Gameplay

Worker placement, rail movement and the actions that grow your oil company.

Place workers

Each round you place three workers. Place Assistants before Managers. An Assistant uses one available action space. A Manager can use one action or activate two connected spaces on the inner ring, resolving the first before the second. You may forgo the second action. Each wheel space is occupied after use; another player’s use can trigger the printed compensation.

You may instead use the Copy action: spend one Progress and choose an Action tile not occupied by one of your own workers. Use its action. If an opponent occupies the copied tile, that opponent gains one Progress. You cannot copy if you cannot pay the Progress cost.

Move the Train and Engineer

A normal Train move travels one or two connected Regions. Pay Coal for the terrain of each Region entered and take its Railway bonus. One movement action cannot loop through a Region twice. After the Train moves, the Engineer may move to any Region on the route or remain where it started. A direct move to any Region pays only the destination’s terrain cost, awards its Railway bonus, and lets the Engineer move between the start and destination.

Build and develop

Offices

Build one Office at the Train or Engineer’s Region, paying the terrain cost shown by that Region: 2 Tools on plains, 3 on hills or 4 in mountains. You may have at most one Office in a Region and six total; a Region holds no more than three offices. Take the highest available Office from any column and place it in the largest numbered open slot. Resolve the Region’s branch bonus immediately.

Drills

Build one Drill in the first available position of one well shaft, paying the matching cost shown on your company board. An Office covering that position must be removed first. Each of your three wells can hold at most three Drills.

Refineries and Turbines

Build the next numbered Refinery. Your first is free; the double-build action permits up to two additional Refineries at 3 Coins each. Build in number order. After Refinery 6, turn the remaining tiles over to reveal their modern sides; you can build through number 12. Turbines cost the Coal printed on the chosen tile, are placed beside a Refinery and cannot be moved. Their production applies when the adjacent Refinery is activated.

Improvements

Buy any face-up Improvement by paying its printed cost, then place it in the matching shaft row. Yellow Equipment gives its listed ongoing benefit, green Technology grants its immediate effect, and blue Structure cards score their printed end-game condition. After placement, gain points equal to the visible barrel spaces in that shaft. At round end, remove two lowest-numbered cards and refill the market to the player-count limit.

Progress and Patents

A Progress action advances your marker one space and may buy up to four more spaces for 2 Coins each (five spaces total). Reaching a level flips your Character notebook to its next side and unlocks that level’s income or ability. Do not flip back if your marker later retreats. At Level III, your Character grants its unique power. When a marker goes beyond the top of the track, each additional Progress becomes one point.

You may spend Patents on your own action turn or in phases 3–5, following turn order, to reveal Briefcase rewards. Spend three Patents to use one unused Extra Action tile once per round; each player may do this at most once per round. Unspent Patents score at game end.

Extract and refine

In the extraction phase, each well produces the barrels matching its built depth. During Refining, activate each built Refinery no more than once. Match its recipe; a Turbine next to it adds its indicated output. The basic Refinery accepts any barrels and converts their total value (yellow 1, green 2, blue 3) into Tools, Coins or Coal at half value, rounded down. At phase end, keep no more than one barrel of each color; discard the rest without compensation.

Round rotation

After Milestones, remove the two lowest-numbered Improvements, refill the market, return workers and rotate the outer wheel one space clockwise. Determine new turn order by Progress position, furthest behind first. When markers tie, the marker lower in the stack is behind.