the old version), 30 Petrol Stations, 80 Crude Oil barrels, 80 Petrol barrels, money in coins and notes and a rule book.
The topic is still the same, you impersonate the CEO of an oil company, buy and sell crude oil and gas and acquire assets in the guise of drilling rigs, gas stations and refineries.
You play McMulti in order to get rich, you juggle millions in order to acquire a minimum of 750 million dollars to initiate the end of the game, which already introduces us to the first change as regards to the old version, where you needed one billion to initiate the end of the game.
As in the old version each player starts the game with 200 million dollars, which you immediately spend in order to buy assets.
The old version comprised one board on which were depicted the Consumer market (sales of gas) as well as the Domestic market and the Foreign market and your own islands, the quadrants of the players.
In the new version there is an Operations board comprising the four player quadrants and an Economy Board which holds the consumer market, domestic and foreign markets as well as the track for dice differences and short instructions for the game itself.
With this we have arrived at the most important new feature in the game, the Dice Difference Track comprising squares of value 0 to 8. At the start of the game you put the Difference Dice on 0.
Also completely changed in the version were the initiating of news and the change of the economy.
In the old version the news were placed in a stack next to the board and only the top news card could be initiated.
In the new version you shuffle the news cards as usual, but then you place two news cards openly next to the covered stack. In case of a double 1 or 3 for a dice result the news of the card are initiated which is placed closer to the covered stack of news. In case of a double 6 the news event from the card further away from the covered news stack is initiated.
In the old version there was always a change in the economy situation when the active player rolled a double.
In the new version after the roll of the active player you calculate the difference between the results of the red and the black die and move the green Difference die forward as many spots accordingly. For instance, should the red dice show a 2 and the black dice a 6, you move the green Difference die by 4 steps. When the greed dice reaches 8 or would have to be advanced beyond 8, you roll the green die. According to the result of this roll you put the directions on the currently valid Economy card into effect and then a new Economy card comes into play.
Those economy cards have been intensely revised, for instance the price on the consumer market only changes by 7 instead of by ten in case of prosperity. In the old version the price in the consumer market could only rise due to chances in the economy situation, now there is the revised economy card depression which causes the prices on the consumer market to fall, or the economy card Recession, in which the price of the consumer market does not change. The prices of assets (plants) on the economy cards have also been revised.
Preparations for our first test game, in which my husband, my daughter, her friend Andreas and I were playing:
After placing Operations board and Economy board in the middle of the table we put a red petrol barrel on spot 26 of the Consumer market and one barrel of petrol in spots 16 to 60 of Domestic and Foreign markets. The 7 spots with prices 2 to 14 were left empty in both markets.
Onto the crude oil spots 6 to 30 of the Domestic and Foreign markets we put one black barrel of crude oil each, and left empty spots 1 to 5 in both markets.
The green Difference die was placed, as already mentioned, on spot 0 of the Dice Difference track.
The news cards were shuffled by my daughter and stacked before placing two of the cards openly next to the stack. The card that was nearer to the covered stack was the news card „Near East consumed by Civil War“ – a card that has the effect when initiated that you cannot buy any crude oil on the Foreign market, but can be sold to the Foreign market. Petrol can be sold and bought as usual on the Foreign market. The second news event was „Long cold winter predicted“. In this case, at the moment of initiation, you must remove five barrels of petrol from the Domestic market. IN case of any further double with the exception of a double 5, you must again remove 5 barrels of petrol from the market.
Both news events would have been permanent; one the „Near East Civil War“ event is initiated it can only be cancelled by a double 5. The “Long cold Winter” event can only be cancelled by a double 5.
The economy cards were stacked next to the board, my husband placed the card „Recovery“ on top. Then each player was given 200 million dollars, 2 barrels of crude oil and two barrels of petrol.
All currently not used barrels of crude oil and petrol as well as all drilling rigs, petrol stations, refineries and oil wells were placed next to the board, ready for use.
In the first round, a so-called extra acquisition round, each of us bought assets and placed them in their own quadrant on the Operations board.
I bought a refinery for 64 million, 2 petrol stations for 48 million each and 8 drilling rigs for 5 million each, which amounted to the total of my capital of 200 million.
This I was able to do, because there is a change in the course of the game, contrary to the old version drilling rigs must not be changed into oil wells for a first actions.
All of the other players, too, bought 1 refinery, 2 petrol stations and 8 drillings rigs in this first test game.
My husband was starting player, as he had filled up our car last. The course of the game in the new version is as follows:
Market phase:
The active player can buy and/or sell crude oil or petrol on the Domestic or the Foreign market.
Dice / Production phase:
In this phase the assets (plants) determined by the roll of dice are activated; in comparison to the old version the order was changed: First you activate petrol station, so you can sell petrol. Then the refineries are activated, which change one barrel of crude oil into one barrel of petrol. Then the oil wells are activated and pump up two barrels of crude oil.
Finally, you can change drilling rigs that are denoted by both dice changed into oil wells, whereby you pay for the first oil well 5 million dollars, and an additional 5 million dollars for each additional oil well, so the price for the second one is 10 million, for the third on 15 million and so on.
My husband rolled a red 4 and a black 2. He placed the dice on the corresponding spots on the dice tracks between the quadrants to his left and right neighbors, his left neighbor was my daughter, and his right neighbor was I.
Andreas moved the green dice difference die by two steps.
In Column 4 my husband hat only one drilling rig, but as this was not in Row 4 he could not do anything here; in Row 2 there was also one drilling rig and his refinery, so he could change one barrel of crude oil into one barrel of petrol. SO he discarded one barrel of crude oil and received one barrel of petrol.
This ended the dice phase.
Neighbor phase:
Now it was my daughters turn as his left neighbor. As she had no assets in Column 4 she had to pass.
Now it was my turn as his right neighbor. I had a petrol station in Row 2, so I sold 1 barrel of petrol on the Consumer market for 25 million and placed the barrel on Spot 25 of the Consumer market.
This ended the Neighbor phase.
Assets phase:
As my husband was out of money he could not buy assets and did not want to sell
assets.
End of turn phase:
The active player, in this case my husband, handed to red and black dice to my daughter and ended the first round.
Later in the game you can announce the end of the game in this phase when you own more than 750 million dollar.
Next round:
My daughter did not have any money so she could not buy and crude oil or petrol, did not want to sell either and therefore rolled the dice immediately.
She rolled a red 2 and a black 6 so Andreas moved the green Difference die by 4 steps to 6.
My daughter hat targeted her refinery with the red 2 and changed one barrel of crude oil into one barrel of petrol. That was all that she could do. Andreas had a petrol station in Row 6 and sold one barrel of petrol for 24 million dollar. My husband hat a refinery in Column 2 also and changed again one barrel of crude oil to one barrel of petrol.
My daughter ended her turn without buying anything.
Andreas did not want to buy crude oil or petrol in the Domestic or Foreign market and so rolled instantly, too.
He rolled a red 1 and a black 5, which resulted in a difference of 4. This resulted in rolling the green difference die which was already at 6, since he had to move it beyond 8. The result of this roll was a 3. The economy card Recovery“ showed that a result of 3 on the green die results in „Expansion“ as next economy card.
Andreas removed all petrol barrels from the consumer market to the general stock, with the exception of the barrel on spot 24. Then he moved the petrol barrel in the consumer market from spot 24 by four red spots forward to spot 34.
Andreas could not sell petrol or change crude oil to petrol, but he had targeted the same drilling rig with red 1 and black 5 and therefore changed the drilling rig to an oil well for the price of 5 million which he paid to the bank.
In the next round I rolled a double 1 and initiated the event “near East Civil War” and we were not allowed to buy crude oil on the Foreign market any more. We placed the news card next to the foreign market and placed a new second news card next to the news stack.
In a later round my daughter initiated the news event „Long cold winter“ and we instantly removed five barrels of petrol from the Domestic market. Each time when one of us rolled a double we removed another five barrels of petrol from the domestic market. Finally, Andreas rolled a double 5 which ended this news effect after removing five barrels from the domestic market for the last time and the card was placed at the bottom of the stack.
As none of us rolled a double 4 the event “Long cold winter” remained effective until the end of the game. As I could activate four oil wells in the course of the game and my husband only managed to acquire an oil well in the last-but-one round of the game and had to permanently buy oil from the domestic market, the price for crude oil was very high. I could sell crude oil in many rounds for a very good price.
As I had 740 million in the asset phase of my turn I sold all assets in the column and row that I had targeted with my dice roll. So I had 1020 million dollars and announced the end of the game.
My husband, my daughter and Andreas had one last turn as the active player each.
During the neighbor phases in the turns of my husband and Andreas I could sell petrol so that I had now 1280 million dollars.
In contrast to the old version I did not have a last turn as an active player. Furthermore the new rules allow you to sell all assets that you own now, but only for the prices stated on the economy card “Depression”.
Thus I finished and won the game with 1453 million, my daughter had 1248 million, Andreas 842 million and my husband 698 million dollars.
Now for evaluating the new versions:
The quadrants with squares for the assets (plants) are smaller than in the old version. As the dice tracks in between those quadrants are rather narrow, too, the area for the assets comes across a bit more confusing than in the old version, where the areas were further apart.
The new Dice Difference Track is a good innovation as this results in more changes in the economy situation. Experienced players who are used to the old version, are prone to forget to advance the green die. Players who do not know the old version do not have any problem with that.
The coin of value 25 is, in contrast to the old version where there were notes of value 20, a bit awkward, as many players in our tests had bigger problems to achieve a good selection of money values with a 25 coins.
The changes in the flow of the game and the rules are all positive and were also thought to be good by nearly all players who are also familiar with the old version. All of those were of the opinion that many players who know the old version will take some time to get used to the new version and to the green Difference dice so as not to forget about it.
This change concerning the greed Difference dice provides a very low probability for a stagnation in the economy situation which could, albeit rarely, happen in the old version.
The track on the Consumer market is more unclear than in the old version, but the nearness of petrol and crude oil tracks on the Foreign and Domestic market is much better!
The rules of the game are clearly structured, very simple and easily understood.
The color selection for the assets is very good and facilitates distinguishing the assets very much. Due to the unfortunately narrow Operations board the newly designed assets cannot unfold their proper effects, but all in all graphics and design of the new version must be evaluated positively.
The game is, due to the basically simple rules, still a family game and very well suited to families. The tactical and strategic possibilities in the game, on the other hand, seem to be so complex that their full range will probably be only appreciated by experienced players. But even if families do not recognize all subtleties they will have, at least in my opinion, a lot of fun with it.
Because, the game itself is a lot of fun and games can run very differently due the ever-changing economy situations.
In general I can say that players who own the old version need not get themselves the new version by all means; but due to the better graphic design (with a few tiny exceptions) and the improved haptic feeling I would also recommend to those players to acquire the new version by Pegasus.
To all players who do not yet own McMulti I can only give the unconditional recommendation to buy it, as it is a game that should not be missing from any game collection.
The game has lost none of its fascination, on the contrary, due to the changes it has improved in many details, albeit there being some small details where the new versions is a bit worse, but in general the improvements dominate by far.
Sadly, the designer James St. Laurent passed away in 2011, the revision of McMulti was one of his last creations. With the original version and this revised version he will be fondly remembered by all of us, because McMulti still is an excellent economy simulation that should be in everyone’s game collection.
Résumé: An unconditional recommendation to buy for all that do not own the game.
Maria Schranz
Players: 2-4
Age: 13+
Time: 120+
Designer: James St. Laurent
Art: Daniel Rothier, Bill Bricker
Price: ca. 40 Euro
Publisher: Pegasus Spiele 2012
Web: www.pegasus.de
Genre: Economic game with dice
Users: For families
Version: de
Rules: de en
In-game text: yes
Comments:
New, revised design
Revised, improved rules
Well-structures rules
Improved components
Flair and fun the same, even improved a bit
Compares to:
Still the first game in this combination of mechanism, in general simple economics simulations
Other editions:
Crude, Stronghold Games
My rating: 5
Statements:
A fantastic family game which thanks to tactical and strategic refinement is also a challenge to experience players and an excellent economics, simulation, too!
Chance (pink): 3
Tactic (turquoise): 3
Strategy (blue): 3
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 3
Interaction (brown): 3
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0